This post is by graduate assistant at Northern Seminary, Tara Beth Leach, a woman gifted to teach and preach and acknowledged by her peers.

“That’s wonderful that you have experienced such a strong sense of call, Tara Beth; but you must be mistaken, women can’t be Pastors,” said my Youth for Christ leader after I had just poured my heart out to him regarding a profound experience I had just had.  He went on, “You could be a women’s pastor or a children’s pastor or a missionary, but not a lead pastor.”

This was the first of dozens of times I have heard something like this.  So naturally, when I graduated college and stepped into my first pastoral role, I thought the only challenge I would face as a woman in ministry was more of the same – someone expressing their belief that a women couldn’t be a pastor or teach or preach.  Indeed, I’ve endured that conversation more times than I’d want to admit, but to my surprise that hasn’t been the only challenge.

I am not saying that women pastors are the only ones that face challenges; of course, men have their own set of challenges.  But when I stepped into my first pastoral role in upstate New York in 2004, I was clueless that I would have to worry about things such as what I would wear on a Sunday morning.  You see, clothes for women are much more of a balancing act; is it fitted, but not too fitted, professional, but still modest, etc.?   I didn’t consider  that I would have to be concerned about my voice being too high pitched for the listening ear, or being accused of leading like a man (what does that even mean, anyway?!).  Navigating the waters as a woman in ministry is both exhilarating and challenging, and every context has its own unique encounters.

Another challenge that came out of nowhere was the awkwardness that cross-gender working relationships would bring.  In her book, Dare Mighty Things, Halee Gray Scott maps the many challenges that Christian women face in leadership.   Scott writes, “In our highly sexualized culture, women are often portrayed as little more than sex objects and men as animals who can’t control themselves.”  We hear of infamous stories like Abelard and Heloise and assume that it is impossible for men and women to closely co-labor in ministry.  We hear of senior pastors running off with the choir director or church secretary and as a result we place boundaries birthed out of a knee-jerk kind of fear.  Women, then, are seen as a threat and pushed to the outside while men continue on with the “good ol’ boys club.”

So is it possible to have healthy cross-gender working relationships in ministry?

Scott sketches two approaches that are commonly seen in the church and then proposes a third way, a better way.  The first approach is characterized by high boundaries, and has little to no interaction between men and women and is called the Bubble Wrap Approach.  The most perfect example of this approach is Billy Graham.  Billy Graham’s goal was to always be above reproach as he was said to never ride in an elevator or counsel a woman without a third party present.[1]   Scott notes the many strengths of this approach which include a strong desire for personal purity.  However, there are also many weaknesses.  Scott writes, “First as more and more women become leaders, this approach becomes unsustainable.”[2]   I would also add that for those of us who care about breaking the boundaries for women in ministry, this approach can be hindering as the female is seen as something to be feared.  Women who have most been exposed to this approach perceive themselves as “untrustworthy” and even “shameful.”[3]

Haylee Gray Scott goes on to call the second approach the Daredevil Approach.  In this tactic, there are little to no boundaries in the cross-gender relationships and lands on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Bubblewrap Approach.  Adherents to the Daredevil Approach would give no thought to extravagant gift giving over the holidays, vacations, and fancy dinners within cross-gender relationships.  The dangers to this approach are obvious, and the resulting temptations can become too much to bear.  Scott compares this approach to swimming in the ocean without knowing the force and direction of the undertow.[4]

Finally, Halee Gray Scott proposes a new way that incorporates the strengths of both the Bubblewrap and Daredevil approaches and excludes the weaknesses: Men and Women as Co-Laborers and Allies.  Here, the cross-gender relationship works as co-laborers and allies in the Kingdom of God while playing off of each other’s strengths and seeing one another as a child of God.  Scott proposes four foundational ways we can begin to build these types of relationships in our own churches.[5]

1. Establish clear corporate thinking about men, women, sexuality, and cross-gender ministry.
2. Establish clear, wise boundaries in advance.
3. Ensure that you are spiritually healthy and remain connected to the Lord.
4. Implement strategic organizational policies that bolster women’s development as leaders.[6]

As Scott rightly points out, we must create an environment and a culture that does not penalize women due to issues related to gender, especially in our churches.

One doesn’t have to read far in the New Testament to see that women played significant roles as teachers, prophets, evangelists, apostles, and ministering widows.  They were, of course, serving in cross-gender, co-laboring relationships.  Just a few of these examples are Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna who provided for the disciples (Luke 8:1-3), Mary and Martha who opened their home to Jesus and served his needs in a very personal way, and Priscilla and Aquilla who taught Apollos and served the Kingdom as co-laborers with Paul (Acts 18:24-28, Romans 16:3-4, 1 Corinthians 16:9).

What do you think?  Can men and women co-labor in a godly partnership?

I’ve put up a two posts on N.T. (Tom) Wright’s  response to listener questions posed by Justin Brierley on the radio show Unbelievable. (The link to the show: NT Wright on Paul, Hell, Satan, Creation, Adam, Eve & more – Unbelievable? – 01 November 2013, or the entire Unbelievable audio feed with more shows and more information on each show.) The first looked at his view on evolution and Adam (yes to both), and on Tuesday we moved on to look at what Wright had to say about miracles. Today I would like to consider a less controversial question (ha! If you believe that I have some …). This segment starts about 48:00 in the mp3 file.

Justin: An issue that often comes up in the context of Paul is women and what he says about male female relationships, Jews, Gentiles, slaves, free and so on. Lucy for instance wanted to ask this quick question. I’m sure you’ve tackled it a number of times … “What is your reading and therefore application of a passage like 1 Timothy 2 in particular with reference to v. 11?”  When it comes to these issues, what is your general understanding of what Paul’s getting at, what the whole thing is about?

This question gets to an issue which is at least as big a stumbling block to Christian faith in our Western world as the issues of evolution and creation, naturalism vs divine action. One of the biggest questions that always comes back to me as a Christian in the academy focuses on this issue. “How can I be a Christian given how poorly women are treated?” And, of course, 1 Timothy 2 is a key passage, perhaps the key passage. Verse 11 highlighted in the question above is translated in the NIV “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.”  Wright responds to the question – and as always the transcript is flat, missing some of the meaning. Listen to the show if interested.

