Permission Granted - Sexuality and the Bible: Jennifer Bird

As a biblical scholar, Jennifer Bird wants to have honest, I mean really honest, conversations with others about what the Bible does and does not say on any given topic. Her personal background and feminist framework mean that she is particularly interested in the topics of women, sex, sexuality, and relationships. What potentially unhealthy expectations and practices are alive and well in our society, in part due to not critically evaluating how biblical texts have shaped and informed them?

Jennifer has earned a BS in Mathematics, Education Minor (Virginia Tech), a Master of Divinity (Princeton Theological Seminary) and a PhD in New Testament and Early Christianity (Vanderbilt). It has always been her interest to make the insights gathered in graduate school more accessible to a general audience. Her book, Permission Granted: Take the Bible into Your Own Hands, is a collection of "conversations" with the reader to reconsider how a person relates to the Bible, in general, and thus to potentially transform how one reads and engages it, today. 

As an LGBTQ+ ally, her current work is focused on helping communities of faith wrestle with the biblical passages related to marriage. Sorting through what the Bible does and does not say on this topic is an important first step, one that most people are understandably hesitant to take! That is why she created a video series, "Marriage in the Bible: A Discussion Among Friends," and is now working on the book version, Marriage in the Bible: I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means (Rowman & Littlefield). 

Thousands have found her approach to reading the Bible quite freeing and enriching. You can find out more about Dr. Bird and her work at her website and follow her on Twitter or Facebook.