Ballet Instructor's Newsletter (10-25-03): How Women Came to Lose Power
How Women Came to Lose Power
By Shahab Nahvi
For, of the tree that grows in the garden where God walks in the cool of the day, the wise men westward of Iran have partaken of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, whereas those on the other side of that cultural divide, in India and the Far East, have relished only the fruit of eternal life. However, the two limbs, we are informed, come together in the center of the garden, where they form a single tree at the base, branching out when they reach a certain height. Likewise, the two mythologies spring from one base in the Near East. And if man should taste of both fruits he would become, we have been told, as God himself [Genesis 3:22]—which is the boon that the meeting of East and West today is offering to us all.
(Campbell: 9)
Based on the physical world, the social realm in different cultures affects the art of dance, but the art of dance basically uses the physical male or female form to communicate. To understand why the male or female body image is seen the way it is today, we have to look back in history. And, as we go back, the quality and quantity of information diminishes considerably in this respect. Inherently, in the case of women around the world, there has been a loss of power and equality in comparison to men. And, I wanted to know what was the reason behind it and how it had begun. I wanted to know why we see women presented through art and literature in the way we do. The impact of religion has been considerable and much of the written documentation relating to women’s position in society can only be ascertained through religious documents. Hence, looking into Hebrew, Christian and Moslem scriptures become very important. I will further make a comparison with Japanese culture to fill the gap and show what might have been women’s position before the first century, drawing a parallel.
All myths, folklore and fairy tales have a basic structure and pattern. This pattern acts as a road map in order for the people to derive meaning for their lives. Occasionally, through passage of time or major calamities, the myth loses its luster and the people begin to look elsewhere for meaning. Very often they do not start from scratch, but adjust the old myth so that it would better fit the new circumstances. This is Claude Levi Strauss’ basic theory. He suggests that myths more resemble a collage. The pieces are moved around to create a new form (myth). Hence, the theory is known as Bricolage. Each piece in the collage then has its own unique shape and design which distinguishes it from the rest.
(Nahvi 2003)
Bricolage is the concept that I will be relying on to legitimize the comparisons I shall make between two seemingly different cultures. I discuss polytheism in the Far East as an opening and use it to make comparison and state how other religions are also incorporating much of the same activities. I correlate women’s loss of power to the appearance of absolutist government. In Japan, absolutist government does not appear until much later, hence, more freedom for women. Religion profoundly effects everyday life in Japan and scapegoating is the main theme. I will pose the following questions for this paper. Why does man in general scapegoat “the other” in order to maintain his order? Why is it that Mary of Magdala, Joanna, Susanna and many more women mentioned in the New Testament are able to move among men so easily? —A question that has never been asked before. What Jewish laws or tradition, if any, made allowance for it? And, if women did have certain mobility, why did they lose it? I will also raise the question that perhaps the activities and life of Jewish women in the first (1st) century was correlated with their age. At the same time, I will attempt to avoid the trap of Eurocentrism that one finds upon reading most books in this regard. Since the main thesis is not easily accessible and nothing has been written on the subject as yet, I ask your indulgence as I make my case. It should also be noted that theology has an enormous effect on the way people look at, and understand, “the self” and that history of biblical texts cannot be separated from its main purpose, which is the theology, no matter how much one tries. Therefore, one has to try not to be biased.
Scapegoating:
Why does humankind in general turn to scapegoating in order to maintain his order? Is it fear, inability to comprehend, human as an intelligent animal looking to connect cause and effect, looking to blame someone or something for his shortcomings, for his failures, and sometimes even for his success? How can I achieve such success, he asks, if as recently as last year I failed so miserably at the same task (i.e. crop)? Even in the 21st century, in the so-called modern era, the human physical nature and his inability to explain why he exists, succeeds or fails, pushes him to look further and try to explain it through vocabularies that are often inexplicable. A good example can be found with rituals and superstitions in American sports, where a player may not wash his socks for days, a certain number of days that is, which had previously determined success for him in the profession. Or, he follows certain rituals prior to each game, such as waking up at a certain time, eating a certain food, showering a certain length of time, wearing a particular pair of pants, or even putting the pants on with the right leg first. For the player, he fears failure, that which would possibly end his career. He could even fear his own success, where he would be breaking his own record or other’s. So, I suggest that fear and lack of ability are reasons behind ‘scapegoating.’ Superstition is a form of scapegoating because the person is placing blame on objects to deter blame on his/herself. Once one has chosen this path, words such as “to appease,” “oracle,” “effigy,” “recipient of evil,” “magic,” “renewal,” and of course “periodicity”(remembrance of time) become the ritual that has to be followed within its proper sequence. It is a cycle that describes failure or success. It describes why one deserves to live or die.
In Japan, scapegoating is inherent within its culture and religion. It is a means to explaining the effects of cause, which could have been produced by someone’s death or a lack of respect and attention to local deities—which are invariably connected to mountains. Saito Sanemori, who died (1183 AD) fighting on the side of Heike in the battle of Shinohara, became a scapegoat when he was hit by an enemy arrow and dragged by his horse into the rice field, possibly drowning—a shameful death (Plutschow 1996: 18). (Like Jesus the Christ dying a shameful death on the cross.) It was a death not honorable and, hence, a few years afterwards, when the crop fails miserably, the Japanese locals blamed his goryo (An angry deity that possesses power to harm. The higher the status in life, the more powerful a deity he will become.). Even today, on the 21st of June of each year, in the province of Aichi, villagers make an effigy that resembles a warrior, name him Sanemori and carry him through town (a goryo can also be an ancestor). The villagers frequently touch the effigy to transfer onto it their impurities, their pollution that had accumulated throughout the year. The goryo must be appeased; he has to be honorably remembered. In Japanese culture, the deities are ambivalent (create good fortune or bad). And, through the Shinto practice and a ritual done by a professional priest, one could say that Sanemori’s goryo is exorcised and, henceforth, at least for the upcoming year, he will bring good fortune to those who believe in him. This is also done through festivals known as matsuri, which “dramatizes both the end and the beginning of order; it expresses destruction and regeneration as a struggle between chaotic and cosmic forces” (Plutschow 1996: 29). This is where Shinto and Buddhism meet. This is where Joseph Campbell’s point can be clearly seen. One could say that similar cultures and rituals existed prior to the ones we know of and over time changed as cultures intermingled. If a small village made a man deity for the sake of being a social being, it would make sense that that village would ultimately believe in one deity, hence, monotheism. But, if it was taken over by another village, since you cannot get rid of the deity as easily as the people who believe in it, logic suggests that one has to incorporate the deity with a new culture and, hence, polytheism would result (assuming that the new group previously had its own deity). Japan is a great example of a living culture that uses religious rituals to renew the old order. (There is a parallel here with Jesus the Christ’s life—he renewed humanity by removing the Original Sin.) Festivals such as Bon supposedly remove all pollution. There are people in Japan who still believe in this tradition today. Herbert Plutschow insists that the entire human culture has come to be because it had a need to divert violence. He states that humanity finally has come to understand, to come to terms with, man’s desire for violence and that that created what we see today. This implicates humanity as initially evil but with potential for good and not the other way around.