I don’t know if your listeners will have 1 Timothy 2 to hand, let alone in the Greek text. Part of the difficulty there is that Paul uses there some very unusual words which are difficult to translate.

Justin: Can you give us the words in English first?

It depends, because this is precisely what is at issue, the translation and I don’t have my own translation here in the studio with me. But I would say to anyone who wants to know what I really think is going on here, look at Paul for Everyone, The Pastoral Epistles which is the little commentary that I did on the Pastorals because I actually spend longer on that passage than on most other passages there for obvious reasons. Because the way it has been translated there does not do justice I think to the nuanced thing that Paul is saying. Paul is writing almost certainly to a situation in Ephesus where religion was basically a female thing. You have Diana, Artemis the great goddess, who only has female priests, that is deep in the Ephesian culture. And it is very natural therefore that if this seems to be like a new religion, this Christianity thing, that people in Ephesus might assume well basically let’s find the women to be the leaders. … And I think what is being said when Paul is talking about allowing women to study privately and given the leisure to study it doesn’t mean they should sit down, shut up, and go and make the tea, it means that they must have the leisure to be themselves students. But then he says, “I’m not saying that women should take over the show,” which is a cultural reference to what they might have assumed in that place. But that they have to be given space to learn and then we will all go ahead together.

… (At Justin’s question, Wright goes into the “to have authority” phrase. I’m going to jump over this bit.)

(51:00-53:35) Why is it in certain bits of our culture that people take that little verse from 1 Timothy 2 so seriously and they ignore large chunks of what is going on in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? And this is really very serious as a critique of bits of our contemporary Christian culture. Why are we so fixated and nervous about this? When I talk about this issue I always start with John 20. This is not an accident that when Jesus is raised from the dead the first person who is commissioned to tell other people that he’s alive, that he’s the Lord, that he’s ascending to the Father, is Mary Magdalene. That, you know, John does nothing by accident. Jesus did nothing by accident for goodness sake. That’s the beginning of the announcement of the Christian gospel and it is given to Mary Magdalene. From that point, this is part of new creation. Everything’s different now guys. And what Paul is doing is navigating within a very interesting bit of pagan culture how that works and doesn’t work. “I don’t mean that the women should take over, and I don’t mean that the women should boss everyone else around. They must be given leisure to study, its not an either or, we’ve got to do this together.”

Justin: But in a sense, for millenia, the church did take a certain view on those kinds of passages, or whether it was just a cultural thing, I don’t but … it’s a relatively recent phenomenon that women have been ordained and so on.

It is and it isn’t. In the New Testament you have Junia who is an apostle in Romans 16. I know there’s been lots of debate about that but anyone listening who is worried about that, it is absolutely certain exegetically, linguistically, contextually, that in Romans 16 Paul refers to Junia as an apostle. He also has entrusted Romans, the greatest letter ever written, to a lady called Phoebe who is a deacon in the church at Cenchreae. She’s an office bearer; she’s on her way on a business trip to Rome. Women were quite independent in that world. The idea that all women in the first century were sort of, you know, dumbed down little house fraus, that’s absolutely not the case. There are plenty of independent women of independent means. Phoebe therefore is the carrier of the letter to Rome and that almost certainly means, not only would she read it out, but that if they had questions they would ask her. It is highly likely that Phoebe was the first person in history to expound the letter to the Romans. Now when you get that in the text, and Junia as an apostle, and the other people in Romans 16 who are clearly in ministry, some as husband wife teams, some as independent men, some as independent women, then you know, I want to say lighten up guys, why are we so worried about this?    … ( a little more – suggesting, perhaps, that this is an issue where the Church in a few hundred years will wonder how we could have held a “men only” view, and then it was time for a station break.)

Wright’s last statement in response to the issue about women as bishops in the Church of England sums this up (he has more to say about the issue – but this is the bit relevant to this post).

(57:11-57:35) As I say, I make no bones about it, the basic foundation of all Christian ministry is the announcement that the crucified Jesus has been raised from the dead, and the first person who does that is Mary Magdalene. I rest my case; don’t need to go any further. It’s there in John 20. And from there on the idea of women in leadership ought to have been a natural. And as I say, we see it in Paul, let’s do it.

I’ve quoted this at length because I think it is worth some serious discussion. What Wright says in this interview is in line with many of the points that Scot has raised over the years, both on the blog and in his book The Blue Parakeet. Wright’s argument is centered on a number of issues. The most significant in my view is John 20.

What do you think? Does Wright have a point on John 20?

If you wish you may contact me directly at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

What did women do in the church in the “early church”? (By “early church” I mean after the New Testament up to the 4th Century.) A helpful sketch can be found in Everett Ferguson, The Early Church and Today (vol. 1: Ministry, Initiation, and Worship). Ferguson, one of the world’s finest patristic scholars and a professor emeritus at Abilene Christian University, whom I would call the “F.F. Bruce of Patristics,” finds six major themes, and for each theme Ferguson sketches evidence from the earliest sources:

Women as Mothers: “women as wives and mothers gave the Christian home the strength that made it such a powerful influence in the spread of Christianity in the Roman world” (126). But he provides a beautiful letter from Tertullian to his wife from (the otherwise often quite irascible) Tertullian, and I will provide it here:

How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice. They are as brother and sister, both servants of the same Master. Nothing divides them, either in flesh or in spirit. They are, in very truth, two in one flesh; and where there is but one flesh there is also but one spirit. They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another. Side by side they visit God’s church and partake of God’s Banquet; side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations. They have no secrets from one another; they never shun each other’s company; they never bring sorrow to each other’s hearts. Unembarrassed they visit the sick and assist the needy. They give alms without anxiety; they attend the Sacrifice without difficulty; they perform their daily exercises of piety without hindrance. They need not be furtive about making the Sign of the Cross, nor timorous in greeting the brethren, nor silent in asking a blessing of God. Psalms and hymns they sing to one another, striving to see which one of them will chant more beautifully the praises of their Lord. Hearing and seeing this, Christ rejoices. To such as these He gives His peace. Where there [p36] are two together, there also He is present; and where He is, there evil is not.

