Beyond the Word of a Woman

Ethology to the ancients was the study of character; to the moderns it is the study of human beings through the behavioural patterns of animals. These studies in fact have a common genealogy with classical writers convinced that the dimorphism of gender was naturally ordered with all its consequent inequalities in strength, virtue and above all in the location of reason. In the encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician women in the Gospel of Mark this ethology dominates the story. Women are described as dogs. This highly original work utilises the common emphases of ancient and modern ethology to unlock new dimensions of the story. It demonstrates that in the Syrophoenician critique of Jesus, delivered by a woman and her daughter, exalted reason must yield its monopoly to the equally privileged life of the body. The author is a New Testament Biblical Scholar at Australian Cathollic Univeristy in Canberra, Australia. The book won the Lynlea Rodger Australasian Theological Book Prize in 2009 for the best Theological Book written in 2008/2009.