As I understand it, Rene Girard and Eric Gans's generative anthropology is basically a reflection on human violence caused by man's mimetic desire and the resentment it generates. According to this view, human civilization developed as an effort to defer resentment and violence by channeling them into institutions intended to protect us from them. Humans defer violence into such artificially created institutions as language, ritual, religion, law and ultimately the state.
(Plutschow: Xunzi)
The Japanese believed that the failure to incorporate correct procedure of these rituals and to occasionally make adjustments in order to appease the deities would otherwise cause chaos. In many instances, these rituals are precautionary measures; they are done before any perceived chaos occurs. The main idea here is that culture itself is sacred and cannot be allowed to be forgotten and that there is always a need to make culture sacred once again. The ritual takes the form of “theater,” a show or a performance. Therefore, a new song or dance had to be devised (visiting other cities in order to learn a new dance) and carefully practiced in order to gain mastery. These festivals are cyclic; some occur every year, others every twenty years. For example, the Ise Shrine is rebuilt every twenty years at an enormous cost—a practice that has been occurring since the sixth (6th) century.
Commoners, concerned about their ancestors or those who have recently lost a relative (Shin Bon), visit the temple during the Bon festival to attain a branch, soaked it in the temple’s water (presumably will obtain the spirit of the relatives) and put at the alter that has been slowly prepared at home for the ceremony. They ceremoniously arrange on the altar fruit and animals made out of straw and stick. During the Bon ceremony, one would expect to see three stages of this festival: 1) Kami-Oroshi (deity descends) 2) Kami-Asobi (entertaining the deity) and 3) Kami-Okuri (to send the deities back).
In Kami-Oroshi, the violence, fear and anger, which could be illustrated through masks, is not representing chaos but is an action to promote and pitch the clan and community out of everyday life and into a different realm, in helping one go through (transcend) the image of deity (a concept from Campbell) and frightened they resort to sex (love). A good example comes from a recent shipwreck incident. Two passengers of the shipwreck, one male and one female were in a peculiar life and death situation, desperate to survive in the cold water. The man, who was unable to swim, reached out in a sexual desire to touch the woman's breast before drowning, so the female described later to a reporter. This is perhaps similar to the experience of real fear for those who went through the ritual, then and now (deity’s descent and the activities man provided in order to appease the deity, followed by its ascent). But, in the past it was a period of disorder, which included orgies. In this sense, it is not that the deity descends, but that humanity goes to meet the deity. These rituals displace time and space. Therefore, normal time and space is no longer and humanity has ascended and changed the value of the space by the ritual. In this case, it would make sense to move and dance slowly, since there is no end to time. It is the idea that even the space above that they walk is holy and, hence, should not be filled with unnecessary movement. Similar rituals exist in one form or another in other cultures, polytheistic or monotheistic.
In a dance called Dojoji (Noh dance), which is a story of love between a man and a woman, it begins by the head priest announcing that during this period no woman should enter the temple during the festival. I understand that this is an impact of the Chinese culture on the Japanese, started in the seventh (7th) century, and that prior to this it was possible for a female to represent a deity. (Since then, men play all characters in the theater of Noh.) These performances execute the rituals necessary to appease a certain deity (Plutschow 2003). (The theater is attached to the temple to make it easier for the transformation of spirit.) Before this prohibition, a Japanese female played a much greater role and very often even that of head priestess. Even though it is not very common today, this tradition still continues, namely O-shira Sama, where puppets are involved, it is a kind of Shamanism and the priestess acts as an oracle. In the Dojoji dance, the music starts as though it is the calling for the creation of the world, as though to remind us of the tic-tic-tic of passage of time. The head priest takes center stage, but although he comes first he is known to be the second (not unlike John the Baptist). He prepares the world for the coming of the deity. The first comes second, which is the deity (not unlike Jesus). The stories that are being used for staging come from the tales of Heike; tales that celebrate the victim’s story (his sacrifice). The Noh dance, which had its start in Sarugaku in the fourth (4th) century, was finally trusted to the professionals. It is imperative that the kami (deity) become anthropomorphic (visible) so that people can interact with it (just like Jesus). Of course, similar festivals did occur in Greece, which may have had much impact on the religions of the world, but these festivals no longer exist. Festivals such as “Dramenon (ritual action) of the Dionysia” (Plutschow 1996: 92).
Why Choose Japanese Culture as an Example?
Why choose Shinto and Shinto-Buddhist (Japanese) culture as an example? Because Jesus can be found in many forms and shapes and with different names across the world: “Jesus com[es] across as a universal polymorph” (Malina: 221). Matsuri is a drama that brings together people and God. If I can see some hint of what our ancestors believed, I can ask why the women in this culture lost their power and became subservient. It seems that the Japanese were more flexible and made more allowances for their culture to continue into the 21st century. Even though they do not have a female dancer in Noh, they do permit female deities. A good example is Dojoji Noh. Other cultures also had female deities. Prior to Muhammad’s God, Allah, there was a deity connected with Kabe (a structure that Muslims direct their prayer towards), also named Allah. He was a god of creation that many tribal men believed in. He had three daughters, al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. (This information comes from Persian scholar, Tabari.)
Muhammad’s insistence that those who did not recognize Allah were consigned to hell meant that many feared for the souls for their ancestors. At one stage Muhammad was persuaded to introduce the “Satanic verses” into the Revelation which gave some status to the goddesses of neighbouring sanctuaries and this may represent an attempt to come to terms with the Meccan leaders. If so, Muhammad soon realized that he had been led astray and repudiated the verses, thus confirming that Allah was the only God and that idols could have no place in the religion of Islam.
