Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Today we are taking a look at Deborah, who was a prophetess and judge during the time between the Jewish people moving into the Promised Land and their first king. She acted as an arbitrator who settled disputes, but also as a conduit through whom God addressed the barely organized tribes as they sought to become a unified people while constantly threatened by their geographical neighbors.
Deborah was one of two women who led strong in this story of the defeat of an enemy’s General. This is quite remarkable given the historical context. Women were short on rights and shorter on power, and yet she was instrumental in defending her people’s land and providing justice.
To help us get a feel for what this life might have been like, we welcome to the stage Allison Haley, Napa’s District Attorney who will share her story and the challenges she has faced as she has risen to her role of serving toward justice right here.
Notes to Nerd Out On…
From The New Interpreters Bible Commentary (Dennis T. Olson):
Commentary
Judges 4 is a narrative account of a coalition of three judge-like figures who save Israel only through the combination of unique contributions that each person makes. Deborah is a prophet and a judge in the sense of arbitrator. She brings God’s word to fight the Canaanites and accompanies the Israelite warriors into battle with words of encouragement and guidance. Barak is the general of Israel’s army who leads the victory against the Canaanites but fails to kill his Canaanite counterpart, the general Sisera. Jael is not an Israelite but a Kenite who invites Sisera, the Canaanite general, into her tent and then proceeds to kill him. All three contribute to saving Israel, but none of them can lay sole claim to the title of “judge” in this period. This shifting and inconclusive identity of the major judge in this story will contribute to a sense of suspense within the narrative plot as well as the theological significance of the story.
4:1–3. The cycle of events in this chapter begins in the same way the earlier judge paradigm had established (2:11–19) and the previous model of Othniel had confirmed (3:7–11). “After Ehud died,” Israel “again” begins to do evil in God’s sight (v. 1). The death of the previous judge Ehud leaves a vacuum into which Israel slips in disobedience to God. The next step is also expected: God sells Israel into the hand of an enemy, King Jabin of Canaan. The Canaanites are the fourth set of enemies Israel has faced in this first phase of the judges period. With the judge Othniel, the enemy had come from some distance in the far north and east in Mesopotamia. With Ehud, the enemy had been a closer neighbor to the east, Moab. Shamgar fought against the Philistines, Israel’s close neighbor to the west. Now for the first time Israel faces a more internal enemy, King Jabin of Canaan, who is said to reign in the far north of Canaan at Hazor (v. 2). Many interpreters believe this King Jabin may be related in some way to the “King Jabin of Hazor” who led a coalition of Canaanite kings against Joshua and Israel as reported in Joshua 11. Joshua successfully conquered the coalition, and Josh 11:10 notes that Joshua “took Hazor, and struck its king down with the sword.” Is this the same Jabin, or is “Jabin” a common royal name among Canaanite rulers? Some scholars suggest that Judges 4–5 is a retelling of the same event as recorded in Joshua 11 with some changes. Others suggest that the name of Jabin has been imported into the present text of Judges 4, since Jabin plays no active role in the story itself and is never mentioned in the song in Judges 5. The mention of “the kings of Canaan” in 5:19 may have occasioned the link with the account in Joshua 11. In any case, King Jabin remains a shadowy figure in the background to Judges 4; general Sisera is the one Canaanite who grabs the spotlight and generates any narrative interest in the story.
As we would expect, the next step in the cycle of events is Israel’s cry to God for help (v. 3). However, a note is added that the Canaanite commander “had nine hundred chariots of iron.” The mention of iron provides a glimpse into the major cultural shift in technology occurring in the ancient Near East at this time from the earlier Bronze Age to the early phase of the Iron Age (1200–1000 bce). The Canaanites were the more established, powerful, and richer culture in comparison to the Israelites. Thus the Canaanites had access to the most recent military technology, which they used to maintain their power and “cruelly” oppress the Israelites. The Canaanite oppression lasted a total of twenty years, slightly longer than the eighteen years before Ehud and the eight years before Othniel (3:8, 14).
4:4–11. In the previous judge stories, Israel’s cry of distress had immediately caused God to raise up a judge to save Israel (3:9, 15). Thus we expect the next person named to be the judge who will lead Israel’s army against the enemy. That person is Deborah, a woman described as a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth (or alternatively “woman of torches”), and who was “judging” Israel. The Hebrew word “judge” (שׁפט šōpēṭ) can have the sense either of ruler and military commander (as in the preceding judge stories) or arbitrator of disputes (as in the story of Moses in Exod 18:13–16). Deborah fulfills the latter sense of judging as she sits “under the palm of Deborah” in the hill country of Ephraim and the Israelites come to her for judgment in disputes (v. 5).
As the reader wonders whether Deborah is, indeed, the expected judge or deliverer sent to lead Israel into battle against the Canaanites, the narrative introduces a second possible candidate. His name is Barak. Deborah delivers an oracle from the Lord to Barak, commanding him to take ten thousand warriors from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun to fight the Canaanites. God promises to “draw out” the Canaanite commander Sisera with his chariots and troops, “and I will give him into your hand” (v. 7). The vocabulary of God’s giving the enemy “into your hand” echoes similar words used for the preceding judges (3:10, 28). We now expect Barak to step immediately into the shoes of previous judges, bravely leading Israel against Sisera and his troops. But Barak interrupts with unexpected words of caution and hesitation. Barak seeks the reassurance of Deborah’s presence with him as he goes out into battle. If Deborah is willing to go with him, Barak will go. But if Deborah will not go with him, Barak will not go, in spite of God’s direct command to him (v. 8).
Barak’s request for Deborah’s presence has been variously interpreted. Some see Barak here as cowardly, afraid, and distrusting of God. A real judge would not need the assistance of anyone, much less a woman, to lead Israel into battle. In this understanding, the request for Deborah’s presence would be unusual and unnecessary. Other interpreters see Barak’s request as a gracious and insistent invitation to Deborah as God’s prophet to join him so that she might bless the military expedition and share in the glory of the Lord’s victory over the Canaanites. In this understanding, it would not be unusual for the woman prophet Deborah to accompany a military expedition and offer divine oracles of encouragement and strategy. The narrator does not provide an explicit evaluation of Barak’s statement, and so we are left to wonder about Barak’s inner motivation.
Deborah’s response to Barak is no less ambiguous. Her reply is emphatic: “I will surely go with you.” But what is the tone of her speech? “Of course I will go with you, Barak; that’s what I would expect to do, since I am a prophet of God and this is God’s battle.” Or is the tone more like this: “Well, all right, if you insist, I will surely go with you, but it really shows a lack of trust in God on your part”? The same ambiguity pertains to the second half of her response, and here the NRSV and the NIV translations differ significantly in the nuances they give to the Hebrew. In the NRSV, Deborah says she will surely go with Barak, but Barak should know that the road on which he is going will not lead to his glory, since the Lord will give his counterpart, the Canaanite commander Sisera, “into the hand of a woman” (v. 9). Although susceptible to either a negative or a positive reading, the NRSV translation could suggest that Deborah’s words are merely a statement of fact that does not reflect negatively on Barak’s request for her presence with him. Losing some glory to a woman may well be a trade-off Barak is quite willing to make in exchange for Deborah’s prophetic presence with his army. The NIV gives a more one-sided and negative interpretation to Deborah’s response. She agrees to go with Barak, but she adds, “because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman” (v. 9). Here the lack of honor for Barak is interpreted as a negative punishment for the unfaithful request to have Deborah accompany him. The way Barak is going about this is all wrong and a punishable offense against God.
In my judgment, the NIV interprets Deborah’s statement too narrowly. As the NRSV rightly translates, Deborah’s response is ambiguous and should be translated in a way that maintains the uncertainty. The narrative is intentionally drawing the reader in to ponder the ambiguous possibilities in the statements of these two characters. The ambiguity is part of a larger narrative strategy that builds suspense and leads the reader on to determine who the real judge might be. In the flow of the narrative, the reader initially would think that Deborah was the judge (v. 4), but then Barak takes over as a more likely candidate (vv. 6–7). However, Barak’s ambiguous statement makes us think twice about his suitability (v. 8). Now Deborah’s declaration that Sisera (the individual or Sisera and his whole army?) will be delivered into the hand of a woman causes us to wonder whether Deborah will after all emerge as the true judge and heroine in place of Barak (v. 9). But we are not sure at this point, and so we read on. Deborah does go up with Barak to the place of battle at Kedesh, and Barak does summon his ten thousand warriors, so the stage is now set for the battle to begin (v. 10).
One peculiar note suddenly drops into the story without any preparation. It is a piece of information provided by the narrator to the reader that will become important later in the story. A man named Heber from the non-Israelite nation of the Kenites had separated himself from the other Kenites and encamped “near Kedesh,” the place where the battle is about to begin. The Kenites had a special relationship with Israel in that Moses’ father-in-law, Hobab, had been a Kenite (v. 11; see 1:16). One interesting possibility concerning Heber the Kenite is the Kenites’ traditional association with iron smithing and iron work (see Gen 4:22). Although Heber had a familial association with Israel, had Heber separated from the other Kenites in order to ply his trade as an iron smith with the 900 iron chariots of the Canaanites? Is Heber an ally of Israel or of Canaan? Later in this story, we will learn that “there was peace between King Jabin of Hazor and the clan of Heber the Kenite” (v. 17). That fact will play a role in the ongoing suspense and drama of the story. For now, the note about Heber the Kenite (v. 11) is simply inserted between Israel’s preparing for battle (vv. 6–10) and Canaan’s preparing for battle (vv. 12–13). Heber’s placement between Israel and Canaan signifies his ambiguous position on the narrative boundary between them. With all the other ambiguities of this story, the reader wonders what the role of this liminal character and his clan will be.
4:12–16. The Canaanite commander Sisera hears of Israel’s preparations for war and assembles “all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the troops” (vv. 12–13). As for Israel, Deborah speaks an oracle of divine encouragement to Barak: “Up! For this is the day on which the Lord has given Sisera into your hand” (v. 14). What does this oracle mean? Has the earlier oracle that Sisera would be given into the hand of a woman (v. 9) been rescinded? Or is this merely a way of saying that Barak and his forces will win a general victory against the Canaanites, even though Sisera himself will fall under the hand of a woman? Again, we as readers do not know. We do know that God is with the Israelites and fights for them as the divine warrior. Thus the Lord throws Sisera’s army and chariots into confusion and panic, just as the Lord had done against Pharaoh and his chariots in the exodus from Egypt (Exod 14:24). Barak defeats the entire army of Sisera with the Lord’s help, except for Sisera, who runs away on foot (vv. 15–16).