Women as Martyrs: persecution, of course, was an “equal opportunity experience,” and women excelled men in persecution. Heroic stories are told of Blandina and Perpetua, stories as gruesome as they are insightful into the stamina and courageous faith of women. Ferguson suggests devotion to martyrs led to the cult of the saints.

Women as Monastics: this theme has been studied by many, but notable in his sketch include the important observation that women “escaped” the chauvinism of males, the shackles of some sorts of expectations, and found liberation to be spiritual and to teach and to administrate in the monastic life. It was for some the path to liberation. There is evidence that monastic women taught both women and more broadly.

Women as Missionaries: Thecla was an early Christian missionary, a woman in the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla. She was a teacher too, and then Ferguson mentions Nino, the gospeler of “Georgia.”

Women as Ministers: the emphasis here is on various forms of service (not preaching, teaching) by women in the early church, stuff that is both stereotypical service and well-known to early Christian women. Here he also points out restrictions of women, by some, in certain contexts: liturgical, public preaching, and baptizing.

Women as Mentors: tension now emerges because women were notable “mentors” to both women and men in the early church, including the famous Gorgonia, sister of Gregory of Nazianzus and Paula, close associate of Jerome. The tension here for me arises in that women were mentoring men and whether or not one wants to say this is private and not public, which Ferguson does believe, the substance of teaching is not erased. Wherever it happened, some women taught men. Yes, some males restricted females; Yes, by the fourth century it is clear that women did not do specific items of “ministry” in the church but to the degree they “formed” males through mentoring to that same degree is the restriction superficial and hypocritical.

I should add that Ferguson hails from the Churches of Christ, and the history of women “preachers” in the C of C is not good, and Ferguson himself defends the traditional view among the C of C. For an alternative view, see Sara Barton’s fine book and story: A Woman Called.

So, we are now ready to ask, What did Jesus think of women and How did Jesus treat women? I provide a series of questions for your consideration.

A good place to begin here is with D.M. Scholer, “Women” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels or with B. Witherington III, Women. (These items can be found in the first post in this series.)

My recommendation: list all the evidence about women in the Gospels and sort out according to the above categories and then ask the following questions. Be fair with the evidence: do not be disrespectful of Judaism’s attempt to follow the Torah or with the Jesus movement’s Jewish origins.

10.1 What are the similarities of Judaism and Jesus in how they treated women?
10.2 What are the dissimilarities?
10.3 Did Jesus “liberate” women? If you think so, examine all the data in the light of the above outline, and specify how and to what extent Jesus “liberated” women.
10.4 Did Jesus have “women disciples”? Why or why not? If so, describe the nature of their following of Jesus. Were they apostles? were they preachers? were they healers? were they teachers? What roles did they perform?
10.5 What is the impact of Jesus’ healing of women?
10.6 What does Jesus say about motherhood? about the family? about children?
10.7 Did Jesus “liberate” women from Jewish purity laws? Did he expect females connected to him to follow laws for menstruants?
10.8 Did Jesus join his followers in regular table fellowship? Was this offensive to Jewish society?

Primary evidence:
Mark 1:29-31; 6:17-29; 7:9-13; 7:24-30; 9:33-37; 10:13-16, 19; 12:40-44; 12:18-27; 15:40-41, 47-16:1;
Matthew 1:1-17; 5:27-32; 8:14-15; 9:18-26; 12:46-50; 13:33; 19:3-9, 10-12; 21:31; 23:37-39; 24:41; 25:1-13; 27:55-56; 27:61-28:1;
Luke 1:26-38, 41-45, 46-56; 2:36-38; 4:26, 38-39; 7:11-17; 7:36-50; 8:1-3; 10:38-42; 11:27-28; 13:10-17; 15:8-10; 17:35; 18:1-8; 23:49; 23:27-31; 23:55-24:1
John 2:1-12; 4:4-42; 7:53-8:11; 11:1-44; 12:1-11; 19:25-27; 20:1

I’ll give now a review of a major book about Jesus and Women. The following is a review of Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger’s important book, Transformative Encounters, and was not published. It was written to be read at an SBL meeting, and then the session fell through and I was left with this review. Somewhere out there in cyberspace this review appeared earlier.

“From Jeremias to Ilan: Jesus and Women”
1.0 From Jeremias to Ilan

Because Tal Ilan’s Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine has become somewhat of a consensus report of how women fared at the time roughly contemporary with Jesus, and because Joachim Jeremias’s appendix to his Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus was Ilan’s monograph’s John the Baptist, I want to set the context of Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger’s edited book, Transformative Encounters: Jesus and Women Re-Viewed into what has happened since the study of Jeremias. TE is a reflection of our day as much as Jeremias was of his day; and Ilan’s study belongs to our day. Furthermore, I have been requested to examine only Part Two: Historical Re-Construction and Contextualization and to do so as a historian. So, I am asking the following: since Jeremias, has our knowledge of Jewish women at the time of Jesus become clearer? do we know more now than we knew then? and has scholarship improved since Jeremias? if so, how?

First, in preparation for this paper I sat down and read Ilan’s book cover-to-cover and then I read Jeremias’s appendix. I was surprised how little a difference there was between the two in substance. I was disappointed that Ilan did not cover “motherhood” as a separate chapter but neither did Jeremias and I wondered if Ilan let Jeremias’s categories shape her own. More importantly, over and over the two studies came to the same substantive conclusion, citing often the same evidence (though Jeremias frequently has no more than a reference when Ilan cites the texts in full). For example, when it comes to issue of the seclusion of Jewish women in their homes, both contend that while the rabbinic texts but especially the Alexandrian texts evidence some strong statements about seclusion, that evidence is not realistic for the common Jewish woman. If Jeremias gives the Alexandrian evidence more attention, more than it ought to for understanding women in Jesus’ world, he backs away from that evidence for a more realistic description of women as participants in Jewish society, publicly. For a second example, Jeremias and Ilan examine the evidence about the married woman in nearly the same categories, citing most of the same evidence. Here we have a litany of statements about age of marriage, marrying relatives, betrothal, conjugal duties and rights, polygamy, divorce and levirate marriage. With varying nuances of emphasis, especially Ilan’s emphasis on the “female body,” the two walk the same path and depict a very similar Jewish woman. A third example surprises if it also excites scholarship: both Jeremias and Ilan carefully warn about the use of rabbinical evidence when in search of information about common Jewish women. Both assign much of the evidence to the “upper class” and dismiss their rigid categories (say, for instance, about divorce or polygamy since they are more options for those who could afford such procedures) as unrealistic for the common Jewish woman.

