Women in the Patristic Era with Dr. Lynn Cohick (Podcast)

As part of our broader series on gender in biblical scholarship, Christian tradition, and the contemporary church, we turn to discuss Women in the Patristic Era. In this episode, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Grace Sangalang Ng, and Dr. Chris Porter are joined by Dr. Lynn Cohick, who is Provost and Dean of Academic Affairs, and Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lisle, Illinois. We begin by hearing how Dr. Cohick first became interested in the broader topic by studying the visions and spirituality of Julian of Norwich. As the conversation progresses, Dr. Cohick informs us about several prominent women in the early church, such as the martyr Perpetua, and St. Thecla and the cult that emerged in her remembrance. Dr. Cohick also responds to our questions regarding the way asceticism may have shaped the relative roles of women in the early church, how early Christians were reading the New Testament in regard to what it says about women, whether women in the early church held the same ministerial titles that we see in the New Testament, and whether the early church continues a liberative trajectory, such as the one Robert Webb sees in the development from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

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