4:17–22. As in v. 11, the narrator interrupts the flow of the story with another note informing the reader that the fleeing Sisera has escaped to the tent of Jael, who is the wife of Heber the Kenite. Sisera had fled there, “for there was peace” between Heber’s Kenite clan and the Canaanite king Jabin, whose army Sisera commanded (v. 17). Now we surmise that Heber had separated from the other Kenites (v. 11) in order to ally himself and his family with the Canaanites.
The narrative resumes with Jael welcoming Sisera warmly into her tent, addressing him as “my lord” and insisting that he need have no fear. He enters Jael’s tent, and she covers him with a rug. He asks for “a little water to drink,” and Jael gives him sleep-inducing milk instead (vv. 18–19). Jael here acts as a mother. The mighty warrior Sisera is turned into a little child, tucked into bed for the night and hiding from any monsters who might threaten him. Sisera instructs Jael to stand watch at the entrance to the tent. If anyone comes by and asks “Is anyone here?” Sisera tells Jael to say no (v. 20). The question in Hebrew (הישׁ-פה אישׁ hăyēš-pōh ʾîš) can mean literally, “Is a man here?” Ironically, Sisera’s own words reveal that his masculinity has been reduced to that of an infant. On the surface, Sisera seems safe and secure in the womb-like tent of mother Jael, falling asleep from the weariness of battle and the heaviness of milk.
The story suddenly takes a dramatic and wholly unexpected turn. Jael takes a sharp tent peg and a hammer “in her hand” and drives the peg forcefully into the soft temple of Sisera’s sleeping head so that he dies (v. 21). Commentators have long observed the sudden shift from maternal to sexual imagery here in a scene of reverse rape, the woman Jael forcibly thrusting and violently penetrating Sisera’s body. The sexual imagery will become more explicit in the poetic version in 5:26–27. The Israelite general Barak pursues Sisera but arrives after Jael has killed Sisera in his sleep. Jael welcomes Barak into her tent and shows him the body of Sisera, “lying dead, with the tent peg in his temple” (v. 22). Is Barak happy to share the glory with Jael? Is he despondent that he did not have the singular glory of killing his Canaanite counterpart? The narrative does not tell us.
Now the perplexity over whether Deborah or Barak is the true judge or hero is in some ways made even more complicated. Jael, a non-Israelite woman, is added to the list of those who helped save Israel from its Canaanite enemy. She replaces Deborah as the one who fulfills Deborah’s oracle that Sisera would be given “into the hand of a woman” (vv. 9, 21). Neither Deborah, Barak, nor Jael emerges as the singular hero or judge in this story. Moreover, the puzzle continues with new questions. What motivated Jael to kill Sisera? Why did she defy the peace agreement between her husband and the Canaanites? Did she act out of a deep loyalty to Israel and Israel’s God? Or did she realize the Israelites had won the battle and so defect to the Israelite cause for pragmatic reasons to save her own life? Her motives remain a mystery. All we know is that God used Jael for the purpose of defeating Israel’s enemy, no matter what her motives were.
4:23–24. The artful indirection, suspense, and sharing of glory among Deborah, Barak, and Jael point ultimately to the overarching and integrating agency of God. In the final analysis, “God subdued King Jabin of Canaan” (v. 23). God and Jabin were the shadowy but ultimate power brokers in the battle between Israel and Canaan. In that ultimate struggle, it was God who prevailed. But God’s purposes were achieved through a coalition of human actors, none of whom could take ultimate credit for the victory. The final verse in the narrative suggests that Israel continued to wage war against other Canaanite forces of King Jabin for a time, bearing harder and harder upon him until he was destroyed (v. 24).
The climactic point in chap. 4 is not the battle but the scene in Jael’s tent and the assassination of Sisera. Several similarities between this central scene in chap. 4 and the stories of the preceding two judges, Ehud and Shamgar (3:12–31), stand out. Like Ehud, Jael kills the enemy alone in a private room through an act of deception. Like Ehud, who had brought tribute to King Eglon to seek his favor, Jael offers milk, refuge, and rest to Sisera. The same Hebrew verb (תקע tāqaʿ, “to drive,” “to thrust”) is used for Ehud’s assassination of Eglon (3:21) and for Jael’s assassination of Sisera (4:21). Just as Ehud’s deed was unexpectedly done by his left hand, so also Jael’s deed was unexpectedly done through a foreign woman’s hand (4:9). Like Shamgar, who fashioned an unconventional weapon out of an oxgoad (3:31), Jael used a tent peg as her unusual weapon. Thus the three judge stories—Ehud, Shamgar, and Deborah-Barak-Jael—are tied together as examples of temporary victories that God leads on behalf of an oppressed Israel through the agency of unexpected human agents. This first phase of the judge stories in 3:7–5:31 portrays faithfulness and effectiveness on the part of Israel’s leaders and judges. When the judge or judges are alive, Israel prospers. But when the judge dies, Israel reverts to its old evil ways.
Reflections
1. The most dramatic feature of this story is the image of two strong, independent, and courageous women: Deborah, the prophet and arbitrator of disputes, and Jael, the non-Israelite assassin. These are not the first strong women in Judges. Achsah, daughter of Caleb and Othniel’s wife, had been a strong and independent negotiator with her father (1:11–15). Indeed, the book of Judges contains the largest number of women characters of any book of the Bible, nineteen in all. But the portraits and fate of the women of Judges follow a trajectory similar to that of the judges period as a whole. The judge stories and the portraits of women begin as healthy, strong, and faithful. The first women we encounter all have names (Achsah, Deborah, Jael). But increasingly, as Israel and the judges begin their decline, the fate of women will decline as well. The many women characters become nameless (except for Delilah in the Samson story). Women gradually lose their independent power and become objects and victims, first inadvertently and willingly (Jephthah’s daughter and his foolish vow in chap. 11), but then more intentionally and unwillingly (Samson’s women in chaps. 14–16, the Levite’s concubine in chap. 19, the 400 young virgins of Jabesh-Gilead and the women dancers at Shiloh in chap. 21). The book of Judges offers a wide spectrum of the possible experiences of women, both positive and negative. In the ancient world as well as our own, the health and well-being of women provide an important barometer to measure the core health and values of a society or community.
2. Judges 4 depicts God’s working in and through a nexus of human activities involving shared leadership, mutual responsibility, and glory that is distributed among several of the main characters (Deborah, Jael, and Barak). Although many interpreters argue that Judges promotes a strictly centralized and royal mode of leadership (see the refrain in 17:6 and 21:25), Judges 4 also appears to recognize the ability of God to work effectively through more complex systems where power may be decentralized, duties may be distributed, and no one leader need take all the credit or responsibility. As we reflect on various models or polities within our families, congregations, denominations, or other political entities, we may be assured that God is able to work through any variety of structures or systems. The question may be what is most appropriate and helpful in a given context, time, and tradition.
3. The Bible honors the common ancient Near Eastern custom of hospitality to strangers and sojourners. Abraham and Sarah welcomed three strangers who turned out to be the Lord present among them (Genesis 18). Hebrews 13:2 uses their story to commend its readers to show hospitality to strangers, “for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (NRSV). Many of Israel’s laws urged hospitality to strangers and sojourners, since Israel had been a sojourner in Egypt (Exod 22:21; Lev 19:33–34; Deut 10:19). Jael breaks this hospitality code rather egregiously in first welcoming and then killing Sisera, the Canaanite general. Not only does she break the hospitality code, but she also breaks the peace pact between the Canaanites and her own Kenite clan. Yet the narrative never explicitly condemns or raises concerns about her act; indeed, her slaying of Sisera is praised in the next chapter in the song (Judg 5:24–27). But Jael’s act inevitably raises difficult moral questions, and the narrative does not let the reader off the hook by providing much insight into Jael’s motives or thoughts. On this issue, the story in Judges 4 draws the reader into moral reflection without providing an explicit evaluation. The situation is similar to the scene of Moses killing the Egyptian foreman in Exod 2:11–15; no overt moral assessment is made in the text of Moses’ act of using violence for the sake of social justice. However, the story raises the questions and issues in a way that forces the reader to wrestle with them.
4. Two narrative strategies seem to be working at cross-purposes in Judges 4. On one hand, the cyclical framework (4:1–3, 23) commonly found in the other judge stories suggests a foreordained sequence of events with God clearly in control. The predictability of the sequence of events affirms the ultimate sovereignty of God. On the other hand, the intensity of misdirection and suspense throughout Judges 4 (will the real judge please stand up?) suggests unpredictability and the need for God to adjust the divine plan to make room for human freedom and decisions. God’s oracle through Deborah promises Barak that the Lord will deliver Sisera into his hand (4:7). However, his request that Deborah accompany him seems to cause a change in God’s oracle and plan: “the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (4:9). But later, Deborah reiterates that God has given Sisera into Barak’s hand (4:14). In the end, God accomplishes the salvation promised, but we as human readers ponder the often untraceable combination of human and divine “hands” at work in a given situation. In the end, God’s will for the world will prevail, but God also makes adjustment to human freedom and actions along the way. As the people of God, we can be confident that God is at work in and through our lives and communities to accomplish God’s will, even when we may be unaware. Indeed, God may work through outsiders or those on the margin of our community in ways we would never expect. At the same time, we can be hopeful that the prayers, words, and actions of faithful individuals, leaders, and communities will be taken seriously and incorporated into the larger plans of God to bring about change and redemption in line with the purposes of God.
From Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary:
WOMEN. This entry consists of three articles that survey aspects of women’s lives and social status in the world of the Bible. The first focuses on women in Mesopotamia, the second on women in the OT, and the third on women in the NT.
MESOPOTAMIA
Information on the lives of Mesopotamian women is available in a rich, though uneven, assortment of sources: excavated artifacts, works of art (reliefs, sculptures, seals), literary texts (love poetry, epics, wisdom literature), and contemporary documents (administrative, legal, and epistolary texts). The last have been the focus of most Assyriological study regarding women, especially the many law codes which devote much space to marriage and divorce (Driver and Miles 1955).
Despite the views of some to the contrary (e.g. Kramer 1976), Mesopotamian civilization, consisting of Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian traditions, was throughout its long history patriarchal in structure orientation. The greater prominence of female and mother goddesses in the very early period, the proliferation of female figurines, and even the possible existence of female polyandry do not constitute evidence of matriarchal rule. Socioeconomic and political changes, so characteristic of Mesopotamian history, were the significant factors that must have impinged upon and affected the status of women. But study of these in relation to women’s lives is still in its infancy. Furthermore, the accidental nature of textual and archaeological finds should not be overlooked as it so frequently skews the evidence.
