By T.C. Lo (盧天賜); April 1, 2013
Background
During a fortuitous encounter with a young student in the campus cafeteria I had the opportunity to discuss with her the subjects ranging from the existence of God to why Christianity makes more sense than other religions. Somehow, our conversation veered into another subject which reflected her belief claiming the Bible is sexist, i.e., discriminatory against women. I told her her understanding of the Bible was wrong and gave evidences to support my counter-perspective. Afterwards, I felt my talking points were not adequate enough to persuade and determined to do more research on this subject in order to reveal the truth in a clearer and stronger way. This article was written to this particular end.
Introduction
Today there is a widespread belief that the Bible is some kind of powerful patriarchal conspiracy which has been used to oppress women. The Bible is even labeled as a “sexist book.” Many feminists claim “the church has tried to keep woman down!” While it may indeed seem to be the case that women have been discriminated against by many non-Christian religions, the Bible itself deserves closer examination on the subject.
It should be pointed out that many of greatest Christian pioneers and contemporary writers have been women, to name just a few:
• Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) — the suffragettes,
• Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) — modern nursing pioneer,
• Catherine Booth (1829-1890) —mother of The Salvation Army,
• Amy Orr-Ewing — a contemporary female writer whose book (Reference 1) is the primary source and basic framework of this article.
Throughout the Bible there are numerous positive images of women and stories which involve women. The Old Testament women shared the image of God at creation: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27)
Some Jewish men prayed: “I thank God that Thou hast not made me a gentile, a slave, or a woman.” But Paul cut across these distinctions when he states:
“You (men and women) are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:26-29) — Reference 3, pages 50-51.
At the end of time at the second coming of Jesus, the church is represented as the bride of Christ: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb (Christ) has come, and his bride (female image of the Church) has made herself ready.” (Revelation 19:7)
From beginning to end, the Bible includes the feminine as an integral part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. While it is true that the Bible was written over a long period of time (lengthy span of 1600 years) in specific cultures (Middle- and Near-East, Roman and Greek), and some of these cultural contexts did not give equal social advantages to women, it would not be true to say that the message of the Bible is sexist or discriminatory against women.
Women in the Old Testament (O.T.)
Eve: the mother of mankind
It is interesting to know that the Bible says Eve is meant to be the helper of Adam. The word “helper” gives us the impression that Eve is inferior than her husband. Not so. Helper comes from the Hebrew word ezer, an interesting word choice loaded with significance. Ezer appears 21 times in O.T. Twice, in Genesis, it describes the woman (Genesis 2:18, 20). But the majority of references (16 to be exact) refer to God, or Yahweh, as the helper of his people. Is God, the helper, inferior to his people? Of course not. The remaining 3 references appear in the books of the prophets, who use it to refer to military aid. If language means anything, the ezer, in every case, is not a flunky or a junior assistant but a very strong role. (Reference 4, page 181)
Proverb 31 describes the “wife of noble character.” She is a woman who
• has confidence of her husband;
• works hard running an international business;
• gets up early and provides for her family and employees;
• owns property and cares for the poor;
• clothes her household well and dresses beautifully herself;
• is in charge of the home and her children honor her;
• fears God and is respected by people in her community.
Does she sound like a modern day super-woman? She is no doubt capable and yet feminine. She is no weakling.
Hagar
Women in the O.T. are often spoken of with dignity and value. After Sarai had over-reacted to the arrogance of her maidservant, Hagar, and had driven her out of the house, the angel of the Lord found the runaway at the well (Genesis 16:7). He said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai.” It would be easy for us to miss the significance of that address. This is the only instance in many thousands of Ancient Near Eastern texts where a deity, or his messenger, calls a woman by name and thereby invests her with exalted dignity. It was interest to know that Hagar was not of Abraham’s family and was a sinner, yet God treated her with compassion, gave her special revelations [God promised to make her son into a great nation (Genesis 21:18)] and bestowed on her unconventional dignity.
In the O.T. women were sometimes called to be “prophetesses,” God’s mouth in the world.
