Eve Isn’t Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend Our Assumptions

Feminist Biblical Scholar, Julie Faith Parker will be the guest preacher at the 9:30 a.m. worship service at Babylon United Methodist Church on Sunday, April 28. Following the worship service there will be a special reception featuring a presentation and Q&A with Rev. Parker. She says this about her recent book, “Eve Isn’t Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend Our Assumptions.”

“In Eve Isn’t Evil, I invite readers to fall a little more in love with the wondrous, complicated, delightful, and frustrating compilation of texts that we call the Bible. Both academic and personal, my book intertwines scholarly knowledge with stories from my own life. The title chapter demonstrates how feminism interprets the Bible with fresh eyes and offers empowering insights, an approach used in the rest of the book. The book discusses both neglected and well- known Old Testament passages with one chapter on the New Testament. These reflections show how vital our readings of the Bible can be as a source of strength, guidance, and joyful defiance.

So many of us feel the Bible judges us harshly, but we can also read the text in life-giving and uplifting ways that are thoroughly grounded in biblical scholarship. Through Eve Isn’t Evil, I invite you to join me in learning the stories of Scripture, exploring theological ideas, questioning common assumptions, developing interpretive skills, and, perhaps most importantly, growing in faith.”

Julie Faith Parker is a Visiting Scholar at Union Theological Seminary and the Biblical Scholar in Residence at Marble Collegiate Church, both in New York City. She holds a Ph.D. in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible from Yale University (awarded with distinction), as well as degrees from Yale Divinity School (S.T.M.), Union Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and Hamilton College (B.A.). She has taught as a professor of biblical studies at multiple institutions including General Theological Seminary (NYC), Trinity Lutheran Seminary (Columbus, OH), Colby College (Waterville, ME), and New York Theological Seminary, where she taught inside Sing Sing prison (Ossining, NY). She has published many scholarly articles and is the author or editor of eight books, including the recently-released, Eve Isn’t Evil: Feminist Readings of the Bible to Upend Our Assumptions, now in its second printing. She is married to the Rev. Dr. Bill Crawford, and they are the proud parents of two grown children, Graham and Mari.

The pastor of Babylon United Methodist Church, Rev. Melissa Boyer, says, “The Bible has unfortunately been distorted and weaponized to uphold many forms of discrimination. Tragically, Christianity has been wrongly associated with sexism, racism, homophobia, and transphobia. I want more people to know that the Good News truly is good news for all of us in our glorious, God-given identities. The liberating and important work of scholars such as Dr. Parker is helping churches to correct our past sins against marginalized people.” The church is located at 21 James Street, Babylon, NY. The church website is www.babylonumc.org, and is on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at Babylon UMC.