The Mesopotamian woman was, with few exceptions, defined either as the daughter of her father or as the wife of her husband. Women rarely acted as individuals outside the context of their families; those who did were members of royal and elite families. The quality of the lives of ordinary women can be guessed at with some accuracy. Especially revealing for this are the administrative texts found throughout Mesopotamian history.
A. Marriage, Divorce, Widowhood
B. Economic Role
C. Cultic Roles
D. Royal Women
E. Images of Women
A. Marriage, Divorce, Widowhood
The laws of Mesopotamia, which may or may not represent the actual legal realities, nevertheless mirror ideal rules to govern spheres of prime concern to women (and men): marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Because these have been the subject of much writing by generations of Assyriologists, they are here treated summarily.
From a Sumerian proverb it would appear that child marriages were frowned upon (“I will not marry a wife who is only three years [old] as an ass [does]”). Girls, and possibly boys too, were expected to marry not long after reaching puberty. Elopement was not regarded favorably. The permission of parents was necessary for marriage to be recognized. Betrothal arrangements were made by fathers (at times along with the mother). If the father was dead, the mother alone or the oldest brother would initiate the proceedings. It can be assumed that the girl’s consent was not unsolicited. Except in dynastic marriages arranged to cement political alliances (see D below), love may often have played a role in the match. For although there was a double standard in Mesopotamia it was assumed and expected that love and sexuality would be confined to the conjugal relationship, that the husband would not seek out slave girls and prostitutes for sexual gratification.
Marriage, with some differences depending on time and place, was formalized by the exchange of gifts between the two families. The bride was usually given a dowry (described variously as šeriktu, širku, nudunnu) by her father. This was of supreme importance to the girl for should her husband divorce her, she took this back with her. Otherwise, at her death it belonged to her heirs. The father of the bride in return received a bridal gift from the groom or the groom’s father (terḫatu, zubullu, biblu). On occasion a husband might, if he wished, provide his wife with a gift (nudunnû) to insure her support after his death. Rites of passage, such as anointing, making the transition of the bride from unmarried to married status, are attested mainly in early Sumer and late Assyria. Bathing and libations might also have such significance in Babylonia (Greengus 1966). Veiling the bride is mentioned in Assyrian laws.
By and large, except among royalty, monogamy was the rule. However, in certain cases, such as sterility or disease, a man might take a concubine as a secondary wife to bear children. The primary wife’s superordinate position might then be spelled out in a contract. Exceptional are the examples in the Old Assyrian period of traders who have a native wife in Assyria and a foreign wife abroad.
Marriage and divorce contracts, relatively common in the earlier period, become rarer in time. It is difficult to say whether this is accidental or reflects a deterioration in women’s position. Virginity, which may well have been an expectation at all times, is explicitly referred to in later marriage contracts.
Mothers, like fathers, were to be treated respectfully, the son accused of filial impiety to mother or father was to be punished. Children, daughters included, were expected to make funerary offerings to deceased parents. Childbirth and menstruation made for impurity which was removed by bathing.
Divorce was probably never a common occurrence. If a man divorced a woman without a legitimate reason once she had had children, he would have to forfeit all his property, at least in certain periods. Prior to the birth of offspring, he might have to pay her a limited sum in compensation. Only in the Old Babylonian period does it seem that a woman might have the right to divorce her husband if he ill-treated her, a situation which she would have to prove before witnesses.
Adultery was of course a most serious charge and grounds for divorcing one’s wife. It should be noted that adultery was always defined in terms of extramarital relations on the part of the wife, never of the man. In Assyria punishment of the adulteress lay with the husband. He, and not a legal body, meted out punishment to his wife and her lover, or to her lover only if he had been aware of the woman’s marital status.
The love poetry of Mesopotamia speaks only of the love between men and women and the sexual pleasure of both sexes. Women shared with men similar symptoms when they were “lovesick” (muruṣ râmi). There was no body/soul dichotomy and no formula as there was for the Greeks, that body/nature/woman ranked below soul/culture/man. Sexuality was enjoyed by both sexes. Male sexual dysfunctions of impotency and premature ejaculation were recognized, as evidenced by the ša.zi.ga incantations recited to cure these problems.
The powerlessness of solitary women was taken into consideration by the laws. A woman deserted by her husband might usually after five years legally remarry. Under certain conditions, cohabitation with a widow was considered a common-law marriage. Sons were responsible for maintaining widowed mothers, for arranging marriages for sisters when parents were dead, and for providing dowries for sisters who were not provided for in their father’s will. Women without living male family members or possessions had few avenues for survival: slavery or prostitution. However, perhaps at most times, the two great economic centers of Mesopotamia, the temple and the palace, served as welfare institutions providing food and shelter to homeless women (and children), who thereby became part of their huge work forces.
The vulnerability and plight of widows (and orphans) are proverbial in the literature of the ANE. Nevertheless, widowhood for the well-to-do might offer the only opportunity for true independence. Even in Assyria, notorious, perhaps fallaciously so, for its mistreatment of women, the widow (almattu), without a male guardian, without father-in-law or sons, was given the right to “go wherever she pleases” (Saporetti 1979). There is even the rare occurrence of a widow having the primary right of inheritance of her husband’s estate, even to the exclusion of her children.
B. Economic Role
Ordinarily the wife was expected to take care of her family and home. Most women, unless there were household slaves, spent their time at the traditional feminine tasks: grinding grain and baking bread (various millstones might be part of the dowry), spinning and weaving clothes for the family, cleaning, etc.
Women of independent means, though always few in number, are found at all times purchasing and selling real estate and slaves, hiring and renting out slaves and houses. In certain periods women owned general stores and taverns. In the Old Babylonian period the woman tavernkeeper (sabı̄tu) was an important moneylender to her clientele. Special mention should be made of the wives of the Old Assyrian traders, some of whom managed a kind of textile cottage industry, hiring transporters to deliver their goods. The remarkable instance of a Nuzi mother, apparently head of her family, who was involved in more than thirty land purchases should be noted (Grosz 1983: 203). But these are special and limited examples of women’s high economic position.
Large numbers of women of the lower social classes were employed in temple and palace workshops. Some were free, many slaves. Here too they worked in traditional feminine occupations, in the kitchen as cooks, pastry makers, and menials; in the textile industry as spinners and weavers. Usually all were under the supervision of men. Free women might have brought their children with them. Women of the poorer classes must have helped their husbands in whatever occupation they were in, for there was no sequestering of women. Women might also have worked in various agricultural jobs in palace and temple fields and with animals.
Women are well attested as midwives (šabsūtu) and wetnurses (mušēniqtu). For the well-to-do and royal households there were nurses (tārı̄tu) to feed and care for children once they were weaned (traditionally at the age of three).
Rarely do women appear who belong to professions outside those related to cultic functions (see D below). But there were women sufficiently educated to serve as scribes in the Sumerian and Old Babylonian periods and even, rarely, as physicians. Here mention should be made of the literary works of Enheduanna and of the lukur women of the Ur III period. Women trained as musicians, singers, and dancers were part of the palace staff as well as that of the temples.
C. Cultic Roles
From the very earliest periods women appear in visual and written sources as participants in the cult. The priestess of the highest rank was the nin.dingir; below her the lukur and nu.gig. The last two may have been involved with sacred prostitution (Renger 1964). Priestesses are shown in reliefs and seals participating in rituals connected with the building of temples and attending banquets associated with religious fesitivals (Asher-Greve 1985). One of the major functions of the nin.dingir priestess was to represent the goddess Inanna in the sacred marriage ceremonies.
From earliest times, women, presumably of high rank, dedicated votive offerings to the gods and left statues of themselves in prayerful stance in the temples as signs of their piety.
Especially in the Sumerian period, the wives and daughters of rulers represented the ruling families in temple ceremonies. In Lagash the queen traveled to temples and shrines in different cities of the kingdom to participate in festivals and give offerings.
A high point in the institution of nin.dingir (Akk entu) is reached under Sargon, the founder of the Semitic Old Akkadian dynasty, with his appointment of his daughter, Enheduanna, as the high priestess of the Moon God at Ur. Hallo (1976) has suggested that he did this so as not to offend Sumerian sensibilities, as would have happened had he “arrogated both the political and cultic titles of the great Southern cities.” Enheduanna, unquestionably one of the outstanding women in Mesopotamian history, authored several original works which served as models for later writings. For the next 500 years a succession of thirteen princesses was appointed to this position, holding office for an average of 35 to 40 years, a lifespan which probably points to their celibacy. These women, apart from cultic and literary functions, probably also specialized in dream interpretation.
The Old Babylonian period was characterized by a variety of special classes of women. Most prominent and richly documented is the institution of the nadı̄tus, who were unmarried virgins. The nadı̄tu of Marduk of Babylon might marry but was prohibited from bearing children, and so might provide her husband with a second wife. According to Stone (1982), the nadı̄tu of Nippur, “daughter of tribal leaders, constrained by endogamy and rank, often had difficulties finding a suitable spouse.” Harris (1964) stresses the concern of well-to-do families “to maintain the integrity of the paternal estate.”
In Sippar, the nadı̄tu of the god Samaš participated in a ceremony of the god’s festival at which time “the rope of Shamash” was placed on her arm, thus marking her change in status to daughter-in-law or bride of the god. At times a nadı̄tu might assume a religious name, signifying special devotion to the god or his consort Aja. The letters of nadı̄tus abound in pious phrases, and they and other texts allude to their participation in religious ceremonies and the efficacy of their prayers on behalf of family members. Once a year, the living nadı̄tus remembered the childless dead, thus assuming the filial obligation of living progeny. Most striking are the hundreds of legal and epistolary texts from Sippar which attest to the central importance of the nadı̄tu to the economic life of the city for a major part of this period. In Nippur their business activities were not of such significance.
Also remarkable was the full share of the inheritance, equivalent to that of a male, assigned to the nadı̄tu in the Laws of Hammurapi. The “ring money” usually given to them by their fathers was theirs to dispose of as they wished. And since many had to provide for themselves when they grew old, they adopted younger nadı̄tus, sometimes relatives, to support them.
There are far fewer references to women characterized as ugbabtu, kulmašı̄tu, ištarı̄tu, and qadištu. The ugbabtu apparently was also not to marry and had to be sequestered in the cloister. The others were not confined and might marry and bear children. The religious functions of these women are unclear, although they were devoted to various gods and goddesses. The qadištu is known to have functioned as a wet nurse, and from Sumerian texts seems to have played a role in childbirth. The question as to whether any of them were involved in sacred prostitution cannot be answered at this time. See PROSTITUTION. Interestingly, in the late incantation series Maqlu, these women of special status are associated with witchcraft and elsewhere with prostitution. In the patriarchal society of Mesopotamia, groups of women living outside the conventional norms were anomalies and therefore suspect.