• Miriam (Exodus 15:20-21)
• Deborah (Judges 4:4-7)
• Isaiah’s wife (Isaiah 8:3)
• Huldah (2 Kings 22:13-20) —she plays an important role in worship and ministry in the O.T. During the rule of Josiah, those who were repairing the temple found Book of the Law, which had been neglected during the previous generation. Josiah directed five leaders to seek guidance from God about this book. These leaders went to the married prophetess Hudah to verify the book—a very sacred business, rather than going to her famous contemporary, the prophet Jeremiah.
• Joel 2:28 predicts that, in the last days, the Lord will answer Moses’ prayer that all the Lord’s people, men and women alike, should become prophets (Numbers 11:29). At the Pentecost this prediction is fulfilled.
Women and men were also equal in prayer.
• Rachel petitioned God directly, and God listened to her and opened her womb (Genesis 30:22-24).
• Hannah also sought dignity and worth through child-bearing. She too went directly to God in prayer, independently from her husband, Elkanah, and the high priest, Eli, both of whom were insensitive to her need.
God is kind to women:
Hannah, Sarah and Rebecca were childless and longing for children. They were written of tenderly and their sufferings were empathized with in the Bible.
While many of the stories of the O.T. have central male heroic characters, this is not exclusively the case:
• Deborah in Judges who was the military leader fighting for the Israelites.
• Queen Esther who saved her people from holocaust.
• Ruth, a gentile, who becomes an ancestor of David and hence of Jesus.
O.T. sometimes even uses feminine imagery to describe God:
• In Isaiah 42:13-14 God draws an analogy between himself and a warrior, and then between himself and a woman giving birth.
• In Isaiah 66:13, God said, “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.”
These are interesting and graphic portrait of God using earth language from the realm of female characteristics to relate to himself.
Women in the New Testament (N.T.)
In contrast to the cultural norms of the time, Jesus made a habit of revealing great theological truths to women:
• Samaritan woman
The first person who discovers Christ’s true identity in John’s Gospel is the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:25-26). Listen to their conversation:
Samaritan woman: “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Jesus: “I who speak to you am he.”
The disciples come across Jesus during his conversation with the woman and we are told they “were surprised to find him talking to a woman.” This is the context of Jesus’ ministry, and yet he goes against these cultural trends time and time again. Jesus ignores the cultural taboo by teaching women and allowing them to be his disciples.
Samaritan woman is an N.T. is equivalent of Hagar. Both are not of Abraham’s family and were sinners, yet God treated both with compassion, gave them special revelations and bestowed on them unconventional dignity.
• Mary
Jesus teaches her while she sits at the feet of Jesus and engages in theological study. This phrase, “to sit at the feet of,” is the same formulation as in Acts 22:3, where Paul describes his training under Gamaliel. The clear implication here is that Mary is affirmed as worthy of a rabbi’s theological instruction.
• Martha, Mary’s sister
She is the first person to be taught one of the most astounding theological statements of the N.T. Jesus says to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies (John 11:25).”
The Mishnah, a collection of Jewish writings, says: “If any man gives his daughter the knowledge of the Law it is as though he taught her lechery.” Now you see the severe prohibition of teaching women religious matter in the Jewish culture during Jesus’ time and yet Jesus teaches women on spiritual matters.
Women are included in Jesus’ traveling circle
The idea of women traveling around with a group of men or having the status of disciple was seriously countercultural. Yet Jesus includes some of them and even receives financial support from them out of their means (Luke 8:1-3):
• Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out;
• Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household;
• Susanna; and
• Many others.
Women are included in church activities
Along with men, women are baptized and receive the Spirit (Acts 2:17; 5:14; 8:12; 16:15) and some of them suffer imprisonment for their faith (Acts 8:3; 9:1-2). Women play critical role in the establishment of several N.T. congregations (Acts 16:13-15, 40; 17:4,12). — Reference 3, page 53.
Jesus’ act in a countercultural manner
In Matthew 12:46-50, when Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are waiting outside to see him, he points to his disciples and says, “Here are my mother and my brother.” This statement is unthinkable especially there were women among his male disciples. In the Middle Eastern culture of the first century it would be unspeakably offensive to point to male disciples and use female imagery to describe them.
Jesus’ parables
Jesus teaches and speaks about women in a new and fresh way. His parables are drawn from the life experience of both men and women.
