I am reminded again in my daily reading of Scripture of the prominence of women in the life and ministry of Jesus. Every time I read through the Gospels, I see it. As I read through the Old Testament with eyes sensitized by the Gospels, I see the theme there also. This theme is somewhat, hidden, however.
We have only committed to the idea that women should be equals of men in very modern times, and that idea is still not universal around the world. A cultural revolution was required in the western world to change ancient paradigms. The change has been slow, difficult, and filled with tension.
Christianity was influential in bringing about that change, but many Christians have also resisted it. This is true even while the roots of that cultural revolution are embedded in Judeo-Christian Scripture.
Tom Holland, in his epic book, Dominion, traced modern, secular humanist values back to a surprising root. He had no idea where the values he took for granted came from: gender equality, racial equality, individual freedoms, civil rights, etc. When he searched for them, he for found them in Genesis, in the Gospel accounts of Jesus, and in the letters of Paul, the apostle.
Rebecca McLaughlin writes about the prominence of women in the Gospel accounts of Jesus in her 2021 article, Jesus Changed Everything for Women. She quotes Holland to remind us of the cultural context in which those accounts were written:
In Greco–Roman thinking, men were superior to women and sex was a way to prove it. “As captured cities were to the swords of the legions, so the bodies of those used sexually were to the Roman man,” Holland wrote. “To be penetrated, male or female, was to be branded as inferior.”
Jesus chantged Everything
In Rome, “men no more hesitated to use slaves and prostitutes to relieve themselves of their sexual needs than they did to use the side of a road as a toilet.” The idea that every woman had the right to choose what happened to her body was laughable.
Jesus didn’t introduce the these radical notions, however. They go all the way back to Genesis, where we read that God made men and women, together, in His image. (More on that below)
Modern westerners have learned to reject and even to despise the paternalism of most of the history of mankind (pun intended), so it’s easy to miss the way the Bible elevates women. After all, the Bible was written by many men many centuries ago, before anyone in the west (or anywhere else) got the notion that women should be treated as equals.
Let that sink in a moment: the Bible was written by men.
As much as modern westerners like to recoil from the idea of men treating women as second class citizens, the 1st Century Roman world thought nothing of it. Aristotle taught that women are “defective men”. He believed that “women were fit only to be the subjects of male rule“, and “they are born to be ruled by men”. Aristotle and most men for millennia thought that the inferiority of women was obvious, stemming from their nature as the “weaker gender”.
Nowhere, perhaps, were women more objectified and diminished in value than the Roman world. (See ‘Christianity gave women a dignity that no previous sexual dispensation had offered’: Tom Holland, by Shoaib Daniyal, Feb. 23, 2020.)
Given that context, the “clues” we find “hidden” in the Bible of a different narrative about women is remarkable. Though the Bible was written, literally, by men, Christians like myself maintain that it was inspired by God, and a divinely inspired narrative shines through it. This is true despite the obvious cultural influences we see on the face of it.
The Bible was written by men during times in which men dominated thought and culture. it is no wonder that the Bible is often criticized for being backward and paternalistic, but that view can only be sustained on a cursory, shallow reading of the Bible. A closer reading belies a very different narrative!
I have written on these things many times before as I see new threads to follow in my annual romp through the Bible, usually from beginning to ending. I wrote about these things in 2017 in a series on sexism and racism, beginning with Is the Bible Sexist and Resist? Part 1. On the issue of sexism, I followed with a piece on evidence of how God views racism from a biblical overview and the evidence in the Bible of the way Jesus viewed sexism.
As we read the Bible, we need to be mindful that all the “books” that comprise what we call “the bible” were written over the course of hundreds of years by many different men who were immersed in their cultural milieu, which was patently paternalistic. That understanding underscores the clues “hidden” in those writings that elevate the value of women – precisely because this happens despite the prevailing view of women that the male writers of God’s inspired Word likely shared with their culture.