Note should be made of those women who at various times functioned as dream interpreters (šāiltu). They are attested throughout Mesopotamian history, but they functioned outside and below the arena of official temple religious life. Marginal too are the prophetesses, ecstatics who appear sporadically in the texts. Best known are the professional and lay prophetesses of Mari, the former attached to specific deities and temples, the latter coming from all walks of life. They are described by various terms: āpiltu, muhhūtu, qabbātu (Batto 1974). There are even occasional references to female diviners (bārı̄tu). But only in Mari may they have enjoyed equal status with their male counterparts. See also PROPHECY (ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN PROPHECY).
D. Royal Women
Queens and princesses deserve special mention, for some of them because of their high position, and others perhaps because of exceptional personal qualities, acted more independently than other women of Mesopotamia. Here again the name of Enheduanna should be noted, and the institution of entu priestesses.
The names of queens and princesses, especially from Lagash, are known, and their active participation in temple administration and festivals is specified. They are represented on reliefs and inlays. Queens sat beside husbands in banquet scenes, equal in status, it would seem. The well known tomb of Queen Pu-abi of Ur of Early Dynastic times with her luxurious personal possessions and accompanying staff of 74 people give evidence of her rank and wealth. With the growth of city states, women formed “an important link in legitimating the succession” (Hallo 1976). Princesses continued to be used as instruments to cement political alliances throughout Mesopotamian history. And as is so apparent from the Mari archives, royal women had little to say about these arrangements.
Ku-bau, the one woman who became queen of Kish in her own right in Early Dynastic times, was viewed as an anomaly. A late omen text associated her rule with a hermaphroditic birth.
The archives of Karana and Mari are exceptional in giving information not only about the activities of their queens but in providing rare glimpses into the individuality and personal lives of these women (Dalley 1984). Shibtu, queen of Mari and wife of Zimri-Lim, may have given birth to eleven daughters (some perhaps were born to concubines). She was an unusual woman, well informed about various matters of state and cult. When her husband was away she managed palace personnel and distribution of food supplies. She wrote to male officials and spoke with them directly. Shibtu’s concern for her husband’s health and welfare is revealed over and over again in her letters.
The correspondence of Iltani, queen of Karana, also shows her to have been a person of high administrative skills. She managed the palace enterprises, especially of textile and food production, and even received appeals against injustice, taking the usual role of the king. Hers was a far less pleasant and assured personality than was Shibtu’s.
Less direct, though probably no less influential, were the positions of certain queen mothers. The inscription of the Babylonian Sammuramat, wife of the Assyrian Shamshi-Adad V and mother of Adad-Nirari III, appears on a stela, a rare occurrence for a woman. She may have been responsible for the increase in the popularity of the Babylonian god Nabu in Assyrian royal circles.
Another Babylonian married to an Assyrian king, Zakutu (Aram “Naqia”), wife of Sennacherib, may have played a crucial role in the harem plot that led to her husband’s death and the ascent to the throne of her son Esarhaddon.
Finally there was the incredibly long lived (104 years) mother of Nabonidus, a devotee of the god Sin, of Harran in Syria, who was probably an important religious influence on her son, an influence that led to his exceptional devotion to Sin and to his attempt to reinstitute the long dead institution of entu priestesses of the Moon God. His special devotion to Sin resulted in the bitter hostility of the Marḋuk priesthood, who welcomed his downfall at the hands of Cyrus. See also QUEEN.
E. Images of Women
The literary texts of Mesopotamia are a still underutilized source for learning about male attitudes toward women. Here one finds evidence of the high value placed on the nuclear family and on the hoped-for reciprocity between husband and wife, as well as the expected ambivalence of male toward female (the last especially in the Wisdom Literature).
The Gilgamesh Epic, for example, displays images of women, even of such an outsider as the prostitute, as nurturing, caring, and encouraging. Women were regarded positively when they gave advice and supported men in achieving their goals. Only Ištar, who acts like a man by proposing marriage, wanting to bestow gifts, and making threats, is rejected. Her behavior was unacceptable for a female.
A popular Sumerian text, translated by the ancients into Akkadian and Hittite and purporting to be a message sent by a loving son to his mother, portrays the ideal Mesopotamian woman as “beautiful, radiant, productive, gracious, joyous, sweet-smelling” (Kramer 1976), and, it might be added, as one always concerned with husband and children.
Bibliography
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Bottero, J. 1965.La femme dans la mésopotamie ancienne, Pp. 158–223 in Historie mondiale de la femme, ed. P. Grimal. Paris.
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Driver, G. R. and Miles, J. C. 1955. The Babylonian Laws. Vol. 2. Oxford.
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Harris, R. 1963. The Organization and Administration of the Cloister in Ancient Babylonia. JESHO 6/2: 121–57.
———. 1964. The Nadı̄tu Women. Pp. 106–35 in Studies Presented to A. L. Oppenheim, ed. R. D. Biggs and J. A. Brinkman. Chicago.
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Stone, E. 1982. The Social Role of the Nadı̄tu Women in Old Babylonian Nippur. JESHO 25: 50–70.
Rivkah Harris
OLD TESTAMENT
The common Hebrew term for “woman” is ʾiššâ (constr. ʾēšet), which may also be translated “wife” (the corresponding masculine term, ʾı̂š “man,” is used analogously for “husband,” along with baʿal “master,” “lord”). Women characterized by particular attributes are designated by descriptive nouns, adjectives or participles, used either alone or as a qualifier to ʾiššâ: e.g., (ʾiššâ) zônâ “prostitute,” hôrâ “pregnant woman,” ʾiššâ ḥăkāmâ “wise woman,” (ʾiššâ) zārâ “strange/foreign woman,” zĕqēnôt “old women,” mĕyallĕdôt “midwives” (lit. “birthing women”). Other nouns describing women of particular age, state or position, include bat “daughter”; kallâ “daughter-in-law,” “bride”: ʾāḥôt “sister”; ʾēm “mother”; bĕtûlâ “young woman,” “virgin”; ʿalmâ “young woman”; naʿarâ “young woman,” “girl”; ʾāmâ and šipḥâ “female servant or slave”; malkâ “queen”; gĕbı̂râ “lady,” “queen mother.” The term for the female of human as well as animal species is nĕqēbâ (typically paired with zākār “male,” as in Gen 1:27).
A. Introduction: Methodological Considerations
B. The Israelite Family
C. Primary Roles and Images
1. Wife and Mother
2. Virgin Daughter or Bride
D. Roles and Activities Outside the Family
E. Religious Life
F. Legal Status
G. Literary and Symbolic Representation
H. Conclusion: Hermeneutical Considerations
A. Introduction: Methodological Considerations
In the Hebrew Bible women appear for the most part as minor or subordinate figures; yet they play an essential role in the record of Israel’s faith and include some of the best remembered actors in the biblical story. The names of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Miriam, Deborah, and Ruth are indispensible to the rehearsal of that story, as are Jezebel, Esther, and Eve. Behind these, however, stand thousands of unnamed, and unnoted, women who have engaged the attention of recent biblical scholarship. Through new literary and sociological analyses attempts are being made to reconstruct Israel’s history and reinterpret its literature with an aim to restoring a glimpse of the missing women and reassessing the surviving portraits.
Key to understanding the roles, images, and limited appearances of women in the OT literature is the patrilineal and patriarchal organization of Israelite society and its family-centered economy. Although the patriarchal character of the society has long been recognized, recent scholarship (summarized in Meyers 1988: 3–46) has given new insight into the economic, social and psychological dimensions of gender relations in patriarchal societies and, more specifically, into women’s lives in premodern agrarian and pastoral societies, bringing a new comparative perspective to the biblical data.
The OT is the product of a patriarchal world, and more specifically, of a literate, urban elite of male religious specialists. Whatever the ultimate origin of its traditions in family worship, clan wisdom, popular tales, or the songs of women, the present form of the Hebrew Bible is the work of male authors and editors, whose views created or reflect the dominant theological perspectives. Women in the biblical texts are presented through male eyes, for purposes determined by male authors. This does not mean that women are necessarily suppressed in the account or portrayed unsympathetically. It does mean, however, that women are not heard directly in the biblical text, in their own voices; the OT gives no unmediated access to the lives and thought of Israelite women. (For implications and strategies in interpreting androcentric texts see Russell 1985; Tolbert 1983; Collins 1985; Sakenfeld 1988; 1989; Trible 1989; and Day 1989.)
Women in the biblical text provide the primary clues to women behind the text. But interpretation of these clues requires knowledge of women’s lives in comparable societies, ancient and modern, where fuller documentation of the private and economic spheres offers a broader view of women’s roles and activities within the context of the larger society. New archaeological investigation focusing on family and village life (size and arrangement of dwellings, density of settlement, diet, mortality rates, etc. [Stager 1985; Meyers 1988: 47–71]) together with documents from surrounding cultures relating to the domestic realm (e.g., personal letters, marriage and adoption contracts, inheritance stipulations, and other economic and legal documents [Lesko 1989; Durand 1987]) enable construction of a more adequate picture of women’s roles, activities, and authority within ANE patriarchal society and, more particularly, within the family, which is the primary sphere of women’s activity.
To these data from the social world of ancient Israel comparative anthropology brings a cross-cultural perspective of gender roles and relationships that correlates patterns of gender interactions with technoeconomic and sociopolitical variables, such as differences between pastoral and agrarian societies, between intensive irrigation agriculture in lowland plains and cultivation of new or marginal upland areas, and between tribal federations and centralized monarchic states. Such differences within the broad category of patriarchal societies are reflected in differing demands for women’s productive and reproductive labor and differences in the value of women’s services, range of activity outside the home, and authority within the family (Whyte 1978; Meyers 1988: 24–46, 189–94). Anthropological study of gender reveals complex patterns of male-female relationships within patriarchal societies, involving distinctions of formal and informal power and recognition of spheres of influence and authority, which require qualification of many commonly held views of women’s lives in ancient Israel.
The OT does not yield a single portrait of women in ancient Israel. Its millennium-spanning traditions and the differing purposes and perspectives of its authors have produced a kaleidoscopic image, whose distinct components require note. A common status or life style cannot be assumed for the woman of an Early Iron Age pioneer settlement, the wife of a wealthy merchant or large landowner in Samaria or Jerusalem, the daughter of an indebted 8th-century peasant, the foreign wife of a returned exile, a priest’s daughter, queen mother, palace servant, childless widow, or prostitute. Nor can one expect a common portrait from narrative compositions, proverbial sentences, prophetic oracles, and legal stipulations.
