Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Steven Carr · 03-06-2004, 12:08 AM

http://www.rejesus.co.uk/cgi-bin/ult...c;f=2;t=000100

Many apologists say that women's testimony would have been discounted, therefore the fact that women visited the tomb means it must be true, for who would make it up.

However, the posting claims :-

'It has come to light quite recently just how many women fulfilled prominent roles in society (HG Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. HS Jones (Oxford Clarendon, 1940; with supplement, 1968; Brooten BJ; Women Leaders in Ancient Synagogues; Brown Judaic Studies 36. Chico:Scholars, 1982 ch. 1) Other sources show that women had a higher role in Jewish society at this time than was previously thought. It is quite within keeping that women of means supported Jesus’ ministry. This is well attested in many commentaries – I really can’t list the all the ref. If you are interested, take it as homework.'

So women were hardly discounted. Some of them were leaders of synagogues.

Toto · 03-06-2004, 12:30 AM

This is from the Sexism in the Bible thread

Stepping In / Stepping Out: A Conversation between Ideological and Social Scientific Feminist Approaches to the Bible

Quote:

In their efforts to reconstruct the social world of pre-monarchic Israel, Carol Meyers and Phyllis Bird have come to the conclusion that ancient Israelite women were not merely the denigrated "sexual property" of all powerful males, but were empowered social actors in their own right. Their argument begins with a sociological reconstruction of early Israel as an agrarian subsistence economy within which economic production and decision making processes revolved around the domestic family unit and more broadly, the kinship network; this socio-economic system is an example of what Marshall Sahlins called the "familial mode of production" (Jobling: 242; Yee: 150). Comparative anthropological studies show that in such contexts, women may "wield significant amounts of power" and "control at least the major portion of important resources and decisions" (Rogers: 728-29; see also Rosaldo; Meyers 1988). . . . .

. . . . Ancient Israelite women did not possess the kind of social and sexual autonomy which we in the modern world take to be the sine qua non of personal dignity and worth. In the modern world, human value and meaning are predicated upon individual autonomy and bodily self-possession; thus where a modern observer sees persons without the power of self-determination, he or she tends to assume that those persons were coded as inferior beings in that social context. But in the world of ancient Israel, personhood and personal dignity were not predicated upon the possession of bodily autonomy and individual freedom, but rather were defined in terms of one's place within larger corporate structures of family and lineage and by one's contributions to those structures. . . . As Meyers concludes concerning gender relations and gender codes in early Israel, "male authority existed in certain spheres but there was no connotation of misogyny, the oppression of females, or the notion of female inferiority" (1988: 187).

This does not settle the question of whether women's testimony would be accepted in court, which is the usual apologetic claim. But I have never been clear why this argument was made, since the question of the Resurrection was not tried in a court.

Jabu Khan · 03-06-2004, 12:31 AM

Thats all well and good if there testimony doesn't break all known laws of physics and vary with each retelling.

03-06-2004, 12:08 AM	#1
Steven Carr Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: England Posts: 5,629	Women's testimony http://www.rejesus.co.uk/cgi-bin/ult...c;f=2;t=000100 Many apologists say that women's testimony would have been discounted, therefore the fact that women visited the tomb means it must be true, for who would make it up. However, the posting claims :- 'It has come to light quite recently just how many women fulfilled prominent roles in society (HG Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. HS Jones (Oxford Clarendon, 1940; with supplement, 1968; Brooten BJ; Women Leaders in Ancient Synagogues; Brown Judaic Studies 36. Chico:Scholars, 1982 ch. 1) Other sources show that women had a higher role in Jewish society at this time than was previously thought. It is quite within keeping that women of means supported Jesus’ ministry. This is well attested in many commentaries – I really can’t list the all the ref. If you are interested, take it as homework.' So women were hardly discounted. Some of them were leaders of synagogues.

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03-06-2004, 12:31 AM	#3
Jabu Khan Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: the impenetrable fortress of the bubbleheads Posts: 1,308	Thats all well and good if there testimony doesn't break all known laws of physics and vary with each retelling.

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