Chapter 3
Discerning the Roles of Women
In This Chapter
Biblical mandates regarding women
Jewish and Christian perspectives on women
The role of Christian and Jewish women today
T his chapter looks at the religious, social, and cultural viewpoints on women during the time of the Bible and today, examining both the Jewish and Christian outlooks. While some people may claim the distinction between how women shouldareteachesreports
With certain exceptions, leadership roles in religion were not open to women, either in the Temple or synagogue or in the Christian church. Yet women played a vital role in the life of faith for both Judaism and Christianity, and they continue to do so.
This chapter takes a look at what the Bible says about women, as well as how Jewish and, later, Christian religions incorporated these ideas in relationship to their female worshipers.
Studying the Contrasts: Biblical Viewpoints on Women
The Bible is primarily a religious book about the covenant between the creator and creation, between God and humankind. But it’s important to remember that the people described in the Bible and the human authors who wrote the Bible (even though inspired, according to Christian and Jewish tradition, by the Holy Spirit; see Chapter 2) were born, grew up, lived, and died within a specific culture and society. Often, those cultures and societies weren’t determined, controlled, or sometimes even influenced by the Judeo-Christian faith and religion by itself, so contrasts inevitably arise. In other words, the Bible teaches in Genesis that all men and all women are made in the image and likeness of God — but secular, political, economic, and cultural practice rarely reflected that truth, as revealed in biblical history.
Women as spiritual equals
The Bible teaches that women are equal to men at the supernatural level — the level of grace:
Women have spiritual equality to men; they have the same kind of immortal soul and the same possible eternal destiny.
Like men, women are made in the image and likeness of God.
Also like men, women are called to live lives of holiness.
Human nature is the same for women as it is for men (body and soul, intellect and will), yet there are some real differences, physiological and psychological, between the sexes. These differences distinguish and complement each other.
Because of the importance of the first and last points (women are spiritually equal to men and human nature is the same for both genders), the following sections offer a more in-depth discussion. To find out about the Jewish and Christian positions on the roles and spirituality of women, head to the sections “Jewish Perspective on Women” and “Christian Perspective on Women.”
Morality, free will, and Fido
Morality is gender blind because moral acts, which can be either good or bad, are possible only when free will is invoked. Only deliberate and voluntary actions can be qualified as moral acts. For that reason, your kitty, your pooch, and your laptop computer can’t ever sin, because they lack free will. The first two work on instinct, the other by program. Men and women, however, can freely choose to act or not to act.
According to Hebrew history as outlined in the Bible, harmony existed among the Hebrews as long as they stayed united with God by keeping the covenant (the sacred oath between God and the Hebrew people). When the people were unfaithful to their promise, sin occurred and brought disunity and division. False prophets arose, and authentic ones were ignored, killed, or chased away. When idolatry (idol worship), the epitome of religious infidelity, raised its ugly head, the kingdom itself was divided into north and south, and both were eventually wiped off the world map. Jews and Christians believe that the current divisions among nations and even among the Christian churches are signs of this division and that much work has to be done by both genders to repair the schism.
Good versus evil: A gender-blind concept
When Moses received the Ten Commandments (the Law) from God on Mount Sinai, he didn’t come back with two versions, one for men and one for women. The Law applied to all men and women.
The significance of a single set of laws is the idea that evil has no claim on either gender. Throughout biblical salvation history, women and men alike have been individually good or individually bad. Each person had to make his or her own personal choice: Do I do good or do I do evil?
You see good women and bad women in the Bible, just as there are good men and bad men. Jezebel (bad) and Esther (good) are as much a part of the Bible as are Herod (bad) and John the Baptist (good).
Jewish Perspective on Women
The Hebrew religion is heavily based on and determined by the Law — that is, the covenant between God and the Jewish people (also called the Chosen People ). This covenant was first established with Abraham and then literally written in stone with Moses. The Law of God as found in the Hebrew scriptures (what Christians call their Old Testament) teaches that women have equal dignity in terms of their spiritual nature and that both men and women are created in the image and likeness of God.
Judaism in the pre-Christian era treated women as equal but separate (different but complementary) when it came to religious matters. Socially, economically, and politically, however, the treatment of women as second-class citizens and sometimes as property was as evident in Jewish culture as it would be in Christian.
