WOMEN IN MINISTRY, VOLUME FIFTEEN

The Plight of Women in the Era of the New Testament

The role of women in American society changed dramatically in the 1960s. In 1963, the President’s Commission on the Status of Women issued a report entitled American Women, which recommended that women be granted equality in employment and educational opportunities, as well as wages. In the same year, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, the first federal law against gender discrimination. All these laws have served our society well, but they’re nothing compared to what Jesus did for the women of his day.

women in ministry

 

Women in the Ministry of Jesus

These women were helping to support them [Jesus and his disciples] out of their own means …” (Luke 8:3b).

 

There are three areas I will briefly address to better understand the role of women in the life and ministry of Jesus. These are: (1) The place of women in first-century Palestine; (2) women in the teachings of Jesus; and (3) Jesus’ interaction with women.

 

In so doing I will briefly highlight four particularly instructive cases of women in the life and ministry of Jesus. They are: (1) the women who supported Jesus and traveled with him; (2) the Samaritan woman at the well; (3) Mary and Martha; and (4) the women who were the first witnesses to the resurrection.

 

Each of these is important for different reasons and reveals critical aspects of Jesus’ attitude toward women.

 

The Role of Women in Jesus’ World

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (John 4:9).

 

Many would agree that the remark of Indologist Moriz Winternitz is a truism: “Woman has always been the best friend religion ever had; but religion has by no means been the best friend woman ever had.” [167]

 

That may be true of religion in general, but it is quite untrue of Jesus. Jesus was the best friend of countless women in his first-century world. His life and teaching was the best thing that ever happened to the women of his day.

 

I have sketched a brief survey of the place of women in the Old Testament, concluding that women were viewed as similar to property, and were restricted to the home with minimal activity in religious life.

 

The bleak outlook for women in the patriarchal society of the Old Testament fluctuated throughout the centuries depending on location and exigent circumstances.

 

By the time of Jesus’s birth little had changed, and in some parts of Palestine, the plight of women had worsened.

 

In first-century Palestine, women took almost no part in public life. When a woman left her house she was required to wear two head veils, a headband for her forehead with bands to the chin, which covered most of her face, and a hair net with ribbons and knots. [168] In this way, her features could not be recognized.

 

According to the Talmud, a chief priest in Jerusalem once did not recognize his own mother when he had to carry out against her the prescribed process for a woman suspected of adultery. [169]

 

A man had the right to divorce his wife if she left the home without her face and head covered.

 

Women were expected to be invisible in public. Rules of propriety forbade a man to be alone with a woman, to look at a married woman, or even to give her a greeting.

 

It was disgraceful for a scholar to speak with a woman in the street. A woman who broke any of these rules could be divorced by her husband without having to pay the prescribed marriage settlement. [170]

 

Jewish philosopher, Philo, who was a contemporary of Jesus, proclaimed that public life with all of its activity was proper only for men. He suggested that it was “suitable for women to stay indoors and to live in retirement, limited by the middle door (to the men’s apartment) for young girls, and the outer door for married women.” [171]

 

There is good reason to believe that some of the leading families of Jerusalem strictly observed these rules. However, the realities of life prohibited their enforcement upon the poor and those living in the countryside.

 

Most women could simply not afford a life of leisure, confined to the home. They had to work in the fields and in commerce.

 

Jeremias admits that there were even further relaxations of the rules in the countryside. [172] The women were not expected to wear the full head covering as they worked in the fields alongside their husbands, and they were allowed to sell products and agricultural goods.

 

However, Jeremias adds, “a woman must not be alone in the fields, and it was not customary even in the country for a man to converse with a strange woman.” [173]

 

The Life of a Daughter

Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you” (Matthew 9:22).

 

At home, the daughter always came behind the sons, no matter the birth order. A young girl’s education was limited to domestic arts, especially needlework and weaving. [174]

 

They were also expected to look after younger brothers and sisters, and give their father food and drink. But they had almost none of the inheritance rights of their brothers.

 

For a daughter, “there were very precise distinctions between a minor (qtannah, birth to twelve), the young girl (narah, twelve to twelve and a half), and the maiden of full age (bogeret, above twelve and a half). Up to the age of twelve and a half, a young girl’s father had full authority over her. The underaged Jewish girl had no right to her own possessions, and the fruit of her labor or anything she found belonged to her father.” [175]

 

Her father could also cancel her vows, represent her in all legal matters, accept or refuse any marriage offers, marry her off to whomever he decided (she had no rights of refusal), and even sell her into slavery. [176]

 

After twelve and a half, however, her rights increased dramatically. Primarily, she was allowed to refuse betrothal.

 

For this reason, most young girls were betrothed by their fathers between the age of twelve and twelve and a half. The betrothal period lasted one year during which time the girl remained in her father’s home. After the betrothal period, she was transferred to her new husband’s home and remained under his authority.