Behind the disparate images and distinct life histories, however, lies a common set of expectations and values that govern the life of every Israelite woman of every period and circumstance. These are rooted in the need for women’s labor in the domestic sphere, and more specifically in childbearing and nurture, broadly described as “reproductive” work. To this primary work, which was the expectation of every woman, are joined the major tasks of household management and provision. The importance of this work in a society in which the family, rather than the individual, was the basic social, economic, and religious unit (at least during significant periods of Israelite history), is evidenced in the honor and authority given to women in their role as mother. Fulfillment of that socially demanded, and rewarded, role also meant self-fulfillment for most women, for whom barrenness was a bitter deprivation.
It is the woman’s primary and essential role within the family, with its multiple demands of time and skill, that accounts for her highest personal and social reward—but also for her restriction in roles and activities outside the family and her hiddenness in documents from the public sphere. It also accounts for changes in women’s status and roles over the course of Israel’s history as the size, autonomy and economic status of the family changed. And it provides clues to the interpretation of women’s roles and activities outside the family, which may be understood in large measure as extensions or adaptations of women’s primary roles within the family.
B. The Israelite Family
The Israelite family was in all periods a male headed household (called bêt ʾāb “house of the father”), in which descent and transmission of property (in particular, the patrimonial land, naḥălâ “inheritance”) were reckoned through males. In early Israel, family associations (lineages, or “clans”) and tribes based on patrilineal descent exercised primary political as well as social functions. Although the monarchy deprived the lineage system of most of its political power, the Israelite family continued to function as the basic social and economic unit and to bear a patrilineal and patriarchal stamp, exhibited in patterns of organization and authority, marriage, place of residence, and inheritance.
One consequence of patrilineal organization is that women are to some extent either aliens or transients within their family of residence. Married women are outsiders in the household of their husband and sons, while daughters are prepared from birth to leave their father’s household and transfer loyalty to a husband’s house and lineage. Preference for endogamy seems to have operated in certain periods as a means of reducing the strains associated with the “alien” wife (Gen 24:4; 28:1–2). When the woman was a foreigner, the strain might be perceived as a threat, as seen in the repeated condemnations of foreign marriages (Deut 7:3; Ezra 9:12; 10:2). Underlying this attack is the assumption that the foreign wife will maintain her alien ways, and more particularly her religion, undermining the religious ethos and solidarity of the family and the nation (Exod 34:16; Num 25:1–2; Deut 7:4; Judg 3:5–6; Neh 13:23–27; Meyers 1988: 185).
The OT attack on foreign wives is indirect testimony to the independence and power of women within the family sphere despite the formal structures and symbols of patriarchal power. It reflects the power of influence that wives may exert over husbands (Judg 14:17; 1 Kgs 1:15–21) as well as the important educational role of the mother in transmitting basic religious values and wisdom essential for life (Prov 1:8; 31:1). It also reflects fear of foreigners, and more particularly the foreign woman (ʾiššâ zārâ, nokrı̄yâ), who in Proverbs becomes a symbol for the immoral, seductive, and predatory woman, an embodiment of evil (Yee 1989: 54). Admonitions against intermarriage with foreigners may include reference to sons as well as daughters, but only the foreign daughter is described as a threat (Deut 7:3–4; cf. Ezra 9:2).
Another consequence of patrilineal family organization is that women do not normally inherit land. Exceptions treat daughters as placeholders in the absence of sons (Num 27:1–11), bridging the gap between the generations until their sons can resume the paternal line and legacy (insured, according to Num 36:6–9, by requiring the daughter to marry within her father’s tribe). Similar concern for the preservation of the patrimony appears to underlie the institution of levirate marriage, which obligated a man to marry the wife of a deceased brother (Deut 25:5–10; Gen 38:8) or close kinsman (Ruth 2:20; 4:5–6) in order to continue the brother’s “name.”
The importance of patrilineal organization in ancient Israel may be seen in the prominence of genealogies and genealogical narratives in the OT. The genealogies, which serve a variety of social, political, and literary functions, account for the majority of personal names recorded in the OT and for the great preponderance of male over female names (1212:108, approx. 12:1). As lists of those who “counted” in the society, these normally all-male lists provide dramatic testimony to the androcentrism that characterizes the formal structures of patriarchal societies. A different picture is obtained, however, by comparing the common nouns for “man” (ʾı̂š) and “woman” (ʾiššâ), whose ratio of occurrences is 2160:775 (KB), or roughly 3:1. Excluding the many generic uses of ʾı̂š (as, e.g., in Ps 1:1, “Blessed is the one [ʾı̂š] who walks …”) increases the relative weight of references to women, suggesting the importance of women as a social category, if not as named individuals.
A characteristic feature of patriarchal societies, illustrated by the disparity of ratios between named and unnamed men and women, is asymmetry of gender roles and symbols, including language. Male genealogies, male oriented legal codes and cultic stipulations, masculine forms for generic speech, and the predominance of males in historical records and recollections all reflect the male dominance of Israel’s public life and formal structures. The primary social and economic unit, however, which provided the basis for life in the public sphere, was the family, in which women exercised significant formal and informal power, at times equaling or even exceeding that of men, according to some scholars (Meyers 1988: 181, 187). Even in its reduced economic role under the monarchy, the family continued to play a dominant role in socialization.
Asymmetry between male and female-centered spheres of life may be seen in the fact that the family was represented in the public sphere by its male head or adult male members—and it is this male-dominated sphere that is the locus of the major overarching and integrating institutions of the society. Here women are to some degree always outsiders, characterized by temporary appearances (e.g., marketing, legal process, payment of vows) or marginal roles (e.g., prostitutes and cult attendants). At the same time, men are given legal authority over women, even in the sphere of women’s primary activity, the family. Moreover, since the legal and religious institutions that give expression to the society’s values and attempt to regulate behavior belong to the public sphere and are designed and governed by men, the values they articulate and seek to enforce are essentially male values, though formulated in general or universal terms. Thus asymmetry between the primary spheres of male and female activity has the character of encapsulation and penetration of the domestic sphere by the public sphere.
C. Primary Roles and Images
1. Wife and Mother. The life and work of the Israelite woman centered in the home and duties to family. The ideal portrait of the adult female depicts her as the mother of many children (or sons; Heb bānı̂m [pl. of bēn “son”] may have either meaning) and the wise and industrious manager of the household, providing for the welfare of husband and children (Prov 31:10–29). This latter image, which gives rare attention to the role of wife, is the product of Wisdom reflection designed to counsel men concerning the path of success in life, in which knowledge of women and their ways plays a critical role. Thus the book of Proverbs warns against the loose or foreign woman and especially the adulteress, who can cost a man his life (Prov 5:3–5; 6:24–35; 9:13–18), while counseling fidelity (5:15–19) and extolling the “woman of worth” (ʾēšet ḥayil) in detailed and extended commendation (Prov 31:10–29). Such a wife will “do him good, and not harm” (v 12). Emphasis in this portrait is on skill, resourcefulness, industry, wisdom, and charity, rather than fertility or beauty (the latter characterized in v 30 as “deceitful” and “vain”).
The role of wife is rarely separated from the dominant role of mother, appearing outside the Wisdom Literature primarily in tales of courtship, conflict, and conquest (Judges 14; 1 Sam 18:20–27; Genesis 34). Here sexual attraction plays a role, but also wit and will (1 Samuel 25)—and often family or ethnic ties. Behind many scenes of courtship lies a genealogical theme, which points to an ultimate role of mother. The woman as wife also describes a fundamental biosocial category, designating the one who provides the essential sexual and social complement to the man, creating the pair that represents the species (Gen 1:27; 2:18–23) and assures its continuity (thus Noah and his sons [named] enter the ark together with his wife and sons’ wives [unnamed], Gen 7:13). Here, too, the wife is usually a mother.
The role of mother dominates OT references to women. Motherhood was expected and honored, reflecting social need (Judg 21:16–17) and divine sanction (Gen 1:28). Desire for many children, and especially sons, is a prominent OT theme (1 Sam 2:7; Gen 30:1; Pss 127:3–5; 128:3–4), attributed to women as well as to men, despite the pain and dangers of childbirth. Rooted in the economic needs of subsistence agriculture and social need for perpetuation of the lineage, the demand for childbearing was rewarded with security and prestige (Deut 5:16; 27:16). As a consequence, women identified children with status (Gen 30:20; 1 Sam 1:2–8) and sometimes vied with one another in childbearing (Gen 30:1–24).
Barrenness was viewed as the ultimate disgrace, understood as a sign of divine disfavor (Gen 30:23; 2 Sam 6:20–23). (The literary theme of the barren wife—who subsequently bears—assumes this negative expectation in order to reverse it.) The barren, or childless, woman suffered not only lack of esteem, but also threat of divorce or expulsion from her husband’s household at his death. Unable to continue his line, she cannot claim his inheritance, and she has no sons to support her in old age.
The role of mother included primary care of children of both sexes at least until the time of weaning (ca. age three), the education and disciplining of older children, and provision of food and clothing for the entire household. The latter required arduous and time consuming labor: sorting, cleaning, parching, and grinding grain, as well as kneading and baking bread; drawing water and collecting fuel (a task of both sexes); cleaning and butchering small animals; milking, churning butter and making cheese and yogurt; tending vegetable gardens and fruit trees; and preserving fruits and meat for storage. Women may also have produced at least some of the common ceramic ware, as suggested by cross-cultural study of ceramic production (Meyers 1988: 148). If so, OT references to male potters (Jer 18:2–4; 1 Chr 4:23) may be seen as an example of a widely attested pattern of male professional specialization of crafts originally practiced exclusively by women. Such crafts may continue as female occupations within the domestic context while men dominate commercial production (e.g., weaving, sewing/tailoring, cooking and baking).
Clothing the family involved not only spinning, weaving, tailoring and sewing, but also preparation of raw wool or flax fibers (Prov 31:13). Spinning and weaving are identified throughout the ancient Mediterranean world as symbolic of female domestic activity and skill, so that even queens and wealthy women are depicted holding a spindle (ANEP, 43 [pl. 144]; Prov 31:13, 19; Judg 16:14; cf. English “spinster” and “distaff side”). The mother, together with other females of the household, also bore the burden of washing and cleaning.
