A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans
(Format used for this read: Print–paperback)
I finished this book on the plane to NYC and I was a fan!
Here is a summary:
“Strong-willed and independent, Rachel Held Evans couldn’t sew a button on a blouse before she embarked on a radical life experiment—a year of biblical womanhood. Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible for a year.
Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a “gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period.
See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as “master” and “praises him at the city gate” with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women.
With just the right mixture of humor and insight, compassion and incredulity, A Year of Biblical Womanhood is an exercise in scriptural exploration and spiritual contemplation. What does God truly expect of women, and is there really a prescription for biblical womanhood? Come along with Evans as she looks for answers in the rich heritage of biblical heroines, models of grace, and all-around women of valor.”
This book was not only hilarious and entertaining for me, but super informative and educational as well.
She does a great job of dissecting scripture and also using historical & theological research to see what the Bible says about being a woman….and also about women who are IN the Bible as well.
I learned a lot and challenged my preconceived notions of what I have been taught a “Christian woman” is “supposed” to be.
I was surprised how much I didn’t know and how much I viewed from a tunnel vision, singular lens.
I recommend this book if you want to learn a few things, see things from a different perspective and also be entertained along the way.
*To read a review of another Rachel Held Evans book I enjoyed, check out what I thought about her book “Inspired” here: https://brainglitterwithdani.com/inspired/ )