The Status and Role of Women in Jesus' and Paul's Ministry

[Mystic]

(3) HOW THE RISEN JESUS DEALS WITH THE STEREOTYPE THAT FEMALE TESSTIMONY LACKS CREDIBILITY LEGALLY OR OTHERWISE:

Female testimony lacked credibility, and so, except for the rarest instance, Jewish women were not allowed to bear witness in a legal sense (Mishnah Shabbath 4:1). Not surprisingly, then, the testimony of Jesus' female disciples to Jesus' resurrection initially had no credibility: "But these words seemed to them (the male apostles) an idle tale, and they did not believe them (Luke 24:11)." But the apostles soon learned that the women were right. The very fact that the risen Jesus chose to initially appear to His female disciples serves as His eloquent statement on the credibility of female witness.

 

[Luce NDs]

Oh yes, Martha desperately needs exposure to the new liberated woman that Jesus champions.
The rabbinic dictum to avoid teaching women and to speak to them as little as possible does not apply for Jesus. Jesus primarily agrees to be her guest not for dinner, but to disciple. Mary gets this and Martha does not.

But Martha learns what it means for the Son of God to be a unique teacher and healer; and so, it is Martha, not Mary, who races outside to greet Jesus and express her faith in His power after her brother dies and before Jesus raises him from the dead (John 11:20-27).

Thus someone is on the lamb ... BM erse?

 

[Northwind]

 

[Mystic]

You just illustrated the urgent need for this thread.

 

[Northwind]

You just illustrated the urgent need for this thread.

And you haven't answered the question I asked a couple times. I demonstrated the need for an answer.

 

[Jaebius]

Oh yes, Martha desperately needs exposure to the new liberated woman that Jesus champions.
The rabbinic dictum to avoid teaching women and to speak to them as little as possible does not apply for Jesus. Jesus primarily agrees to be her guest not for dinner, but to disciple. Mary gets this and Martha does not.

But Martha learns what it means for the Son of God to be a unique teacher and healer; and so, it is Martha, not Mary, who races outside to greet Jesus and express her faith in His power after her brother dies and before Jesus raises him from the dead (John 11:20-27).

Martha and Mary are interesting folks. Let's try to learn something from their different experiences with Jesus. It's obvious that Jesus changed things, since he treated women as disciples, which was very rare back then. Isn't it cool that both Martha and Mary became his friends?

I find Martha pretty relatable. Her desire to serve is real. I like how she grows as a person. In John 11, as you said, she shows her faith by saying Jesus is the Messiah. That really shows how Jesus patiently changes each of us when the time is right.

This story tells us that following Christ means allowing him to change us little by little

 

[BetteTheRed]

Please be careful that this thread does not tend to the anti-Semitic; I found the opening post and some subsequent comments a bit prone to that.

And I think that the story of Mary and Martha really tends to a huge range of reactions and significance. Not sure I'd use it as any kind of testament to women's rights in the new testament. Magdelene's relationship to Jesus might be more interesting.

 

[Mystic]

Please be careful that this thread does not tend to the anti-Semitic; I found the opening post and some subsequent comments a bit prone to that.

In the USA we don't ignore the support of 19th century white men for their practice of slavery.
And Jesus' and Paul's revolutionary embrace of positive female roles and identity can't be adequately appreciated apart from an expose of the barbaric attitudes of the Judaism of late antiquity towards women. No one is using this information to cast aspersions on modern Jews.

And I think that the story of Mary and Martha really tends to a huge range of reactions and significance. Not sure I'd use it as any kind of testament to women's rights in the new testament. Magdelene's relationship to Jesus might be more interesting.

The story of Mary and Martha is usually the first story feminists point to as a demonstration of Jesus' positive valuation of women's intellectual and spiritual potential.

 

[BetteTheRed]

Berserk, you are not the only Christian who slaps a modern gendered view on the Hebrew scriptures and religion without a deep understanding of the evolution of Judaism as a religion and a culture. I ask you to tread carefully.

 

[Mystic]

Berserk, you are not the only Christian who slaps a modern gendered view on the Hebrew scriptures and religion without a deep understanding of the evolution of Judaism as a religion and a culture. I ask you to tread carefully.

So Bette will now identify at least one modern scholar, Jewish or Gentile, who has a more male friendly interpretation of those Jewish texts of terror for women, texts that speak for themselves!

