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After my aging parents sold their home and redistributed their belongings, I ended up with a hand-colored, monochromatic picture of one of my ancestors. I had seen the photo, but until I hung it on my wall, I had never known her name. At that time, I asked some family members about her.

One told me Julia was on my mother’s side—probably through her mother. She came from Spain, having fled from there due to religious persecution. What persecution? When? How had she suffered? How did she end up in the Pacific Northwest? My mother and her mother and her mother before her were all courageous women. Was Julia the catalyst?

As much as I wanted to learn about my ancestor, the questions evoked a familiar sense of loss—the same one that has whispered grief to me for more than three decades. Although I’m the fourth of five kids and grew up expecting to have a large family of my own, I have a body that has treated at least eight embryos as a disease. I have never given birth.

I grew up in Oregon’s Willamette Valley with two parents who loved me. While all families have their dysfunctions, I had what many would consider the ideal situation—a mom at home and a dad at the office.1 My homemaking mother embraced what she saw as her calling. She taught 4-H entomology (children in her club dubbed her “the Bug Lady”). She did YMCA mom-toddler swim lessons with us, following up with chocolate bars “for protein.” And she helped us turn crayon shavings into stained-glass windows. I learned “Jesus Loves Me” sitting by her in church as she sang soprano with gusto. I watched as my mom taught herself watercolor painting. After ...

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About Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament

Some Christians think Paul’s reference to “saved through childbearing” in 1 Timothy 2:15 means that women are slated primarily for delivering and raising children. Alternate readings, however, sometimes fail to build on the best historical and textual evidence.

Sandra Glahn thinks that we have misunderstood Paul by misunderstanding the context to which he wrote. A key to reading and applying 1 Timothy, Glahn argues, lies in getting to know a mysterious figure who haunts the letter: the goddess Artemis.

Based on groundbreaking research and new data about Artemis of the Ephesians, Nobody’s Mother demonstrates how better background information supports faithful interpretation. Combining spiritual autobiography with scholarly exploration, Glahn takes readers on a journey to ancient Ephesus and across early church history. Unveiling the cult of Artemis and how early Christians related to it can give us a clearer sense of the type of radical, countercultural fellowship the New Testament writers intended Christ’s church to be.

This book is for those who want to avoid sacrificing a high view of Scripture while working to reconcile conflicting models of God’s view of women. Through the unexpected channel of Paul’s advice to Timothy—and the surprising help of an ancient Greek myth—Nobody’s Mother lays a biblical foundation for men and women serving side by side in the church.

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