Women in the New Testament

Bible Study 2

Women in the New Testament

Ann Wansbrough

Discussion 1: What are the ways patriarchy would describe the following people?

*priest *widow

*young woman *male Christians

*barren woman *female Christians

*pharisee/doctor of religion *male witness

*woman of bad name *female witness

What are the stereotypes of these people which contribute to the power of men over women? (Note: The question is not about what you think or what the Bible says – it is about the ideas of patriarchy in the church or in society.)

One of the reasons women face oppression in the church is hat men, and many women, misuse the Bible in dealing with the role of women. Some of the ways the Bible is misused are:

* using the Bible as a blueprint for life today;

* treating individual verses as if they contain absolute truth;

* interpreting biblical teaching which tried to apply the gospel to the social, political and economic circumstances of the writer's own day as if it applied to all times, places and situations;

* taking verses out of their literary and theological context'

* giving priority to teaching about behaviour over teaching about salvation, instead of understanding behaviour as something which flows from salvation; and

* substituting law for grace.

I suggest an alternative method which has two major components. The first is the hermeneutic circle, which looks at the Bible through questions raised by the reality of injustice in our own day, and which challenges both ideology and biblical interpretation. The second is to reverse the above process:

* using the Bible as a source of vision rather than detailed precepts;

* looking at individual verses in their context – their paragraph, the document of which they are part, and the whole Bible;

* recognising that while our vision needs to be inspired by the biblical vision – and by the Holy Spirit – we need to reinterpret what that means in practical terms today in the light of the social, political and economic realities of today;

* we need to give grace precedence over law, justice precedence over ideas such as obedience; and

* recognising that individual verses and ideas derive their meaning from the whole. The Bible is revelation (it enables us to understand God), not a lot of separate individual revelations in every sentence or verse.

1. Reality

I do not need to say much about the reality of injustice which women suffer. We know that women have been excluded from power in both church and society. We know that women's gifts and abilities and insights have been largely ignored. We know that millions upon millions of women in Asia and Africa and Latin America struggle for survival against a global economic system which does not allow them food, or shelter, or medicine, or any human rights, whether economic, political, social or cultural. We know that in many countries, women and girls experience physical and sexual violence in various forms and find the family home a place of horror rather than love.

2. Ideological Suspicion and

3. Critique of the Ideological Superstructure

We know the ideology which supports these situations is wrong. We know it in our hearts, and we know it from the analyses we have done of our national situations. We know that however it is dressed up in our particular nation, patriarchy deprives women of life, and that all the rationalisation in the world will not make the injustice done to women into justice.

We can simply summarise the relevant ideology by saying that in patriarchy, women are treated as ignorant, disloyal, unfaithful, indecisive, submissive, in need of direction by others, unable to think, unwilling to think, unperceptive, passive, interesting only for their bodies, unspiritual and so on. The same ideology treats men as knowledgeable, responsible, loyal, able and willing to think, Perceptive, spiritual, etc.

4. Exegetical Suspicion

I also do not need to remind you of the Bible passages which have been used to keep women subordinate and deprive them of power in the church. When women have been deprived of the right to leadership in the church, the church has also supported society in depriving women of their human rights.

We all know that there are passages in the New Testament which are used as weapons against us. And we know that they are being misused. So I will move to the examination of passages which might offer us some hope.

I could simply give you a list of women in the New Testament and the range of things which they did in the early church. This would be helpful, but it is something you can do for yourselves – all you need to do is sit down with a New Testament and a pen and mark every passage which refers to women.

That would remind us that women exist in the Bible and were part of the life of Jesus and the early church, but it would not provide us with theological tools for analysis of male theology. It would not, by itself, contribute to change. What we need is a reconstruction of New Testament theology.

So I will look at women in Luke's gospel, and the way Luke sees the gospel as having special significance for women. I will focus on four passages – Luke 1: 26-56, Luke 7:36-50, Luke 20:45 - 21:4, and Luke 23:49 and 24:1-2.

