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Who are the mothers in the biblical text? What do they do? What kinds of power do they have? Issues of identity, authority, violence, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, sexual exploitation and rape-marriage, murder, and relation to God have haunted the characters and representations of motherhood from Eve to Mary and beyond. For better or for worse, these images speak potent messages even today. To explore biblical mothers and their relationships with their daughters and sons, the contributors to this volume participate in a comparative analysis between biblical mothers and mothers in popular media, history, literature, and the arts. The diversity of methods they employ prompts a rich discussion on the deconstruction of motherhood, offering new ways of envisioning both biblical and contemporary motherhood. The contributors are Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan and Tina Pippin, Madeline McClenney-Sadler, Wil Gafney, Brian Britt, Frank M. Yamada, Mignon R. Jacobs, Linda S. Schering, Mark Roncace and Deborah Whitehead, Andrew M. Mbuvi, Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, Brenda Wallace, Margaret Aymer, Tat-siong Benny Liew, and Alison Jasper.

Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan is Professor of Theology and Women’s Studies at Shaw University Divinity School. She is the author or editor of numerous books, including Soul Pearls: Worship Resources for the Black Church and Violence and Theology (both from Abingdon) and Refiner’s Fire—A Religious Engagement with Violence (Fortress), and does consulting in women’s studies, domestic and sexual violence, and religion.

Tina Pippin is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Agnes Scott College. She is the author of Apocalyptic Bodies: The Biblical End of the World in Text and Image (Routledge). An activist educator, she is a member of the Bible and Culture Collective that published The Postmodern Bible (Yale University Press).