Conflicting realities — political versus spiritual
Hebrews during the time of the Old Testament saw no problem in two conflicting realities. On the one hand, the Hebrew Bible and Jewish religion itself taught the intrinsic equality of women and men in respect to metaphysical composition (rational intellect and free will) or spiritual nature (body and soul). On the other hand, women were treated as political, social, and economic inferiors. Although discrimination based on skin color wasn’t evident, people from other nations who spoke other languages and had other customs were often treated the same way as Hebrew women when it came to social, political, or economic matters. You can see this conflict in other aspects of Jewish life and faith.
The practice and teaching of the Hebrew religion was primarily done by the mothers. Until a boy reached the age of religious maturity (bar mitzvah), he spent most of his day like his sisters — with mom. At home, the woman taught the children the stories of the Hebrew Bible — stories about Abraham and Isaac, Noah and the Ark, and David and Goliath. Yet, despite women’s role in the religious education of their children, temple and synagogue prayer and worship segregated the women from the men. In addition, only men could become rabbis or priests (until reformed, reconstructionist, and liberal Judaism allowed female clergy).
Unmarried Old Testament women were considered the property of and subject to the authority of their fathers, and married women were the property of and subject to the authority of their husbands. Yet, if a wife or daughter were killed, the act wasn’t considered theft of property, as would be in the case of a slave in Greek or Roman culture. At the same time, Jewish women weren’t seen as possessions or objects, and wives couldn’t be casually divorced or discarded for petty reasons.
Hebrew slavery was actually more a kind of indentured servitude. For example, people sold themselves into service to pay off a debt, or citizens were put into domestic service when a nation lost a war and sued for peace (conquering nations often demanded a percentage of the population that surrendered to be handed over as slaves as terms of the peace treaty). Yet Exodus 21:7 says that if a man sells his daughter as a servant, she shall not automatically become free after seven years, as her male counterparts would. Daughters were often sold into slavery, not so much as domestic servants but as concubines or secondary wives for their masters or the sons of their masters. As concubines or secondary wives, they couldn’t be resold to foreigners and had to be treated like daughters (Exodus 21:9).
Comparing Hebrew women to women from other cultures
Although many aspects of Hebrew society weren’t fair or equal, Hebrew custom before the time of Christ was much more favorable to women socially, politically, and economically than alternative contemporary cultures. The ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, for example, treated their own women more as commodities and personal possessions. Women were frequently forced into pagan temple prostitution against their wishes, and aside from their conjugal privileges, there was little or no socializing between the two genders.
The ancient Greeks and Romans were a little better in protecting some rights of women in law. While not equal in law, women could initiate lawsuits, petition for divorce, and seek to protect their limited rights. They couldn’t vote or hold public office, but Greek and Roman law, culture, and custom tended not to treat women as property but as unequal co-workers for the family and the state.
The Etruscans, who were later conquered and absorbed into Roman society, gave the greatest latitude to women in terms of commerce, politics, and society. In fact, the Etruscan women were known for their stamina and competitiveness with their male counterparts, a fact that classical Romans regarded as another example of Etruscan decadence and licentiousness (in contrast to Roman stoicism).
Cultures and societies that were still very tribal, and in which the family clan was the keystone to the entire structure, placed the highest priority on marriage and procreation because these institutions established blood ties rather than merely political affiliations. Women were obviously indispensable in these societies, yet their personal gifts, talents, and accomplishments were often eclipsed until the tribe and the clan were eventually replaced by the nation and especially the kingdom. When the tribes and clans were assimilated into the larger unified nation, the family as a unit (and the importance of women as pillars of the family) gradually declined and was replaced by a different creature, the nation family or clan. The king became the father of a single national tribe or clan, which previously had been several autonomous or semiautonomous tribes or clans. Women weren’t as highly regarded when the family itself became nothing more than a cog in the larger machinery that comprised the nation.
Honoring the female
Judaism is unique in that its custom and practice dictate that the mother determines the religion of the children. So children born to a Jewish mother married to a Christian father are considered Jewish.