• Mending garment is a female image and making wine is a male image yet Jesus uses them side by side to teach the meaning of “born again”:
“No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wine-skins If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wine-skins will be ruined (Luke 5:36-39).
• Building a city is a masculine image and lighting up a house is a female household job yet Jesus uses them side by side to teach witnessing:
You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house (Matthew 5:14-15).
• In Luke 15 God is depicted as a woman down on her hands and knees, searching through her house for a coin in order to teach that God seeks out sinners in order to bring them to repentance.
• Jesus likens himself to a mother hen: “O Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings” (Luke 13:34).
Women as teachers of theology
• Priscilla
One example is recorded in Acts 18:24-26 where Apollos is taught by a couple Priscilla and Aquila. Apollos is a famous and eloquent preacher, and Priscilla team-teaches with her husband. It is unusual to see a woman’s name appearing first—as if to emphasize that she had a very real teaching role in this circumstance.
• Mary—Jesus’ mother
Luke’s Gospel presents Mary as a teacher of theology, ethics and social justice for the whole church when he records the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-56) for us. We are taught that Jesus is Lord and Savior, he is compassion, he provides when we are in need, he is worthy to be exalted. We learn these from Mary.
Women were key witnesses to historic events
• It was a group of women who stood at the foot of the cross, watching Jesus die and hearing his last words. (Luke 23:55)
• It was a group of women who first witnessed the resurrection of Christ. (Luke 24:4-5)
Again, it is striking for us to remember that the word of women was perceived as having less value in a court of law than that of men. It is therefore enormously important that the most significant events of Jesus’ death and resurrection were witnessed at first hand primarily by women.
Women as church leaders
• Phoebe—was introduced in Romans 16:1-2 as a deacon. The Greek has the masculine form diakonon. So Phoebe is a deacon, not a deaconess.
• Philip the evangelist “had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy (Acts 21:8-9)”.
• We also see Paul giving advice as to the manner in which women are to prophesy in church (1 Corinthians 11:4-5). Whatever we may make of his comments on head covering, it does seem that Paul expected women to prophesy. Prophesy was an important part of the early church and women are part of this ministry.
• There is also some evidence that a woman may have been referred to as an apostle by Paul. Roman 16:7 says, “Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” Scholars generally claim that Junias is a woman name. (To prove this claim is beyond the scope of this article).
• Even Christians suspect the Bible may contain element of discrimination against women based on one verse written by Paul that seems to suggest prohibition of women as preachers. Careful studies identify it is an issue of Bible interpretation when all of Paul’s writings and cultural setting are all in view. This too is beyond the scope of this article. I point it out so readers may know that the writer of this blog is well aware of this issue.
The Influences of Christianity
This section finds its source from Reference 2: Prior to Christianity influence, a woman’s life was very cheap. In ancient cultures, the wife was the property of her husband. But the Bible teaches that wife is the bone of her husband’s bones and the flesh of her husbands flesh (Genesis 2:23). Wife is the intimate ally of her husband.
In India, China, Rome, and Greece, people felt and declared that women were not able or competent to be independent. In ancient Rome, little girls were abandoned in far greater numbers than boys.
The killing of baby girls simply because of their sex was not just a practice of the ancient world. Two Norwegian women missionaries in the late 19th century—Sofie Reuter and Anna Jakobsen—found infanticide of little girls a common practice in China. These two women would daily comb the abandonment places to save Chinese girls from sure death. They would then rear these girls and disciple them into Christian faith. It is important to note that in the last two centuries, because of the modern missionary movement, the lives of women have been greatly improved in scores of countries and hundreds of tribes as the gospel has taken root in those cultures.
Take India as an example. Prior to Christian influences in India, widows were voluntarily or involuntarily burned on their husbands’ funeral pyres—a grisly practice known as suttee. The word itself literally translates “good woman,” implying that Hindus believed it was a good woman who followed her husband into death. As can be imagined, this practice shocked the Christian missionaries coming from the West.
