ABSTRACT

Bible is the world's most widely translated book in the history. It also enjoys the largest circulation of the world. As a classic of both Judaism and Christianity, Bible is also one of the world's most influential book in cultural history. With the spread of the faith of Christianity, Bible plays a very important role in decisively shaping human ideology and greatly influencing people's behavior. Based on its classic status in the history of world literature, literary study of Bible in the academic field, especially in Western countries, occupies a very prominent position. 

Today, in China, Bible study has gained remarkable achievements. But there are few works which study Bible's influence towards human ethics from the ideological perspective. As a part of this field, this thesis tries to study the female viewpoint in the Bible from the perspectives of English language and culture by studying the characteristics of two typical women in Bible - Esther and Luth and some texts about women written both in the New Testament and the Old Testament so as to prove that Bible or Christianity in fact treats male and female equally.

Key words: The Bible; Women; Gender Discrimination

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One  INTRODUCTION-1

Chapter Two  LITERATURE REVIEW-2

Chapter Three  JAUNDICED VIEWS ABOUT FEMALE IN THE

 BIBLE.5  

 3.1 Traditional Biblical Views of Women-5

 3.2 Feminists' Effort to Reinterpret the Bible-6

3.2.1 The rise of Christian feminist theology-6

 3.2.2 Some basic theological propositions of Christian feminists -8

3.2.3 Error of feminist theology-9

Chapter Four  JUSTIFICATIONS OF EQUAL TREATMENT OF MEN

AND WOMEN IN THE BIBLE-10

4.1 Creation and Falling-10

4.2 Analysis of Some Texts about Women in the Old Testament-12

4.2.1 Ruth and Esther-12

4.2.2 Women's privileges given by Jehovah's laws-12

4.3 Analysis of Some Texts about Women in the New Testament-13

4.3.1Texts about women in Gospel-14

4.3.2 Paul's attitudes toward women -15

 4.4 Submissiveness Being Not Discrimination.-17

Chapter Five  CONCLUSION-18

REFERENCES-19