 

[BetteTheRed]

I would refer you to Amy-Jill Levine, maybe, if you could actually translate this phrase into English for me:

So Bette will now identify at least one modern scholar, Jewish or Gentile, who has a more male friendly interpretation of those Jewish texts of terror for women, texts that speak for themselves

There's lots of modern interpretations of Talmud, but what you are actually asking in this statement above is either confusing or meaningless.

 

[BetteTheRed]

Unless someone else finds it clearer?

 

[Mystic]

I would refer you to Amy-Jill Levine, maybe, if you could actually translate this phrase into English for me:



There's lots of modern interpretations of Talmud, but what you are actually asking in this statement above is either confusing or meaningless.

First, you don't even know the rabbinic literature cited, which includes much more than the Tamud.
Second, the points I make are self-evident and explicit, with no need of interpretation.
Third, your ignorance of a source that refutes what I say merely confirms that you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[BetteTheRed]

First, you don't even know the rabbinic literature cited, which includes much more than the Tamud.
Second, the points I make are self-evident and explicit, with no need of interpretation.
Third, your ignorance of a source that refutes what I say merely confirms that you don't know what you're talking about.

Berserk, you are not Jewish. You are not a rabbi, nor a Jewish scholar of any sort. You may have some credentials, they are not Jewish.

Your posts often convey an anti-Semitic bias.

Your very conclusions are anti-Semitic. I'm just going to report them as such and cease engaging with you.

 

[Mystic]

(4) For 12 years, the woman with "the flow of blood, " whe ther mentrual or otherwise, had been ritually unclean (Leviticus 15:19-30).

Berserk, you are not Jewish. You are not a rabbi, nor a Jewish scholar of any sort. You may have some credentials, they are not Jewish.

uh, I have a doctorate in New Testament and Intertestamental Judaism from Harvard. So I am at least as qualified as a rabbi and far more qualified than you.l

Your posts often convey an anti-Semitic bias.

You will say practically anything to avoid providing alterative interpretations to the obvious ones I provide. btw, these interpretations are not my own, but are the standard interpretations of scholarly works on Judaism like Leonard Swidler's "Biblical Affirmations of Women."

 

[Northwind]

Silly Bette. Presuming to know more than the great Berserk. What ever were you thinking??

 

[BetteTheRed]

Nothing

 

[Mystic]

Silly Bette. Presuming to know more than the great Berserk. What ever were you thinking??

Uh, she challenged my academic qualifications and offered no alternative interpretations. None of the ideas expressed here are my own. They are gleaned from the scholarly literature on the role and status of women in the Judaism of late antiquity. The Jewish sources for each point are enclosed in parentheses. I even started a university level course on Women and Religion that continued after my retirement.

Still, I encourage alternative views on each Gospel text cited. But that at least requires Bette to season her penchant for bluster with at least a modicum of intellectual rigor that transcends the false accusation that I'm anti-Semitic. I wouldn't have spent 10 years at Harvard studying under some of the top scholars of Judaism in the world if I were anti-Semitic. And I repeat: nothing I've said on this thread applies to modern Judaism.

 

[BetteTheRed]

The whole O/P reeks of anti-Jewish sentiment. This is what they believed: 3-4 cherry picked very academic looking verses from Jewish sources. And this is how Jesus and Paul talked to them, 2000 years ago, that WAS BETTER!!!!

Okay. And so what.

Obviously, nothing that the Jewish men said, 2000+ years ago, nor the Christian men, nor the Muslim men, nor any of the men who have concluded that might is right, right is money and the most money is the ultimate penis.

 

[Mystic]

(4) THE LIBERATING BUT AWKWARD HEALING OF A WOMAN WITH A CHRONIC BLOOD FLOW PROBLEM (mark 5:25-34):

25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 28 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 3“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

This woman doesn't dare approach Jesus to request healing because she recognizes that according to the Law of Moses she makes anyone and anything she touches ritually unclean (so Leviticus 15:19-30). To stay out of trouble, in her desperation she sneaks up behind Jesus, reasoning that an unnoticed touch of His robe would heal her. It works, but Jesus' blows her cover and embarrasses her by making her healing public. But Jesus praises her for taking the risk of a healing faith. In so doing, Jesus implicitly rejects the levitical law on feminine bleeding that so oppresses women and damages their self-esteem.