One of the most urgent tasks in contemporary discussions and controversies over sexuality, in churches and in wider society, is to put the biblical resources into their proper social and cultural contexts. In Dirt, Greed, and Sex, L. William Countryman accomplishes this task in an exemplary way, showing how biblical conceptions regarding proper sexual behavior arose from concerns for purity and from cultures in which women and children were often conceived as property. What biblical texts about sex often arises from concerns about dirt and greed.
This new, thoroughly revised edition of Dirt, Greed, and Sex takes up recent studies of sexual ethics in light of the biblical materials. A new chapter evaluates recent proposals for a normative "ethic of creation," and in a concluding chapter Countryman offers his own positive statement of a New Testament ethic. The result is an invaluable, resource for anyone who seeks to understand what the New Testament says about sex.
About the Author:
L. William Countryman is Sherman E. Johnson Professor of New Testament emeritus at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California
