106 - The Widows: A Women's Ministry in the Early Church

The Widows: A Women's Ministry in the Early Church
By Bonnie Bowman Thurston
Minneapolis, Fortress, 1989.141 pp. $8.95.

Though there are now a plethora of books on women's roles in early Christianity, there are few in English that give any significant treatment to the roles of Christian widows from the birth of Christ until 325 A.D. In seeking to fill that void this book provides brief chapters on widows and their roles in various first century cultures, in the New Testament, in the Pastoral Epistles, in the Apostolic period, in the writings of Tertullian, and finally in the 3rd century A.D.

The merits of this book are: 1) that it presents most of the relevant data in one place in readable English; 2) the author has tried not to overread the data; and 3) the author gives a useful and fair treatment especially of the Tertullian material and of the "widow as altar" motif.

Unfortunately, this book also has its drawbacks. It relies entirely too much on secondary sources in the first two chapters. Its treatment of the biblical data is too cursory, (the treatment of I Cor. 7 and Paul's view of marriage being especially inadequate). The author also subscribes to the dubious theory that an early egalitarian charismatic communitas structure was later replaced in the church by a patriarchal one. However, there seem to have been clear elements of the tension between Spirit and already existing approved leadership structure even in

107 - The Widows: A Women's Ministry in the Early Church

Paul's earliest letters (cf I Thess. 5:12-20).

Further, the author sees the use of household tables (in Col. 3 and par.) as a capitulation to the larger societal values, when in fact Paul and others significantly modified such household structures to reflect the equality of men and women in Christ better. By placing the Pastorals in the second century A.D., Thurston is unable to account for how much more primitive the structures are in the Pastorals compared to what we find in Ignatius of Antioch. She seems to subscribe to the view that marriage even at its best amounts to bondage for women and that celibacy was and is the only escape from this for women. Finally, the author seems to ignore or downplay the New Testament evidence that there were deaconesses in the early church acting in ministry at least as early if not earlier than widows did so (cf Rom. 16: 1, 1 Tim 3:11).

Despite its shortcomings, this book does help the reader in various ways gain a greater appreciation for how widows were involved in ministry in the early church and eventually became a recognized order at least by the time of Tertullian.

Ben Witherington, III
Ashland Theological Seminary
Ashland, Oh.