Genesis 1:27 is the first thing the Bible says about women: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Before any law, story or letter, the text places “male and female” inside the description of the image of God. Read in that order and in context, the passages that trouble readers do not teach that women are lesser. The harder texts read differently once you ask what kind of writing each one is and what it is doing.
Readers rarely come to this subject through Genesis 1. They come through a single verse someone quoted at them: Leviticus 12:5, where a mother’s impurity lasts twice as long after a daughter as after a son; Judges 19, a story too terrible to finish; or 1 Timothy 2:12, “But I suffer not a woman to teach.” The reading problem is whether those verses override the foundation or have to be understood in light of it. The way to find out is to read them in the Bible’s own order, one literary unit at a time, with the scholars in these Jude 3 Project conversations serving as witnesses to particular readings rather than as substitutes for the text.
That reading has a boundary, and it is worth stating at the outset. Careful reading settles the question of women’s worth. It does not settle whether some roles of teaching and leadership in the church are reserved for men. Christians who hold Scripture as the word of God still disagree about that, over a handful of specific verses, and the strongest case on each side is set out below. Women’s worth and the scope of church roles are separate questions, and the text treats them separately.