No child of this century, women s liberation existed as a Christian movement in the 2nd century. In this first study of the social context that produced the Apocryphal Acts, Stevan L. Davies contends that women wrote the Acts and that the Acts appear to have been a striving by Christian women for both a mode of self-expression and a way to preach rebellion for the sake of sexual continence. These early rebelscalled widows because they left their husbands for the churchrefused absolute subservience to the male hierarchy of the church.The three parts of Davies s study include an investigation of the magical world view of late 2nd-century Christendom; a close look at the people the Acts describe as new Christian converts; and a summary and analysis of the nature of the authors of the Acts. These women, like their sisters today, were seeking equal standing with men in the Christian church."
- ISBN10 0809309580
- ISBN13 9780809309580
- Publish Date 30 September 1980
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 31 May 2012
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Southern Illinois University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 149
- Language English