(Kennedy: 31)
What is important here is to recognize that ancestors and female goddesses, as deities, played an important role from the Far East to the Bedouin culture prior to the arrival of Islam (7th century), and even Judaism. It should be noted that while in the Middle East the female power diminished rapidly, in Japan female power retained its quality for a longer period. There has to be a reason for that. It has to do with polytheism and lack of absolutist government. Plutschow states that because the Japanese maintained a polytheistic culture it, in fact, saved them from religious wars (Plutschow 2003). Further, it should be noted that during Muhammad’s time, Islam’s rapid growth was helped by the absence of Sassanian and Byzantine power in the northern portion of the Arabian peninsula that had until then established control and introduced absolutism in this tribal society. In effect, the peninsula was the last place in the Middle East to give up polytheism as a whole. Their absence of major powers in the peninsula was due to decades of war that had weakened the two empires. The population also had further suffered from epidemic diseases.
By the beginning of the seventh century, however, these systems had been swept away because of changes of policy by both the Byzantines and the Sassanians and by the long grueling war between the two great powers from AD 602 to 628. The nascent Islamic state was faced by no rival power among the Arabs and indeed it arose in part to fill the recently created political vacuum.
(Kennedy: 17)
The impact of women and their influence at the start of Islam was crucial. For example, Khadija, who was one of the richest widows, married Muhammad and became his first convert and also brought him material security and Fatima, his daughter, whose descendents were extremely important in Islamic history. Another good example is Aisha, a widow of Muhammad, who took side in the Battle of Camel in December 656 AD with al-Zubayr b. al-‘Awwam and Talha b. ‘Ubayd Allah against Ali. They had hoped that her status alone would bring a large group of people to their side. At this time, Ali, who was considered to be the second person to convert to Islam and highly regarded as a man of honor, by then had claimed to be the caliph. This division and battle that pursued was the first of many civil wars among the Muslims, known as fitnas. Historically speaking, Islam was greatly influenced by the two major powers, especially the Sassanian power, whereby much of religious practices and bureaucracy was copied. The words of Muhammad and the way he led his life were interpreted to satisfy the political needs and situation of the time. And, of course, this influenced the way women led their lives. Although the quote below describes the circumstances in Islamic countries in our lifetime, it can easily be applied to much earlier times as well.
In many countries men find themselves economically and socially oppressed, often humiliated by political helplessness in their own societies, and they want to be compensated by control over women, precisely at a moment when women are asserting their own right to a fuller public life.
(Lapidus: 898)
Not unlike Judaism, Islam’s concept of man as a slave to God, created an atmosphere and relationship with women that mirrors this in real life. Of course, there are feminists that state that in principle Islam was beneficial for women’s position in Arabian society and, therefore, it is not Islam that must be blamed for women’s condition but the historical condition and circumstance of life in this area. It is true that in Moslem law women had important rights, especially economic rights. But, these laws most often were not enforced because of social practices. This includes inheritances. But, what about the impact of the veil in this territory? Even though it is not universal for Moslem women in the Middle East to wear a veil, it is becoming more and more common in the urban and middle-class society.
Indeed upward social mobility and urbanization has in some cases stimulated the wearing of the veil. Moreover, the veil is an ambiguous form of social communication. It is understood as a shield, protecting women against men, and society against the danger of temptation represented by women, but while it secludes and conceals women, it also creates mystery and attractiveness, and gives women freedom of movement.
(Lapidus: 893)
The practice of wearing a veil does not, however, work for the working class, the peasants and the nomadic women. This means that as the society attempts to modernize itself, the veil becomes more dominant unless certain laws are put in place in support of women. A good example would be the Turkish government or Iran during Reza Shah’s reign, where in the 1930’s chadors (veil) were outlawed. In the case of Iran, Reza Shah wanted to help Iranian women but not at the expense of government power. Therefore, “in the early 1930’s, he dismantled all independent women’s organizations and banned the publication of their magazines” (Kamrava: 71).
The Coming of the Kingdom of God:
Namely Sumer, where a new sense of the separation of the spheres of god and man began to be represented in myth and ritual about 2350 B.C. The king, then was no longer a god, but a servant of the god, his Tenant Farmer, supervisor of the race of human slaves created to serve the gods with unremitting toil...was now but a priest offering sacrifice in tendance to One above—not a god returning himself in sacrifice to Himself. (Campbell: 6-7)
The result was that man could not be god from this point on and “honor” became his tool in order to serve Him (God) better. It is this very honor that continued to permeate every aspect of Middle Eastern cultures (Malina: 27). The philosophy of holy war had its start with Persian Zoroastrianism. Its root is with the myth of Ahura Mazda—simply good against evil, light against dark, and that Ahura Mazda at the end will be victorious and “the Kingdom of God” will be established. This is combined with the idea of Destiny that permeated everything they did and, like an infectious disease, they passed it on to everyone they came in contact with. The symbol of Destiny was Zurvan—Father Time. He was believed to be the father of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman (Morony 2002). It was the idea of the “Kingdom of God” that pushed the Achaemenian Empire to take over the known world—the first holy war. It is during this period that the Hebrews rebuilt (Campbell: 8). “ ‘Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah” (Ezra 1:2 Hebrew Bible NRSV). It was during this time that Hebrews took on the central message, “the universality” of Zoroastrian message: The coming of Kingdom of God. It was here that Campbell’s statement, which had started this paper, and Claude Levi Strauss’ theory rang certain truth within me. For example, one could find similarities between Saito Sanemori as a deity and his effigy for the Japanese with Jesus the Christ in Jerusalem. Jesus the Christ, too, was a scapegoat when he proceeded to walk among people of Jerusalem. People believed that by touching him or his garment they could be cured of ills, even leprosy. Could it be said that God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad are also ambivalent? Could it be said that women in these Middle Eastern cultures suffer from the same symptoms because of their natural periodicity and, hence, have become a scapegoat? I wonder if a different creation story or myth would have helped women to have equal footing. For example, Campbell makes reference to Upanishad, where the universe was in the form of man: Recognizing himself, he shouts, “Here I am!” But fear shortly took hold of him. He then asks himself, “What am I to be afraid of?” When he finds that he is alone, he wishes to be of two and that the other be the same size as he—an exact match. Somehow, she finds herself to be inferior; afterall, she is the second and she tries to hide and, in effect, she begins the creation of the world by transforming herself into different animals. When she turned herself into a cow, he turned himself into a bull, until all the animals of the world were created. Then he realized “I, actually, am creation” (Campbell: 10). In contrast, Genesis story is part of history, not of universe. Adam had to be put to deep sleep so that a piece of rib could be taken out of him to create Eve. Adam is not the creator, nor is Eve; further, Eve is subordinate to Adam and it is God that creates the nature and the animals within it. So, Campbell beautifully states it when he writes, “It is not that divine is everywhere; it is that divine is everything (Campbell: 12),” including women, emphasizing the difference between the Indian myth and Genesis.
