Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women Table of Contents Introduction 4-14 1. Sarah, The First Matriarch in the Genealogy of Jesus 15-29 2. The Women of Sarah’s Family 30-46 3. Foreign Women in Jesus’ Genealogy 47-58 4. Women in Jesus’ Family 59-77 5. Women Disciples of Jesus 78-92 6. Women in Jesus’ Parables and Public Life 93-112 7. Women in the Development of the Early Church and the Epistles 113-136 8. More than Bible Study137-163 1 Acknowledgments In an essay I wrote during my graduate work for Dr. Letty Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson, I stated, “I am still ignorant because of my inability to read the texts in their original language. I am grateful to theologians like Phyllis Trible who can read the texts in their original language and present the information in a form I can use.” Letty wrote in the margin of my essay, “Even if you could read Hebrew you would need other interpretations to assist in interpretation—we all need another’s help.” I am grateful to Letty and Shannon for mothering me through my Doctor of Ministry program. In 1995, I was lucky enough to take a class from Sister Miriam Therese Winter at the Graduate Theological Union. She wrote three of the required texts for the class: Woman Wisdom: A Feminist Lectionary and Psalter Women of the Hebrew Scriptures: Part One, Woman Witness: A Feminist Lectionary and Psalter Women of the Hebrew Scriptures: Part Two and Woman Word: A Feminist Lectionary and Psalter Women of the New Testament. In her three-volume work she found, named and celebrated in song, prayer, psalm and reflection all the women of the Bible. I have read and re-read these books and relished Sister Miriam’s woman-centered words. The books have been invaluable to me as I searched out the stories of the women in the genealogy of Jesus, his family, friends, public life, parables and the women of the first century church. I wish to thank my neighbors Jack and Marijean Hawks for their insight and support, and my dentist, Dr. Robert McLachlan, for his encouragement and humor. He always makes me smile and he is smarter than he looks. Special thanks to my husband, Marty, who encouraged me throughout the writing process. I deeply appreciate my sisters Hilary and Sonya; they would stop what they were doing whenever I called and listen as I read to them what I had just written. Sonya always said, “Interesting,” and Hilary always said, “I can’t wait to read it.” 2 I am indebted to my friend Hilary Christiansen. She grew up without church or Bible and as such was totally unfamiliar with the biblical stories. She enthusiastically read and critiqued my work. She was instrumental in drawing attention to the need for background information about these biblical women. Additionally, many thanks to Nancy Corran, who graciously offered her theological knowledge and insights although we had never met. Both of these women came into my life at exactly the moment I needed their expertise. Finally, thanks to publishers Cathy and Bradley Winch who would say, “How usual.” 3 Introduction For just as the body without spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead. James 2:26 My work is writing this book. No matter what else I do, I must write this book. My sense of call is overwhelming. As a child in Sunday school, I always wondered where are the women in these Bible stories? And, why are they all prostitutes, virgins or mothers? It was this question, among others, which prompted me to study religion. I began to learn that the stories of women in the Bible had been written by men and were communicated to me through the interpretations of male scholars and ministers. I perceived there was more than one way to interpret the stories of women and men in the Bible. I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in Religion at Chapman College and my Master of Arts degree in Religion at Liberty University. It was there that the full force of the subject matter of this book hit me. Later I received a Doctor of Ministry in International Feminist Theology at San Francisco Theological Seminary. I write this book because the reach for wisdom by Eve in Genesis has been interpreted as the reason for the evil in the world and because I am exhausted with hearing Mary Magdalene called a prostitute even though there is no evidence for this in the Bible. I am fed up with traditional interpretations of scripture. I believe there are different ways to interpret the scriptures, interpretations from the perspective of a twenty-first century woman, a perspective vastly different from that of a first, second or any other century man. I write this book because my God, my Creator, in whose image and likeness I am created, has called me to write it. There are some who might argue that my sense of call is subjective and that it ignores biblical criteria for ministry and teaching. I believe there is ample biblical evidence to demonstrate the call of women and men to ministry, teaching and leadership. I believe Bible study can be more than traditional Bible study. Bible study can include a clear understanding of historical setting, geographical location of events, intention and audience of the author, as well as the meaning of the text to a modern reader. 4 I am a cradle Christian. I started my faith life as a Protestant and later became a Roman Catholic. Now I am a member of an Independent Catholic Community. As a woman, my call is not fully recognized by the Roman Catholic Church and many Protestant denominations, including the one that sponsors Liberty University. God is credited in Isaiah 1:17-18 with saying, “Learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow. Come now, let us set things right.”(NAB) I write this book to set right the institutionalized response to my call and that of many other women. I believe in a good and just God who does not repress or discriminate. The stories of the people in the genealogy and life of Jesus are bursting with examples of God’s goodness and justice toward women and men. I believe in a Jesus who attempted to model God’s loving, inclusive relationship with creation. To paraphrase 1 Peter 1:17, my creator judges me impartially, according to my deeds. This is my understanding of God and my relationship with and experience of God. I base my understanding on an uncensored awareness of who God has called me to be. I believe I am, as all women are, created in the image and likeness of God. To summarize Genesis 1:27, God created humans in God’s image, in the divine image God created them male and female. In her book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, Dr. Christiane Northrup asks this question: “Do you understand how inherited cultural attitudes toward our female physiological processes such as menstruation and menopause have contributed to the illness suffered by our female bodies?”1 I am appalled that girls are not taught to celebrate their marvelous bodies which were created in the image and likeness of God, bodies endowed with the God-like ability to produce life. God must, in some magnificent way, be female, as I and all women created in the image and likeness of God reflect. “The birthing image of God is prevalent in scripture, the one who brings forth life.”2 In Isaiah 42:14 God is said to compare God’s self with a woman in labor. 1 Christiane Northrup, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing (New York: Bantam Books, 1998), 590. 2 Nancy Corran, written message to author, July, 2011. 5 Creation has been ordered marvelously! The creation story in Genesis 1:8 introduces the cycle of evening and morning. We experience cycles all around us. Does it make sense that the cycles of women’s bodies are anything less than marvelous? Shortly after the creation of male and female in Genesis 1:27, God looks over the creation and pronounces it “very good.” One has to look past the interpretations handed down to us by men who, not only in Christianity but history in general, have been the creators and generators of knowledge. How did we lose the image of the divine feminine? Why, in a faith where both genders are created in the image and likeness of the Creator, are women treated as less than the image and likeness of God, less than full human beings, less than full participants in the worship of God? The God who has called me is not a God of dominance and repression but one of liberation and release. Chicano historian Jesus Chararra once said, “As long as you do not write your own story and elaborate your own knowledge, you will always be a slave to another’s thoughts.”3 I am called to the freedom of writing my own story and elaborating my own knowledge. I write to know what I think, to examine my set of unexamined beliefs. It is essential to understand why we believe what we believe, whether it is about our faith or who we believe ourselves to be. By identifying what we believe about God’s relationship to creation, we can discover what we believe about our relationship to God and our relationship to God’s creation.