Books by Jennifer Bird

Marriage in the Bible: What Do the Texts Say?

Marriage in the Bible: What Do the Texts Say? is an honest engagement with the relevant passages in the two primary Testaments of the Christian Bible. Rather than making the Bible confirm a specific stance on marriage, the author invites her readers to be honest about what these biblical stories, laws, commands, and sayings meant in their original contexts. In doing this, the author engages the conflicting messages about biblical marriage from such figures as Jesus, St. Paul, and St. Augustine.

The first part of the book addresses four passages that many people believe defines “biblical marriage” as being intended for procreation, only between a man and a woman, anti-divorce, and holy or sacred.

While these passages quoted out of context may be read to mean these things, when read in context the first two are not even talking about marriage, and the latter two assert that wives should be fearfully submissive to their husbands and show Jesus affirming a non-binary gender and non-hetero sex, among other things.

Permission Granted: Take the Bible into Your Own Hands

Millions of people around the world look to the Bible as a source of encouragement and faith formation, a reminder that God is love and is in control, and a guide to living one's life the way God desires. But this treasured book has also been misused and manipulated by many, placed on a pedestal of untouchability, and protected from questioning and honest engagement.

In Permission Granted, Jennifer Grace Bird encourages people of faith to explore the texts on their own, freed from long-held myths and misconceptions; experience the Bible anew; and appreciate this holy book for what it is--not what we think it should be.

With the sensitivity of one who has discovered this freedom herself, Bird invites readers to engage what the Bible really says about twelve key issues, including sin, sex, and the role of women.