The Japanese creation story, which was written from oral records in the seventh (7th) century, starts with Izanami (female) and Izanagi (male) (Plutschow 2003). When they meet, Izanagi states to Izanami that her sexual part is the same as his except inverted—certain equality. We can find the same understanding of sexuality by going across the world and time to seventeenth (17th) century Europe, where women were asked not to jump up and down or run around in fear of becoming male (Sabean 2003).
Plutschow is in agreement with Campbell’s theory, but he sees the separation of man and deity in the creation of the stage and professional actors that replaced the deities in the reenactment. It is a ritual separation, where people stopped participating themselves and became an audience, relying on a medium. In the West, this occurred in 528 BC, where the dramas of the deities were taken out of their context, from their proper location, to Greek cities to be performed (Plutschow: 93). The separation of man and God also create a hierarchy where God is above ruler, ruler above man, man above woman; a situation one can find in some Semitic cultures, where the women in the ministry of Jesus can be found. Campbell recognizes that Judaism came about through trial and error. He mentions Semitic tribes such as the Akkadians (2350 BC), the Amoritic Babylonians (1850 BC) and Hammurabi (1700 BC), the Amorites (1450 BC), the Canaanites “who followed them,” with the Phoenicians of the coast, the Hebrews (1010 BC), Assyrians who “conquered Babylon c. 1100 BC,” the Chaldeans in 625 BC, the Aramaeans whose language controlled trade until after Christianity, and finally the Arabs (Campbell: 126-7). To understand Christianity and its origins, one must understand these cultures as well—an investment of time that would produce a fruitful outcome. Because the kind of research I am suggesting is beyond the time and resources I can now expend, let it suffice for me to mention their names and hope that I can return someday to invest due respect on the subject. I invested much time trying to locate material to understand the question of why female Judeo-Christians in the ministry of Jesus were able to commingle so easily with the men in the New Testament. I raised the question that perhaps the activities and life of Jewish women in the first (1st) century was correlated with their age. But, written evidence, I found, was limited in regards to the first (1st) century. This, however, is also true about the beginning of Islam. Much of the writing was passed on orally, namely Hadath, which was gathered and written a century or two later. In Jewish tradition, we have to rely on Mishnah (a handbook edited by Judah (Rabbi)), which predates the Talmud and much of Midrashic. The Mishnah, the early Midrash and Palestinian Talmud were invariably influenced by the Greek or Roman Empire. Judith Romney Wegner states that at the same time the Babylonian Talmud was influenced by Zoroastrian Persians (Baskin: 69). In these verses, one cannot be sure, as Wegner says (Baskin: 69), whether the status of women was stated as it were or as it ought to be. We do not know to what degree the laws of the religion were implemented in the everyday life of a woman. What percentage of these women submitted willingly? Nevertheless, what was written in the first six (6) centuries have become the norm and further, if the Palestinian Talmud was affected by Greek and Roman cultures, then it would make sense that it would transfer some aspect of their way of life into the Jewish culture. And that is the reason why we see certain freedom in Jewish women’s activities. Karen J. Torjesen, in her book, When Women Were Priests, states that:
In the ancient [Greek and Roman] world, both men and women were patrons and householders. The social authority, economic power, and political influence associated with these roles were not restricted by gender. Even religious authority in Greek and Roman worship was not limited by gender.
(Torjesen: 13)
Women in the First Century in Connection with the Ministry of Jesus
From my reading, I have come to a conclusion that there is a profound loss of women’s power, not only in the West but globally, as far as the written material is concerned. This is not necessarily indicative of loss of power but could be a wishful thinking or desire for certain morality by men prior to becoming observed by society when the state, collaborating with the religion, had power to begin enforcing the law.
As stated above, the separation of man and deity occurred when the professional actors replaced the deities in the reenactment. In the West, this occurred in 528 BC. By 458 BC, “Aeschylus’s famous trilogy of plays, Oresteia, [shows] a dim memory of a time when female sexuality was honored” (Torjesen: 256). This is the story about Orestes being charged with the murder of his mother. Orestes had killed his mother to avenge Agamemnon’s murder (his father). His mother had killed her husband because Agamemnon was contemplating sacrificing their daughter to ensure victory in an upcoming battle. Two ideas come out of this play: 1) the mother had a reason to kill her husband—saving her daughter’s life. Her daughter’s life, for her, superceded Agamemnon’s life. 2) Orestes, by killing his own mother, put the last nail on the coffin of women’s power. Here, even a son can kill his mother with amnesty. Then came the philosophers who began to classify ‘proper’ behavior and in their wisdom assumed silence to be a woman’s virtue. Aristotle (384-322 BC) wrote: "All classes must be deemed to have special attributes; as the poet says of women, ‘Silence is a woman’s glory,’ but this is not equally the glory of men" (Torjesen: 119).
And, about the first (1st) century, we are talking about a woman as just a vessel, being controlled by man, at least as far as the Western world was concerned. Plutarch (46-125 AD) in regards to submission of women to their husbands: "And control ought to be exercised by the man over the woman, not as the owner has control of a piece of property, but as the soul controls the body" (Torjesen: 121).
Finally, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which was influenced by Greek and Roman culture and written approximately 54 AD, was used by Epiphanius (d. 403) to argue that women were inferior to men.
The gradual loss of women’s power suggests that there were pockets, areas, in public or private that were not as yet influenced in any meaningful way by said laws, nor had there been any meaningful meeting of the minds within the same culture (Jewish) before the first (1st) century. Having been integrated with Hellenism, it unquestionably created an atmosphere where the private and public lines for the Jewish woman were not yet clearly drawn, and if her person was parallel with being an oracle then this line, private or public, could be crossed much easier and with less opposition. Additionally, in conjunction with her age, a woman in this period could have surprising mobility, which to a viewer coming from a more strict culture would seem exaggerated.