Judaism is also unique because of its practice of an exclusively female holiday — Rosh Chodesh — on the first day of each month. Women are exempt from working on this day in gratitude for the fact that no woman participated in the idolatrous worship of the golden calf (Exodus 32) while Moses was at Mount Sinai receiving the Law (Ten Commandments) from the Lord. Apparently, only men committed this sin when Aaron, the brother of Moses, was persuaded to melt the gold taken from Egypt and fashion a god for the people to worship. Rabbinic tradition teaches that the women refused not only to worship the false god but also to melt down their jewelry to make the idol. This is but one example where you can see the value placed upon women and their spirituality in Hebrew society.
Although the primary role of most Hebrew women was wife, mother, and caretaker of the household, Judaism also had a few female prophets (like Huldah; see Chapter 15), a Judge (Deborah, discussed in Chapter 10), and a few monarchs (like Queen Esther, introduced in Chapter 8).
Christian Perspective on Women
Because Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew; his mother, Mary, was a Jew; and his 12 apostles were all Jews, it’s no surprise that much of the Hebrew perspective on the role of women influenced the early Christian church. While Christianity was much more enlightened in many ways than most religions of the time, Christian treatment of women changed noticeably when the early Christian church grew away from its Jewish roots due to converting more and more Greeks and Romans to its faith. (Judaism at the time of Jesus wasn’t missionary or evangelical — that is, it didn’t actively or aggressively seek out new converts. If someone wanted to embrace the Hebrew faith, he was warmly welcomed and embraced. Christianity, on the other hand, actively pursued new members.) The next sections explain how the early Christian church viewed women and then trace the changes in the church’s views over time.
Women as key players
Although women in the New Testament are still not treated as complete political and economic equals, they’re much more involved in life than they are in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, women’s identification and participation are often based in whole or in part on their roles as wife, mother, or daughter. Old Testament women didn’t interact with men outside the home, especially in religious contexts, as much as Christian women of the New Testament. Although some Old Testament women broke the mold and stood out, like Deborah (see Chapter 10), the overwhelming majority of women at that time associated with other women and the men associated with other men. The New Testament shows the gradual integration of the two sexes in religious, cultural, and social life. Consider these examples from the Gospels:
Two sisters, Martha and Mary, are dear friends of Jesus, along with their brother, Lazarus. These sisters are very vocal and very active, whereas no dialogue is described between Lazarus and Christ.
In the Gospel of Luke, Luke begins his narrative from the viewpoint of the Virgin Mary (Jesus’ mother). Scholars believe that she was his primary source for material; he didn’t have as much access to original information as the other Gospel writers (because he wasn’t one of the 12 apostles who traveled with Jesus). Luke writes of dialogue between Mary and the Angel Gabriel, as well as a conversation Mary had with her cousin Elizabeth. In fact, because Luke reports more about more interaction between Jesus and females than any other Gospel writer, his book often gets the nickname “the Gospel of Women.”
In John’s account of the Gospel, Jesus speaks with Samaritan women, such as the woman at the well in John 4:1–42. He visits the home of Martha and Mary frequently enough that they’re familiar and comfortable with him.
All four Gospels attest to the fact that more women disciples were with Jesus as he was crucified and died, while most (11 out of 12) of his male apostles had abandoned him. All four Gospels show it was the women, like Mary Magdalene, who first discovered the empty tomb on Easter morning, before any of the apostles had heard about it — and even then, only from the women who had gone there before them.
Jesus heals and speaks with women and men, children and adults, Jews and Gentiles alike. That women listened to his teaching and followed him as he preached, just as the men did, shows a spiritual equality, even though no women were selected for formal leadership roles in the infant church. What they lacked in authority to govern, these women surpassed with their teaching, witness, example, and courage.
The phrase “certain women” appears in the Acts of the Apostles to describe the female disciples who were present when the Holy Spirit descended upon the 12 apostles at Pentecost (50 days after Jesus’ resurrection and 10 days after his ascension to heaven). In those days, Jewish men worshiped and prayed separately from the Jewish women (except at home, of course). The fact that women were present with the apostles and male disciples is therefore noteworthy.
Pharisees and Sadducees
Pharisees were lay theologians and scholars of the Law of Moses who tended to be more liberal in their interpretation of the scriptures, respecting the rabbinical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible.
Sadducees were Temple priests and clergy who tended to be more conservative and fundamentalist in their interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.