The mother’s role in the socialization and moral instruction of small children was critical for both sexes, but her instruction seems also to have had a more formal and extended character, even in the education of sons, as attested in the Wisdom Literature (Prov 1:8; 31:1; Meyers 1988: 151–2). An extension of the mother’s role as teacher and counselor may be seen in the “wise woman,” whose skill (in negotiation and persuasion) commands public recognition (2 Sam 14:1–20; 20:16–22). The mother also had a special role in educating daughters in the traits and competencies expected of the adult woman (wife), as well as in specialized female skills.
Among the features that make up the OT’s portrait of women there appears to be a primary cluster of attributes and images that derive ultimately from association with birthing and nurture, or womb and breasts (cf. ANEP, 162, pl. 469; Luke 11:27; 23:27). The pain and danger of childbirth has stamped itself on the consciousness of the OT’s male narrators and poets, who employ images of women in labor as symbols of anguish and helplessness (Isa 13:8; 21:3; Jer 48:41; Mic 4:9–10). A different type of maternal pain is associated with the death of a child, formalized in the ritual wailing of women at funerals and in the specialized female profession of keener, performer and composer of dirges (Jer 9:16, 19—Eng 9:17, 20). The mother’s bond with the fruit of her womb is understood as deep and persisting (Isa 49:15), overriding self-interest (1 Kgs 3:16–27) and extending even beyond death, as exemplified in Rizpah’s vigil over her slain sons (2 Sam 21:8–14), protecting them in death (a female role) as she could not do in life (a male role). It is also evidenced in the customary roles of women in preparing the dead for burial and in visits to tombs (Mark 16:1; cf. Luke 23:55–24:1).
Care for the dead may be seen as an extension of the mother’s primary role in care for the living, initiated in the nursing of infants (1 Sam 1:22; cf. Num 11:12; Isa 45:15) and continued in nursing of the sick and infirm (2 Sam 13:5; 1 Kgs 1:2; 2 Kgs 4:18–30). If the feeling of tenderness toward the weak expressed as “compassion” or “pity” is attributed to fathers (e.g., Ps 103:13) as well as mothers, the Hebrew etymology of the term identifies it as “womb-feeling” (raḥămı̂m; verb rāḥam < reḥem “womb”).
As the female head of a household or family unit within an extended household, the mother supervised the work of dependent females, including daughters, daughters-in-law, and servants. Although there is no direct evidence for the way in which multiple wives shared responsibilities of household management (narrative and legal texts focus on rivalry and favoritism: Deut 21:15–17; Gen 29:30–31; 1 Sam 1:6; cf. Exod 21:10), some form of seniority system may be assumed, especially where a second wife had the status of a concubine. Each woman, however, would have control over her own children. Normally a woman gained authority with age, together with a measure of freedom and leisure, although there is no recognized role for women comparable to that of the male “elders.” It is likely that many of the specialized roles and activities of women outside the home or involving public recognition and action (prophets, mediums, wise women, keeners, midwives) were performed by older women no longer burdened by the care of small children (e.g., the wise woman of Tekoa plausibly presents herself as a widow with grown children [2 Sam 14:4–7]). Cross-cultural studies attest increased religious activity and authority, including new religious roles, on the part of post-menopausal women or women with grown children.
2. Virgin Daughter or Bride. Alongside the image of the mother is another image that represents both a prior state and an alternative or complementary ideal of the feminine, viz. the virgin daughter or bride. In this portrait female sexuality is described in erotic rather than maternal terms. The subject is the young woman who is sexually ripe and ready for love, who may be designated bĕtûlâ “virgin,” ʿalmâ “young woman,” “maiden,” kallâ “bride” or, in the conventions of ANE love poetry, ʾāḥôt “sister” (Cant 4:9). She may be a young wife or an unmarried woman. She is described as the object of male desire (Canticles 4), but also as one who seeks a man’s embrace (Cant 3:1–4). The ultimate tragedy of the death of Jephthah’s daughter is expressed in the notice that “she had never known a man” (Judg 11:39). The bride is praised for her beauty (Gen 12:11, 15; 24:16; 1 Sam 25:3; Cant 4:1–5), fragrance and adornment (Cant 4:10–11; Isa 61:10; cf. 3:16, 18–24), in which she also takes delight (Cant 2:1–2; Jer 2:32). Although little of the rich erotic metaphor of the love songs is found in the restrained language of the courtship narratives, both share the ideal of the virgin bride as ripe and unblemished fruit, or fair and chaste (Cant 4:10–13, 16; Gen 24:16). The same ideal viewed from the perspective of male control underlies the legal stipulations regarding women’s sexuality.
In the love poetry of the Song of Songs sex is free and freely given; but in Israelite society, as every society, it was not free. Patrilineal and patriarchal interests demanded exclusive right for men to their wives’ sexuality. A woman’s sexuality was consequently guarded before marriage by her father (Deut 22:13–21, 28–29; cf. Gen 34:5–7) and after marriage by her husband (Num 5:11–31). Adultery was the most serious of women’s crimes, though both partners received the same sentence—death (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22). Proverbs identifies the adulteress with the evil/dangerous woman (Prov 5:2–4; 7:10–23; Yee 1989: 61)—while the adulterer is portrayed as a weak and foolish victim, succumbing to her advances (Prov 6:32; 7:7–13, 21–27; 9:13–18). In prophetic metaphor the promiscuous bride, likened at times to a professional prostitute, becomes a symbol of apostate Israel (Hosea 1–3; 4:10, 12, 17–18; Jer 3:1–3; Ezekiel 16; 23).
Prostitution in ancient Israel (Gen 38:13–26; 1 Kgs 3:16–27; Amos 7:17; Prov 23:27) is characterized by the same ambivalence attested in other cultures (Bird 1989: 121–2, 131–3). It exemplifies the asymmetry of sexual relations in patriarchal societies, also exhibited in the “double standard” respecting premarital sex (Deut 23:18–19) and the male prerogative of divorce (Deut 24:1). Prostitution allows men to maintain exclusive control of their wives’ sexuality while providing opportunity for sexual relations with other women without violating another man’s rights. The prostitute, who supplies this service for her livelihood, is a social outcast, who is generally forced into the profession by destitution or loss of parents or spouse (Bird 1989: 120–22, 129–33).
D. Roles and Activities Outside the Family
Women’s roles and activities outside their household-centered work were of two types, assistance in the basic tasks of production (agriculture and animal husbandry), and specialized professions and services. Women’s contribution to the primary work of production is difficult to determine; it fluctuated not only in relation to seasonal need, but also to geographic, demographic, technological, and political factors (e.g., drought, war, and disease). Meyers (1988: 50–63) argues that the peculiar ecological conditions of a frontier society demanded intensification of female labor in both productive and reproductive tasks during the early settlement period—with corresponding heightening of female status. Radically altered circumstances in later periods will have produced different patterns of participation and reward. Scanty data for all periods, however, make inferences hazardous. There is textual evidence for women’s involvement in harvesting (Ruth 2, where male and female workers form distinct groups) and in tending flocks (Gen 29:9; Exod 2:16).
Women’s work in clothing their households or in other types of domestic production may lead to limited commercial development in manufacture for sale (Prov 31:24); women’s cottage industry may be associated with urban growth. Specialized female labor was also employed by the palace, whose workforce of female slaves or impressed servants included perfumers, cooks and bakers (1 Sam 8:13). One well attested type of professional specialization is service to other women, best exemplified by the midwife (Exod 1:15–21), who in other ANE cultures was a religious specialist as well as a medical technician.
E. Religious Life
Little is known of women’s religious life in ancient Israel, except what is depicted in conjunction with men’s activities (1 Sam 1:13–18) or highlighted by explicit mention of women in collective references (Neh 8:2; cf. Deut 16:11, 13, where the wife is assumed in the masculine singular address to the male househead). Inferred participation of women in activities ascribed to the “people” or “congregation” or formulated in “generic” masculine terms expands the picture, but may not represent women’s actual participation, which may be limited or peripheral. Women’s religious activity may also take other forms hidden from the communal record (Bird 1987: 408–10). One area of women’s lives given explicit ritual attention is that related to procreation, with prescriptions for purification following menstruation and childbirth (Lev 15:25–30; 12:1–8).
Evidence of women’s magic, or devotion, is seen by many scholars in the small clay plaques or figurines of a naked female found throughout Iron Age excavations. Interpreted either as amulets to aid in conception or birth (especially those depicting a pregnant woman) or as representations of a “mother goddess,” these mass-produced images appear in both domestic and (peripheral) cultic sites. Although generally identified with women’s practice, their precise meaning and use remains uncertain, due to the variety of forms, changing styles, and lack of clear correspondence to objects mentioned in the biblical text (Pritchard 1943; Fowler 1985: 334–5; Holladay 1987: 275–80; Winter 1983: 96–134).
Within the sphere of public religious practice women specialists are attested in several roles, especially in sources for the premonarchic period. They include women who ministered at the entrance to the tent of meeting (Exod 38:8; 1 Sam 2:22); prophets, of whom three are named: Deborah (Judg 4:4–16), Huldah (2 Kgs 22:14–20), and Noadiah (Neh 6:14); and “consecrated women” (qĕdēšôt), usually described as “cultic prostitutes” and associated with Canaanite type cultic practices (Hos 4:14; Deut 23:19–20). See PROSTITUTION (CULTIC). Miriam, though identified as a prophet in Exod 15:20, appears to have exercised some form of cultic leadership (Burns 1987: 39–79).
F. Legal Status
Women’s legal status is a function of the larger system of social values and needs, and it cannot be isolated or absolutized. As it can be inferred from the OT’s disparate and partial sources, it may be characterized as generally subordinate to that of males. This is evidenced in women’s “hiddenness” as legal persons behind the male citizen or husband addressed by the law (Exod 20:3–17; Deut 16:4); in indirect (3d person) reference to women within masculine formulated direct address (Exod 20:17), or in literary subordination to a male subject (Exod 21:3; Jer 44:25); in limitation of women’s rights in conflicts of interest (Num 30:3–8), and in generally circumscribed rights and duties in the public sphere. Apart from the treatment of vows and suspected adultery (both cases involving extrafamilial interests), OT laws do not generally treat intrafamilial relationships. Parental authority over unruly children was invested in both parents (Deut 21:18–20) and also, apparently, responsibility for a daughter’s chastity (Deut 22:15)—though the father alone represents his daughter “in court.” As a general rule, women within the family were subject to male authority, either as daughters or wives. Only widows, divorced women (Num 30:9), and prostitutes (Josh 6:22) had legal status unmediated and unqualified by males. Although wives, together with children, slaves, and livestock, were counted among a man’s possessions (Exod 20:17; cf. Deut 5:21), neither wives nor children were understood as property.