Politics
A brief description of the political environment and the spread of Hellenism will help to clear our understanding in regards to people’s way of life within the boundaries of neighboring nations (cultures). When Romans came to Palestine, they did not have a specific plan in regards to the people and cultures they met there; they did not even have a specific plan for the way to govern their own selves. As Lamm Cross states in his book, The Humanities in Western Culture: “It might be called the let’s-try-it-this-way-and-see-if-it-stops-hurting philosophy of government” (120). After invading Palestine, they were at loss how to deal with the Jews, so they gave them much freedom:
Rome never did know what to do with the Jews; nothing seemed to work. After their conquest of Palestine in 63 BC, the Romans gave the country the special status of a protectorate. Among other privileges, the Jews were exempted from military service and granted freedom of religion, but this was not enough. In AD 66 the Jews launched what turned out to be their most disastrous rebellion against Rome.
(Cross: 158)
The fact that the Romans resorted to destroy the temple of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD suggests that they were unable to control the area in any meaningful way. George A. Bournoutian states that they treated Armenians the same way:
In 69 BC Tigranakert was besieged by Lucullus. When the city’s inhabitants, a majority of whom were non-Armenians, opened the gates of Tigranakert, it fell to Roman troops and was looted.
(Bournoutain: 45)
Even before the Romans, Greek culture was introduced by the Seleucids, whom had introduced Hellenism into this area, causing Hellenistic culture to seep into all fabrics of life. What gave the Parthians time to accumulate strength was the preoccupation of the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, who was dreaming of the return of the Hellenistic empire cornered against Palestine by Romans, desecrating the temple of Jerusalem which caused the Jews to revolt in 168 BC under the leadership of Judas (Bournoutian: 38). So, these are examples of early Hellenism activities in the area. In some cases, it created anti-Hellenistic sentiment, which in the case of Persia created the Sassanian dynasty starting in 224 AD. In the case of Armenia, since the nobles were divided, some pro-Hellenistic and others anti-Hellenistic, Armenia was a cause of many disputes between the West and East, depending on who was in control. Nevertheless, they were greatly influenced by Hellenism, not unlike the Hebrews:
With Tigran occupying major Hellenistic centers [about 70 BC], Hellenism was no longer on the fringes of Armenia, but penetrated most aspects of Armenian life.
(Bournoutain: 43)
As Nina Garsoian states:
Armenia’s increased contact with the more Hellenized regions of Syria and Pontus as a result of Tigran’s conquests and alliances also bore fruit. The Armenian court was profoundly Hellenized under the influence of its queen, Cleopatra of Pontus, and Greek rhetoricians and philosophers were welcomed as guests and advisors of the royal family.
(Hovannisian: 57)
In Palestine, some Jewish sects became withdrawn and secluded. It was a period that created a variety of Jewish sects, some as pro-Hellenistic and others as anti-Hellenistic. In regards to Jesus the Christ’s activities, his interaction with women seems out of place as far as certain Jewish sects were concerned. But, in the Hellenistic world, where Jesus the Christ lived, the same activities would not have seemed extraordinary. As Ben Witherington states in his book, Women in the Ministry of Jesus:
Certain of Jesus’ words and deeds, such as His teaching on the laws of uncleanness, His healing of a woman on the Sabbath, and His willingness to converse with a strange woman in public, while obviously offensive to His fellow Jews, would probably not have raised many eyebrows outside Jesus’ native context. Then, too, Jesus’ attitude toward a woman’s right to religious training and to be a disciple of a religious leader, while no doubt shocking to Jews, would not have seemed radical to many Romans or Greeks of that day.
(Witherington: 126)
How did Jewish people live?
Did Jewish women have a public life or were they secluded? Ross S. Kraemer suggests that in order for someone to be secluded they have to be able to afford it. One needs to have slaves to accomplish what one cannot do oneself. Kraemer states that exclusion was not for all age groups, but that it occurred mostly for young unmarried women. She gives the example of Joseph and how he was supposed to marry a daughter of an Egyptian priest (Baskin: 53). The story comes out of the text, The Conversion and Marriage of Aseneth. The main reason behind Aseneth’s exclusion was her chastity. This is a marriage between a gentile and a Jew. It is a story that supposedly counters the ideal that gentiles are unclean and that once Aseneth was married she began her public life overseeing her state. What I think Kraemer fails to mention in regards to rituals and tradition is that it has a tendency to be picked up by the lower class. Arguably, seclusion of young Jewish women and later, older Jewish women, was a progression of custom passed on from nobility. But, how do you confine someone who you are going to need for work in a dangerous world with decades of war occurring, first between the Greeks and Parthians, then between the Romans and Persians, who deplete the population within the area, causing major havoc as they went through and bringing with them diseases that further cut down the population?
Of course, there are those who write in regards to women’s exclusion as though it is part of all Jewish culture everywhere. Kraemer points to Philo Judaeus (13 BC-AD 45) from Alexandria (and in 2 Maccabees 3:19) who had stated that young unmarried women were secluded (Baskin: 52). He is making reference to the Jews in Jerusalem. Within this period, apparently, women had begun to have certain freedoms—no records can be found on it directly, but the fact that Philo applauded seclusion of women suggests that women had become more visible, more socially active and, hence, countered his idea how a woman should be. So, seclusion of women is a reactionary method of control by men. But, one could surely feel the sense of freedom women such as “Mary of Magdala, Joanna, the wife of Chuza…and Susanna” (Baskin: 52) had being able to move among men so easily. Kraemer writes:
It is also conceivable that Jews in late antiquity were not of one mind about the seclusion of women and that the whole question was part of a larger debate over appropriate Jewish beliefs and behavior.
(Baskin: 52)
Further, she writes:
What is crucial is the cumulative and, I would argue, that unintended evidence of the pervasive public presence of women that is assumed throughout the Gospel accounts, the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul, among other early Christian evidence for Judaism in this period.