Pharisees, for example, believed in life after death and in the resurrection of the body, whereas the Sadducees did not believe the body and soul ever reunited after death.
Spiritually equal, subordinate role
Christian women, like their male counterparts, were initially Jewish converts (Jesus and his 12 apostles were all Jews, and early Christianity was not first seen as a separate religion). For almost half a century, Christians were mostly Jewish, which meant they observed both the Hebrew traditions and religion as well as professed their faith in Jesus and gathered with fellow Christians. It wasn’t until the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 that Judaism and Christianity parted ways and separated from one another. Until then, Christianity was treated as a branch of Judaism, just like the branches called Pharisees and Sadducees.
The Jewish roots of Christianity continued to influence and affect the new religion even after it became independent and as it gradually became more and more Gentile in composition through Greek and Roman converts. Women in ancient Christianity were encouraged to teach the faith and to practice it, especially by doing charitable works like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick, comforting the sorrowful, and so on. Wealthy women of privilege often donated their money generously and provided the use of their estate for holding Christian gatherings as well as for helping the poor and needy.
Although women weren’t invited into the formal realms of church leadership, they nevertheless provided a service to the faith community. They were indispensable in maintaining Christianity in the home, which was often called the domestic church by many spiritual writers over the ages. Teaching children the faith was but one aspect. Just as Jewish women upheld various prayer rituals in the home for certain holidays, so, too, Christian women ensured that the faith was promoted not just on Sunday (the day Christians finally chose as their day of worship, as opposed to the Saturday Sabbath of the Jews or Fridays for Muslims) but throughout the week.
The Christian view is similar to the Jewish view that a division and separation of responsibilities should not and does not imply a hierarchy of importance. Though men and women in Jewish and Christian religion have some distinct and different duties unique to their gender, neither faith tradition would regard one as being superior to the other. Motherhood and fatherhood are seen as equally important obligations. Adultery is equally sinful for either the cheating husband or wife. Today, modern human beings are accustomed to gender integration, whereas in biblical times, men and women rarely worked or socialized together, let alone worshiped and prayed as a unified group.
Spiritually, Christianity tried to balance the limitations of contemporary culture and society with the revealed theological truths of religion, like men and women being equal in the eyes of God in terms of grace and salvation. Even when church leadership was restricted to certain ordained men, it was done with the perspective that differentiation of tasks, duties, responsibilities, and obligations is part of the natural world. Different doesn’t have to mean better or superior, however.
Societies or cultures may create distinctions and differentiations, but individuals choose whether to regard and treat everyone as equal in dignity, respect, and honor or to sinfully decide to demean, intimidate, patronize, or discriminate against their neighbor. Christianity sees the value in different roles but doesn’t see any difference in the spiritual value of each and every single person. Holiness and sanctity may be expressed in different forms and through different roles, duties, obligations, and responsibilities, but the bottom line is not what you do as much as how well you do it.
Empires fall, and Christendom begins
As their role and interaction with the domestic church (the home), local church (the parish), and regional church (the diocese) grew over time, Christian women became more involved in spiritual and even ecclesiastical matters. When the Roman Empire finally crumbled in AD 476 and the Barbarian invasions ravished Europe, men and women turned to the monastic life, fleeing the decaying cities and finding refuge in the countryside. There, away from the urban mayhem, women and men — under separate roofs, of course — consecrated to a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience could live together in harmony of faith and purpose.
The monasteries of religious women (called nuns ) paralleled that of their male contemporaries (called monks ). The women who held an office of authority and leadership over the other nuns was often called the abbess (as the male head monk was called the abbot ). St. Thecla (first century A.D.), St. Macrina (fourth century A.D.), St. Scholastica (sixth century A.D.; twin sister of St. Benedict), and other women like them not only established monasteries for women throughout Western Europe but also established orders to care for the sick (precursors of modern-day hospitals), teach the youth, and help the poor (forerunners of modern day charities like the Red Cross). They wielded power and influence, because the monasteries often owned property on which the nuns grew crops and raised livestock to subsist upon.
The New Testament impetus to preach the Gospel wherever possible (called the missionary role of the Church) involved men and women and therefore laid the groundwork for women to get more involved in the life of the church. However, in ancient Christianity, a differentiation of duties, tasks, and responsibilities existed between men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. Rather than subordination of women to men, this differentiation was seen as a division of labor: The men typically worked outside the home, while the women at that time took care of the home and children.
