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Teresa
Okure, SHCJ The standpoint from which we view an object or person determines largely what we see in the person or object. This could be the front view, side view, rear view or partial view. If we change our standpoint, or move the object around, we get a different view of the same person or object. The same applies to our knowledge of persons, even those whom we believe we know intimately. When we are personally involved or when it touches people dear to us, we perceive and judge reality and situations differently. One could demand that criminals be put to death or jailed for life. When the criminal in question happens to be oneself, a friend, a relative or one’s child, then one would like to see the criminal pardoned or, at least, placed in a remand home. Where we stand and how we relate to persons, situations and events influence what we see and how we judge the persons, situations and events concerned. These above observations are important for a discussion on women in the Bible. Where we stand and where we locate the issue greatly determines how we see, judge and respond to it. Often the question of women in the Bible is viewed as a female issue, by both men and women. Seen in its proper perspective, the women question today is a humanity issue. The issue concerns the nature, status and role of women in Church and society in relation to men, "the other half" of humanity. Genesis 1:26-27 reports that God created the human species "male and female" in the divine image and likeness. If they are equal in nature, what practical implications does this hold for both men and women in their self perception as a sex, their mutual relationship and in all fields of human endeavour? The Women Issue — A Humanity Issue Put this way, the women question is for all humanity, not just for women. What is at stake is humanity’s true self-understanding as intended by God who created them "male and female" conjointly in the divine image and likeness (Gn 1:26-27). This true self-understanding challenges humanity to review its beliefs about the male and female sexes and to grow into that wholeness intended by the Creator. What at the beginning was tagged the women’s movement, is today best understood as a movement of human revolution. Human beings have carried out all kinds of revolutions: industrial, scientific, technological and so forth. They have studied nature and the animal and sea worlds. The women issue calls on humanity to focus on itself, not individually psychologically, but as a species, created male and female. This human revolution permeates all aspects of human life where gender issues are concerned. While sex is a gift of God to each human being, gender roles are fixed by human beings. They are roles decided by society. The issue of how humanity sees the female sex and the gender role it assigns accordingly to this sex is discussed today in many fields of study: anthropology, philosophy, sociology, science, politics, economics, religion, theology and the Bible. The Bible is a centre point for this discussion; as God’s inspired Word, it contains the account of God’s creation of humanity as male and female, and its contents have a divine authority behind them. The Bible is also God’s Word expressed in human language by sinful and limited human beings. The divine and human standpoints permeate every biblical narrative, and need to be discerned. Women biblical scholars and theologians, in particular, hold that in our reading of the Bible we need to consider both the divine and the human viewpoints. They contend that in the heavily patriarchal Jewish culture within which the Bible was written, women were, at best, treated as second class citizens. Their primary reason for existence was allegedly to be in function of the man, particularly, the husband. A typical biblical example is Prv 31:10, traditionally captioned "the ideal woman". Here the woman, "a perfect wife", is evaluated and praised principally for her intrinsic usefulness to her husband. "She brings him good, not harm all the days of her life" (Prv 31:12). Women scholars contend that though the Bible is God’s Word, the patriarchal, cultural viewpoint colours its entire portrayal of women in relation to men. The Old Testament reflects a culture where only the man had legal status, with corresponding rights and obligations. This perception of women as existing in function of the man, and lacking legal status exists in many world cultures. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in this century has sought to tackle this problem. Though the picture of women in the Bible is predominantly negative, it is not comprehensively so. In the Old Testament, the High Priest Joakim calls Judith, "the highest honour of our race" (Jdt 15:9). Israel as a nation is portrayed as God’s cherished bride. Similarly the Church, the new Israel, and each individual Christian are seen as Christ’s bride (Eph 5:25-32), though focus on the wife’s subjection to the husband in Ephesians often diverts attention from this great mystery. The new creation, comprising all the redeemed from every tribe, language and nation, is the bride in whose midst God and the Lamb dwell forever in perfect love (Rv 21-22). Mary, the mother of Jesus, filled to the brim with God’s grace is, more so than Judith, "the highest honour of our race". Beside Christ, God incarnate, she alone of all creatures and of all women was destined to be God’s own mother. The picture of women in the Bible is complex. Though woman is viewed positively in certain instances in the Bible, the negative image dominates. Earlier studies on women in the Bible showed that this negative view of woman originates from sinful humanity, not from God’s created will. The effort to discern the human dimension was and, for many, still is a necessary process of clearing the ground for a more positive and balanced evaluation of women and men. Such clearing is necessary if we are to become aware of our own inborn prejudices, turn away from them and together grow towards the attainment of our full humanity as God intended it. This re-reading of the biblical stories about women invites one to discern with the help of the Holy Spirit between what is from God and what is from limited, even sinful human cultures. Approaches to the Problem Scholars have identified ways in which women are treated negatively in the Bible. First, it is contended that the contributions of women in the Bible were either left out or played down. One hears often of "the God of our Fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob", but not of "our Mothers, Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel/Leah". Yet in Ruth 4:11, Rachel and Leah are called "the women who together built up the house of Israel". They were the mothers of the 12 tribes of Israel, Jacob’s immediate sons or the ancestors of the Jewish nation. In Jewish thought and culture, a man (and consequently a nation) was what the wife (or the nation’s women) made him or it, good or bad. The common saying among the Rabbis about whether a man was good or bad, was: "It all depends on the woman". This cultural belief helps to explain why in Genesis 3 Adam blames Eve for his having eaten the forbidden fruit and why the New Testament accuses Eve even more strongly and exonerates Adam (cf. 1 Cor 11:3-10; 2 Cor 11:13; 1 Tm 2:11-15). Yet viewed closely from God’s perspective, the Genesis account gives greater blame and responsibility to the man. God personally gave Adam the command not to eat of the forbidden fruit even before the woman was created. After the fall, God looked for the man and asked him what he had done. True to his cultural instinct (the cultural instinct of the biblical author), Adam threw the blame on the woman and implicated God in the process: "The woman you [emphasis mine] put with me gave me the fruit and I ate" (compare Gn 2:16-17 and 3:9-12). In the Bible itself and throughout the history of biblical interpretation, Eve has been vilified as solely responsible for the current plight of humanity, the one who introduced sin into the world. Many women theologians today do not see her as a weak character, at least not weaker than Adam. She acted because she wanted knowledge. They ask why Adam, "who was with her" throughout the conversation with the serpent (Gn 3:7), ate without even recalling the command which God had personally given to him before Eve was created. Adam, the ‘stronger sex’, simply took and ate without even an objection. Moreover, only after he had eaten did the eyes of both open. When God came to judge the situation, he held Adam most responsible for the sin. Consequently, Adam’s punishment affected not only himself but the earth: "accursed be the soil because of you" (Gn 3:17-18), whereas the woman’s punishment was restricted to her personally: pain in childbirth and subjection to her husband. Adam’s sin and punishment, not the woman’s, brought travail to the entire earth. Men, today, especially husbands, cannot disclaim responsibility for their actions or for the fate of their families and nation. To blame women for men’s failings is to dehumanise men. Secondly it is observed that where women are remembered, they are for the most part treated in a pejorative light, as harlots or prostitutes (Rahab, Jos 2:1), temptresses (Potiphar’s wife, Gn 39:7-20), or vicious characters (Jezebel, 1 Kgs 21:4-16). Women as harlots, prostitutes or unfaithful wives are also used to model unfaithful Israel (e.g., Hos 2) and ungodly or evil empires (e.g., Babylon, Rv 17; cf. Is 23:17; Jer 51:13; Ez 16:23). This stereotyping in the "Word of God" served to promote and consolidate the negative attitude towards women in the cultures concerned and in church and society generally; they have promoted the same throughout