The Woman's Bible

Glossary

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'I Suffer Not a Woman to Teach': Paul's directive in First Timothy barring women from teaching or holding authority over men, justified there by reference to Adam being formed before Eve. The commentary contrasts this passage directly with Timothy's own upbringing by his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice, both explicitly credited elsewhere in scripture as his religious teachers.; Related: Lois and Eunice
'Let Your Women Keep Silence in the Churches': Paul's instruction in First Corinthians restricting women from speaking in church, which the commentary examines at length alongside the related directive that women should cover their heads. The contributors weigh the passage against the New Testament's own examples of women prophesying and teaching, arguing the instruction reflects local custom rather than binding universal doctrine.
'Wives, Submit Yourselves Unto Your Own Husbands': The instruction from Ephesians that the commentary reads two ways: as a straightforward command to female subordination, or, following what it calls 'the mutual-obligation reading,' as one half of a passage that also commands husbands to love their wives 'as Christ loved the church' — an obligation the commentators argue is at least as demanding as the wife's.

B

Bath-sheba and the Succession: David's second wife, whose story of royal seduction and its aftermath the commentary treats briefly, noting how thoroughly the narrative centers David's honor and guilt while leaving Bath-sheba's own perspective largely unexamined. Her later role securing Solomon's succession to the throne is treated as a rare instance of a woman exercising real political influence at court.

C

Canon Law: Church law governing marriage, women's status, and church office, which Stanton and the commentators argue shares a common human, rather than divine, origin with the Mosaic code and English common law — all three, in their view, emanating from the same historical impulse to dominate. The book repeatedly traces women's civil and religious disabilities back to canon law as much as to scripture itself.; Related: The Pentateuch

D

Deborah, Huldah, and Vashti: Three Old Testament women the commentary repeatedly names together as proof of female capability across different roles: Deborah as prophet and military judge, Huldah as a prophetess consulted by kings, and Vashti as a queen who refuses a humiliating royal command. The commentators use this trio to argue that criticizing individual women's flaws elsewhere in scripture does not require dismissing the record of women's competence and courage.; Related: Vashti's Refusal

E

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (E.C.S.): The book's principal author and organizer, who signs many of the individual commentaries with her initials 'E. C. S.' Her introduction and preface lay out the project's premise: that the Bible has been used to justify women's subjection, and that women themselves, not just male theologians, have standing to say what the text actually means.; Related: The Revising Committee, Susan B. Anthony
Elohim: The Hebrew name for God used in the first Genesis creation account, which Stanton reads as grammatically and theologically plural — a 'divine plurality' rather than a single masculine figure — and therefore consistent with the idea of a feminine element present in the Godhead from the outset. She builds much of her Genesis commentary on this reading of Elohim as evidence that woman's subordination has no basis in the creation story itself.; Related: The Elohistic and Iahoistic Accounts, The Feminine Element in the Godhead
Esther's Strategy at Court: The Book of Esther's account of how Esther, having become queen after Vashti's banishment, uses patience, timing, and indirect persuasion rather than direct confrontation to save her people from Haman's plot. The commentary reads her calculated approach as a realistic model of political influence available to a woman operating entirely within a system that denied her formal power.; Related: Vashti's Refusal

H

Heavenly Mother: Stanton's proposed complement to the traditional Heavenly Father — an ideal feminine divine figure she argues the earliest layer of Genesis actually supports, and to whom she suggests future generations might address their prayers alongside a Father. The idea recurs across the commentary as Stanton's positive theological alternative to what she sees as the Bible's later, male-centered redactions.; Related: The Feminine Element in the Godhead, Elohim

J

Jephthah's Daughter: The unnamed daughter sacrificed by her father, the judge Jephthah, to fulfill a rash vow made before battle in the Book of Judges. The commentary lists her among the notable women of Judges as an example of the Bible recording, without evident condemnation, violence against women even by figures otherwise presented favorably.; Related: Deborah, Huldah, and Vashti
Julia Smith's Translation: An 1876 English translation of the entire Bible completed single-handedly by Julia Evelina Smith of Glastonbury, Connecticut — the only Bible translation on record made entirely by one woman working without assistance. The commentary devotes an appendix to Smith's life and scholarship, treating her translation as proof that women were fully capable of the linguistic and scholarly work traditionally reserved for male theologians.; Related: The Smith Sisters of Glastonbury

