To: Grainne who wrote (71587 ) 1/7/2000 9:05:00 PM From: Daniel Schuh Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Christine, I just looked up an old Atlantic article on the "historical Jesus". It impressed me at the time, there may be more recent work but this piece is pretty readable. It also cites many theologians, people I'd take a little more seriously than Neocon.theatlantic.com As a growing number of feminist New Testament scholars have recently been pointing out, Jesus seems to have displayed attitudes toward women that were highly uncharacteristic of the first- century world. That those attitudes survive at all in Gospel texts compiled by men who may not have shared such views serves only to emphasize the importance of the tradition. Jesus associated freely with women and taught some of them as disciples. Women are frequently observed among his following, and many -- for example, Martha, Mary, Susanna, and Joanna -- are mentioned by name. The subjects of Jesus's parables are as likely to be women as men, and women in the parables are held up as models for emulation (or the reverse) no more or less often than are men. Jesus repeatedly expresses his concern for the plight of widows, refuses to shun the company of prostitutes and adulteresses, and performs numerous miracles in behalf of women. As noted, Jesus also forbade divorce. In the twentieth century divorce may be liberating for some women, but in the first century it was a calamity for most women. (In Jewish law a wife could not initiate a divorce, but her husband could do so at will and had no obligation to his spouse afterward.) The historicity of the preaching by Jesus on divorce is accepted by almost all scholars, though few go so far as to assert that in these sayings we have the ipsissima verba -- the "very words themselves" -- employed by Jesus. (A modern analogy: No one disputes the historicity of Jimmy Carter's famous "malaise" speech; in that speech, however, Carter never once used the word malaise. )