the centuries in the readers of the Bible, both men and women, and in church and society. The influence of the Bible on attitude towards women is not limited to the Jewish, Christian and Moslem traditions, "the people of the book". It extends to all cultures, for as James states in the Council of Jerusalem, "Moses has always had his preachers in every town" (Acts 15:21). The Bible’s influences on world cultures through art, songs, stories, novels and other forms of communication cannot be underestimated. Thirdly, it is noted that even the positive roles played by women which compare favourably with those of men are often played down or not given their full significance. One may here compare the theophanies to Hagar (Gn 16:6-16; 21:8-20), for instance, with those to Abraham (12:1-7; 13:14-18; 15:1-21). Little effort is made to bring out the theological siginificance of the former, compared with the latter. In the New Testament, when the Greek word diakonos is used of men, it is translated "deacon", when used of women, it is translated "servant". Another key example is Martha’s confession in John 11:27, which in its own way parallels that of Peter in Matthew 16:17. While Peter’s confession has been celebrated to his honour, and a promise attached to it, that of Martha is hardly ever noticed in the same way. Yet in John’s Gospel, Martha is the mouthpiece of the faith on which the entire Gospel is based and for which sole purpose it is written, namely, to persuade the readers to "believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God" and so believing to find life in his name (compare Jn 20:30-31 and 11: 27). The anointing of Jesus by the unnamed woman in the house of Simon the Leper (Mt 26: 1-13; Mk 14:3-9) and by Mary of Bethany (Jn 12:1-8) a few days before the Passion is of great significance in the events of the Passion. Jesus declares the one should be celebrated "in memory of" the woman and interprets the other as a preparation of his body for burial. He himself is inspired by the anointing in Bethany to do the same to his disciples at the Last Supper, a few days later. Yet these events have not received the recognition they deserve. Mary of Bethany does not even have so much as a "Memorial" status in the Church’s liturgical calendar, nor does the unnamed woman. Patriarchally and culturally based interpretations of the Bible further contribute in downplaying the unique contributions of women in the Bible. Conversely, women’s sins, real or imagined, are blown up, while those of men are glossed over. Mary Magdalene is stigmatised as a prostitute and has come down in history with this indelible stigma, though no Gospel evidence links her with prostitution. Luke alone reports that seven demons had gone out of her (Lk 8:2) but demon possession is not synonymous with prostitution. The Gerasenes demoniac (Mk 5:1-20) was possessed by a legion of unclean spirits, yet nobody thinks of him as a male prostitute. In the Gospeles and culture of the time, she is named Mary of Magdala (after her place of origin) just as Joseph of Arimathea, for instance, is named after his place of origin, so too Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus. In John 8:1-11, where a woman is caught in adultery, which implies that the man was also caught with her, only the woman is brought to Jesus for stoning. In Numbers 12 both Aaron and Miriam revolt against Moses, but Miriam alone is punished. The reader could find other examples of injustice or culturally conditioned and biased views against women in the Bible. Fourthly, it is observed that women are not very visible in the Bible itself compared to men. Even when they are present, they are marginalised. Luke 8:1-3 reports that many women followed Jesus as he went through Galilee teaching in their towns and villages and then continued to Jerusalem. But though mention is made of the men disciples along the way to Jerusalem, nothing is said of the women till they are mentioned again at the end of Jesus’ life journey (on Calvary and at the Resurrection), almost in passing, as the women who had come up with him from Galilee (Lk 23:49; 24:10; Mt; 27:55-56; Mk 15:40-41). These women emerge as the first witnesses of the Resurrection. They knew where to find the men disciples who were hiding behind locked doors, to give them the good news. The implication in all this is that they were present with Jesus throughout his public ministry right up to the events of the Passion and Resurrection. The belief that women were not present at the Last Supper needs to be reviewed in the light of this Gospel evidence. The role of women in the life and ministry of Jesus is an area where God’s viewpoint emerges as clearly different from the human viewpoint. Though culturally the testimony of women had no legal standing, since women were treated like minors along with children, Jesus acted counter-culturally when he made the women