Role Reversal Bible: New Perspectives on Gender, Scripture and God- The Complete New Testament

By Sherick and Michelle Oinos

How does it feel? There are a lot of questions that swirl around God, Scripture, and Jesus. And one of those questions has to do with gender. What is our social and religious context for discussing and understanding gender? What role does our New Testament play in this discussion?What would it feel like if the gender roles as portrayed in the Bible were somehow reversed? What if...So this Role Reversal Bible (RRB) wishes to provide an opportunity: to be a window into our sense of things along the male-female continuum, as portrayed in scripture. How would it feel, if Jesus were female rather than male? How would it feel if her prominent ancestors, listed at the very beginning of the New Testament were women rather than men? What would be the difference if her twelve disciples were female rather than male? What if it were Paula, rather than Paul, who was writing about how men talked to much in the assemblies and they needed to ask their wives at home? And so on.The point of this extensively re-worked New Testament (yet otherwise faithful to many Greek tenses and words) is to allow ourselves to celebrate the message of Jesus from a perspective that is different than the social setting of two thousand years ago.The reversal of roles within this New Testament is accomplished in this way:* In some cases, the masculine names are rendered as feminine ones. For example, the initial list of male progenitors of Christ are listed with female versions of their names. David is Davina, Solomon is Soloma. Another example is the listing of Jesus' twelve apostles. There, we have Simone rather than Simon. And Petra instead of Peter. It is sometimes a little more nuanced, so that Sarah is given more prominence than Abraham, rather than replacing him completely in the New Testament.* But the RRB isn't by any means just about name changes. In some cases, that's not what would be effective. So, Mary and Joseph remain with their names intact. But when this chaste couple (rather than virgin woman) are expecting (rather than pregnant), it is Joseph who is wondered about, not Mary. And the angel appears to her, reassuring her that Joseph is OK! And so she doesn't put him away quietly, but embraces him as her husband. The point is to let ourselves feel the effect on issues of gender...if there is a reversal of the gender portion of the story of salvation.* But the point isn't to be anatomically ridiculous. So, in the RRB, men don't become pregnant and give birth. HOWEVER, the apostle Paula does insist that men quit fussing about their clothing so much and concentrate on raising children and keeping a good house. Yes, how does it feel when scripture appears to condone the idea that the male gender should be quiet in church? If we feel slightly offended by these gender role reversals, then the reading is well worth it. We assume that our Goddess is including men, too, when she calls us all "sisters" through the apostle Paula. It's just understood that "brothers" are part of the "sisters" in the text, right?One of the names that does not change is that of Jesus. The reader will note that "she" has participated in the role reversal. But her name remains Jesus. The frequent pronouns will continually remind the reader that she is the Daughter of Goddess. And she's also the Daughter of woman.Though this New Testament is obviously not intended to replace your regular reading of the Bible, it remains a very accurate and useful translation of scripture because it is based on the World English Bible. Aside from the two long genealogies of Matthew and Luke (here condensed), all the verses in the New Testament are here. Enjoy reading!

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1542674948
• ISBN13: 9781542674942
• Release Date: January 2017
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 462 Pages
• Weight: 1.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.1" x 6.0"