Nuances, however, give way to some distinct differences and these highlight some of the changes that have emerged as a result of serious attention to women in the ancient world. Besides the fundamental embarassment of the role women were given in biblical scholarship at the time of Jeremias’s work, there are at least two items that need to be placed on the table. First, Ilan has been able to dig out more evidence for the participation of Jewish women in the “religious life” than Jeremias, and her study of this material will shape future studies. Jeremias looked over too much here; further, he shaped what he saw in light of his overall negative depiction of Jewish women in Jewish society. Second, methodologically, Jeremias’s work is famously eclectic in its approach to evidence, though in this appendix he is less prone to cite the Amoraim and later midrashic texts. However, Ilan’s work is methodologically admirable: she stratifies the evidence – from Ben Sira, the Maccabean writings, and Josephus, to the tannaim where she neatly separates the tannaim from the amoraim as well as halakhah from the aggadic traditions. For me, it was disappointing that the substantive conclusions changed no more than it did after such methodological rigor. (Perhaps my surprise emerges from Gospel criticism where slight tradition-critical differences can lead to either a Dom Crossan or to a Marc Borg or to an EP Sanders or to an NT Wright!) Some might criticize Ilan maximalist approach for not assessing the historical veracity of each tannaitic tradition but I think much of the evidence she cites would endure most tests.

If methodologically there has been a significant shift in our studies of women in the ancient world, no doubt in the wake of Jacob Neusner’s critical works, apologetically and functionally the differences since the time of Jeremias are dramatic. Jeremias concludes his appendix with three major functional conclusions: first, that women following Jesus was an unprecedented action in Judaism; second, that Jesus made women equal to men in Jewish society; and third, that Jesus’ view of divorce was “entirely new.” And precisely here is where Amy-Jill Levine, and those who preceded her study, has the eagle’s nest in her hands: description is often not as important as use of that description. Jeremias uses the negative depiction of women to lionize Jesus as a hero of emancipation. I am not sure attachment to a Jewish teacher for a woman was unprecedented; I am less sure that Jesus made men and women equal; and it is simply wrong to say that Jesus’ view of divorce was “entirely new”; those connected with the Dead Sea Scrolls believed nearly the same thing. A similar point from a different angle: if we do discover that Jesus differed from the tannaim does that indicate (1) that Jesus was unlike Judaism or (2) like Jews from the lower classes? Without taking us too far afield, it is not inappropriate to wonder if Jesus’ so-called strict statement about divorce, now embedded in Q 16:18, is really nothing more than a critique of the Herodians and upper-class Jews who could afford divorce. Both Ilan and Jeremias recognized that divorce was expensive; the poor in many situations could not afford it; thus, perhaps the strict logion of Jesus was as much social critique as it was halakhah. And I am not denying the latter.

In brief, then, I am saying this: Jesus distinguished himself, as Bruce Chilton has recently argued, within Judaism not over against Judaism. Consequently, we don’t need to lionize Jesus at the expense of his Judaism for it was as a Jew that Jesus did what he did; his differences from other forms of Judaism were precisely that: differences within Judaism not departures from Judaism. And here is perhaps the telling point: no one in the Jesus traditions questioned women following Jesus, no one said the women who came into contact with Jesus should be back home, and no one said menstruants ought to be bottled up in female quarters. Criticisms of Jesus were aplenty; most of them had to do with his associations, but so far as I know no one criticized Jesus for permitting women to listen to him, for traveling with him, and for approaching him for healing. Put simply, Jesus’ associations with women were entirely within the spectrum of Judaism. If Jeremias and Ilan are basically accurate in their depiction of Jewish woman, their use of that material are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

And at Ilan’s end of the spectrum we find all the essays collected in TE. To these we now turn.

2.0 Jesus and Women Re-Viewed in View

It would be unfair to each author or tedious to my audience to summarize and evaluate each essay; instead, I want to corner my remarks to general, methodological, and substantive points.

First, the essays are methodologically diverse, though the use of the social sciences comes to the fore: this can be seen in the essays by Sean Freyne, Marianne Sawicki, and Carmen Bernabé Ubieta. This diversity, however, does not lead astray from a general conclusion of a feminist orientation: women were more significant in Jewish society than the texts let on. Thus, a leitmotif is that if methodological rigor is applied we can find more about women than we previously knew. I think here of Sawicki’s claim that Susannah and Joanna, women mentioned in Luke 8:1-3 as followers of Jesus, were business partners who had previously hired Jesus as an exorcist for visitors to the royal administration in Tiberias. Elaine Wainwright’s essay, even if it moves rather illogically from women as healers to women as healed, nonetheless uncovers details about the important social function women played in ancient Greece and Palestine as healers and so were attracted to Jesus the healer.

Second, claims about the importance of women in the early Christian movement are trumpeted and their clarion call needs to be heard even louder. Tal Ilan begins these notes with a subtle contention that it was the women who “conjured up” the notion of Jesus’ resurrection and so at the very foundation of the Christian movement that emerges from the Jesus movement is the witness of women. Marianne Sawicki chimes in at the same note: women were the key witnesses, and those who were moving information from one side to the other, in the early Christian belief about resurrection. If these women witnesses played such a crucial role, I would like to add a note of my own. For nearly fifteen years I have taught in my classes the following scenario: Joseph probably died when Jesus was young; Jesus was deeply influenced by the piety of his mother, and I take the Magnificat as a credible, even if constructed much later, testimony of what he would have learned from his mother Mary; and, if these two be correct, then some of the fundamental motifs of Jesus’ vision for Israel were shaped by his mother: social reversal, the covenant faithfulness of Israel’s God, and the ever-continuing mercy of God on the poor. One ought not to criticize a book for what it does not do, but I would have liked something about Mary in a book that seeks to look at Jesus and women. I think her influence on Jesus has been deeply underappreciated. Protestants at least have a feeble alibi.

