While women are not generally in the forefront of public life in the Bible, those women who are named are usually prominent for reasons outside the ordinary. : 27 There is evidence of gender balance in the Bible, and there is no attempt in the Bible to portray women as deserving of less because of their 'naturally evil' natures. Recent scholarship accepts the presence of patriarchy in the Bible, but shows that heterarchy is also present: heterarchy acknowledges that different power structures between people can exist at the same time, that each power structure has its own hierarchical arrangements, and that women had some spheres of power of their own separate from men. A woman in ancient biblical times was always subject to strict purity laws, both ritual and moral. : 9 : 166–167 Marital and inheritance laws in the Bible favor men, and women in the Bible exist under much stricter laws of sexual behavior than men. The New Testament refers to a number of women in Jesus' inner circle, and he is generally seen by scholars as dealing with women with respect and even equality.Īncient Near Eastern societies have traditionally been described as patriarchal, and the Bible, as a document written by men, has traditionally been interpreted as patriarchal in its overall views of women. Individual portraits of various women in the Bible show women in a variety of roles. The majority of women in the Bible are anonymous and unnamed. As both victors and victims, some women in the Bible change the course of important events while others are powerless to affect even their own destinies.

Women in the Bible are wives, mothers and daughters, servants, slaves and prostitutes.

Mothers and daughter of the bible speak