…”may we know them. May we be them. May we raise them” (Unknown).

I remember sitting in Sunday School class at a young girl listening to stories of Noah, Moses, David, and all the other great men in the Bible. While I am not harping or saying we shouldn’t focus on their contributions, I was a little miffed that I never really heard or studied the stories of the great women in the Bible, until later in college and after.

Well, now I have another book to add to my TBR pile (I cannot help myself, can I); Elizabeth Gillan Muir’s A Women’s History of the Christian Church: Two Thousand Years of Female Leadership. As she states in her Preface, this book grew out of an International Women’s Day event, as a panelist of female theological students were asked to discuss the women they admired in the history of the Christian Church. It soon became apparent that most of the audience was unaware of the rich history and contributions of females in the church over the past couple of thousand years. When Muir decided to write this book a friend told her “well, that will be a thin book” (xi). Yet, not only was there much to write about, but Muir was also not fully aware of the remarkable research that has been accomplished recently in this area.

She dives into the earliest female apostle to the two Marys and the enlightened duties performed by cloistered women and the persecution of female “witches” to uncover the rich and tumultuous relationship between women and Christianity. So, “may you applaud the many strong, determined, and extraordinary religiously affiliated women described in [these pages], whatever your bias or your belief” (xiii).