L

Lillie Devereux Blake (L.D.B.): A suffrage leader and Revising Committee contributor who signs several commentaries with her initials 'L. D. B.,' including analysis touching on Joseph's story in Genesis. She is also recorded in the book's closing appendix as one of the speakers opposing the NAWSA resolution condemning the volume she helped write.; Related: The Revising Committee, The NAWSA Resolution of 1896
Lois and Eunice: Timothy's grandmother and mother, named in Paul's own letters as the source of the 'unfeigned faith' that shaped Timothy's religious formation. The commentary presents them as a pointed internal contradiction: the same epistolary tradition that forbids women from teaching also credits two women with teaching the very apostle-adjacent figure to whom that prohibition is addressed.; Related: 'I Suffer Not a Woman to Teach'

P

Phebe of Cenchrea: A woman Paul explicitly commends in Romans as a 'succourer of many' and, in the commentary's reading, effectively a minister or deacon of the church at Cenchrea, a seaport near Corinth. The entry is used to argue that women held real, named leadership roles in the earliest Christian churches, whatever later church doctrine claimed about women's proper place.; Related: Priscilla the Teacher
Polygamy: The practice of multiple wives and concubines documented matter-of-factly throughout the patriarchal narratives — Abraham's household with Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah is an early example — which the commentators note carried no social disgrace in its era, though it produced inheritance disputes and family conflict that echo through later generations of the biblical text. The commentary uses these episodes to argue that the Bible describes, rather than prescribes, a single ideal of marriage.; Related: The Pentateuch
Priscilla the Teacher: A woman named repeatedly alongside her husband Aquila as a co-worker of Paul's, credited in the commentary with a teaching role in the early church despite later doctrine restricting women from teaching. Her consistent, prominent placement in Paul's own greetings is cited as evidence against the claim that scripture itself supports silencing women in church.; Related: Phebe of Cenchrea

R

Ruth and Naomi: The devoted mother- and daughter-in-law whose relationship, sealed by Ruth's vow 'whither thou goest, I will go,' the commentary singles out as one of the Bible's clearest depictions of loyalty between women driving a narrative forward. Their story is treated as evidence that women's mutual loyalty and initiative, not just male lineage, are what actually resolve the Book of Ruth's plot.; Related: The Levirate Marriage and Boaz

S

Shiphrah and Puah: The two Hebrew midwives in Exodus who are commanded by Pharaoh to kill Hebrew boys at birth but defy the order and let the children live. The commentary highlights them as an early biblical example of women exercising independent moral judgment against a direct command from state power.; Related: The Pentateuch
Solomon, His Wives, and the Queen of Sheba: The Book of Kings episode in which the Queen of Sheba travels to test Solomon's famous wisdom with hard questions, discussed by the commentary alongside Solomon's many wives and his eventual religious compromises under their influence. The Queen of Sheba is presented as a rare biblical instance of a woman meeting a powerful man as an intellectual equal rather than a subordinate.; Related: Bath-sheba and the Succession
Susan B. Anthony: The president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, who leaves the chair during its 1896 convention to speak personally and forcefully against the resolution censuring The Woman's Bible, arguing the association should not police the theological opinions of its individual members. Her defense of Stanton, even at political cost to the broader suffrage movement, is preserved in the book's closing appendix.; Related: The NAWSA Resolution of 1896, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (E.C.S.)

