This book is meant to be useful and readable. It assumes someexperience in ordinary historical techniques, but no expertknowledge. In discussing the various kinds of source material forearly Irish history, the problems each kind raises and the sort ofquestions it will answer, the author discusses many of the majorhistorical issues. Her book is therefore not so much abibliographical guide as a work of historical analysis anddiscussion. It deals with the main sources of Irish history betweenc. 400 and c. 1170, and has nine chapters: on archaeology (withappendices on aerial photography and coins), the secular laws,ecclesiastical legislation, the annals (with an appendix on thegenealogies), secular literature, ecclesiastical learning,hagiography, art and architecture, eleventh- and twelfth-centuryhistories and compilations. A bibliography and index complete thebook.

This book presents in as clear a way as possible the NewTestament material dealing with women and their roles in thecontext of the movement Jesus began. Dr Witherington begins byillustrating the roles of women in Judaism, in the Hellenisticworld, and in the Roman Empire. She goes on to show how Jesus brokesignificantly with convention in the way he viewed women and theirroles, offering as he did a wholly new conception of the legitimaterights of women in society. An analysis follows of the apostlePaul's attitude toward women, which shows how he agreed with anddiffered from the ideas of his contemporaries. The concludingchapters discuss the evangelists, whose selection and presentationof material with respect to women casts much light on the earlyChurch's understanding of women and their roles. This comprehensivesurvey, which avoids slanting its material to serve a modernpatriarchal or feminist bias, comes to the exciting conclusion thatwe can see in the New Testament an attempt to reform thepatriarchal