Susan E. Hylen - Finding Phoebe: What New Testament Women Were Really Like

Accessible and engaging, Finding Phoebe is an educators dream. Hylen personalizes ancient women through close and imaginative readings of historical texts, including significant portions of the New Testament. She both models this method and gives students all the resources they need to do it on their own. By challenging the assumption that women werent able to do much, Finding Phoebe has the potential to dislodge a stale debate over women in society and the church then and now.

REV. DR. AMY PEELER

Wheaton College

A welcome correction to stereotyping of ancient Mediterranean women as passive and helpless, this is a very readable portrayal of what we know about women leaders with social power, both in the world around them and for the people of the New Testament. Hylen draws on multiple real examples from inscriptions and ancient texts to place familiar biblical texts in proper context and navigates the conflicting images and seemingly contrary evidence about women of the New Testament world.

DR. CAROLYN OSIEK

Brite Divinity School

It may well seem to some that Phoebe, who is praised by Paul in Romans 16:12, appears out of thin air. More thorough investigation reveals, however, that she was not a solitary female figureneither in Romans 16, nor in other Pauline letters, nor in the New Testament and its fascinating world. In her instructive, insightful, innovative, and interactive volume Finding Phoebe, Susan E. Hylen helps nonspecialists understand Phoebeand other women of her time and ilkmore fully by exploring the complex, variegated socio-historical milieu in which they lived and moved and had their being. This volume will inform, if not transform, the way you perceive women in the New Testament and its environs in general and in Paul and his letters in particular.

DR. TODD STILL

Baylor University

Prepare to question some of your basic assumptions! In this delightfully engaging book, Hylen leads us on an active learning journey that involves visiting both new evidence and old in order to reconsider our cherished (but perhaps outdated or misguided) certitudes about New Testament women. Ever the careful, keen, logical New Testament scholar who neither over-nor understates the case, in this book Hylen also displays her teaching prowess. Each chapter leads with some noteworthy aspect of Phoebe, then draws us into imagining life on the ground in the first-century world (using a fictional Roman family to flesh out the main ideas in a concrete way), and then applies what has just been discussed to exercises centered on New Testament texts (so, yes, there is homework, but of the best sort!). Hylen knows what questions we the readers have, especially those of us for whom the New Testament is Scripture. I will certainly recommend this book both for individual and group study. I was so interested that I read it all in one sitting because each chapter is just the right length to make you want to read the next one promptly!

REV. DR. JAIME CLARK-SOLES

Southern Methodist University

Pauls respect and admiration for Phoebe, named in Romans 16, is evident. But with only two short verses describing her, what can be said about this woman? Hylens Finding Phoebe is a rich and readable examination of historical examples of women functioning as patrons, benefactors, property owners, industrial workers, and those who wielded robust social involvement and power. The carefully crafted study questions based on primary sources are a great way for students to discover the various roles women played in antiquity. By the end of Hylens study, readers will have a much more informed account of who Phoebe was and the cooperative role she played in Pauls mission.

DR. JOSHUA W. JIPP

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2023 Susan E. Hylen

All rights reserved

Published 2023

Printed in the United States of America

29 28 27 26 25 24 23 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN 978-0-8028-8206-6

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

For Jen

Iam grateful to many people for the assistance I had in writing this book. The initial phases of writing were made possible by a sabbatical leave from Candler School of Theology and through a Teacher-Scholar Grant from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Grand Rapids, Michigan, with funds provided by Lilly Endowment Inc. The final stages of writing and revision were further supported by a manuscript completion grant from Candler School of Theology. I am grateful to the Calvin Institute and the deans at Candler for their generous support.

A number of collaborators also helped me consider how to make this book useful to a wider audience. April McGee, Kimber Wiseman, and Amber Byers read an early draft of the project. I had further conversations with Daniel Vestal, Ike Reeser, Pam Purso, Don McLaughlin, Raushanah Butler, and Elizabeth Rogers about their experiences talking with churches about women in ministry. I am so thankful for their time commitment and willingness to share their wisdom. Margot Starbuck and Ulrike Guthrie provided invaluable advice and editorial assistance, and Anne Richardson offered many good ideas for the cover.

I am also thankful for the many relationships that have sustained me through the rather long process of conceiving and writing this rather short book. Before our sabbaticals were disrupted by the pandemic, I shared many lunches with Beth Corrie and Alison Greene. I am grateful to themand to Jen Ayres, Ellen Ott Marshall, and Arun Jonesfor taking time from the busyness of academic life to tend the bonds of collegiality.

My family keeps me going through the daily challenges of writing. Ted Smith somehow inspires everyone around him to do better work than they knew was possible. Thank you for being my partner in everything and my trusted friend. Our sons, Bennett and Tobias, keep me grounded and add meaning to all that I do.

This book is dedicated in memory of Jennifer Wegter-McNelly, the best pastor I have ever known. Her creativity, dedication to ministry, and no-nonsense perseverance have always inspired and encouraged me. I am grateful to have been among her friends.

Two tantalizing verses at the end of Romans raise many questions about womens roles in the earliest churches. There, Paul writes, I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me (Rom. 16:12). He calls Phoebe sister, deacon, and benefactor, and he commends her to the church in Rome.

Who was Phoebe, and what did she do? What was involved in being a deacon or benefactor? She obviously traveled a long way, from Cenchreae (near Corinth in Greece) to Rome. And she is sufficiently important for Paul to include her in his letter. But these two verses are the only time shes mentioned. What sort of role did Phoebe have, either at her home church or during her travels to Rome? Wouldnt it be interesting to know more about her?

Interpreters differ in understanding Phoebes role in the church. Some suggest that she was an early church leaderordained as a deacon, a patron of Paul and others in the church. Others argue that she had only an informal role in serving Paulshe was a helper but not a minister of the gospel.