Valiant or Virtuous?

This book explores a systematic bias in translating the Bible and in interpreting its teachings, which suggests that men are inherently suited to be leaders in the home, church, and community, while it is God's plan for women to submit to men's leadership. This erroneous understanding of the Bible has been promoted by certain influential evangelical Christian leaders in order to push back the growing influence of feminist attitudes, the expansion of women's leadership roles, and the increase in egalitarian relationships among evangelicals in English-speaking North America.

Written in a down-to-earth, engaging way, this book will appeal to young women searching the Bible for guidance on women's roles in relationships and in the church. It highlights the dynamic roles played by women in the narratives of Old and New Testament and in the work of Bible translation. Built on a solid framework of biblical and linguistic scholarship, this book will also be of interest to Bible scholars and to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of what the Bible actually says in its original languages.


""In this book Suzanne McCarthy demonstrates how the very way the original text is translated can be used to support views on the difference of men and women that the text never intended. . . . A combination of rich scholarship and fluid prose, this book provides an accessible and challenging argument for anyone interested in why and how translation matters in our reading of Scripture.""
--A. Sue Russell, Asbury Theological Seminary, author of Relationshift: Changing the Conversation about Men and Women in the Church

""This book is accessible for readers with a limited background in the biblical languages. For Bible experts it is sound. For anyone who uses English Bibles it is a carefully researched work on the troublesome gender bias in many translations.""
--J. K. Gayle, blogger

""Suzanne McCarthy's timely book addresses many of the issues being discussed in current debates about how men and women should relate to each other in the home and in the church. . . . This book encourages men and women to live more full Christian lives as they embrace all their gifts and callings.""
--Marion Taylor, Professor of Old Testament, Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto

""Virtuous or Valiant? is like no other book I have read about women in the Bible. In my copy, I highlighted numerous paragraphs and sentences that contained information that was new to me. This is an important book.""
--Margaret Mowczko, writer at MargMowczko.com


Suzanne McCarthy grew up in an evangelical Christian family in Toronto, Canada. She completed an honors degree at the University of Toronto in classical and modern languages, and pursued French-language biblical studies at Institut Emmaus in Switzerland. Her master's thesis was on the syllabary of the indigenous Cree people. Suzanne authored a popular blog on biblical translation and gender, and was also a poet. She died of breast cancer in 2015 while completing this book.