Abstract
This article discusses changes in (mainly Anglo-American) scholarly research on early Christian women since the emergence of second-wave feminism in the 1960’s, with a focus on two issues: women priests and female virgins. The aim is not primarily to demonstrate how women’s studies and gender studies have changed our knowledge of early Christian women, but to analyze the perspectives and the assumptions that have determined the changes. Three overlapping phases are discussed : (i) documentation of misogyny, (ii) reconstruction of women’s lives, and (iii) deconstruction of gender. It is demonstrated how scholars during these phases have seriously challenged the assumptions of earlier scholars, but also, continuously, their own assumptions. It is shown how the perspectives have changed, but also how each perspective have continued in importance, or reappeared, in different periods, but in a slightly different form, and with a new and transformed applicability.
Published Version
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