ABSTRACT
This text is usually not isolated in its entirety and is generally analyzed as only a minor subtext in the more significant unfolding drama of Peter’s activities as an apostle.2 When I have shared this text with audiences that range from seasoned biblical scholars to seminary students, to lay people in mainline Protestant churches, the responses generally include surprise, shock, anger, dismay, and silence. Most of my students cannot believe how the woman is portrayed in the text or why a Christian author would choose to tell a story that is filled with such violence toward an ethnic person. My inability to explain or justify the function of this story or the role of the ethnic woman, along with the lack of any critical commentaries or interpretations of this passage, led me to pursue the task of developing some type of interpretive framework that might account for some of the factors that converge to make such a story an acceptable part of early Christian discourses.