Each of these passages talks about men, as well as women and we will need to note very carefully what it says about men. The problem of patriarchy is not simply that it denigrates women

– it also makes assumptions about men. If the gospel is to effectively challenge patriarchy, it will need to challenge the way patriarchy views men as well as the way it views women. Reconstruction of New Testament theology involves a reconstruction of what theology says about men as well as women. If theology in the past has ignored many of the positive things said about women in the New Testament, it has also ignored many of the negative things said about men. patriarchy is based on an idealised understanding of men which is totally inconsistent with scripture.

Luke often refers to women. He seems to have a policy of providing parallel stories which involve men and women. Luke 1 includes two annunciations – Gabriel appears first to Zechariah, and then to Mary. In Luke 2, at the temple, Simeon and Anna both recognise the Christ child. In Luke 4, a man is healed, and then Simon Peter's mother-in-law is healed. In Luke 7, the servant of the centurion is healed, then the son of the widow of Nain is restored to life. In Luke 8, Luke describes the women disciples who travelled with Jesus, in the same way as men did, and who provided for Jesus out of their own resources – Jesus' ministry depended on the economic resources of women! In Luke 8 also, the healing of the Gerasene demoniac is followed by the healing of the woman with a haemorrhage, and the raising to life of Jairus' daughter. In Luke 10, the teaching of the lawyer through the story of the Good Samaritan is followed by the story about Martha and Mary, which clearly shows Jesus approved of women being disciples and not simply being concerned about the household needs.

In chapter 15, one of the parables about God's mercy uses the image of a woman. In Luke 16:18, the teaching about divorce ^n be taken as a challenge to the attitude of Jewish men that they are entitled to divorce their wives for little or no reason. In Luke 21:1-4, the widow who gave her tiny coin stands as a unique example of commitment to God.

"Three Wise Women" Courtesy: Hilda Bernstein

Discussion 2: Read Luke 1:15-25 and 26-46.

Summarise the main things that happen. How does this story challenge the stereotype of priest, barren woman and young woman?

The four passages I have chosen share a common theme in each of them, women and men are contrasted, and it is the women who are commended for their insight, their faithfulness, their discipleship.

In Luke 1, Gabriel appears first to Zechariah. Here is the epitome of the male religious leader. Here is a priest who can enter the holy of holies in the temple, a place forbidden to most men and all women. And what does he do when God offers him a vision which should have fulfilled all his hopes and dreams – the thought that God would give him a son leaves him dumbfounded. He is unable to speak! He has no response of faith until the son is born

Luke surely intended us to laugh as we read this story and the one which immediately follows – the visit of Gabriel to Mary. Often this story has been interpreted according to patriarchal ideas about what women should be like – Mary is depicted as demure, obedient, submissive. But this is an inadequate interpretation of the story.

Whereas Zechariah gives in to his turmoil with the demand that Gabriel "Prove it," Mary says: "Don't flatter me! Explain what you mean." Zechariah cannot believe Mary has a thinking faith which is open to the message, in spite of the emotional turmoil which it causes. When Gabriel tells her what will happen, she again asks for explanation – how can this be? In the end Gabriel has to simply tell Zechariah what will happen, as if he has no will to make his own decision, whereas Mary makes a deliberate decision to cooperate in God's plan. She is obedient – but it is no mindless obedience. It is active faith. It is faith which leads to insight and to prophecy, while the priest is dumb!

The two stories are told in a very similar way. There can be no doubt that Luke intended us to compare them and to see Mary as a woman of strong faith while Zechariah is said to lack faith. Luke wanted us to laugh – the comparison is so clearly against all the stereotypes about women and men. In the days of Jesus, women were generally forbidden to study the Jewish scriptures because they were thought to be incapable of understanding.

This interpretation is reinforced by the next incident in Luke 1 – Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. In Mary we have a believing woman, a decisive woman, an active woman. And her belief and decision and action are rewarded.