the first witnesses of his Resurrection (Mt 28:9-10; Lk 24:1-11) and designated Mary Magdalene as the bearer of his Resurrection message (Jn 21:17). Not only Mary Magdalene, but the women witnesses of the Resurrection can be called the "apostle of the apostles"; Jesus commissioned them as a group in Matthew 28:10. Even then the men disciples, still operating within the dictates of their patriarchal culture, did not believe them. Their refusal to believe the women’s proclamation of the Resurrection was a cultural, not a Gospel response. Jesus reproached them for not believing those who had seen him (Mt 16:9-14). Though he appeared later to Peter, we are not told that Peter’s report was doubted. Paul’s account of the Resurrection appearances (1 Cor 15: 3-8) leaves out completely the appearances to the women, the first witnesses of the Resurrection. Fifthly, it is noted that the treatment of woman in the Bible affects the treatment of the Trinitarian God. If God created humanity as male and female in the divine image and likeness, then something of woman must necessarily image God. By depriving woman of her likeness to God, humanity is impoverishing our understanding of God and the way God relates to us. A key image here is the motherhood of God which is very vivid in the Old Testament, in such passages as Hos 11:8-9 and Is 49:14-15. Wisdom herself is portrayed as God’s consort, the one through whom the world was created (see Prv 8: 22-31; Wis 6:12-21; 7:22-30). In the New Testament this Wisdom is identified with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, the principle of the new creation. Eve’s name given to her by Adam after the fall means "mother of all the living" (Gn 3:20). It is in bearing, nurturing and preserving life and in showing mercy, and loving faithfully those who deserve no love (like abusive husbands and ungrateful children) that woman most resembles God. The Hebrew word for mercy derives from the same root as womb. God’s womb is God’s mercy. We impoverish our knowledge of God by treating "him" only as Lord, mighty warrior and imperial monarch. The above survey hardly does justice to the complex issue of women in the Bible. Scholars adopt many different approaches in redressing it. These approaches seek to raise awareness that patriarchy is the most comprehensive standpoint from which the Bible is written and interpreted over the centuries and from which both men and women are viewed. Whatever form these studies take, their aim is to restore a balanced view of men and women in the Bible and help humanity to arrive at the Christological truth which alone can set the whole of humanity free to remain in God’s house as God’s children (cf. Jn 8:31-36). Practical Exercises The reader needs to participate personally in discovering the presence and contribution of women in the Bible if this discussion is to be of benefit to the individual person. One way of doing this is to compile one’s own list of women in the Bible (a kind of stock-taking), to watch what the women are doing and discern the influences at work in the way each is portrayed. There are, for instance, women disciples of Jesus, women prophets (Acts 21:10), Church workers (Rom 16 :1-16) women preachers of the word (Acts 18:1-4; 19:24-28; Phil 4:1-3), pastors in their house churches (Acts 12 :12; 16:11-15, 40; Rom 16:3-5); women with special vocations (Acts 9:36-43) and a renowned woman Deacon (Rom 16:1-2). Such a compilation makes women visible in the Bible, at least for oneself. The exercise surprises one at the number of women mentioned in the Bible. This could be a project for group or individual study where the findings could be shared later in groups and with friends. How one classifies the women could serve as an index of one’s personal view of them. Members of the study group could act as one another’s mirror about whether one’s view of women in the Bible is from culture or from God. For this undertaking to be Christ-like, the reader may ask whether what is said about women in any one instance can be attributed to God or Jesus. If the answer is negative, that awareness should challenge one to revise his/her views of women. Once the list has been compiled, the reader is invited to read each story critically in its own biblical context. This total context is crucial if one wishes to gain a fuller meaning of the stories. The reader should also listen to these stories in the light of her or his Christian faith. The Gospel is essentially a message of liberation of the poor and the oppressed from all dehumanising and death dealing forces. In this respect, Jesus himself is the Gospel par excellence and all four Gospels do not exhaust the limits of his own person as God’s gospel. One needs then to identify where the good news lies in these stories of biblical women, or where God’s voice is to be distinguished from culturally conditioned human voices and viewpoints. This