I can’t be exhaustive in this short article, but I will provide some food for further thought. (You could also read other things I have written, or read tom Holland’s book, or Rebecca McLaughlin’s writings as well.) I would start in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible that tells the creation story:
“So God created mankind in his own image,
Genesis 1:27
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”
No distinction is made in this early verse between men and woman. I am struck in this verse that God required two almost identical forms of humanity that were distinctly different, but unified, in order to reflect His image. Neither is expressly superior to the other, and one cannot reflect God’s image without the other.
I am well aware that various interpretations have been asserted assuming superiority in the order of creation and other things, but the language used does not compel that conclusion. There are threads in the Old Testament that run counter to common assumptions, but much of the Old Testament is descriptive, and our lack of understanding and appreciation of cultural and historical nuances obscures those threads.
For that reason, Jesus is, perhaps, the best filter for our understanding of the Old Testament. Rebecca McLaughlin says, “If we could read the Gospels through first-century eyes, Jesus’s treatment of women would knock us to our knees.” She recounts a handful of ways in which Jesus values women in ways 1st Century leaders would have (and did) find objectionable.
The way the Gospels highlight the value of women is remarkable, given the Ancient Near East attitudes toward women still prevalent in the 1st Century and the male-dominated Greco-Roman culture described by historian, Tom Holland.
One really good place to see this theme is in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew. Ancient genealogies trace the male line back, but Matthew oddly includes five (5) women in his genealogy. When we see something as remarkable odd as that in Scripture, we need to take notice!
I have written about God’s redemptive plans that involve these women as central figures, generally, and I have written about each one: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba (Uriah’s wife), and Mary, in some detail. Their stories are central to the grand redemptive scheme that unfolds in Scripture, from beginning to end. They stand out all the more because of the fact that God uses women so prominently in his redemptive plans, despite the distinctly paternal nature of the history, the culture, and the male-dominated fabric of the societies in which these stories take place.
Jesus, himself, had a following of women, not just men. (See Did Jesus Have Female Disciples?) The very fact that they are identified is noteworthy. The prominence of women in the life of Jesus has led some people to speculate about sexual liaisons, but this is a product of modern ignorance and bias. Nothing in the text suggests it.
Women feature prominently in the crucifixion and resurrection story in particular. The men scattered when Jesus was taken prisoner by the Roman authorities, but the women remained around him as the spectacle of his questioning, torture, and crucifixion played out. The women were there to take help move the body of Jesus and to give him a proper burial.
The women were also the first people to whom Jesus revealed himself, according to all the Gospel accounts. According to the Bible, God is sovereign, and therefore He orchestrated these appearances. By that, we understand that He chose to reveal Himself to the women first.
If anyone wanted to make up a story in the 1st Century about a farfetched miracle like resurrection from the dead and wanted to convince others it is true, no one would make up a story that featured women as the first witnesses of the empty tomb and the risen Jesus. The storyteller would have chosen men of sound reputation, not women were considered legally unreliable witnesses.
The fact that women feature prominently in the resurrection story has long been considered evidence that the accounts were not made up. If we believe the Gospel accounts are true, the prominent placement of women in the resurrection story elevates the status and reputation of women. If we believe that God is sovereign, we have to acknowledge the emphasis God places on the value of women in revealing the truth of the resurrection to them!
Our wrong assumptions often get in the way of an accurate understanding. When we see something for the first time, however, we become more aware of it. This has been true for me of the way in which the Bible unexpectedly elevates the value of women.
We shouldn’t expect Ancient Near East writings to elevate the value of women (the Old Testament), and we shouldn’t expect 1st Century writings from the Roman world to do that. They not only did that, but they revolutionized the way entire world sees women. The fact that the “revolution” took almost a couple thousand years underscores how entrenched the historical view was.
Our own struggle with gender issues in the west (spurred on by the Bible) also emphasizes how historically significant those unexpected threads on the value of women are that are found in the ancient writings that comprise the Bible. We have had those “hidden” themes in our Scripture for millennia, and we still took so long to embrace them.
I will end this article with a quotation from Paul, the apostle, written around 50 AD in one of his earliest letters:
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
galatians 3:28
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