Academic Articles & Book Chapters by Bridget Jack Jeffries
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 2024
This article evaluates the Harnack-Hoppin thesis that Priscilla is the primary author of Hebrews,... more This article evaluates the Harnack-Hoppin thesis that Priscilla is the primary author of Hebrews, examining (1) the historical evidence pertinent to Priscilla's candidacy for authorship; (2) the probability of a woman in antiquity composing a work of oratory, rhetoric, and philosophy of the caliber of the Epistle to the Hebrews; (3) the inductive argument that the text "feminizes" or otherwise contains internal evidence that it is the work of a feminine mind, and (4) the author's self-referential use of the participle διηγούμενον in 11:32. An examination of these four elements demonstrates that advocates of the Harnack-Hoppin thesis have not adequately addressed the difficulties posed by historical questions about Priscilla's candidacy, they have not refuted the apparent verdict of the masculine participle at 11:32, and their inductive argument for a feminine author is critically flawed and unsustainable. The article concludes that Priscilla is not a serious contender for primary authorship of Πρὸς Ἑβραίους.
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Trinity Journal, 2023
Building on previous work by David G. Hunter, this paper examines Ps 45 as applied to women under... more Building on previous work by David G. Hunter, this paper examines Ps 45 as applied to women under the mentorship or pastoral care of Ambrose, Jerome, and John Chrysostom, then uses these past examples to posit potential modern-day applications for women in ministry today.
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A Preparatory Redemption: Reading Alma 12-13, 2018
"The final paper, offered by Bridget Jack Jeffries, suitably concludes the collection, speculatin... more "The final paper, offered by Bridget Jack Jeffries, suitably concludes the collection, speculating in practical terms what [the] holy order [of the Book of Mormon] might look like. Jeffries suggests that--given the demands of Ammonihah's failures--the holy order might be best understood not simply as a priestly class but as a social revision, an alternative sort of sociality modeling for the corrupt city of how God's world should stand. She argues that the primary function of priests as Alma appears to envision them is 'more evangelistic than sacerdotal.' Alma's priests, she maintains, are teachers chosen because of their commitment to good works and high character, and thus they serve as both models and instructors for the population at large. Indeed, Jeffries suggests, drawing a comparison between Alma's priesthood and the Protestant notion of the priesthood of all believers, Alma is concerned with ensuring that there should be no iniquity between priests and nonpriests because it is important that, at least theoretically, the opportunity for priestly duties of instruction and counsel should be open to all who meet its expectations." -- Matthew Bowman, "Introduction," xii-xiii
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Popular Articles by Bridget Jack Jeffries
Mutuality, 2024
A brief article that tells the story---with theological highlights---of the life of Walatta-Petro... more A brief article that tells the story---with theological highlights---of the life of Walatta-Petros (1591-1641), an Ethiopian Orthodox saint, deaconess, and resistance leader.
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RELEVANT Magazine, Sep 26, 2018
Article on accommodating people with special needs in church, from a (former) single mother of tw... more Article on accommodating people with special needs in church, from a (former) single mother of two children with disabilities (DiGeorge syndrome, autism)
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Mutuality, 2010
Missional article on sharing the Gospel with Mormons through biblical equality
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Book Reviews by Bridget Jack Jeffries
Dignitas, 2023
Book review of *Habits & Holiness* (2021) by Ezra Sullivan
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Trinity Journal , 2022
Book review of *The Bible in the Early Church* (2022) by Justo L. González.