 

As such, at the young age of thirteen, now a wife, she was expected to maintain the general household duties. [177]

 

The husband could not sell his wife into slavery. However, the right to divorce belonged exclusively to the husband.

 

Women and Religion

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head” (Mark 14:3). 

 

The woman was also restricted in the world of religion. As mentioned before, she was barred from the priesthood, and for all practical purposes, from any leadership role in religious matters. She was subject to all the prohibitions of the Law and was liable for all the penalties associated therein.

 

She was restricted to the Court of Gentiles, and Court of Women in the Temple. She was, generally, not allowed to take part in the sacrificial cult by laying hands on the sacrifice.

 

She was allowed to participate in the synagogue service but was separated from the men by lattice barriers. [178]

 

In general, women were not given access to religious education.

 

Rabbi Eliezer (c. AD 90) said, “If a man gives his daughter a knowledge of the Law it is as though he taught her lechery.” [179]

 

Another rabbinical saying concurs: “Better to burn the Torah than to teach it to women.” [180]

 

These sayings do not represent all first-century rabbinical attitudes. [181] However, it is telling that in later years rabbinical schools were solely for boys.

 

In addition, women were not allowed to teach. A woman had no right to bear witness because, based on Genesis 18:15, she was thought to be a liar. [182]

 

Women were allowed to read in the synagogue, but by Jesus’ day were expected to refuse when asked.

 

Women were expected to respectfully submit to all men at all times, reflected in the often-repeated formula: “Women, slaves, and children,” which meant that like a non-Jewish slave and a child, a woman had a man over her who was her master. [183]

 

Not surprisingly, Jeremias concludes that “Judaism in Jesus’ time also had a very low opinion of women, which is usual in the Orient where she is chiefly valued for her fecundity, kept as far as possible shut away from the outer world, submissive to the power of her father or her husband, and where she is inferior to men from a religious point of view.” [184]

 

Ben Witherington offers an analysis that is somewhat mitigating of Jeremias’ rather dire conclusions. For instance, Witherington writes that in spite of limitations “it would be wrong to assume that a Jewish woman had no respect or rights in Jesus’ day. Jewish writings reiterate in various places the Old Testament rule that the mother is to be honored equally with the father.” [185]

 

Witherington notes that whereas a man had an obligation to care and provide for his wife, he had no such obligation with respect to his slaves. Therefore, Witherington concludes, the wife was not treated entirely as property. [186]

 

Witherington also notes that a certain spiritual significance was assigned to a woman’s presence or role in the home.

 

Here he quotes Rabbi Jacob as saying, “One who had no wife remains without good, and without a helper, and without joy, and without blessing, and without atonement.” [187]

 

Even more dramatic is the comment of Rabbi Phineas ben Hannah that a woman has an atoning force not inferior to the altar if as a wife she remains within the domestic seclusion of her family.

 

Witherington also reminds us that “the spiritual influence of the mother in the home is perhaps indicated by the fact that the rabbis considered a child a Jew only if his mother was a Jewess.” [188]

 

Conclusion

In the end, however, Witherington’s conclusions are not very far removed from those of Jeremias.

 

Witherington writes: “At least, in theory, a woman’s position and privileges in regard to the Jewish cult during and beyond New Testament times differed little from their status and rights in the Old Testament times with two important exceptions. First, the separation of women and men in the Temple and synagogue was introduced after Old Testament times, and secondly, perhaps women were not allowed to read Torah in the assembly by New Testament times.” [189]

 

In other words, life had become even more restricted for women by the time Jesus arrived. This generally low view of women in the first century will make Jesus’ teachings on women, and their indispensable role in his ministry all the more astounding.

 

As I will show, Jesus was a radical revolutionary with respect to how he viewed and treated women.

 

Hierarchists often quote Paul, but seldom quote Jesus because Jesus was no ally to the hierarchist’s viewpoint.

 

 

 

VOLUME ONE                         VOLUME FOURTEEN

 

 

FOOTNOTES

167. Sachiko Murata, “The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought,” (State University of New York Press, 1992), p. vii.

168. Joachim Jeremias, “Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus,” (Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1969), p. 359.

169. Ibid., p. 359.

170. Ibid., p. 360.

171. Ibid., p. 360.

172. Ibid., p. 363.

173. Ibid., p. 363.

174. Ibid., p. 363.

175. Ibid., p. 363.

176. Ibid., p. 364.

177. Ibid., p. 364.

178. Ibid., p. 374.

179. Ibid., p. 373.

180. Ibid., p. 373.

181. Ibid., p.374

182. Ibid.. p. 374.

183. Ibid., p. 375.

184. Ibid., p. 375.

185. Ben Witherington, “Women in the Ministry of Jesus,” (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p.4.

186. Ibid., p.4.

187. Ibid., p.6.

188. Ibid., p. 6.

189. Ibid., p. 8.