T

The Daughters of Zelophehad: Five sisters — Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah — who successfully petition Moses for the right to inherit their father's land in the absence of a son, establishing a rare precedent for women's property rights within the Mosaic law. The commentary praises the episode as a model of women asserting a legal claim through direct, eloquent appeal, worth imitation by 'the rulers in our own times.'; Related: The Pentateuch
The Elohistic and Iahoistic Accounts: The two distinct, and contradictory, creation narratives modern biblical scholars had identified within Genesis by the time Stanton was writing — one referring to God as 'Elohim,' the other as 'Iahveh' — which differ in the order of creation and in the relative standing they give man and woman. Stanton leans heavily on this scholarly distinction to argue that the first account, in which man and woman are created simultaneously and equally, is at least as authoritative as the second, more familiar account of Eve's creation from Adam's rib.; Related: Elohim, The Feminine Element in the Godhead
The Feminine Element in the Godhead: Stanton's argument, drawn from her reading of Elohim as plural and from the simultaneous creation of man and woman 'in our image,' that the divine as originally conceived included both masculine and feminine aspects. She proposes this recovered 'Heavenly Mother,' alongside the Heavenly Father, as a corrective to a religious tradition that recognizes only a male deity.; Related: Elohim, Heavenly Mother
The Kabbalah: A body of Jewish mystical and esoteric interpretation, discussed via MacGregor Mathers' 'Kabbalah Unveiled,' which the commentary cites for its unusual doctrine that the divine 'Ancient of Days' conforms itself simultaneously into both a Father and a Mother. Stanton and her contributors treat this esoteric tradition as independent, non-mainstream confirmation of the feminine-divine reading they draw from Genesis.; Related: The Feminine Element in the Godhead, Heavenly Mother
The Levirate Marriage and Boaz: The Hebrew custom, central to the Book of Ruth, requiring a dead man's brother or nearest kinsman to marry his widow and preserve the family line — the legal mechanism by which Boaz becomes entitled to marry Ruth. The commentary treats the custom, and Ruth and Naomi's resourceful navigation of it, as evidence of women working skillfully within a legal system built around male inheritance.; Related: Ruth and Naomi
The NAWSA Resolution of 1896: A resolution passed by the National American Woman Suffrage Association's 1896 convention formally disavowing any official connection to The Woman's Bible, adopted over the objection of the organization's own president, Susan B. Anthony. The appendix reprints the debate in full, including Anthony's impassioned speech against the resolution, as a record of how controversial Stanton's project was even among fellow suffragists.; Related: Susan B. Anthony
The Pentateuch: The first five books of the Hebrew Bible — Genesis through Deuteronomy — which occupy Part I of The Woman's Bible and receive the book's most sustained scrutiny. Stanton calls it in places 'a long painful record of war, corruption, rapine, and lust,' and questions why it should be handed uncritically to those being converted to Christianity.; Related: Canon Law
The Revising Committee: The group of women Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized to write commentary on every Bible passage concerning women, modeled loosely on the officially sanctioned committees that revised biblical translations for major denominations. Stanton notes pointedly that no church revising committee ever invited a woman to join, making her own committee's existence itself a form of protest.; Related: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (E.C.S.), The Threefold Commentary
The Samaritan Woman at the Well: A woman in the Gospel of John who engages Jesus in an extended theological dialogue at a well, becoming, in the commentary's reading, one of the New Testament's clearest examples of Jesus treating a woman as a serious conversational and spiritual equal despite the social barriers of gender and ethnicity between them. The episode is used to argue for a gap between Jesus's own recorded treatment of women and later church doctrine restricting their roles.
The Smith Sisters of Glastonbury: Julia Smith and her four sisters, a notable Connecticut family whose members, including Abby Smith, also became known for publicly protesting property taxation without representation. The appendix on Julia Smith's translation situates her scholarly achievement within this broader family history of independent-minded women's activism.; Related: Julia Smith's Translation
The Threefold Commentary: The working method Stanton describes in her preface: passages concerning women were to be handled by scholars examining the original Greek and Hebrew text, by committee members writing personal commentary, and by a general editor compiling the whole into one volume. This structured, collaborative process is what makes the book a committee project rather than a single author's polemic, despite Stanton's own dominant voice throughout.; Related: The Revising Committee
The Widow's Mites: The New Testament episode, appearing in the Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus praises a poor widow's small donation of two coins as more valuable than the larger gifts of wealthy donors, since she gave 'all that she had.' The commentary treats the episode as one of the Gospels' clearer instances of a woman singled out favorably by Jesus for her own moral action rather than her relation to a man.
The Woman Clothed with the Sun: A cosmic female figure in the Book of Revelation, pursued by a dragon while about to give birth, whom the commentary reads as one of scripture's most striking uses of woman as apocalyptic and cosmic symbol rather than as an ordinary historical person. The chapter on Revelation treats this and other symbolic women, including the 'whore of Babylon,' as evidence of how thoroughly female imagery is woven into the Bible's most visionary writing.

V

Vashti's Refusal: Queen Vashti's rejection, in the Book of Esther, of King Ahasuerus's command that she display herself before his drunken guests — an act that leads to her banishment and prompts a royal decree that every man should be master in his own house. The commentary reads Vashti's stand as a dignified assertion of self-respect punished disproportionately, framing her as a moral counterpoint to Esther's more compliant path to influence.; Related: Deborah, Huldah, and Vashti