Third, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of listening to the sharp if at times rapier-like in its points of Amy-Jill Levine’s critique of Christian scholarship, both feminist and otherwise, for its unintentional but nonetheless real polemical statements and overall approaches to the Jesus traditions. She has amassed a virtual list of unintentional conclusions and approaches to women in the Jesus traditions that result in anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism. I quote one thunderous part of a paragraph: “The suggestion that Jesus was the only Jewish man to treat women with compassion is at best ahistorical-apologetic; the connection between ‘friend of women’ and ‘friend of sinners’ is at best overdrawn. The implication that the Jewish system tortured women is slanderous” (pp. 334-335). Jesus was a wonderful man; Jesus permitted women to follow him; Jesus seemed to permit women to eat with him and his followers in the evening; Jesus healed women. These are nice things Jesus did. But these actions don’t make Jesus non-Jewish and they don’t suggest at all that Jesus was breaking boundaries in Judaism. Perhaps he got some Jewish males all cranky about it but the record of such doesn’t survive. In short, Levine reminds that we don’t need to lionize Jesus by demonizing Judaism. Jesus stands on his own as a son of Abraham; he doesn’t stand as a solitary, emancipating man. We are accurate in pointing out that Jesus differed from the Pharisees and probably from the Sadducees, perhaps even with the Essenes, but that doesn’t push Jesus over the edge of Judaism. It would be fair to say that most Jews differed with these groups! Differing makes Jesus a Jew among other Jews, and maybe even in the majority. Furthermore, and I merely echo what has been said before: that Jesus differs from the rabbis does not always say that much. I find this tendency in both Jeremias and Witherington. I am not sure either intends it but both at times suggests that in differing with the rabbis Jesus is taking a new stand over against Judaism.

More could be said, in fact. In particular, what Levine’s article makes me acutely aware of is this: we, whether we are Christian or Jewish, don’t need to find in Jesus the fountainhead of all of our causes. Jesus did treat women kindly; but he didn’t call them to be apostles; he didn’t send them out into the Galilean villages to announce the arrival of the kingdom; and he doesn’t appear to have empowered any women to heal though they were, if the studies of Ilan, Sawicki, and Wainwright are accurate, part and parcel of the Jewish social system of healing. Jesus falls short of what our sensitivities want; historians say this; apologists claim too much for Jesus in this regard.

Fourth, I would like to point to what I think is a noticeable gap in TE. Many would contend that for Jesus’ table fellowship was a central medium of his mission, especially in its inclusionary nature, and in the practice he embedded his social vision for Israel. One doesn’t have to agree with all the particulars that have been raised in these discussions to think that table fellowship was important for Jesus. A question not asked in TE was this: “Did Jesus permit women to dine with his male followers? Was the table truly open commensality – for one and for all? And what was the context for Jesus’ inclusion of women at meals?” Last year I asked Kathleen Corley about this and have since read her very nice study of women and meals in the Synoptic tradition: her evidence for women dining with males is not overwhelming. The archaeological evidence from Machaerus reveals two dining rooms, one for men and one for women (Corley, 69); the evidence from Philo, as she says, reflects the customs of upper class aristocratic women in the Diaspora as they attended banquets. Ben Sira 9:9, however, sounds an important note: “Never dine with another man’s wife, or revel with her at wine; or your heart may turn aside to her, and in blood (Gk: ‘by your spirit’) you may be plunged into destruction” (9:9). This suggests that women and men did dine together; but almost certainly it reflects upper class customs and it probably reflects banquets rather than common meals. The evidence, in other words, is hardly compelling though the Jesus traditions are a little clearer in this regard.

There are two facts I would like to lay before you and then suggest a possible way of approaching that evidence: first, there is evidence that Jesus and his followers dined with women. The entire Mediterranean had opinions about the participation of women in banquets; Corley argues that Jewish women would have accompanied their husbands to banquets and that they would have participated in the Seder. Thus, we are led to think of meal participation with Jesus as possible, especially if his meals took on a celebratory nature. What about common meals, the kind Jesus would have enjoyed in the cool of the day? What is the evidence? I think here of Luke 7:36-50 (when Jesus was anointed by a sinful woman); 10:38-42 (Jesus dining with Mary and Martha, though we are unaware that others were present); Matthew 11:19 (only if ‘sinners’ indicates sinful women); and the parabolic Matthew 25:1-13 (the ten virgins, only five of whom entered the banquet). The last can be ignored since it reflects the customs of an unusual meal, a marriage banquet; the dinner with Mary and Martha shows at least that Jesus ate with women – and this is seen in an interpretation that favors hospitality (JB Green), contemplation over distracted service (traditional), or in egalitarian ministry (Schüssler Fiorenza); the evidence is not clear enough when it comes to the term ‘sinner’ for an implied ‘prostitute’ so I would dismiss Matthew 11:19; and clearly Luke 7:36-50 implies the presence of women at a meal with Jesus. If the first fact is that Jesus ate with women and included them in his meal, the second is this: no one seemed to be upset that Jesus did this. In other words, we don’t have evidence that Jesus was criticized for eating with women per se; for permitting a ‘sinful woman’ to anoint him, yes. But what ought to be noted is that this meal took place at a Pharisee’s home and that the woman was permitted to enter; the eruption occurred only when she decided to anoint Jesus (Luke 7:36-50). Let us assert here that it is hard to imagine a Pharisee permitting a ‘sinful woman’ to enter his home; if we then contend that the scene is historically unrealistic, we can at least contend that at the literary level no one thought it improper for a ‘sinful woman’ to enter a Pharisees house – and I, for one, am not so sure there is all that much difference. I consider it possible that a Pharisee somehow agreed to let the ‘Jesus people’ have a night at his house and that meant letting all them join in, including ‘sinful women.’