All good things must end
There were no major divisions among Christianity until AD 1054, when the Orthodox and Catholic churches parted company. Until then, for a thousand years there had been one Christian church, with the bishop of Rome (also known as the pope) as patriarch of the West and the other bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and finally Constantinople as fellow patriarchs of the East. The schism between the (Greek) Orthodox and the (Roman) Catholics later subdivided into the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches in the East (AD 1448) and the Catholic and the Protestant churches in the West (since the Reformation in AD 1517). Before the schism of the eleventh century, the terms “Catholic” and “Christian” were often used synonymously by believers in both the East and the West because “catholic”’ merely meant “universal” (from the Greek word katholikos).
Evolving Equality
Since biblical times, some famous women of history paved the way for greater appreciation, recognition, and acceptance of the equality of the female gender: Nefertiti and Cleopatra of Egypt, Helen of Troy, Empress Theodora (Byzantium), Eleanor of Aquitaine (England and France), Isabella of Spain, Catherine de Medici (Italy and France), Mary Tudor (England), Elizabeth I (England), Catherine the Great (Russia), Empress Maria Theresa (Austria), and Queen Victoria (England) are just some of the many women who wielded power as well as influence in a world predominantly run by the male gender. Women like Queen Elizabeth I, Empress Catherine the Great, and Empress Maria Theresa had an enormous impact on the shape and development of Europe. They had long, powerful reigns and were able to surpass their male contemporaries many times over.
Like the women of the Bible, the women of history show that gender doesn’t determine the path one chooses to take — good or evil — any more than does the color of one’s eyes or hair. While marriage and family are still the building blocks of society, be it church or state, the restriction of women to being only wives and mothers has gradually dissolved over time in Western civilization.
Women’s roles today
Golda Meir (Israel’s third prime minister), Indira Gandhi (former prime minister of India), Margaret Thatcher (the United Kingdom’s first female prime minister), U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright are just a few of the powerful and influential women the modern world has known. Doctors, lawyers, professors, astronauts, CEOs, mayors, governors, elected officials, generals, and admirals are all not only possible posts for women, but are currently filled by many outstanding women.
Women today can still be wives and mothers, but they can also be blue-collar or white-collar workers, run for elected offices, serve in the military, and so on. None of these careers require them to surrender their femininity or their giftedness as members of the female gender. Different but complementary to their male counterparts, women continue to be a necessary and integral component to the economic, social, political, academic, and spiritual dimensions of human living.
Changing times, unchanging word of God
Bible text itself hasn’t changed since it was first written, even though it has been translated into numerous languages. Biblical interpretations and applications, however, have changed from person to person, from religion to religion, and from age to age. The Bible was written by men who lived in specific times and places and who were affected by the cultural and social outlooks of the time as much as they were by their own personal faith. Even though considered divinely inspired by believers, the Bible wasn’t made in a vacuum, nor is it read in one, either.
The challenge of believers through the centuries is the task of identifying and isolating the cultural and social conventions that established the ways women were to be viewed and treated from the spiritual and theological teachings the Bible is meant to convey and uphold regarding the dignity and value of every woman — whether she was in the Bible or not, whether she is reading it or not.
Modern Christian and Jewish women
In recent years, some Christian denominations have allowed and encouraged women to participate as deacons, elders, ministers, pastors, and even bishops. These groups maintain that the exclusion of women from church leadership and ministry at the time of Christ, the apostles, and the early Church was cultural and not theological. They share ordained ministry equally among men and women and believe that they are faithful to the spirit of the New Testament.
At the same time, some conservative evangelical, fundamentalist, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox churches still retain an exclusively male ministry and church authority. They don’t consider the exclusion of women in church leadership positions as a matter of injustice and inequality because they see this arrangement as a divine decision, not a human one, and therefore not subject to cultural or historical reinterpretation. Many of these branches of Christianity esteem the value of sacred tradition on the same par as sacred scripture and feel they are also being faithful to the New Testament.
Like Christianity, present-day Judaism is divided on the same issue. Some branches of Judaism, like the orthodox and conservative, have only male rabbis, whereas some reformed, liberal, and reconstructionist branches have female rabbis.