My wife Cindy has often commented that the pecking order within First Century Judaism was God, men, animals, plants, rocks and then women. While she was being somewhat facetious she was not far off of the mark. Jewish women living in Judea and Galilee were subjected to a much more patriarchal system than were their counterparts within the Roman Empire. Roman law allowed women to head households, sue for divorce, inherit property and goods, go about unveiled and to some extent even engage in extra-marital affairs, just as did men. Women could also hold leadership roles. One example is a woman named Junia Theodora who was one of the leaders of the Lycian Federation of cities (this federation included Corinth). Her role was critical in securing peace and trade agreements. In Egypt the nation could even have a female Pharaoh such as Cleopatra (who interestingly enough was Greek). Thus the wider Roman world was relatively accepting of women as virtual equals of men.
First century Judaism offered no such parity. Women were considered to be property, first belonging to their fathers and then to their husbands. They had no rights of divorce and within Judea and Galilee no real right of inheritance (this was not often the case within Jewish communities in the Roman world where women had more rights). Women were considered to be inferior to men and were even considered to be the root of evil by many Jewish scholars. Because of this position they were not allowed to testify in court, go out of the home without their husband's permission, were to be veiled at all times out of the home and were considered to be ritually unclean during and after menstruation and childbirth, and could not talk to strangers. Women's lives were difficult and demeaning.
It was into this cultural milieu that Jesus began his ministry. Jesus, as a Jew reared in Galilee would have been very familiar with the rules and regulations concerning women. As a rabbi he was called upon not only to uphold these rules in his ministry but to encourage others to do so as well. Jesus did neither of those things and in fact offered a radically different view of women and their place in God's kingdom. Jesus ignored ritual purity laws. When he was touched by the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years (Mark 5:25-34) he not only did not chastise her but healed her with words of love…and then he ignored all the requirements for cleansing himself. Jesus spoke with foreign women (John 4:7ff; Matthew 15:22-28), recognizing their humanity even when no one else would. Jesus taught women students. In the famous Mary and Martha story (Luke 10:38-42) he allowed Mary to sit at his feet and learn (most other rabbis would have rather burned the Torah than have allowed a woman to learn). Jesus accepted women into his inner circle (Luke 8:1-3), told as many stories about women as about men and even used the unprecedented language of "daughter of Abraham" (Luke 13:16).
These brief references make it clear that Jesus' attitude toward women was not only very different from his contemporaries but was a radical departure from the Jewish norm in which he was reared. The question becomes then why would Jesus take such a different approach to women than what was considered the norm in First Century Judaism? While I have not asked Jesus directly I would offer a possible answer. As was discussed in a much earlier edition of this series, Jesus could have been drawing on the first, rather than the second creation story. In the first creation story (Genesis 1) God created men and women at the same time and God created them both in the image of God. Women were not inferior to men, but were co-equal. Thus Jesus pointed his followers back to God's original intent for men and women at creation. That being the case, Jesus was simply fulfilling his mission of "proclaiming release to the captives" (Luke 4:18b) by freeing women from their cultural bondage and into their rightful place in the Kingdom of God when he engaged women as equals.
The challenge for us is to ensure that Jesus' attitude toward women is one that guides all of our work and witness as Everybody's Church.
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