discernment is necessary, because as said earlier, the Bible is God’s Word expressed in limited human language and cultures in a given period of history. The reader thus becomes aware not only of the limited cultural dimensions of the Bible but of his or her own cultural conditionings. Resources for the Exercises Old Testament In compiling and critically reading the list of biblical women, the reader might concentrate on the chief periods in biblical history. Eve briefly treated above, belongs to pre-history. In the story of the patriarchs and matriarchs, God takes the women into confidence as much as, and perhaps more so than their husbands, on the future of their children; they respond accordingly. This is true of Sarah when she seeks to ensure the inheritance for Isaac over Ishmael, Abraham’s first born by Hagar, the Egyptian slave (Gn 21:1-20). We are not here condoning the injustice to Hagar and Ishmael in the story, but only looking at the events from Sarah’s perspective. Many mothers and fathers would probably do the same for their children today. In the story, God takes the part of Sarah without neglecting Hagar. Ironically in Galatians 4, Hagar becomes the symbol of Israel. This is particularly true of Rebecca (Gn 27). Traditionally Rebecca has been portrayed as a woman of weak character, guilty of the "sin of deceitfulness". Yet her "deceitfulness" is perhaps not different from that of Abraham who passed Sarah off as his sister in Egypt to save his life and became rich on her account, to the punishment of the innocent Egyptians (Gn 12:10-20). In this story God did not punish Abraham for this deceitfulness but the Egyptians who acted in ignorance of his true relationship with Sarah. Moreover in Rebacca’s case, before ever Jacob and Esau were born, God told her that there were two nations struggling in her womb and that the younger would rule over the older (Gn 25:19-26). When subsequently she took measures to ensure that Jacob received the paternal blessing, considered crucial in the culture of the time for a child’s future, she was cooperating with God in her own way to ensure that Isaac’s blessing fell to the son designated as leader by God before birth. In the cultural ethics of the time, it was a mark of astuteness to succeed in outwitting one’s neighbour to secure a blessing. We meet this in Jacob himself when he outwits Laban, his father-in-law, on the issue of the spotted sheep (Gn 30:32-43). The name Jacob itself seems to mean deceiver or supplanter (cf. Gn 27:36; Hos 12:4). Often in the interpretations of these passages Rebecca’s "deceitfulness" is emphasized, while the parallel deeds by the patriarchs are passed over. Though Lot’s wife was disobedient (Gn 19:17,23-26), some people today sympathize with her. They ask how she, a woman and mother, could have walked away without looking back while a whole town was burning to death. Her mother’s heart and woman’s instinct were too strong for that hardness of heart. Besides, it is not said that Lot and his family were lesser sinners than those who were destroyed. God spared them because of his concern for Abraham (Gn 19:29). By looking back and being turned into a pillar of salt, Lot’s wife shared the fate of the people to the end. We are reminded today of foreign nationals who are quickly evacuated by their own people whenever there is a war, instead of staying on and helping the people in their crises. Lot and his family were foreigners in Sodom and Gomorrah. Besides, the God portrayed in this whole story cuts a poor image when compared with the God of Jesus Christ. This God would leave the 99 sheep in the desert to go in search of the lost sheep (Lk 15:4-7). As a prodigal father he throws a first class banquet to celebrate the return of a lost son whose sole reason for returning is to seek food (Lk 15:11-32). In the Exodus, the Egyptian midwives, Moses’s mother, sister and Pharaoh’s daughter (Ex 1:15-2:10), and later Moses’ wife (Ex 2:16-22; 4:24-26), play an indispensable role in preserving his life. Without the concerted effort and team work of these illustrious women, Moses would never have survived as a child, and later been spared by God. But because of them, he has become a great figure in Jewish history and the greatest prophet of the Old Testament, to whom God spoke "face to face", not through dreams and visions (Nm 12:6-8). Legally or by adoption, Moses was in every respect the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; she gave him his name (Ex 2:10), which has remained a great name in biblical history. Indeed the Bible as a book owes its origin to his mission to liberate Israel from slavery in Egypt. Since Pharaoh’s daughter was an African, Moses is legally (by adoption) the son of a notable African woman. In the time of the Judges, Deborah (Jgs 4:4-10) emerges as a Judge in Israel when all hope of survival was about gone. She was a prophet (God’s spokesperson) and