Saturday, January 02, 2021

The First Christian Evangelist ("bearer of good tidings") Was a Woman

The very first person whom Jesus appointed to tell the good news of his resurrection was a woman.

And when the men failed to believe her, Jesus rebuked them.

WEB John 20:[17] Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers, and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mark 16:[10] She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. [11] When they heard that he was alive, and had been seen by her, they disbelieved. ... [14] Afterward he was revealed to the eleven themselves as they sat at the table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they didn’t believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

Here's perhaps another way of reading the 1 Cor 14 passage forbidding women to speak: 

Since chapter 7, Paul has been addressing issues that the Corinthians had written to him about. It seems that in some places he quotes what they say, and then replies to that quote.

For example:

Corinthian's Letter to Paul:

"It's good for a man to not touch a woman." 

Paul's Response: 

No, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife.

or

Corinthians:

"All things are legal for me to do."

Paul: 

Maybe, but not all things are expedient/helpful. So, no, not all things are "legal" for you.

I suggest that Paul is doing the same thing with the silent-women passage:

Corinthians:

"Women must be silent in the church!"

 Paul:

What? Was it from you men that the word of God went out (that is, remember Mary)? Are you men the only ones to whom God has given his word?

Paul had just spent three chapters explaining that God gives gifts, including speaking his word, to whomever he wants to give them, to be used for building up the church. And if God gives the gift of speech to a woman in the midst of an assembly, who do these Corinthian men think they are to say they know better than God how and when his giftings should be used? If it's shameful for a woman to speak among men, then Jesus sent Mary on a "shameful" errand, and then rebuked those who didn't listen to this "shameful" woman. And what law says these things? It's certainly not in the law of Moses, where women occasionally spoke and even took the lead. Maybe it was a Corinthian law, but how does that have bearing on what God's people do?

It is a hard thing to consider that we've misunderstood a passage all our lives, and perhaps this view of the passage is not correct. But I urge you to consider it with an open mind, and not just reject it out-of-hand in favor of your life-long-held traditional belief.

Jesus seems not to have held the typical Rabbinic view of women. According to https://www.bible-history.com/court-of-women/women.html

In the Temple proper the females occupied, according to Jewish tradition, only a raised gallery along three sides of the court. They were allowed to observe the ceremonies but never to participate in them.

Rabbinic literature was filled with contempt for women. The rabbis taught that women were not to be saluted, or spoken to in the street, and they were not to be instructed in the law or receive an inheritance. A woman walked six paces behind her husband and if she uncovered her hair in a public place she was considered a harlot.
...
They could not be disciples of any great rabbi, they certainly could not travel with any rabbi.
...
In court a woman's testimony was considered suspect....

Makes me wonder if the law referenced in 1 Cor 14:34 is the Rabbinic Law, that same law that specified hand-washing before eating, and which Jesus railed against as setting aside the commands of God for the sake of tradition.

It's interesting that Jesus was a rabbi that had a woman student (Mary choosing "the good part, that will not be taken away from her" - Luke 10:42), and had women as followers and fellow-travelers (Luke 8:1-3), despite "the law" forbidding such.

It's interesting that Jesus rebuked the men who disbelieved the woman's testimony, despite the culture's attitude toward the testimony of women.

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