Marriage in the Bible: What Do the Texts Say?

This is an honest engagement with relevant passages in the two primary Testaments of the Christian Bible. Bird invites readers to be honest about what these biblical stories, laws, and sayings meant in their original contexts, highlighting the conflicting messages about "biblical marriage" from Jesus, St. Paul, and St. Augustine.

Jennifer Bird has been writing, teaching, speaking, leading workshops, and creating videos for faith communities on what the Bible does and does not say about marriage since 2012, when North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Her upbringing in the United Methodist Church, Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, doctoral studies in New Testament and Early Christianity at Vanderbilt University, and thirty-plus years of teaching come together in this book, which is her effort to help people know how to handle the Bible in this conversation. She is the author of Permission Granted: Take the Bible into Your Own Hands and Abuse, Power, and Fearful Obedience: Reconsidering 1 Peter's Commands to Wives.