Mary is rewarded by Elizabeth's recognition that she is a woman of faith. Here Luke must have had a double laugh Zechariah could not make sense of what Gabriel said, but his wife is more perceptive than he. Elizabeth has neither entrance to the holy of holies nor the visitation of an angel. All she has is the wonder

of her own unexpected pregnancy and the visit of her woman cousin. Yet she realises what is happening. Her response to her own pregnancy was recognition of God's action (1:25). Now she recognises what God is doing through Mary: "Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?" The two women share their insights – they are both women of awareness and of understanding faith, not blind faith.

However, Luke has not finished yet. He goes on to provide a psalm which summarises the work of Christ as it is described in his gospel – the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. But the song is not merely a literary device. Luke is saying that what this psalm says will happen is actually happening in this story and in the very saying of this psalm.

The Magnificat proclaims that God is fulfilling God's promise and helping Israel (1:54-55). It celebrates the fact that God is using a woman in this great event. The central idea of the psalm is that God is reversing the world order – "He has shown the power of his arm, he has routed the proud of heart. He has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things, the rich sent empty away."

Surely this psalm is a commentary on the priesthood which excluded women. Surely Luke intends that we see that the priest Zechariah has been "routed" by his own lack of faith, in spite of his rich opportunities for special religious experience, while the women have been exalted by their hunger for God, which has even survived oppressiveness and exclusion by patriarchy and hierarchy.

Luke is saying to us in chapter 1 that the very things this psalm is talking about actually happened! And we can never look at women and men in the same way again! God has changed human relationships!

Luke 1:54-55 refers to the promise to Abraham. This promise is presumably Genesis 12:3 – that through Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed. In the transformation of human relationships, in the shattering of patriarchal power, the families of the earth are blessed. This will become particularly evident in the final section of this study.

The theme continues in Luke 2, where it is Mary who ponders what is happening. Joseph is left in the shadows. The reversal is also shown in chapter 2 by the story of the shepherds – the outcasts of the religious establishment (because they could not keep the laws of ritual purification) – they are the people to whom the angels appear and who are the first people outside the family to know what has happened. We could trace this theme of reversal through the gospel to show how other excluded groups are included in the kingdom and active in what God is doing in Christ. For Luke, salvation is a cooperative affair of God and human beings.

We must note that the reversal envisaged by the Magnificat is all encompassing – it is not only about women. Luke's gospel contains very strong teaching about rich and poor, wealth and poverty. Mary's song is as economically and politically radical as it is socially radical. If it offers hope to all women, it offers special hope to women who are poor and to women who are oppressed politically.

Discussion 3: Read Luke 7:36-50.

Summarise the main event of the story. How does this story challenge the stereotypes of pharisee/doctor of religion and woman of bad name?

In Luke 7:36-50, he contrasts saint and sinner, man and woman, pharisee and woman of bad name. Who will show hospitality? Who will show understanding? Who will recognise the Christ? Who will be open to the forgiveness of God?

The pharisees studied the law and tried to live it. They rejoiced in the law, recognising in it a gift rather than a burden. In the time of Jesus there were a number of religious parties who had different understandings of Judaism. Zechariah probably belonged to the sadducees, the priestly party, who relied on the biblical tradition of law. The pharisees were a rival group who elaborated the biblical tradition with a whole lot of other laws and regulations and customs. They tried to find every way in which a law could be broken and provided a way of avoiding that and keeping the law. They developed a complex set of written commentaries on the scriptures. They prided themselves on their faithfulness and their legal rectitude and found great joy in their study and debate about what is right. They rightly saw the law as a gift from God to be rejoiced in, but wrongly turned it into a burden for people who were different from themselves.

It appears that few pharisees thought it appropriate that women study scripture, although we know of one or two who did let their daughters study. In other words, righteousness and thinking about righteousness were for men, not women. Not even pious women were thought capable. We can imagine what they thought of a woman "who had a bad name." What could she possibly know or understand?