Now if we, as is customary, compare Jesus to the rabbis, his practice looks innovative and shocking and paradigmatic and emancipating. Christian scholarship has made much of this comparison. Rabbinic evidence indicates that a woman’s role in meals was to serve, not to eat with and dine alongside and recline next to the men – and not to join in on the theological discussion. But this functional use of rabbinic evidence precisely illustrates where we have come since Jeremias: this approach is polemical, unhistorical, and results in an unfair representation both of Judaism and Jesus. The volume we are examining in this session illustrates the benefits of this methodological shift. And I have a few pieces of evidence that just may shift the historical context of Jesus’ meal with women away from the rabbinic toward a more believable and geographically-proximate source. I am suggesting that women ate with Jesus on the model of the Roman meals that were transferred from Rome to Galilee through the administration at Sepphoris. While we don’t have to think of Petronius’ famous meal at Trimalchio’s home when we think of Roman meals, such a party description places before our eyes some realistic details we might otherwise not know, even if it also reveals details that lead to the debaucheries of one like the Marquis de Sade.

Here is a source of evidence we might consider; I have not seen him cited in any of the literature on this question. Valerius Maximus, in his Facta et Dicta Memorabilia, says this: “Women used to dine seated with their reclining menfolk” and he then adds, “a form of austerity which our age [the time of Jesus] is more careful to retain on the Capitol than in its houses” and then adds laconically “no doubt because it is more important to the commonwealth that discipline be maintained for goddesses than for women!” (2.1.2). The implication is that household meals involved less hierarchy. Later Valerius Maximus says that the Roman youth would inquire who was eating at a meal so that they would not recline prior to the arrival of their seniors; and when the meal was done the seniors were permitted to leave first; and their talk was dignified by the status of those with whom they dined (2.1.9; cf. 2.1.10 on elders role in providing an example for the youth). This concern echoes the humorous parable of Jesus about rank at meals (Luke 14:7-11). Again, he says the “men of old” took their meals in the open air and ate simple meals (2.5.5). Meals, according Valerius Maximus, became a medium of reconciliation (4.2.3) and the example of Cicero and Crassus, as told by Plutarch (Cicero 26.1); meals were as well as a place of powerful criticisms (Val.Max., Facta 5.1.ext. 2b) as well as the setting for some famous ‘speeches’, as David Aune has demonstrated. Perhaps some of Jesus’ strongest words were mediated by those who heard him in the quiet symposium after a meal. Dennis Smith, for instance, has argued that the posture of ‘reclining’, which is Jesus’ when mentioned, accords with the Greco-Roman customs.

Perhaps some will want to argue with this use of Roman and Greek evidence; or that there is counterevidence that indicates women were not part of the common meal (but cf. also Corley, “Women,” p. 493 n. 36); or that Valerius Maximus is not a good source. Without disrespecting such views, the recent studies that Jesus worked in Sepphoris, or at least knew what was going on there, have much in their favor; and that at Sepphoris Jesus would have encountered a blend of Roman and Greek culture first-hand through the Herodian presence; and that surely the Roman customs of meals were actually present in Sepphoris. Since Jesus’ parables show an occasional hint of knowledge of such practices, as can be seen in the Parable of Ranking Guests (Luke 14:7-11), I think it can be suggested that Jesus may well have learned the value of the presence of women at meals from this Roman presence in Galilee. He probably also knew about the kind of behavior described in the meal of Herod Antipas and Herodias (Mark 6:17-29). The liberal spirit of these meals gave him courage to include women in his meals, though without the dancing girl! – and perhaps he needed little courage for the Galilean Jews before him had already been permitting women to join in meals with male guests. Rabbinic evidence might lead some to think of Jesus’ innovation here; a broader sweep of evidence, not to mention common sense, leads to Jesus doing what came natural for any Jew of first century Galilee. In fact, maybe the practice was established in Judaism prior to the hellenic spirit. I know more work needs to be done. Kathleen Corley, in fact, thinks the meal practices of Jesus and the early Christian movement, with respect to the role women played, were indistinguishable from the surrounding contexts, Greek, Roman, and Jewish. She says they were each marked by “convivial inclusivity” (Private Women, p. 185).

This sort of conclusion is represented in the essays of TE. Here we find essays that are not restricted by rabbinic categories, not limited to Jewish evidence, and not fenced in by old-fashioned traditional conclusions. The essays are challenging, always refreshing, and at times daring. Sean Freyne said something in his essay that we need to remind ourself of: “It is noteworthy, though perhaps predictable, that the role of women in the Jesus movement has received relatively little attention in recent writing, despite the remarkable resurgence of historical Jesus studies in the past decade or so” (p. 162). Anyone who looks at recent books that deal with the life of Jesus will notice that he is right. Should we name them, or should we all ask our role in this neglect? I am suggesting that it is the term “inclusion” that tells the real story. Women are, by using the term ‘inclusion’, seen in functional terms: they are used as evidence that Jesus was a liberator and that means they are assigned to the sections of books where you find other Jewish undesireables as learned from rabbinic categories. How Mary influenced Jesus is a silent chapter; John the Baptist usually gets plenty of attention. Which is more determinative for Jesus? And how women shaped the Jesus movement a mute section; but the apostles and the early Christian preachers find a significant presence. Kitzberger’s collected essays are a first step toward the recovery of women in the Jesus movement.

To go along with my course at Northern on Women and Ministry, which begins this morning, I want to pull out a week long series on women in the world of Jesus. Much is said about “women in the Jewish world” and much of it uninformed. This entire series is rooted in Tal Ilan’s important book, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine (Hendrickson, 1996) and her second book, Integrating Women into Second Temple History (Hendrickson, 2001). There is no attempt to be complete and I would like to add all the details from Lynn Cohick’s fine book Women in the World of the Earliest Christians but I did not have time … and there is only a short bibliography at the end of this post. Alongside Ilan’s survey of the facts, comments will be occasionally made.

What I hope from this series is to provide each of us with a basic “state of the art” on what we know about women at the time of Jesus and the early churches, and at the same time, a counter to some of the stuff that is being said about women at that time.