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Covenant Quarterly, 2022
Book review of *Abuelita Faith* (2021) by Kat Armas
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Presbyterion, 2022
Review of *Parenting & Disabilities: Abiding in God's Presence* (2021) by Stephanie O. Hubach
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Presbyterion, 2022
Review of *A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century... more Review of *A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century* (2021) by Donald M. Lewis
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Presbyterion, 2021
Review of *Christian History in Seven Sentences* (2021) by Jennifer Tait Woodruff
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Priscilla Papers, 2011
Extended review of the 2011 release of the New International Version
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Conference Presentations by Bridget Jack Jeffries
74th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, 2022
The *Index Discipulorum,* attributed to Epiphanius of Salamis (4th c.), was introduced into the d... more The *Index Discipulorum,* attributed to Epiphanius of Salamis (4th c.), was introduced into the debate on Junia(s) by John Piper and Wayne Grudem in 1991, and has been cited as patristic evidence for a masculine Junias ever since. In actuality, Piper and Grudem's own sources--both the 1980s *Thesaurus Linguae Graecae* and the 1907 text-critical edition of the *Index* by Theodor Schermann--stated plainly that the *Index* is spurious, anonymous, and pseudo-Epiphanian. The *Index* instead belongs, not to the genre of patristic commentary, but to a genre of anonymously-authored lists of the seventy(-two) dating to late antiquity and the medieval period which frequently contained embarrassing historical errors and misgendered women (Euodia, Priscilla, and Junia). Furthermore, internal evidence from the *Index* strongly suggests its author knew the three women were women and misgendered them on purpose to fill out his list, and an intertextual comparison to *Panarion* and *Ancoratus* precludes genuine Epiphanian authorship. New evidence proposes a different, earlier source as the first indisputable example of a masculinized Junia. Finally, the suggestion that Origen thought Junia was a man despite the superior text-critical evidence for the feminine is examined and found wanting. No extant patristic commentators offered a clear masculine reading of the second figure identified in Romans 16:7.
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Midwest Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, 2022
NOTE: A revised version of this paper was published in *Trinity Journal* in 2023; see my "article... more NOTE: A revised version of this paper was published in *Trinity Journal* in 2023; see my "articles" section.
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With its prominent utilization of women, messianic subtexts, potential references to polygamy, and unusual vocative application of ʼĕlôhîym to an apparently human subject, Psalm 45 has predictably cultivated a history of interpretation as diverse as it is controversial. Association of its bridegroom king with Jesus Christ dominates among Christian interpreters, in large part due to the author of Hebrews and his application of the Psalm to his risen Lord (Heb 1:8-9), yet beyond this lies a chromatic cornucopia of thought overflowing from the commentaries of Ambrose (c. 339-c. 397), Jerome (c. 342-420), Augustine (354-430), Nicholas of Lyra (1270-1349), Denis the Carthusian (1402-1471), Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (1455-1536), Martin Luther (1483-1546), and John Calvin (1509-1564). Yet the thread that binds these interpreters together is not the wedding of Christ and the Church, but each theological exegete’s pastoral concerns for his people or polemical response to the antagonists of his era, with Psalm 45 functioning as a sort of interpretive Rorschach test for addressing contemporary challenges such as asceticism (or anti-asceticism), Jewish interpretations, the veneration of Mary, or the education and ministry of women. This trend continues into the present era, with interpreters such as Ellen Charry illuminating the Psalm for a modern audience newly interested in the feminine elements of the text.
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Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship / Claremont Graduate School, Jun 15, 2016
First non-Mormon / evangelical Christian participant at the annual Mormon Theology Seminar at Cla... more First non-Mormon / evangelical Christian participant at the annual Mormon Theology Seminar at Claremont Graduate School. Only non-PhD participant in the cohort.
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Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium, Aug 6, 2010
Mormon feminists have centered their arguments for women's priesthood on data from the nineteenth... more Mormon feminists have centered their arguments for women's priesthood on data from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, contending that the Church's founding leaders granted women a form of priesthood that was subsequently choked out. Through an exploration of texts, inscriptions, and frescoes from the earliest Christianity, the author reaches back even farther into history to show that women once served as apostles, elders, deacons, and bishops in addition to performing baptisms and administering the Eucharist.
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BYU Humanities Symposium, 2004
Paper on the text-critical issues with the Johannine Comma of 1 John 5:7-8 and how it relates to ... more Paper on the text-critical issues with the Johannine Comma of 1 John 5:7-8 and how it relates to the LDS (Mormon) tradition. Unpublished paper written for Eric D. Huntsman's Greek 411R class at Brigham Young University in 2003. Presented at the BYU Humanities Symposium in March 2004.
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Master's Thesis by Bridget Jack Jeffries
ProQuest, May 2016
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is known for its doctrine of exaltation: the beli... more The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is known for its doctrine of exaltation: the belief that human beings can become gods who create and reign over their own worlds, even as God the Father has done with this world. The Church also teaches that God the Father is male and that gender is an essential and immutable characteristic of being. Though it intermittently proffers a “God the Mother” whose image women were created in, little has been officially declared of her other than that she exists. As such, while exaltation for men means the relative clarity of looking forward to becoming what God the Father is, exaltation for women is marked by considerable uncertainty.