(Baskin: 53)
If a woman is secluded, or any person who is confined for many years, we know that it is very difficult for him/her to become sociable. For, to be sociable is a practice that has to be mastered. Are we to believe that Judith, a widow, killed Holofernes (Commander of the Assyrian army) by convincing the enemy “that she goes at night to pray?” (Baskin: 50). That, seemingly with ease, she finds her place in society after seclusion, finds the courage to fool the guards, overpower the commander and kill him? Even if the story is untrue, such a certain willingness to step out and take life by its horns on the part of a female heroine demonstrates the willingness of the culture to extend itself beyond its visible means. Philo also mentions “older virgins” who are committed to wisdom, that “they preferred the immortal children which come from marriage with Wisdom above mortal children” and that these women spent most of their time studying scripture in solitude (Baskin: 51). But, what about the women who are not living the life of asceticism? Kraemer recognizes at least three examples, namely Rufina, Sophia of Gortyn (4th or 5th CE) and Theopempte of Myndos in Caria, Asia Minor (4th or 5th CE) (Baskin: 48). These are women of substance. For example, Rufina, in the second (2nd) century CE, is the head of a synagogue. Kraemer mentions women as councils of elders in Crete, in Thrace, in North Africa and in Venosa, Italy and “as ‘mothers of the synagogue’ in Rome, Venetia, and Venosa, all in Italy” (Baskin: 48). Therefore, as Karen Jo Torjesen in her book, When Women were Priests, states: “women held the offices of ‘ruler of the synagogue,’ elder, priest, and ‘mother of the synagogue’” (19). Inscriptions are found that recognizes the women as major contributors to the synagogue. In Western Asia Minor, a literary source was found naming “Tation, daughter of Straton, son of Empedon” with an honorable seat in the synagogue (Baskin: 48). However, it is interesting because it does not refer to her being impure because of her natural periodicity. This further implicates men and women as not being segregated in the synagogue. There is also no excavational evidence to show that women were separate from men in synagogue worship. Jewish people have been living outside of Judea since third (3rd) BCE in large cities such as Alexandria, Egypt, Antioch and Rome. Most of them spoke Greek and, occasionally, Latin. By this period, the scriptures had already been translated to Greek. Even those who lived in Judea spoke Greek or Aramaic besides Hebrew.
Law
The scripture or the Hebrew Bible was, of course, not written overnight and is an accumulation of centuries of knowledge and that is the only way to look at it. It blankets many cultures. Susan Niditch states: "‘Yahweh-alone-ers’ no doubt coexisted in Israel with those who worshipped Yahweh along with other personal gods, some of these perhaps female divine figures" (Baskin: 27).
Is the following example a reminiscence of a period that Yahweh existed with other deities who were female? : "I will fall on them, like a bear robbed of her cubs and will tear the flesh around their heart; there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild animal would mangle them" (Hosea 13:8 Hebrew Bible NRSV).
How does law treat women? Women are legally bound to their father until marriage and then they are bound to their husband. Any infringement and one could find oneself at the end of a stone (Deuteronomy 22:21 Hebrew Bible NRSV). The text defines adultery as having a relationship with a married woman. She is an adulteress because of her relationship with her man; her existence is defined within those terms. But, one must appreciate that the text is written and read in different cultures and in different circumstances. In other words, the text must be understood within the context and relationship that Jewish people had with gentiles. The law seems to be obsessed with cleanliness; therefore, it physically boxes women in. They are considered to be the source of pollution. It seems that they are a natural scapegoat—seemingly, they collect pollution at a certain time of the month. A knowledge of and, therefore, the manner women lived their lives comes from scriptures written by men (with men’s point of view). It is here that we understand the difference between the old and the young, and why women become freer as they become older. It is their departure from being “unclean”. Niditch states:
The ordinary woman of child-bearing age has regular discharges and is therefore regularly subject to uncleanness, an uncleanness associated with the psychologically and physically powerful rhythms of fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth. As such, woman becomes a monthly source of danger and power, containing an uncleanness that can spill over and contaminate, making successful mediation between God and humans in ritual impossible.
(Baskin: 31)
The fact that there are such diverse expressions is a sign that written material is an accumulation of many cultures over time. In other words, how Jewish women were treated depended on nuisances they were affected by, that they had no control over, and eventually the written material lost its original meaning. For example, in the Babylonian Talmud, one could find Joseph’s treatment of his mother: “Let me rise up before the approaching Shekhinah [Divine Presence]” (Baskin: 68; Babylonian Talmud, Qiddushin 31b). However, elsewhere on the same record one could find it saying: “A woman is a pitcher of filth [excrement] with its mouth full of blood—yet all men run after her” (Baskin: 68; Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 152a). Perhaps, this is the reason why a culture that thought of women as chattel at one time, or in one circumstance, had thought of them as recipient of God’s work in another.
Women such as ‘Hulda the prophetess (2 Kings 22: 14-20) provides the seventh-century BCE King Josiah with a divine warning of doom unless he becomes a pro-Yahwist reformer, casting out idols. Her oracle is framed in rubrics typical of biblical prophecy.
(Baskin: 35)
But, Wegner questions this concept of chattel and states that a hierarchical society requires a legal person to possess “entitlements and obligation.” He or she must have a “mixture of rights and duties” (Baskin: 70). Therefore, in the private domain, Mishnah divides the ability of women into dependent and autonomous. Dependent and autonomous each divide into three subclasses. A dependent woman can be 1) a minor, 2) a wife or 3) a widow who has not produced a son nor her husband who had possibly other wives had produced any sons, which in this case, her sexual function will become her husband’s brother’s property. A woman is autonomous when she is 1) an unmarried adult daughter (my understanding is that she must be about 12 ½ years old and 1 day), 2) a divorcee or 3) a regular widow. For example, the father arranges a minor daughter’s marriage (under 12 years old) because her sexuality belongs to him. But, the adult daughter proceeds to negotiate for herself (Baskin: 70-71). This is to demonstrate the economic value of the sexual function of a woman under Mishnah (compiled from oral law, 200 AD) and the growth of a woman’s status by age. But even with that, the Mishnaic law gives no power to the woman to divorce her husband. “A severe disadvantage that wreaks social havoc for Jewish women to this day” (Baskin: 72). It should be pointed out that when laws are not written they can be manipulated much easier and that calamities such as the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem certainly had effects on the oral tradition before and after the rabbis moved to the city of Yavneh. Wegner states that as long as you are mentioned in the legal system it is a mark of “personhood”; therefore, there is a decree that she cannot be parted from her property without due process of law. In regards to economy, the autonomous woman can buy and sell without any difficulty. She can sue and bear witness and, with that, her oath taking must be accountable (Baskin: 74). However, in the public domain the sages, even though they did not have the right to do so, gradually pulled the rug right out from under women’s feet. As Michael Germano stated in his book, The First Christians, “While the Hebrew sages of that day did not have the authority to define right and wrong, as that was the function of the law of Moses, they openly did so.” The first step was to tell them that it was not necessary for women—which included higher learning or certain prayers. Then, the sages turned this concept on its side and said that women cannot lead, using a law totally out of context. Other sages did not wish women to study the Torah and add that to male’s fear of female sexuality and that God’s business is serious business, brought an end to women in public domain and gave the appearance of female seclusion, at least in the books (Baskin: 75).