In today’s post, I will look at two questions: how do we look at the evidence about women that has survived? And, what have the scholars been saying about Jewish women at the time of Jesus? Answers to both of these questions have a profound impact on what Christians say today about women and ministry.

How do we approach the evidence from the ancient world?

First, we need to respect the diversity of Judaism for it was a heterogeneous society and in each sector different understandings of women emerged. We cannot pretend that what one group thought or practiced another group also thought or practiced. Here are some variations to keep in mind: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, poor vs. aristocrats, Jesus movement, am ha-aretz (common people unobservant of Pharisaic laws). In addition, the Diaspora (those living outside the Land of Israel) evidence about women reveals another set of variations.

Second, we need to be aware of our sources: most of the evidence that survives about women derives from the upper class and frequently expresses upper class, Pharisaic ideals rather than common person realities. There are no videotapes of life for women, nor are there records that survive about common women’s perceptions of their treatment. What we have is stuff that comes to us from a variety of sources, much of it from upper class males.

Third, there are various kinds of evidence. Many of the statements about women are in halakhic statements (legal statements by rabbis but which, though stated has binding, are not necessarily a reflection of reality) and in haggadic accounts (stories illustrative of halakhic statements but which frequently form tension with other halakhic material). The haggadic material frequently divulges a more realistic portrait of women. What this means is this: if you find a legal ruling that assumes something about women (that men were not to talk with women in public), you cannot just assume that everyone observed that ruling. In fact, it is highly likely that this was not the case and that such rulings were often given to counter behavior that was not liked.

Fourth, we need to remind ourselves of this: all texts reflect their context and the ideas of the author; there is no necessary correspondence between the text and reality. This could be expanded in many ways, and I’m not suggesting a neo-Marxist distrust of all powerful statements, but I do want us to be aware that what we read is not necessarily what was going on.

Fifth, we have a special problem when it comes to rabbinic literature. Regardless of how much information can be found germane to this topic, rabbinic literature shaped by two orientations that distort the realities of first century Galilean Jewish life: (1) the evidence pertains to the upper class or at least the “rabbinic followers” and (2) the evidence that survives mostly does so because it was important to legal concerns of the rabbis. Hence, while incidental details emerge of value, the concerns are always legal. This legal emphasis must not be equated with the emphases of real social life.

What has been said about women at the time of Jesus?

First, some Jewish scholars have debated whether the Bible (Christian Old Testament) or the rabbinic sources (e.g., Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmuds, and midrashic writings) is more liberating.

Second, some Christian scholars have consistently exploited the Jewish sources as a foil to Jesus and the NT: the Jewish sources are oppressive but the Christian ones are (more) liberating. Much of the claims made here are tendentious and unhistorical. It is simply untrue that Jewish men were mean-spirited and that Jesus and the early Christians set women free.

Third, feminist scholars tend to read the ancient sources, both Jewish and Christian, with a hermeneutic of suspicion: the sources were written by men and support the power of men; the sources depict women as passive and receptive. Christian feminists align themselves consistently with the second view but have had a different agenda. The most distinctive and radical Christian feminist voices are Elizabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza (In Memory of Her) and Bernadette Brooten (Women Leaders in Ancient Synagogues).

Some Jewish feminists have argued that Christian feminists are anti-Semitic or anti-Judaism (see esp. Levine, “Lilies of the Field” [“The suggestion that Jesus was the only Jewish man to treat women with compassion is at best ahistorical-apologetic; the connection between ‘friend of women’ and ‘friend of sinners’ is at best overdrawn. The implication that the Jewish system tortured women is slanderous” (334). And: “There is no need to highlight a negative Judaism. Jesus can remain the liberationist Christian feminists want without being removed from his Jewish context” (351, italics added). See also Rosenblatt, 148-150.

Fourth, historical Jesus scholars, mostly Christian, have argued consistently that Jesus liberated the Jewish woman from oppressive Jewish laws. The most influential voice of the previous generation was Joachim Jeremias (Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, 232-250; Ilan’s book is an update of Jeremias’ famous chapter).

Daughters: here is a basic categorizing of the evidence that survives.

First, the birth of a daughter: some (no doubt) males find the birth of daughters to be a disappointment because they do not carry on the line of the father ( Ben Sira 22:3; Genesis Rabbah 45.2). The command to “be fruitful and multiply” can be thwarted.

Second, what about relations between father and daughter? For many Jewish fathers, daughters were a concern lest they become impregnated before marriage (Ben Sira 42:9-11) but many Jewish sources in haggadic material reveal affection between father and daughter (e.g., Song of Songs Rabbah 1.9.5; 3.7.1; 3.8.2; 6.12).

Third, on naming a daughter: daughters were named at birth after parents, grandparents, relatives, and great Jewish leaders. The most popular names are Salome, Shelamzion, and Miriamme/Maria (these three names account for 46.5% of known names in Palestine); they may reveal idealization of the Hasmoneans. Daughters were identified by the father: “Miriam the daughter of X.”

Marriage: what do we learn about marriage in the ancient Jewish sources?

First, Jewish males were to marry but marriage was not idealized; it brought stability to a young man’s life (Ben Sira 36:30) and one rabbi threatened eternal separation from Heaven for not marrying (bPesahim 113b). R. Yose said since creation, “God sits and makes matches, assigning this man to that woman and this woman to that man” (Genesis Rabbah 68.4). [John’s and Jesus’ celibacy were, therefore, not extraordinary.]

Second, rooted in Proverbs 31, there is a regular praise of the Virtuous Wife : the idealized wife was obedient and beautiful. Ben Sira believed in four virtues for a wife: intelligence (25:8; 40:23), silence (26:16-17), wisdom (26:26), and beauty (26:13-18; 36:27).

Third, there are some reflections on what it means to be a Bad Wife: Ben Sira mentions nagging (25:20; 26:31), drunkenness (19:2), unfaithfulness (26:11-14). The rabbis said: “Who is deemed a scolding wife? Whosoever speaks inside her own house so that her neighbors can hear her voice” (mKetubot 7:6). The rabbis also said: “It is a duty (a mitzvah) to divorce a bad wife” (bEruvin 41b).