Luke's story is therefore either shocking or hilarious – no doubt, how you respond to this story depends on your own attitudes to people.

The pharisee man invited Jesus to his home – but offered him none of the customary care when he arrived. The pharisee man studied God's word, but could not recognise God's promised saviour. The pharisee man studied the law and knew its pitfalls, but could neither receive nor offer the forgiveness which is essential if la\v is to be part of the gift of life rather than death.

The woman has a bad reputation, but honours the Christ. She knows not the complex customs of the pharisees, but she offers care

and love and hospitality. The woman has been excluded from study of the religious tradition – but has faith in the one whom God has sent in fulfillment of the promises found in that tradition. The woman does not know the law, but she is able to love and to be loved. The woman cannot define righteousness, but she is able to desire forgiveness and receive it when offered.

Again, stereotypes are shattered. The stereotype of righteous and unrighteous. The stereotype of who knows and who does not. The stereotype of who welcomes God when God enters into human life. The outcasts are not to be considered outcasts in the Christian church, not because of their reputation, and not because they are women.

Again, women are celebrated as people of faith, insight, decision and action.

Again, the world order has been reversed.

Discussion 4: Read Luke 21:1-4. What does this story appear to be about? What stereotypes does it challenge?

Read Luke 20 :45 - 21:4. How does the point of the story change when it is enlarged in this way? How does it challenge the stereotypes now?

The widow who gave all that she had is perhaps one of the best known stories of women in the New Testament. This woman is entitled to honour as a woman of outstanding faith, who placed her whole future in the hands of God. Unfortunately, too often, this story has become part of the rationale that the role of women in the church is to raise money for the church so that male committees can decide what to do with it. We should honour the women who have sacrificially given time and energy to the church to ensure that it has a solid financial foundation. We should celebrate them – and we should challenge male hierarchies which think that they are

entitled to take the money women raise and to dispose of n without the women having any role in the decision-making.

However, this story is not an exhortation to sacrificial giving It needs to be read in the context of the verses which immediately precede it (20:45-47) and in the light of what we know is Luke's basic theme – that in Christ, the world order is reversed.

Whereas in Luke 7, the pharisees were unfavourably contrasted with women, here a related group, the scribes, are contrasted.

The scribes (or doctors of religion/law), like the pharisees, studied the law and prided themselves on their knowledge. But according to Luke, Jesus is not impressed. The scribes are found inadequate to be role models of religious faith because:

* they are "show offs" – they wear religious garments in public to impress people with their religiosity;

* they use their religion for their own ends – as a means of obtaining religious and social status and privilege;

* they are hypocrites – they study the law, but do not follow one of its most basic teachings, which is to ensure justice for widows and orphans. Instead they "swallow up the property of widows." Many of the scribes and pharisees were well off – after all, if you are struggling for survival it is hard to spend your life in religious activity and study. They are accused of gaining that wealth by injustice. Luke surely intends us to think of Old Testament passages like Isaiah 1, 5 and 58, all of which see true worship and true religion as being linked to justice and care of the widows and orphans.

So when Luke describes the rich people who put their large offerings into the treasury and the poor widow who only had a mite

to give, we must link this to the attack on the scribes – why was this widow so poor? Who had swallowed up her property?

It seems to me that what Luke is saying here is: see the contrast between the false religion of the wealthy male scribes and, the true religion of this poor woman. Look at this woman, not the learned men, if you want to understand what faith is about. Look at the men and learn what faith and religion are not. Don't assume that wealth is a sign of God's blessing. Don't assume that apparent generosity is a sign of true piety. Look beyond the immediate and understand where people stand in the social and economic and religious structures before you decide who they are or what they are doing or what their motives are.

In Luke 23:49, 55-56 and 24:1-11, we read about the men and women who watch the crucifixion. A man arranges and carries out the burial, while women look on. But it is the women who are the first witnesses to the resurrection and who withstand the terror of that strange, yet amazing moment of discovery.