G. Literary and Symbolic Representation
While legal subordination reflects the formal structures of power, it is an inadequate measure of women’s actual power or even recognized authority. Hints of the wider influence and power exercised by women in Israelite life may be seen in the OT’s literary presentation of women, which depicts them as more complex and forceful than their legal status suggests and gives them leading roles in some of the critical biblical dramas (e.g., Sarah and Hagar, Rahab, Deborah, Jezebel, Huldah, Esther). The expanded role of women in literature, however, especially in family sagas and novellas, reflects artistic need as well as lived reality. Behind this need is a more general pattern of gender symbolization, exhibited in linguistic as well as literary forms.
Woman as symbol plays an important role in the OT literature and must be distinguished, at least conceptually, from woman in history or society. Important examples of female symbolization in the OT include the female as goddess or symbol of divinity (most prominently exhibited in Asherah and the ʾašerı̂m), representation of the capital city or nation as virgin, mother, or bride (Amos 5:2; Isa 40:2; Jer 31:21; Hosea 1–2), and the hypostatization of Wisdom in Proverbs 8. The negative symbolization of woman is represented in Dame Folly (Prov 9:13–18), apostate Israel (Hosea 1–2; Jer 2:20; 3:2; 4:30; Ezekiel 16; 23), and fallen Tyre (Isa 23:15–18; cf. Rev 17:4–5), all portrayed as a harlot or adulteress.
H. Conclusion: Hermeneutical Considerations
Within the OT, viewed either as canonical text or historical testimony, the women who emerge as actors testify to the essential and active role of women in the formation and transmission of Israel’s faith. Despite its overwhelmingly androcentric and patriarchal orientation, Israelite faith was a woman’s faith—cherished, defended and exemplified by women. But the text also exhibits a tension between the statement made by the leading female figures and that made by the nameless and voiceless women “offstage.” Acknowledging their presence and incorporating their voices into the message of the OT is part of the new hermeneutical task, requiring new interpretive strategies and techniques.
Various forms of literary criticism (including rhetorical and structuralist approaches) have provided feminist interpreters with a tool for re-presenting the women of the OT in relation to contemporary concerns. As a counter or complement to historical exegesis, such interpretation focuses on the received form of the text, tracing the sexual dynamics of its narrative portraits and inviting identification with its female subjects. Depicted according to contemporary norms as victims (Jephthah’s daughter)—and challengers (the Hebrew midwives; Ruth and Naomi)—of patriarchal ideology and power, or simply as survivors in a man’s world, the women of the ancient text reflect and prefigure modern struggles and ideals. While interpreters such as Trible (1978; 1984), Bal (1987; 1988), Exum (1983), and Fuchs (1985) represent differing aims and approaches to the patriarchal text, they share a common reader orientation that invokes response to their retold tales: celebration for unsung triumphs, mourning and rage for unlamented victims and unnamed crimes. These literary-constructive readings present the mothers and daughters of ancient Israel as sisters “heard into speech” by modern feminist interpretation. See FEMINIST HERMENEUTICS.
Bibliography
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———. 1988. Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges. Chicago.
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———. 1987. The Place of Women in the Israelite Cultus. Pp. 399–419 in AIR.
———. 1989. The Harlot as Heroine: Narrative Art and Social Presupposition in Three Old Testament Texts. Pp. 119–39 in Narrative Research on the Hebrew Bible, eds. M. Amihai, G. W. Coats, and A. M. Solomon. Semeia 46. Atlanta.
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———. 1987. Women’s Studies and the Hebrew Bible. Pp. 141–64 in The Future of Biblical Studies: The Hebrew Scriptures, ed. R. E. Friedman and H. G. M. Williamson. Atlanta.
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Phyllis A. Bird
NEW TESTAMENT
In order to understand the position and roles of women in the NT era, it is necessary first to examine the historical and social context in which 1st century women lived. The primary matrix for assessing women’s roles in the Jesus movement and in early Jewish Christianity is the status and roles women had in early Judaism, especially in Israel. The position and roles of women elsewhere in the Roman Empire is also of relevance in assessing the place of women in the Pauline communities and in the communities of the gospel writers.
A. The Historical Setting
1. Women in Early Judaism
2. Women in Other Mediterranean Cultures
B. Women in the Ministry of Jesus
C. Women in the Pauline Communities
D. Women and the Third and Fourth Evangelists
E. Conclusions
A. The Historical Setting
1. Women in Early Judaism. The Palestinian Jewish culture was one of the most patriarchal in the Mediterranean crescent. The home and family were basically the only spheres where women could play significant roles in early Judaism. This was true not only because of the extensive power that a father had over both his wife and daughters in determining their activities and their relationships, but also because various levitical laws were interpreted in such a way that women were prohibited from taking significant roles in the synagogue due to their monthly period of levitical uncleanness.
Women could not make up the quorum that constituted a synagogue, could not be counted on to recite the daily Shema or make the pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the major feasts, nor are there any known examples of women reading the Torah in the synagogue in Jesus’ era (cf. m. Hag. 1.1, m. Ber. 3.3). Mishnah Qidd. 1.7 teaches: “The observance of all the positive ordinances that depend on the time of year is incumbent on men but not on women …” Women did receive and pass along some basic religious education in the home. There were, however, various teachers in early Judaism that frowned on women being given anything more than a rudimentary religious education, especially in regard to the oral halakah (Witherington 1984: 6–7). Furthermore, there is no evidence that prior to Jesus’ ministry Jewish women were ever allowed to be disciples of a great teacher, much less travel with such a teacher, or to instruct anyone other than children. In such a restrictive context, Jesus’ relationship to women must have seemed radical indeed, though on the wider scale of 1st century Mediterranean culture it seems not to have been unprecedented. In fact, seen from the broader cultural context, Jesus can be described as a reformer of patriarchal society, but not as one who outright rejected a patriarchal orientation.
In regard to the legal position of a woman in early Judaism, her testimony was considered valid by some early Jewish teachers, but suspect by others (cf. m. Ned. 11.10). In practice, women were entrusted with much responsibility and their word was normally accepted, especially in the home. The legal position of a woman even in a family, however, was seriously restricted in regard to the right of inheritance (she was basically entitled only to maintenance not inheritance) and the right of divorce (strictly speaking only the male could divorce, though a woman could precipitate a divorce). Furthermore, a woman was often passed from the control of her father to that of her husband with little or no say in the matter, not least because Jewish women in this era married at or soon after the time they came of age. The laws which were later codified in the Mishnah say that a woman, like a gentile slave, could be obtained by intercourse, money, or writ (m. Qidd.1.1), though normally marriage was transacted by the heads of the households who would make an agreement and settle on a bride price.
These facts should not cause us to overlook the positive statements made by early Jews about honoring and respecting women, nor should we ignore the extensive responsibilities placed on a Jewish husband in regard to his wife and daughters, nor forget that much of what we have discussed resulted from the attempt by an occupied people to preserve their culture and religious way of life. Nevertheless, the dominant impression left by our early Jewish sources is of a very patriarchal society that limited women’s roles and functions to the home, and severely restricted: (1) their rights of inheritance, (2) their choice of relationships, (3) their ability to pursue a religious education or fully participate in the synagogue, and (4) their freedom of movement.
2. Women in Other Mediterranean Cultures. Within the patriarchal framework that existed throughout the Roman Empire, there was a surprising degree of variety in the roles and positions women could and did assume from culture to culture. For example, in Rome women could at most be the power behind the throne, whereas in Egypt women could openly rule. Or again, in Athens married citizen-women seem to have been confined to domestic activities, whereas women in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Egypt engaged in their own private businesses, served in public offices, and had prominent roles in various religious cults.
Note that with the rise in popularity of the Isis cult came also the rise to prominence of all sorts of women in various significant religious roles, besides the traditional ones of being a Vestal Virgin (in Rome), or an oracle (e.g., at Delphi) roles open only to a few women who led atypical lives. Since Corinth in Paul’s day was a Roman city, and Rome was generally suspicious of imported oriental religions, allowing only an indigenous religion to receive official sanction, it is difficult to assess whether the oriental cults (e.g., Isis) played any significant role in Corinthian life. More certainly, in various places in Greece and elsewhere in the Mediterranean world in the 1st century women were allowed: (1) to be the organs of revelation; (2) to have prominent roles in the Dionysian cult; (3) to take the lead in the mystery plays, and the agricultural and fertility rites (Farnell 1907, 3: 106–16).
The degree that the father/husband controlled the family varied somewhat from culture to culture in the Mediterranean world. In Asia Minor women could dispose of their own property, and their dowry remained their own. This was also true in Egypt, but in Athens women’s property rights were more restricted.
In Rome, the patria potestas had been attenuated by laws that allowed marriage without the traditional patriarchal in manu procedure. Women as well as men could also end a marriage even on very flimsy grounds in Roman society. In general, a Roman woman’s property rights and freedom in marriage were greater than that of women elsewhere in the Empire, with the exception of Egypt and perhaps Asia Minor and Macedonia.
It is notable that in Roman society, unlike some parts of Greece, the education of women was considered important and desirable. Even among poorer families both daughters and sons received at least a rudimentary education, while in wealthier families all children regularly had tutors (Balsdon 1962: 252). Yet this did not lead Romans, even during the age of the Empire, to allow women to vote or hold public office, unlike the case in Asia Minor.
In summary, in terms of personal, property, and educational rights the women of Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Macedonia faired better than the women of Greece or Judea, but in terms of political rights Roman women were at a disadvantage when compared to Egyptian or Macedonian women (and those women in Asia Minor, Egypt, and elsewhere who inherited the benefits of Hellenism). In terms of roles and status in religious settings, women in Egypt, Asia Minor and Macedonia had more possibilities than Greek or Roman women in general, until the coming of various Oriental cults and Hellenistic ideals into Rome and the Roman colony cities in the Empire.
B. Women in the Ministry of Jesus
On a cursory examination of the gospels it might be possible to see Jesus as just another advocate of a patriarchal society, since he chose twelve men to be his personal followers, and since he probably exhorted his listeners to follow the OT commandment about honoring parents (Mark 7:10; 10:19 and parallels). In fact, it appears that he taught that for two people joined together by God divorce is not a legitimate option (Witherington 1984: 18–28). This is only one side of the story, however, for the gospels also portray Jesus as one who accepted women both as followers and as traveling companions (Luke 8:1–3). This same Jesus is said to have preferred for a woman to listen and learn from him as a disciple would, rather than to serve him in a woman’s traditional capacity (Luke 10:38–42). It seems that Jesus rejected many levitical laws about clean and unclean since he apparently fellowshipped with the unclean, allowed unclean women to touch him, and was willing to touch a corpse and stop a funeral procession to help a woman (Mark 5:25–34 and parallels; Luke 7:11–17, 36–50). Nowhere is it recorded that after such occasions Jesus went through the regular levitical procedures to make himself clean again.
