Can a feminist interpretation of Romans discover anything new? In this volume, Christian Eberhart pays special attention to the fact that Paul entrusted Phoebe, a gentile woman, with the task of delivering the letter to Rome. There, she would have been the person who recited it aloud and by heart in front of various audiences. Yet as the leader of a congregation in Corinth, Phoebe had likely also been involved in the process of composing the letter, as some passages reveal. This multi-faceted engagement of a woman gives new meaning to the vision of human society in Romans that celebrates the full participation of women and men, Jews and gentiles, weak and strong, and free and slave.

Christian A. Eberhart is professor of religious studies at the University of Houston, Texas. He is also director of the religious studies program and former chair of the department of comparative cultural studies at this university. His books include Kultmetaphorik und Christologie: Opfer- und Sühneterminologie im Neuen Testament (2013), What a Difference a Meal Makes: The Last Supper in the Bible and in the Christian Church (2016), Sacrifice, Cult, and Atonement in Early Judaism and Christianity: Constituents and Critique (co-edited with H.L. Wiley, 2017), and The Sacrifice of Jesus: Understanding Atonement Biblically (second ed. 2018).