To understand this story, we need to set aside the Easter hymns which celebrate the resurrection with such joy and energy. One of the remarkable things that emerge from all the gospels when you do this, is that the first witnesses to the resurrection did not feel joy - they felt terror. The empty tomb was a terrifying experience. And it is the women whom God trusted to face this terror and become witnesses to the resurrection.

Of course these women have withstood some hard experiences already. They have travelled with the Son of Man who has nowhere to lay his head. They have stood near the cross, unable to disown their friend even though religious Jews and military Romans have both condemned him. They have come to a tomb to anoint a body. They are strong women who do not give up easily. They are women who love the Christ who has given them the dignity which is essential if human beings are to be fully alive.

The women come to the dismal tomb carrying not only the spices and ointments but also the burden of their grief for their friend who has died a horrifying death and their hopes of a new way which have been buried with him. They think they know what to expect and what to do. A stone to be rolled away, a tomb to be entered a body, dead for two days, to be anointed.

Jesus on the Cross (India) Courtesy: CCM New

And none of it happens as they expect. They find the stone rolled away. They could have felt doubt about whether this was the tomb, or what was going on, or who might be lurking in the tomb. (Roman soldiers perhaps). But they simply get on with the job, until they find there is no job to do because there is no body. And because these women are there, the right people at the right place at the right time, living out their love and loyalty as human beings, they are the first to hear the good news and to remember. The women, who have no access to study, remember. They have learned, and they have understood. They go to tell the others – the men.

But the men cannot believe the women as witnesses. They, hang on to their grief. They stay away from the tomb. They fail to remember. They fail to understand what they have been taught

and what they have experienced. "These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." The apostles are like Zechariah and the pharisees and the scribes – slow to learn, slow to understand, slow to have insight.

Most modem translations omit verse 12, which says that one man, Peter, is willing to test what they have said. The footnotes tell us that this verse has been added in some manuscripts. It appears that those who copied the earliest manuscripts could not cope with the shattering nature of this story. That is, the earliest testimony is that none of the men believed. (However, if we accept verse 12, Peter is, perhaps, a sign of hope – a sign that men can be open to the witness and ministry of women and can thereby share in the new world order.)

The resurrection is the offer of new life to the world, to men and to women. To share in that life requires that men set aside their patriarchal assumptions and stereotypes. Luke challenges religious tradition and assumption, but he is not only concerned about religious institutions. Rather Luke is telling us that in Jesus Christ the whole world has been changed. If we believe the gospel he proclaims, then all our relationships and values will be different.

5. The New Hermeneutic

This gospel calls us to give up stereotypes of women as submissive, passive, inferior, unthinking, indecisive, lacking in faith or faithfulness or loyalty or commitment. It calls us to give up stereotypes of men as necessarily authoritative, active, superior, thinking, decisive, faithful, loyal and committed. It recognises that women can be thinking, decisive, active, faithful, insightful, inspired, loyal and committed. So can men, but for Luke the men most likely to be faithful are the men who are outcasts – shepherds, lepers, Samaritans. In Christ, men and women can stop imposing stereotypes on one another and stop relating to one another in terms of those stereotypes. We can all be open to the Spirit who enables us to become people of mature faith, thought and action, and who can encounter one another in mutual respect.

Discussion 5: Where do you see transformation and new life in your society today? There are two ways you might tackle this: Either take one of the above four stories and retell it in "modem dress"; i.e. tell it as a story related to women and men in your country. You may like to do this with each of the stories. Or you may like to tell stories which have actually happened which are similar to the events in the stories from Luke.

6. Reality and Action

How does this hermeneutical principle address the reality with which women and men live in the real world?

Obviously this hermeneutic challenges the churches. It exposes patriarchy and hierarchy as ridiculous and as rebellion against the redemption Christ offers this world. It is beyond belie¦ that men can sing the Magnificat in the liturgy Sunday by Sunday and continue with patriarchy an<j hierarchy. As they sing, the} foretell their own doom.

