This book examines slavery and gender through a feminist reading of narratives including female
slaves in the Gospel of Luke the Acts of the Apostles and early Christian texts. Through the
literary theory of Mikhail Bakhtin the voices of three enslaved female characters-the female
slave who questions Peter in Luke 22 Rhoda in Acts 12 and the prophesying slave of Acts
16-are placed into dialogue with female slaves found in the Apocryphal Acts ancient novels
classical texts and images of enslaved women on funerary monuments. Although ancients
typically distrusted the words of slaves Christy Cobb argues that female slaves in Luke-Acts
speak truth to power even though their gender and status suggest that they cannot. In this
Bakhtinian reading female slaves become truth-tellers and their words confirm aspects of Lukan
theology. This exegetical theoretical and interdisciplinary book is a substantial
contribution to conversations about women and slaves in Luke-Acts andearly Christian
literature.