While seldom examined directly in Mormon theological discourse, exaltation for women receives ancillary illumination when other theological areas of Mormonism are in focus, especially in regards to women and the priesthood, celestial marriage, temple ordinances, and Heavenly Mother. An examination of these four areas paints a clearer picture of what exaltation means for women, revealing that, while there are some promising areas of parity between women and men along with numerous broad affirmations of equality of the sexes, the specifics of liturgy, teaching, practice, and policy in these particular areas depict an androcentric exaltation in which women are lesser deities subordinated to their husbands.
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Academic Articles & Book Chapters by Bridget Jack Jeffries
Popular Articles by Bridget Jack Jeffries
Book Reviews by Bridget Jack Jeffries
Conference Presentations by Bridget Jack Jeffries
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With its prominent utilization of women, messianic subtexts, potential references to polygamy, and unusual vocative application of ʼĕlôhîym to an apparently human subject, Psalm 45 has predictably cultivated a history of interpretation as diverse as it is controversial. Association of its bridegroom king with Jesus Christ dominates among Christian interpreters, in large part due to the author of Hebrews and his application of the Psalm to his risen Lord (Heb 1:8-9), yet beyond this lies a chromatic cornucopia of thought overflowing from the commentaries of Ambrose (c. 339-c. 397), Jerome (c. 342-420), Augustine (354-430), Nicholas of Lyra (1270-1349), Denis the Carthusian (1402-1471), Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (1455-1536), Martin Luther (1483-1546), and John Calvin (1509-1564). Yet the thread that binds these interpreters together is not the wedding of Christ and the Church, but each theological exegete’s pastoral concerns for his people or polemical response to the antagonists of his era, with Psalm 45 functioning as a sort of interpretive Rorschach test for addressing contemporary challenges such as asceticism (or anti-asceticism), Jewish interpretations, the veneration of Mary, or the education and ministry of women. This trend continues into the present era, with interpreters such as Ellen Charry illuminating the Psalm for a modern audience newly interested in the feminine elements of the text.
Master's Thesis by Bridget Jack Jeffries
While seldom examined directly in Mormon theological discourse, exaltation for women receives ancillary illumination when other theological areas of Mormonism are in focus, especially in regards to women and the priesthood, celestial marriage, temple ordinances, and Heavenly Mother. An examination of these four areas paints a clearer picture of what exaltation means for women, revealing that, while there are some promising areas of parity between women and men along with numerous broad affirmations of equality of the sexes, the specifics of liturgy, teaching, practice, and policy in these particular areas depict an androcentric exaltation in which women are lesser deities subordinated to their husbands.
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With its prominent utilization of women, messianic subtexts, potential references to polygamy, and unusual vocative application of ʼĕlôhîym to an apparently human subject, Psalm 45 has predictably cultivated a history of interpretation as diverse as it is controversial. Association of its bridegroom king with Jesus Christ dominates among Christian interpreters, in large part due to the author of Hebrews and his application of the Psalm to his risen Lord (Heb 1:8-9), yet beyond this lies a chromatic cornucopia of thought overflowing from the commentaries of Ambrose (c. 339-c. 397), Jerome (c. 342-420), Augustine (354-430), Nicholas of Lyra (1270-1349), Denis the Carthusian (1402-1471), Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (1455-1536), Martin Luther (1483-1546), and John Calvin (1509-1564). Yet the thread that binds these interpreters together is not the wedding of Christ and the Church, but each theological exegete’s pastoral concerns for his people or polemical response to the antagonists of his era, with Psalm 45 functioning as a sort of interpretive Rorschach test for addressing contemporary challenges such as asceticism (or anti-asceticism), Jewish interpretations, the veneration of Mary, or the education and ministry of women. This trend continues into the present era, with interpreters such as Ellen Charry illuminating the Psalm for a modern audience newly interested in the feminine elements of the text.
While seldom examined directly in Mormon theological discourse, exaltation for women receives ancillary illumination when other theological areas of Mormonism are in focus, especially in regards to women and the priesthood, celestial marriage, temple ordinances, and Heavenly Mother. An examination of these four areas paints a clearer picture of what exaltation means for women, revealing that, while there are some promising areas of parity between women and men along with numerous broad affirmations of equality of the sexes, the specifics of liturgy, teaching, practice, and policy in these particular areas depict an androcentric exaltation in which women are lesser deities subordinated to their husbands.