a successful political leader, even leader warrior (4:10) in Israel. Women who aspire to take part in civilian politics may study her as a model and draw inspiration from her. Men who dislike women taking part in politics may also remember that, in a culture as heavily patriarchal as the Jewish biblical one, a woman ruled Israel and was followed by men. In our days most women prime ministers ironically come from countries believed to be heavily patriarchal (Indira Ghandi, Benazier Bhutto and Golda Meir). Ruth is a faithful wife who refuses to allow death to separate her from the husband’s family. More important still, she is an outstanding example of a faith and love which transcend all tribal, ethnic, religious and national barriers. By this faith and commitment to her mother-in-law, she merited to become an ancestress of Jesus, one of the few women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy (cf. Mt 1:5). These women give the Gentiles a place as ancestors of Jesus, when this ancestry is viewed through election, not creation. For while Luke traces Jesus’ ancestry to Adam, Matthew limits it to the chosen people whose protogenetors are Abraham and Sarah. Despite this limitation, by including the Gentile women, Matthew’s genealogy also includes Gentiles through their presence and mediation. In the monarchic period, Jezebel and Solomon’s wives are foreign wives held responsible for the evil deeds of their husbands. One is familiar with the cultural rhetoric that Solomon’s heart was turned away from God by his foreign wives. Yet he married them, not the reverse. How could he, of the stronger sex and race, allow himself to be led astray by "the weaker sex" and of "inferior race"? The perceptive reader will notice many inconsistencies in these narratives on the roles and capabilities of women and the tendency to exonorate men of responsibility for their actions and throw that responsibility on the women. Yet Scripture tells us that God shows no partiality in his judgments (cf. Rom 2:11; Ps 62:12). In the period after the Exile, while Israel was struggling for national identity and survival Judith and Esther emerged. Judith, a widow, risked her life to save her nation when it was besieged and almost exterminated by the enemy. She went right into the enemy’s camp and cut off the head of Holofernes, the captain of their army; then took it back in victory to her people and led them in triumphal procession to Jerusalem. Her story and that of Esther might inspire women on the need to take actions full of risk to liberate their nations "in distress". Esther’s prayer is a good example of "prayer in action and action in prayer". Not only does she pray to God to save her people, she also asks God to arm her and use her as an instrument of this liberation of her people as she faces the king. God answered her prayers abundantly. In this story, however, patriarchy is at work. Esther is given in marriage to a Gentile, though the law forbad such a union. She is in this way used against herself. Secondly she is used against Queen Vasthi, her predecessor. Vasthi refused to be put up for show by the king along with his golden vessels and treasures for the entertainment of his nobles and was consequently deposed. The King’s courtiers feared that her action might lead to the emancipation of women from domination by their husbands and took effective means to stamp it out by deposing her as queen. This fear recalls that of Pharaoh who sought to oppress the Hebrews lest they escape from the country. Though Vasthi seems to have lost the case, she is justified today by history, not only because women biblical scholars have discovered her, but because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights forbids one human being to treat another as his property. The feared emancipation of women marches on and it is no longer possible to clamp down on it. Queen Vasthi respected her own dignity as a human being by refusing to be treated by her husband as a puppet for show. Today Vasthi would be regarded as a pioneer of women’s liberation, ahead of her times. Women need to be aware of how they can be used against their own interests in God’s name. Men and women may reflect on whether they give one another the respect that is their due as people made in God’s image and likeness, and more beautifully recreated in Christ. Respect for human rights forbids that one human being treat another as his or her property. For in Christ we are all God’s property (cf. 1 Cor 3:23; 6:15-20). Job’s wife (Jb 2:9-10) belongs to the period of wisdom literature. Her taunting her husband is to be interpreted against the background of the positions of Job’s three men friends, and even of Job himself when he curses the day he was born and takes God to task for treating him unjustly. The main point of the story is that all flesh is inadequate to help us in our times of trial, whether such