Furthermore, infanticide—particularly for girls—was common in India, prior to the great missionary William Carey. Carey and other Christians detested seeing these little ones being tossed into the sea. These centuries-old practices, suttee and infanticide, were finally stopped only in the early 19th century and only through missionary agitation to British authorities. Tragically, as Christian influence is often felt less and less in modern India, we have seen the rise of sex-selection abortions—killing unborn girls—practiced widely there, a practice that vexes even the most ardent feminist. This is practiced all over the Far East.
India also had “child widows,” young girls who grew up to be temple prostitutes. In the 20th century, Amy Carmichael, a missionary of Dohnavur Fellowship, fought this practice by weaning many girls out of this situation and into a Christian community. In the 19th century, Charles Spurgeon told of a Hundu woman who said to a missionary: “Surely your Bible was written by a woman.” “Why?” he asked. “Because it says so many kind things for women. Our pundits never refer to us but in reproach.”
Prior to Christianity influences, Africa had a practice similar to suttee. The wives and concubines of the chieftain were killed at his death. Such tribal customs were stopped after Christianity began to penetrate the continent. In other areas of the globe where the gospel of Christ has not penetrated, the value of women’s lives is cheap.
Furthermore, polygamy (it was commonplace even in Hong Kong when I was a child) has disappeared in numerous places around the world because of the impact of Christianity. This is significant because polygamy is inherently unfair to women. How ironic that those feminists today do not give any credit to Christ or Christianity; in fact, they say it has oppressed woman. In reality, Christianity has elevated women enormously. Had Gloria Steinem (leader of the women’s liberation movement in the late 60’s and 70’s) been born in the anti-Christian regions of the world, she would have been sure to wear a veil today!
Final Remarks
• It is true to say that the O.T. does also contain stories in which terrible things such as rape or violence occur against women, but these are not condoned. Much of the text of the O.T. is narrative and not didactic in style. Nowhere in the Bible teaches the legitimacy of such violent acts against women. Bible is honest; even sins of the godly man (e.g. King David) are honestly recorded in the Bible in order to show that mankind, without exception, needs a Savior. See Note 1 below for more on this subject.
• In a culture that was far slower to recognize the worth of women, we can see that the Bible is highly countercultural on this issue. Although Paul asks woman to submit to her husband, Bible readers should not overlook another verse which says “husband and wife should submit to one another“. This is another subject concerning Bible interpretation which is beyond the scope of this article. Phebe Shen, a Chinese woman pastor, says in her book (Reference 3, page 56), “If the example of Christ is followed, a Christian woman should not find it difficult to subject herself to her husband in love even as the church subjects herself to Christ, and Christ to God, the Father. For her to refuse to do is to disregard God’s design for order. To accept her appointed place in God’s design without aspiring to headship over man is to find the greatest fulfillment possible in life, for it is to live in harmony with God’s plan.”
• When we come to the text of the Bible with the issues of sexism in mind, we must be clear that while God is predominantly spoken of with male imagery and ultimately incarnates himself as the man Jesus, this is not to say that women are undermined or undervalued. Jesus constantly affirms the value of women, teaching them and interacting with them as human beings. Both male and female are created in the image of God, and both are so precious that Christ came to the earth to redeem them (men and women) with his blood shed on the cross.
References:
1. “Is the Bible Intolerant? Sexist? Oppressive? Homophobic? Outdated? Irrelevant?” by Amy Orr-Ewing; pp.85-97.
2. “What If Jesus Had Never Been Born” by D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe”; pp.14-17.
3. “Women in Ministry” by Phebe Shen (沈碧蘭)
4. “When Life and Beliefs Collide” by Carolyn Custis James.
Note 1:
Refer to Genesis 29:13-30. If modern reader finds offensive the whole account of women being bought and sold by men (most marriages were arranged in this way in ancient times), it would be important to keep in mind that the overall thrust of Genesis narrative is to undermine the practice by describing it so negatively. Robert Alter, in The Art of Biblical Narrative, says that if you read the book of Genesis and think it is condoning primogeniture, polygamy, and bride purchase, you are misunderstanding it. Throughout the book polygamy always wreaks devastation. It never works out. All you ever see is the misery the patriarchal institutions cause in families. Alter concludes that all the stories in Genesis are subversive to those ancient patriarchal practices. [Quoted from “Counterfeit Gods” by Timothy Keller; p.185. ]
