Women in Their Place : Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space

Jorunn Okland provides an informed and illuminating examination of what Paul can tell us about divisions between sanctuary and other space, about men and women, and about ideas of private and public. Women in Their Place is an interdisciplinary, theoretically informed reading of Paul's utterances on women in 1 Corinthians 11-14 (the section of the letter dealing with ritual gatherings), in light of ancient gender models as expressed in temples, rituals, and literary texts. It examines 1 Corinthians 11-14 within a larger context of gender models and sanctuary spaces, establishing a distinction between private, public and sacred/sanctuary space and arguing that, in much of 1 Corinthians, Paul is concerned with the marking of firm boundaries around the sanctuary space established by rituals in the ekklesia, which would effectively engender church as male space. This is volume 269 in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series.