"This first volume in the New Testament section of the Bible and Women series, devoted to the Synoptic Gospels and the Johannine literature, displays the fruits of collaboration of American and Western European scholars. Ranging among historical-critical investigation, archaeological discovery, cultural anthropology, social-scientific modeling, narrative analysis, theological speculation, and reception history, the essays attend to the constructions of gender, the roles and representations of women, nd the impact biblical studies has had--and can have--on people's lives."--Publisher description.