Fourth, unbeknownst to Dan Brown, there is evidence for valuing singleness: the more hasidic fringes of Judaism accepted and even idealized asceticism and celibacy (Essenes: acc. to Josephus, Ant. 18:21; War 2:120; cf. Matthew 19:10-12). Some men chose this as an option but the evidence for women choosing this option is negligible. (Maybe it is because they didn’t get to write the texts that survived!)

Fifth, at what age did marriage occur? The general rabbinic halakhah is that girls were married at 12 (cf. bSanhedrin 76a; mNiddah 5:6-8; bNiddah 45a says a daughter can be given in marriage at 3 years and one day!) in order to assure virginity. Boys were frequently just as young (Ben Sira 7;23; Lamentations Rabbah 1.2). However, there is evidence of later marriages as well. [How old was Mary? Probably she was a teenager.]
Sixth, social connection was integral to many marriages: marriage, mostly for the upper classes, was all about social status. So, it matters what your “class” was. [When Jewish Christians began to mix with Gentile Christians, this “status” element came to the fore.]

There are ten classes in Judaism according to mQiddushin 4:1: priests, levites, Israelites, impaired priests, converts, freed slaves, mamzers (bastards), netins (descendants of Gibeonites; cf. Josh. 9:27) shetukis (silenced ones), asufis (foundlings). [Gentile believers in Jesus were probably classes as “converts” by many — hence Acts 15’s ruling about expected levels of obedience.]

Later the rabbis graded classes more academically: daughter of a scholar, daughter of a great man, daughter of the synagogue leaders, daughter of a charity treasurer, daughter of an elementary school teacher (bPesahim 49b). Laws of incest applied (Lev. 18:6-18; cousins, uncles and aunts were permissible marriage partners in certain cases – tQiddushin 1:4 says “a man should not marry a woman until his sister’s daughter has reached maturity”).

Seventh, how did one choose a husband: the halakhah (oral law) ruled that parents chose marriage partners and love was the result of wise choices by the parents. But reality permitted greater flexibility: widows and divorcees found their own husbands and among the poorer classes there was even greater freedom to find a partner. The daughter could repudiate a husband if the father died before she reached maturity and had already chosen a husband for her.

Eighth, what about polygamy? Two legal practices prove that polygamy existed. The practice of yibbum (levirate marriage: when a husband died the husband’s brother was to take in the widow) and halitzah (the legal renunciation of yibbum). However, Judaism frowned upon polygamy as can be seen in the Dead Sea Sect (11QTemple 57:17-18) and the later rabbis who idealized monogamy. But, polygamy was often an economic issue: the poor could not afford more than one wife.

Ninth, here are the basics of the Marriage Process:
It begins with a legal betrothal (Qiddushin): nominal fee; legal arrangement.
There was an official marriage contract (Ketubbah): monetary arrangement in the event of death or divorce that ensured the maintenance of the woman. Divorce was expensive; customs varied (sometimes the woman sometimes the man had control of the funds).
Third, there was a marriage ceremony: the bride was taken ceremonially to the house of the groom.

Bibliography and Abbreviations
All Jewish sources can be found in the library in English translation; for rabbinic sources, I recommend the translations of Jacob Neusner whenever available. The easiest source to use is the Babylonian Talmud.
m is for Mishnah, followed by the tractate.
t is for Tosefta, followed by tractate.
b is for Babylonian Talmud, followed by the tractate.
y is for Yerushalmi Talmud, followed by tractate.
Other sources include the rabbinic midrash, OT Apocrypha, OT Pseudepigrapha, Jewish historians (like Josephus), and the Dead Sea Scrolls; each be found in the library in translation.
Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law: The Essential Texts, Their History, & Their Relevance for Today (New York: Schocken, 1995).
S.J.D. Cohen, “Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity,” in Women’s History and Ancient History (ed. S.B. Pomeroy; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 271-299.
S. Freyne, “Jesus the Wine-drinker: A Friend of Women,” ,” in Kitzberger, Transformative Encounters, pp. 162-180.
T. Ilan, “The Attraction of Aristocratic Jewish Women to Pharisaism,” Harvard Theological Review 88 (1995) 1-33.
T. Ilan, “In the Footsteps of Jesus: Jewish Women in a Jewish Movement,” in Kitzberger, Transformative Encounters, pp. 115-136.
T. Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996 [=1995; based on a Ph.D. dissertation at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the late 1980s]).
J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969).
Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger, editor, Transformative Encounters: Jesus and Women Re-Viewed (Biblical Interpretation Series 43; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000). [A collection of essays by women about Jesus and women; the book is divided into literary, historical, and actualization essays.]
Amy-Jill Levine, “Lilies of the Field and Wandering Jews: Biblical Scholarship, Women’s Roles, and Social Location,” ,” in Kitzberger, Transformative Encounters, pp. 329-352.
S. McKnight, A Light Among the Gentiles (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991).
S. McKnight, “A Parting within the Way: Jesus and James on Israel and Purity,” in B. Chilton, C.A. Evans, James the Just and Christian Origins (SupplNovTest XCVIII; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999) 83-129.
Gerbern S. Oegema, “Portrayals of Women in 1 and 2 Maccabees,” in I.R. Kitzberger, Transformative Enounters, 245-264.
Marie-Eloise Rosenblatt, “Gender, Ethnicity, and Legal Considerations in the Haemorrhaging Woman’s Story: Mark 5:25-34,” ,” in Kitzberger, Transformative Encounters, pp. 137-161.
Marianne Sawicki, “Magdalenes and Tiberiennes: City Women in the Entourage of Jesus,” ,” in Kitzberger, Transformative Encounters, pp. 181-202.
D.M. Scholer, “Women,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 880-887.
Carmen Bernabé Ubieta, “Mary Magdalene and the Seven Demons in Social-scientific Perspective,” ,” in Kitzberger, Transformative Encounters, pp. 203-223.
Elaine M. Wainright, “ ‘Your Faith Has Made You Well.’ Jesus, Women, and Healing in the Gospel of Matthew,” ,” in Kitzberger, Transformative Encounters, pp. 224-244.
B. Witherington III, Women in the Ministry of Jesus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).