Jesus and Marginal Women: The Gospel of Matthew in Social-Scientific Perspective

The Gospel of Matthew recounts several interactions between Jesus and “marginal” women. The urban, relatively wealthy community to which Matthew writes faces issues relating to a number of internal problems including whether or how it will keep Jesus’ inclusive vision to honor rural Israelite and non-Israelite outcast women in its midst. Will the Matthean community be faithful to the social vision of Jesus’ unconventional kin group? Or will it give way to the crystallized gender social stratification so characteristic of Greco-Roman society as a whole? Employing social-scientific models and careful use of comparative data, Love examines structural marginality, social role marginality, ideological marginality, and cultural marginality relative to these interactions with Jesus. He also employs models on gender analysis, social stratification, healing, rites of passage, patronage, and prostitution.