So, we are now ready to ask, What did Jesus think of women and How did Jesus treat women? I provide a series of questions for your consideration.
A good place to begin here is with D.M. Scholer, “Women,” or with B. Witherington III, Women. (These items can be found in the first post in this series.)
My recommendation: list all the evidence about women in the Gospels and sort out according to the above categories and then ask the following questions. Be fair with the evidence: do not be disrespectful of Judaism’s attempt to follow the Torah or with the Jesus movement’s Jewish origins.
10.1 What are the similarities of Judaism and Jesus in how they treated women?
10.2 What are the dissimilarities?
10.3 Did Jesus “liberate” women? If you think so, examine all the data in the light of the above outline, and specify how and to what extent Jesus “liberated” women.
10.4 Did Jesus have “women disciples”? Why or why not? If so, describe the nature of their following of Jesus. Were they apostles? were they preachers? were they healers? were they teachers? What roles did they perform?
10.5 What is the impact of Jesus’ healing of women?
10.6 What does Jesus say about motherhood? about the family? about children?
10.7 Did Jesus “liberate” women from Jewish purity laws? Did he expect females connected to him to follow laws for menstruants?
10.8 Did Jesus join his followers in regular table fellowship? Was this offensive to Jewish society?
Primary evidence:
Mark 1:29-31; 6:17-29; 7:9-13; 7:24-30; 9:33-37; 10:13-16, 19; 12:40-44; 12:18-27; 15:40-41, 47-16:1;
Matthew 1:1-17; 5:27-32; 8:14-15; 9:18-26; 12:46-50; 13:33; 19:3-9, 10-12; 21:31; 23:37-39; 24:41; 25:1-13; 27:55-56; 27:61-28:1;
Luke 1:26-38, 41-45, 46-56; 2:36-38; 4:26, 38-39; 7:11-17; 7:36-50; 8:1-3; 10:38-42; 11:27-28; 13:10-17; 15:8-10; 17:35; 18:1-8; 23:49; 23:27-31; 23:55-24:1
John 2:1-12; 4:4-42; 7:53-8:11; 11:1-44; 12:1-11; 19:25-27; 20:1
In my next post, I’ll give a review of a major book about Jesus and Women. (It is just above this post.)