Further light is shed on Jesus’ attitude toward women by the radical sayings which suggest that among his followers the family of faith supercedes the physical family as the primary group of identification (Mark 3:34–35 and parallels; Matt 10:34–39= Luke 14:26). One must also bear in mind a saying like Matt 19:3–12, which may have been Jesus’ vindication of his own celibate lifestyle, but which also allowed for both women and men to remain single for the sake of the Dominion of God. Such a teaching was foreign not only to the Jewish ethos where marriage and procreation were considered obligations (Gen 1:28), but also to the larger context of the Roman Empire where writers from Greek and Roman cultures were known to expound on the duty of marriage and procreation (Daube 1977). This teaching about being given the ability to be single for the sake of the Kingdom opened the door for women to assume roles in the Jesus movement other than the traditional domestic ones. It is not accidental that the gospel tradition records that women were among the witnesses of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, empty tomb, and resurrection. Herein we see the liberating effect the teaching and life of Jesus had on women, and the loyalty with which they responded to that life.
Taking all the probably authentic material in the gospels together, it would appear that Jesus was a reformer of patriarchal society, sometimes making suggestions that would have been considered radical in a Jewish context. This applies both to what he said and to what he allowed in regard to women’s religious roles in his movement. Also his teaching about marriage, divorce, and singleness would have been seen as radical not only by Jews but also by various people outside a Jewish context in the Roman Empire (Witherington 1984: 49–52, 77–79, 123–31).
C. Women in the Pauline Communities
When one investigates the letters of Paul, one finds concepts already in evidence in the Jesus tradition. On the one hand, there is an affirmation of marriage and family (1 Cor 7; Eph 5:22–31; Col 3:18–25; 1 Cor 11), and a modified, Christianized patriarchal structure seems to be advocated. On the other hand, the family of faith is seen as the primary unit of identity and there is a clear advocacy of women assuming important roles in the Christian community including proclamation roles (1 Cor 11:5; 16:19; Rom 16:1, 3, 7; Phil 4:2–3).
The “occasional” nature of Paul’s letters must be taken into consideration when evaluating such difficult texts as 1 Cor 14:34–35, or its parallel in 1 Tim 2:8–15. In both cases, Paul and/or the Paulinist who wrote these verses is dealing with problems in the Pauline communities. The rulings given apply to specific problems of women disrupting the worship service, or usurping authority over others. In both cases, the abuses are being ruled out, but this does not foreclose the issue of whether or not women who did not abuse their privileges might speak or exercise authority if it was done in a proper and orderly manner (Witherington 1988: 90–104, 117–24). In fact, in view of the evidence that various women were Paul’s co-workers in the Gospel ministry it is unlikely that these texts were ever intended to do more than rule out certain abuses.
Many recent interpreters have seen in Gal 3:28 the Magna Carta of human equality (Stendahl 1966). However, closer attention to both the baptismal context of this saying (which suggests that it is about entrance requirements for being “in Christ”), and the specific wording of the text (which reads “no male and female” not“no male or female”), suggests a different interpretation (Witherington 1981: 593–604.). Paul says that neither one’s racial nor social nor marital status should determine whether or not one can be in Christ. In Christ such distinctions as Jew and gentile, or married and unmarried, still exist (Romans 9–11; 1 Corinthians 7), but they have no inherent salvific value, nor do they determine whether or not one can be in Christ.
It is striking how Paul, in his assessment of marriage, divorce and singleness, seems to be drawing directly on the Jesus tradition in several ways. First, Paul agrees that there is a creation order that God used to set the pattern for proper marital relationships that supercedes Mosaic legislation (1 Cor 11:3–15; Matt 19:3–12 and parallels) (Witherington 1985: 571–76.). Second, Paul prohibits divorce for marital partners who are both believers (1 Cor 7:10–11; Mark 10:11). Third, he prefers the single status and states that the ability to lead a celibate life is a gift from God not given to all (1 Cor 7:7 and Matt 19:11–12). Furthermore, Paul seems to have had a healthy respect for marriage and human sexuality, as did Jesus, for he believes marriage is not merely a remedium concupiscentiae (1 Corinthians 7). This becomes especially clear if Ephesians 5 was written by Paul as seems probable. Finally, we may note that Paul’s constant use of family language to refer to his fellow believers indicates that he, like Jesus, saw the family of faith as the central and controlling social reality. Paul certainly does not warrant the title of chauvinist, but he was also no radical feminist. Rather, as was the case with our investigation of Jesus, what we see in Paul is: (1) an affirmation of new religious roles for women, and (2) a reaffirmation—with some Christian modifications—of the traditional roles women had been assuming in the family. In some contexts, particularly among Jews and Jewish Christians, both (1) and (2) would have made Paul appear to be radical. In other contexts, among some gentiles, Paul’s moral conservatism and reaffirmation of traditional roles for women would have appeared too confining (this appears to have been the case in Corinth). 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 seem to be Paul’s reaction to those whom he perceived to be overly “liberated” women. For Paul, the family of faith was central (as it was for Jesus), and this meant that the structure and roles of the physical family would be affected, and in some ways transformed, by the transcending practices of the family of faith. Paul walked a difficult line between reaffirmation and reformation of the good that was part of the creation order on the one hand, and the affirmation of new possibilities in Christ on the other (Witherington 1988: 125–26).
D. Women and the Third and Fourth Evangelists
Apparently, various 1st century churches struggled with the teaching of Jesus, Paul, and others about the new roles women could assume in the Christian community. This can be inferred from the fact that when the Third and Fourth Evangelists set down their gospels in the last quarter of the 1st century they felt it important to stress the new roles of women and the equality of women with men as objects of God’s grace and gracious endowments.
This stress is especially apparent in Luke-Acts where we find as part of Luke’s redactional agenda a tendency to pair parables and stories about men and women to show their equal place in God’s new activities through Jesus. Thus, for instance, we may point to such parables as Luke 13:18–21, or 18:1–14, or the pairing of the story of Aeneas and Tabitha in Acts 9:32–42 (Witherington 1988: 129). One may also note how the paradigmatic sermon of Jesus in Luke 4:18–19 seems to structure how Luke presents the liberation of various women from diseases or infirmities in Luke 4:38–44 or 8:1–3. H. Flender (1967: 10) rightly concludes: “Luke expresses by this arrangement that man and woman stand together and side by side before God. They are equal in honor and grace; they are endowed with the same gifts and have the same responsibilities …” Luke is also not reluctant to portray a woman as a prophetess (Acts 21:9), a religious teacher of a notable male Christian leader (Acts 18:1–3, 24–26), a hostess for a house churches (Acts 12:12–17), the first convert in a new region (Acts 16:12–40), and as assuming the roles deaconnesses were later to have (Acts 9:32–42). It is not accidental that Luke clearly mentions church meetings in the homes of women (Acts 12:12; 16:40). Luke has carefully chosen five vignettes to show the different roles women were assuming in the early Christian communities. In fact, these five stories show how the Gospel progressed through the female population across the Empire from Jerusalem (1:14; 12:12–17), to Joppa (9:36–42), to Philippi (16:11–15), to Corinth (18:1–3), to Ephesus (18:19–26), to Thessalonica (17:4), to Beroea (17:12), and to Athens (17:34). In this way, Luke not merely chronicles the effect of the Gospel on women in the early churches, but also provides a written precedent for women to continue in such roles.
In the Fourth Gospel there are at least five episodes which feature women and their roles: (1) Mary, Jesus’ mother (John 2, 19); (2) the Samaritan woman (John 4); (3) Mary and Martha (John 11–12); (4) the mention of the women at the cross (John 19); and (5) the appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene. Taken together, these tales reveal women on their way to becoming Jesus’ disciples, progressing in understanding and faith in Jesus. Thus, for instance, while Jesus clearly disengages from his mother’s parental authority in John 2, nonetheless they are reunited at the cross where Mary is accepted into the family of faith. Or again, in the story of Mary and Martha we find women who believe in Jesus, but inadequately, and who learn to fully confess who Jesus is. The same can be said of the detailed account of the Samaritan woman in John 4 where the immoral woman is portrayed as one who better understands and shares Jesus’ real “food” than the disciples who are still operating on a more material level. This woman bears witness about Jesus in the community in a way the disciples are not portrayed as doing.
John 20 is very important for here we find not only that a woman received the first appearance of the risen Lord, but also that she was commissioned to be an evangelist to the Eleven, proclaiming the Good News to them. The witness list mentioned in John 19 also indicates that the testimony of women was critical in regard to another crucial element in the Christian creed—Jesus’ death. Since it is improbable that early Christians would have invented the idea of women being the key witnesses to the concluding events in Jesus’ earthly career, it is more likely that the Fourth Evangelist is basing at least some of these narratives on historical data.
One may wish to ask why the Fourth Evangelist felt a need to stress a positive portrayal of how women responded to Jesus. At the end of the 1st century a.d. the role of women in the Christian community was probably still being debated, and in order to further the teaching of Jesus and other early Christians on these matters the Fourth Evangelist has presented various women as models of the process of coming to faith, and bearing witness to that faith in various ways.
E. Conclusions
There seems to be a consistent trajectory from the life and teachings of Jesus to the life and teachings of various of the earliest Christians including Paul. The authors addressing the earliest churches argue for the new freedom and roles women can assume in Christ. However, evidence shows an attempt at reformation, not repudiation, of the patriarchal structure of family and society evident in the 1st century. This reformation must take place “in Christ.” Therefore, we find no call to social revolution or to the overthrow of a patriarchal society outside of the Body of Christ. This reformation, however, led to greater stability and equality in the marriage structure, and to greater roles in the church both for married and unmarried women. Understanding the tension between the family of faith and the physical family was key to understanding the new roles women could play in the Church. Men, too, found that greater freedom meant more responsibility, not more privilege.
This affirmation of women was not quickly or universally accepted in the fledgling Christian Church. The writers of the New Testament documents had to argue for these new ideas even as late as the end of the 1st century. In fact, a review of post-NT and pre-Nicene material suggests that the resistance to both the reformation of the roles of women, and the affirmation of women in general, intensified. The modern debate on the role of women continues, but the starting point for each discussion should continue to be the biblical material.
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Ben Witherington, III
