Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

THE MISSION OF JESUS §13.6
Phoenician woman (Mark 7.24-30/Matt. 15.21-28), the woman who anointed Jesus'
feet (Mark 14.3-9 pars.), probably another (a 'sinner') who anointed his head
(Luke 7.36-50), 230 and in the Fourth Gospel the Samaritan woman at the well of
Sychar (John 4.7-30, 39-42) and the woman caught in adultery (John 7.53-8.11).
Matthew also recalls Jesus speaking of prostitutes going into the kingdom ahead
of others (Matt. 21.31-32). Despite the lack of prominence given to women
among Jesus' followers, then, the extent to which the Jesus tradition seems to have
explicitly included women among Jesus' addressees and to have made womanly
roles 'visible' is nonetheless unusual and should be noted. 231
Once again, whatever the precise details, it would be impossible to remove
these elements of the tradition without doing it unacceptable violence. The presence
of women among Jesus' disciples and followers should not be doubted, and
several seem to have been closer to him than even some of the twelve. 232 It is often
said that there would have been something scandalous about Jesus' association
with these women. But only the episode in Luke 7 evokes a response (7.39)
like the jibe in Matt. 11.19/Luke 7.34. As part of a larger group of disciples and
followers, their presence in Jesus' entourage would not necessarily have been offensive
to good manners. And the teaching of Mary of Bethany was within the
privacy of Martha's and Mary's home.
What then of the significance of the twelve being all men? The only difference
between the situation just characterized and the function of the twelve, according
to the tradition, is that Jesus not only directed teaching particularly to the
twelve, but also that he commissioned them to engage in mission on their own
(Mark 6.6b-13 pars.). Mark indicates that they were sent out 'two by two' (6.7), a
but not out of concern for the blood impurity which he would have contracted (Lev. 15.19-23),
one of the most crippling series of rulings for a woman's place in society.
230. On the likelihood that Luke's version refers to a different episode see above, n. 165.
In the Fourth Gospel the tradition has become so tangled that the woman is identified with
Mary of Bethany (John 12.1-8).
231. In addition to those already mentioned, see also Mark 1.29-31 pars.; 3.35 pars.;
Matt. 6.28/Luke 12.27; Matt. 13.33/Luke 13.20-21/GTh 96; Luke 7.11-17; 13.10-17; 15.8-10;
17.34-35; 18.2-5; 23.27-31. See further Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her 147, 152;
Witherington, Women 35-52; L. Schottroff, Lydia's Impatient Sisters: A Feminist Social History
of Early Christianity (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995) 79-118; Theissen and
Merz, Historical Jesus 219-25; and for background, T. Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman
Palestine: An Enquiry into Image and Status (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,1995). 'In the cultural
world of first-century Palestine, the very use of a woman in an illustration required a moral
decision' (Bailey, Poet and Peasant 158, referring to Luke 15.8-10). Marshall notes that 'the
strong presence of women among Jesus' followers has no Cynic precedent' (Thomas and the
Cynic Jesus' 60).
232. Meier notes that though the term 'disciple' is not used of any woman, the reality
was otherwise (Marginal Jew 3.74-80).
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