flesh be our relatives, friends or even our own human judgment of the situation. Only faith in God’s infinite wisdom which moves us to submit humbly, while waiting confidently on God’s unfailing goodness, can see us through the trials and temptations that come our way. Only faith in God can give us victory over all the trials of our lives. Job personally discovered this truth for himself at the end of his story (cf. Jb 42:1-6). New Testament The New Testament narrates however minimally the good deeds of women. In the interpretation only the culturally conditioned sections which prohibit women from taking part in different aspects of the Church’s life are most remembered and acted upon (cf. 1 Cor 11:3-16; 14:33b-36; 1 Tm 2:9-15; 5:3-16; Eph 5:22-24; 1 Pt 3:1-6; Ti 2:3-5). The women most remembered in the public life of Jesus are mostly the sinners, the woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk 7:36-50), the woman taken in adultery (Jn 8:1-11), and the Samaritan women with her marital history (Jn 4:16-20). The strength of "the woman who was a sinner" lies in her courage to repent. The Gospel does not report the repentance of the men with whom she led the "loose life". As a repentant sinner she showed she was a woman of strong character when she braved the contempt of Simon the Pharisee, and ignored cultural and human decency to approach Jesus publicly to seek his forgiveness. Jesus commended her as a woman who loved much because she was aware that her many sins had been forgiven her. To err is human, but to admit one’s error, not to talk of sinfulness, is divine. One needs spiritual strength to repent. The woman showed the moral strength which can only come from God, but which many of us lack today, both men and women. Prostitution operates because men and women form partners in it. If there were no men to pay for "the services", there would be no prostitutes. A man who goes from woman to woman, day after day, offering money for the so-called services, is as much a prostitute as is a woman who does the same, perhaps even to earn a living and feed her children. Jesus was very aware of this partnership in sin when in John 8:7, he asked the men leaders who caught the woman in adultery, to be the first to cast a stone at her if they themselves were without sin. The narrative records that they all "went away one by one beginning with the eldest". As Christians, we need to put on the mind and judgment of Christ in reading these stories. God shows no partiality (Rom 2:11). Furthermore, Jesus was put on trial through the woman. In a reverse case, the Church uses Susanna as a symbol of innocent Jesus condemned to death in the Passion week. Women’s partnership with God in giving and fostering life comes to the fore in the New Testament. In the greatest event of human history, the Incarnation, God chooses to take women, Mary of Nazareth and Elizabeth, into confidence and as partners in this event. The story of the annunciation is followed by the visitation. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the first to know of this event and to be its unique agent, then Elizabeth at the visitation. Mary did not simply bring up Jesus, as some would emphasize today. Surrogate mothers and nannies bring up children to whom they did not give birth. She was his biological "Mother of Jesus", by the power of the Holy Spirit. John’s Gospel consistently emphasizes her physical motherhood by calling her "the mother of Jesus" (Jn 2:1-12; 19:25). Her greatness lies in her believing that she could become a mother without normal human intercourse. Elizabeth, another woman, was the first to recognize and praise her faith in the humanly impossible. By accepting to become the Mother of Jesus, Mary also accepted to share in the fate of this Son of God, a stone to be rejected so that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed (Lk 2:34-35). Mary the Mother of Jesus was not only a woman of great faith. She was the first evangelist long before the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:27-20, 39-43). She first brought the Good News of Jesus to her cousin Elizabeth. We read in Isaiah 52:7: "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of one who brings good news, who heralds peace, brings happiness, proclaims salvation ...". Mary’s feet sped through the hilly country of Galilee to the hilly country of Judea, to bring the good news to her cousin Elizabeth, and her unborn child, John the Baptist. The child leaped in her womb for joy, showing that the news Mary brought, by her very presence as God-bearer, was truly Good News. Mary’s example challenges us as Jesus’ brothers and sisters and mother (Lk 19-21; cf. Mt 13:18-23; Mk 3:34-35) to live up to our Christian vocation as those who hear God’s Word, put it into practice, and proclaim it to others. This study has hardly introduced the rich, complex and very challenging issue of women in the