An Old Woman
It would be interesting to look into a current study in regards to women and to see what kind of variations exists within the Jewish religion. Although it would not show exactly how people lived before and after the first (1st) century, it would demonstrate that there are extreme variations even today and that being Jewish or belonging to a group or a cult might not mean the same thing to everyone. For that reason, I turn to Susan Starr Sered and her book, Women as Ritual Experts. She opens her book with a quote that crystallizes the view one would have about an uneducated woman who had lived in a Kurdish neighborhood in Northern Iraq before moving to Israel. One could immediately see the similarity between the way the old woman prays with the Zoroastrians of the fifth and sixth (5th and 6th) centuries.
A bent old woman, wearing two colorful kerchiefs, indiscriminately kisses books in the back of the House of Study, and then kisses the shelf on which the books rest…spend hours preparing traditional Jewish foods…in the evening go to synagogue to attend a prayer service of which they understand no more than a few words. At several times during the service they will hold their hands palms upward, kiss their fingers, and beseech God to grant their children…health and happiness. Despite their own poverty…give small sums of money to every beggar that they pass.
(Sered: 3)
Who is this old woman? What kind of relationship does she have with her family? How can she give us a better understanding about Jewish women within similar circumstances no matter where they are? To her, the family is everything. Her ancestors are extremely important to her. What are her responsibilities? Since young men and women have no access, or limited access, to ancestors and one might say limited responsibility to them, the old woman would see herself as a “link between the generations” (Sered: 18). She is the medium to solicit assistance from the ancestors whenever there is calamity within the family. Therefore, she is not only the guardian of the family but also the guardian of her culture. She is also guardian of the unborn child. She could ask assistance from a biological ancestor or a saint; it does not matter because the Jewish people consider the saints as their ancestors as well. She would go to a shrine or a tomb. It could be cyclic, like attending a festival, or of a personal nature at home, lighting candles (signifying the number of children one might have) and asking the divine power for help. The ancestors become her guardian angel. She ties the strings seven times around something near the tomb, recklessly cries and requests for assistance. She speaks to it as a person and the deity responds in dream. She takes the string home, as if a reminder, and ties it to the person who needs the help. She concerns herself with having enough merit, as though she is balancing negative deeds with positive ones and hoping that her goodness will tip the scale in her favor. She is expecting an interaction between the saint and the God on her behalf. It gives the impression that the Almighty is too far away and she has no access to him and someone lower might be more attentive to her needs. Saints, such as Elijah, were important when they were alive and became deities in a form when they passed on. When she is asked why she visits these tombs, she answers that it is because she misses them. There are hundreds of saints and yet she knows them by name and identifies them by their deeds and what they can do for her specifically. She dispenses them as if medicine. It is customary to put written messages in a dead man’s hand to take it to the patriarch. When she is asked where she is going, she says “aliya el hahar,” meaning “going up to the mountain” (Sered: 19). What she means is that she is going to visit the tombs. She literally feels homesick for her ancestors. Eve is not some distant relative that she cannot reach but it is just that, to the old woman, Eve’s status is too high for her to reach. So, she depends more on “Rachel—she is our true mother” (Sered: 20). In the Kurdish Jewish culture, the old woman’s daughter silently is responsible for her. When the mother dies, she will take her place. In this culture, the old woman is closer to God. It is not clear whether this is because of her age or because she is about to meet her Almighty. When she asks a barren woman in the family to wear an amulet to assist her with pregnancy and to protect the child, her words are taken seriously. In the area of Kurdistan and Yemen, women did not visit the synagogue at any time and therefore there were no sections for women—it was a domain for men. Even today in Israel, the women are segregated, put in a distant balcony and covered by a curtain. Because of these circumstances, they cannot see or hear anything and, yet, they still attend. The old woman attends on Monday, Thursday and Sabbath because the Torah is held up. This is a time when she can ask God for favors. It is the “moment when the channel of communication between human and God is most open, to ask God a personal favor for a particular, loved person” (Sered: 33). There are rituals in the Jewish culture considered personal where others are not. Some rituals change in their context or the relationship to a woman as she gets older. Therefore, the ritual that was considered not personal as youth becomes personal in old age. A good example is the Festival of the New Moon, which is one of the oldest festivals and is specifically for women. Obviously, there is a connection between the moon’s cycles and her cycles. Some believe that it is a festival where Jewish women refused to give up their gold so the golden calf could be made (Sered: 28). Sered says that the women in her study cannot use calendars because they cannot read and, yet, they know exactly when the new moon occurs. It should be obvious that the old woman’s actions have nothing to do with being the kind of Jew we know of today. However, a close study of her and individuals such as Gluckel of Hameln, a Jewish widow in the seventeenth (17th) century, who documented her life in memoirs, is quite important for our understanding of how the passage of time effects Jewish women. For example, Gluckel tells us that her husband asks for her opinion before taking any action in a business venture and that she was physically involved in the business. Hers was a family threatened by war and anti-Semitism and, yet, managed to survive. Finding what activities continue to be similar or tend to change increases our understanding and makes us better judges of the past.
