Eve Isn't Evil

“An amazing book of power, insight, and challenge. Scholarship and communication embrace faith and feminism to yield refreshing alternatives to interpretations both traditional and contemporary. Julie Faith Parker inspires compelling conversations that illuminate Eve and all her descendants.”

“Too often, books written by Bible scholars are like a piece of week-old cake—dry, dense, and difficult to digest. But Eve Isn’t Evil shatters the category, managing to be poignant and personal and occasionally hilarious without sacrificing academic rigor. Who knew that theology could be so much fun? Julie Faith Parker takes readers on a journey of lesser-known feminist interpretations of the Bible, upending popular assumptions that the Scriptures are judgmental and anti-women. If you love the Bible enough to ask it hard questions, Eve Isn’t Evil is not to be missed.”

“In Eve Isn’t Evil, Julie Faith Parker puts forward the bold claim—contrary to many interpreters—that the Bible can affirm a feminist worldview, a thesis she explores through studies of Hebrew Bible texts about women, as well as texts from the New Testament and stories from her own life. For many members of biblically based communities of faith who support what Parker describes as ‘liberty and justice for all, including people who identify as female,’ Parker’s interpretations will be welcome and even joyous news.”

“Eve Isn’t Evil is on a mission. It lays out a powerful and persuasive case by inviting the reader to discover the gifts of feminism—‘self-respect, opportunity, and joy’—reading the Old Testament as a very human book. Julie Faith Parker’s uniquely heart-aching, whimsical, and profound reflections and retellings of the biblical texts warmly and irrefutably show by example how Scripture is not antiquated, intimidating, or inaccessible. Her anecdotes from the classroom, pulpit, prison, and some very unexpected places bear witness to the deepest human feelings when the Scripture is read with a feminist mindset of liberty and justice for all.”

“I’m so grateful for the way Julie Faith Parker has made her brilliant academic work accessible and inspiring to non-scholars (like me!). I absolutely flew through these pages, and as I did, I learned so much, was challenged so deeply, and in moments, I found myself in tears. This book reshaped parts of my heart, my mind, and my faith—it’s a must-read.”

“Eve Isn't Evil is a timely, much-needed book addressing an essential need to read the Bible so that it becomes the living, incarnate Word of God within the reader’s lived realities. As someone whose research and writing are profoundly dedicated to the service of the academy and the church, Julie Faith Parker has a rare talent for making complex biblical texts accessible to readers inside and outside the biblical studies field. In Eve Isn’t Evil, Parker takes an honest, accessible, personal, and pragmatic approach to biblical interpretation, providing her readers with helpful ways of reading biblical texts through a feminist lens. Parker does a beautiful job showing that readers from diverse backgrounds can use a feminist interpretive lens to arrive at differently contextualized meanings because of the particularities of their social locations. I strongly recommend Eve Isn’t Evil!”

“Often the task of unlearning is as important as learning, for it creates space for new knowledge to take root and to reconsider how we may have used former knowledge in ways that were not generative, freeing, compassionate, or true. This is precisely what Julie Faith Parker helps us to do in this remarkable work of scholarship and storytelling. A teacher at heart, she powerfully reintroduces us to stories and, more importantly, to the God we presumed to already know.”

“In this wonderful book, Julie Faith Parker offers an empathetic encounter with Scripture that allows feminists to discover the empowering potential of biblical texts they might otherwise be prone to dismiss. The book reads like a casual conversation one might have over a cup of coffee or a glass of sparkling rosé. Readers will inevitably be convinced of two things: feminists can love the Bible—and Bible lovers can (and probably should) be feminists!”