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The Book and its Missions: Past and Present as a Missionary Source for Global Bible Distribution

Introduction

My research project, entitled ‘A Global History of Bible Women, 1857–1916’, explores the history and agency of the Bible Woman as a missionary figure within world Christianity. Bible Women were local female evangelists employed to spread Christian teachings, distribute Bibles, and educate local women in literacy and Scripture. Initially emerging in London through the Protestant philanthropist and writer Ellen Henrietta Ranyard’s London Bible and Domestic Female Mission in 1857, the role rapidly expanded across Europe and the Global South through missionary networks, particularly those associated with the British and Foreign Bible Society. The project investigates the partnership between the London Bible and Domestic Female Mission and the Bible Society, focusing on the latter’s strategies for Bible distribution and the Bible Women’s motivations for engaging in this mission.

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