Bible. Its main aim was to invite the reader to identify, read and re-read the stories of women in the Bible with new eyes, ears and heart. When done, one will have developed a genuine love and gratitude to God for the singular presence and contributions of women in the Bible. They are indeed God’s co-workers. Without them there would not have been Moses, leader of the Chosen People in the Old Testament, or Jesus, the Son of God, Son of Mary and the Saviour of the World (Jn 4:42). May the Holy Spirit who alone leads us into the complete truth, guide the reader to re-read the biblical stories about women with the mind of Christ. May he also inspire the reader to compile his or her own anthology based on a renewed or Spirit-filled understanding of the basic truth that, in Christ, there is no longer "male and female", the one seen as superior by nature the other inferior; but that we who have been baptized into Christ "are all one person in Christ" (Gal 3:28). For Further Reading Bird, Phyllis A. Missing Persons & Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1997. Clark, A. Elizabeth. Women in the Early Church. Message of the Fathers. Vol. 13. Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1983. Danby, Henry. The Mishnah Translated from the Hebrew with Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes (London: Oxford University Press, 1938); see under "Nashim". Fabella, Virginia and Mercy A. Oduyoye, eds. With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1988. Fiorenza, Elizabeth Schüssler, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad, 1983. Fiorenza, Elizabeth Schüssler, Discipleship of Equals: A Critical Feminist Ekklesia-ology of Liberation. New York: Crossroad, 1993. Fiorenza, Elizabeth Schüssler, Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet. New York: Continuum, 1994. Fiorenza, Elizabeth Schüssler, The Power of Naming A Concilium Reader in Feminist Liberation Theology. Maryknoll, NewYork: Orbis, 1996. Graff, O’Hara A., ed. In the Embrace of God: Feminist Approaches to Theological Anthropology. Maryknoll New York: Orbis Books, 1995. Johnson, Elizabeth, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad, 1992. Johnson, Elizabeth, Friends of God and Prophets: A Feminist Theological Reading of the Communion of Saints. New York: Continuum, 1998. LaCugna, Catherine, ed. Freeing Theology: The Essentials in Feminist Perspective . New York: Harper and Row, 1993. Newsom, Carol A. and Sharon H. Ringe, eds. The Women’s Bible Commentary. London: SPCK. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992. Oduyoye, Mercy A. and Musimbi R. Kanyoro, eds. The Will to Arise: Women, Tradition and the Church in Africa. Maryknoll, New York.: Orbis Books, 1992. Okure, Teresa, "Biblical Perspectives on Women: Eve, ‘the Mother of all the Living’ (Gen 3:20)". Voices from the Third World. Philippine Edition VIII/2 (1985), 17-24. Okure, Teresa, "Women in the Bible". In With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology, 47-59. Edited by Virginia Fabella and Mercy Amba Oduyoye. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1988. Okure, Teresa, "The Significance of Jesus’ Commission to Mary Magdalene". International Review of Mission LXXXI/322 (1992) 177-188. Okure, Teresa, "The Will to Arise: Reflections on Luke 8:40-56". In The Will to Arise: Women, Tradition and the Church in Africa, 221-230. Edited by Mercy A. Oduyoye and Musimbi R. Kanyoro. Maryknoll, New.York.: Orbis Books, 1992. Okure, Teresa, "AFES AYTHN" (Jn 12:7): The Challenge of the Anointing at Bethany (Jn 12:1-8 and //s) for the Contemporary Church". In Universalisme et Mission dans la Bible, 137-146. PACE. Nairobi: Katholische Jungschar Oesterreiches et BICAM, 1993. Okure, Teresa, "Feminist Interpretations in Africa". In Searching the Scriptures, pp. 76-85. Vol. 1. Edited by Elizabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza. New York: Crossroad, 1994. Okure, Teresa, "The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament: Implications for Women in Mission". Journal of Inculturation Theology 3/2 (1995) 196-210. Okure, Teresa, "John". In International Bible Commentary: A Catholic Ecumenical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century, 1438-1505. Edited by William R. Farmer et alii. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998. Zitate Okure: S.1 The women question today is a humanity issue S.3 We have to become aware of our culturally determined prejudices and grow towards the attainment of our full humanity S.4(3) A re-reading of biblical stories about women invites to discern between what is from God and what is from limited, even sinful human cultures S.11
Women in the Bible are God’s co-workers. Without them there would
have been no Moses, leader of the Chosen People, and no Jesus, Saviour
of the World. Ref.: BULLETIN DEI VERBUM, n. 53, 4/1999.
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