If we believe this gospel, then church structures must change But this gospel is not simply a latter of church structures. It is for many women, a matter of life or death in their experience of the family.

As I was finishing the section on the resurrection, I was interrupted by a colleague who wanted to show me a document called "A Pastoral Report to the Churches on Sexual Assault Against Women and Children of the Church Community."* Let me quote some of that report, which deals with sexual assault in Australia. In Australia sexual assault in the home, against both women and children, is a significant problem.

_______________

* CASA House, Centre Against Sexual Assault, Royal Women's Hospital Melbourne, Australia. Prepared m collaboration with the Women, Church and Sexual Violence Project Advisory Group with representative from the Uniting Church in Australia, the Catholic Church, Church of Christ and Salvation Army.

Sexual assault against women and children "cannot be put down to a single tidy 'cause' or readily isolated in one set of practices, beliefs or institutions."

"It is evident, however, that a framework reinforcing this massive social problem can be identified in our common life. This framework is sexism."

7. Ideological Suspicion and Ideological Critique

"Sexism is a belief system which presumes and creates for men inherent male superiority, privilege and power. It presupposes therefore female inferiority and submission..."

"Sexism results from cultural conditioning that allocates certain social tasks and roles to men and other tasks and roles to women. Where these 'male' tasks/roles are seen to be of greater value, male dominance can also be seen controlling social, economic, legal, political and ideological institutions and practices."

"For example, looking at the issue as an economic one, on average, women still earn only 66% of the male wage. Women are concentrated in the worst and lowest paid jobs... Despite the fact that women constitute 51 % of the population, women have not been a significant part of the political process."

"To address sexual violence, we must critically examine the politics and economics of institutions and structures (including the church) for the ways in which they impede equality between women and men."

"Included in sexism is the unhealthy belief that male sexuality bestows powers over and above women's sexuality. Male sexuality is both presented and experienced in our culture as something possessive, aggressive, hostile, harsh, violent and controlling with a devaluing of tenderness, gentleness, mutuality and respect..."

8. Exegetical Suspicion – A New Hermeneutic

The report continues:

"Sexual and family violence is a product of sexism and its negative consequences in our society. It is the most common form of violence in our society and the root cause of most of the physical and emotional pain experienced by our women and children. And the church has been equally guilty of spiritual violence. It has both created and endorsed sexist systems, structures and teachings which devalue women, which consequently trivialise violence to women and ignore the spiritual impact of violence. Through silence and neglect it condones the behaviour of the perpetrator. It is this spiritual violence that the church must confront!"

"Therefore it rests inevitably with us, as individuals and members of church communities and institutions, to take up an appropriate response by changing our personal values, beliefs and behaviour that are rooted so deeply in sexism. Both personal and collective change is necessary if we; are to work towards the elimination of sexual violence in our church and in our society at larger (PP 14-16).

The report goes on to point out that the church is the main perpetrator of the model family in which the man is seen as the head, and the woman and children as subordinate and inferior. The church has condoned and encouraged the very power relationships which violate women and children and family relationships.

So we need to heed Luke, the iconoclast -- banish stereotypes of women and men, and develop relationships in family and community in which respect for persons is paramount. Christ invites us all into the community of mutual respect which his birth, life, death and resurrection have made possible. Women belong here as equals, not subordinates. They belong as people who are respected1 and valued. Their insight and dynamism need to be valued. Men belong in the kingdom not as superiors, but as people who are often

weak and inadequate and who are nevertheless loved by God and offered new life. There is no room in Christ's realm for the man-woman power relationships so beloved of patriarchy.

9. Action/Reality

A Church which believes this gospel will work against man's power over women and children in the home, and against the violence which too often is the expression of that power.

Discussion 6:

What would the church do in your society if it really believed this gospel?