Honor and Shame:
How does the concept of honor and shame fit into the concept of movement and location of women in the first (1st) century? Should we expect to see women more active during a certain period of day? Should we expect to see them at a certain location, in the field, at the residence, or in the market? Since the concept of honor and shame is extremely important to the people of the first (1st) century, it would be difficult to believe that the word of Jesus the Christ alone would make women comfortable if they were not suppose to be in a particular location to function as they should. “The greatest ideas from philosophers do not change reality, but the great ideas by philosophers reflect a kind of social relation and the kind of society in which they are formulated” (Sabean 2003). Humanity does not adjust well to new material. If women see themselves as part of a group, they see themselves through the group’s eyes. It is their eyes that determine the validity of her action, not a self-imposed decision. In this period, they cannot differentiate between the two; there is only one way to go. It is a collective society. Even today, in such cultures, people tend to put on a front and differentiate between one another by status. They role-play and try to increase honor and divert shame. The outer duality creates inner duality—the inner self as the subject (‘me’) and the outer self as the object (‘the other’). Some degree of blame in regards to the treatment of women in these cultures can be based on this concept, where the subject, the male, and the object, the female, is promoted in literary work which has ultimately became the tradition. It is the concept of honor and shame that determines women’s activities—how women go about their daily life. It is a line that cannot be broken, even if the line is vague, and most often it is culture-based and local. Having read Bruce Malina’s book, The New Testament World, I find tremendous amount of similarities between the collective life of the first (1st) century and current Middle Eastern culture. Hence, I have come to the conclusion that Malina makes an error when he systematically differentiates between close relatives, such as sister, brother and parents, and “other human beings,” who are in mortal danger and in need of assistance. “Other human beings normally do not get you so emotionally involved when they are in dire straits” (Malina: 162). I argue that in a collective society ‘the other’ is much closer than in an individualistic society. In fact, I submit that in such cultures everyone is brother and sister, mother and father. Most often, they do not differentiate until instructed by culture. If the Jewish culture of the first (1st) century was anything similar, then they would also have treated women as part of the collective, especially if they were older women. I cannot help but feel the need to quote the following: “ ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die’ ” (Malina: 188; Mark 7:10-12 NRSV). We cannot be sure to what degree this law of Moses was enforced in the past, but one can put him/herself in peril if they address their parents in vain, as the sentence states. And, if this is true, it seems to me that it has a tendency to extend itself to other females in the collective society, until something else such as a new law or new tradition or culture would affect them to a degree that they have to make a change. Witherington suggests people in the first (1st) century had a dim view of women but that it turned for the better after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem (Witherington: 10). I submit that the reverse is true because such destruction dispersed the learned among the people and for existence they must have taken pupils and, hence, the dispersion brought the Jewish law closer to home than ever before.
The tragic aftermath of the Bar-Kokhba uprising (132-135 CE) saw the complete destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the devastation of the region of Judea, the southern portion of the Land of Israel that had hitherto been the main centre of Jewish religious leadership. This situation led to widespread migration to the northern region, the Galilee, and the seat of rabbbinic judicial authority resided for a while in the Galilean village of Usha, home of Rabbi Meir.”
(Segal)
Further, such disasters had other implications. People blamed themselves for major calamities. As a collective society, everyone is responsible for everyone else—every person’s sin is everyone’s problem. God of Moses does not target just one individual, but a group. The impression is that the rabbis were responsible for taking action in advance, before God’s wrath descended on them. Hence, many laws were written as a preventive measure.
In Regards to Marriage:
Unlike the cases with men, a woman could be divorced without her consent for reasons ranging from unchastity only (School of Sammai), to burning a meal (School of Hillel), to finding another fairer than one’s own wife (R. Akiba).
(Witherington: 3)
In this type of culture one moves from one collective to another. She also belongs to her family. There are brothers or a father who perhaps live in close proximity that would not like to see her harmed if she is falsely accused, for to allow her to be harmed or stigmatized transfers to them as well. For a period that lacked policing in any critical form, people had to fend for themselves. As a whole, there is a sense that Witherington does not distinguish between her sexuality and her person. I believe that in the exchange for her ability to bear children, she is valued. But, there is the other part as well. There is a sense of duality when the Jewish laws are read in regards to female sexuality in this period. “A woman could leave her husband and return to her parent’s home, thus precipitating a divorce in most cases” (Witherington: 5). At one point, Witherington assumes that once she leaves her father’s home and marries that she is totally on her own, but then he recites this line which is congruent with what I stated above. In other words, in order for her to return home in case of emergency she must be connected with her family. That is, she is at all times linked with her family, even after marriage. Much power was given to men for divorcing their wife. But at the same time, the man who divorces his wife is said to be hateful to God (Witherington: 5). If we assume that these individuals in the first (1st) century believed that God is Almighty and powerful and that he is not to be crossed, why then would we have to be concerned about men divorcing their wives? If a woman, just as a man, takes an oath to God or to a part of their body or to their children, as still is customary in the area, why would we have to be worried about them breaking it? Could it be that oath-taking in the name of God for the Jewish people in the first (1st) century or earlier does not have the same meaning, as say, in the sixteenth and seventeenth (16th and 17th) centuries in Europe? Why would it be necessary for a woman to present a second individual as a proof of her oath? One comes to the conclusion after asking such questions that certain laws are written but in actuality or in rare occasions was it followed. There is an assumption that there is a rabbi sitting in every corner of the street and enforcing the law when one reads books such as Witherington’s, but we know that that is not possible. The fact that Jewish laws provide for the daughters and not the sons when the father’s possessions are meager (Witherington: 6) speaks volume in regards to the need for protection of women young and old. As far as the Midrash is concerned, women are ambivalent, depending whether they are good or evil. There is this sense that these qualities can be passed on to their husbands depending on which one they are. The husband is the recipient and the wife is deified. And, that is why we do not know how to deal with women, not then or now.
Woman as oracle:
Woman as oracle has a history that goes back for hundreds of years. All nations had women who received messages from a deity or God, in one form or another, and they passed on the messages or removed pollution and disease, verbally or physically. They used magical words or interacted with individuals in a way that seemed odd and out-of-context. But, the fact that it was known that the individual had a tendency to be a recipient of an oracle, people usually dismissed her action and derived meaning. Buddha was known to exhibit body language that only a few of his disciples were able to under-stand, such as the significance of lifting a flower. Alexander the Great had a Syrian woman who followed him everywhere (Torjesen: 28). The Greeks and Romans made use of prophecies before a major military action was taken or undertaking a major project. Jesus the Christ was numerously visited unannounced by women who entered the room and interacted with Him in a manner that was not customary to certain Jewish sects or that seemed overly lavish. Case in point:
While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her.
(Mark 14:3-5 NRSV)
In a way, to serve as an oracle gave one a license to be odd—it was part of the character. People might have made a comment in regards to their clothing or behavior, but usually took no further action. I think women who interacted with Jesus the Christ can be categorized under this situation. Here was a rabbi who had female disciples. The Pharisees and Essenes would have surely made a comment. Luke’s story, that begins prior to Jesus the Christ’s birth, revolves around an oracle. First, Elizabeth calls the unborn Jesus the Christ her Lord and then Mary prophesizes “Magnificat.” (Luke 1:47-55 NRSV). "Prophecy was central to Luke’s story of Christianity, for the activity of the Holy Spirit manifest in prophecy demonstrated the continuity between Judaism and Christianity" (Torjesen: 26).
Therefore, to be an oracle, to prophesize, as a man or woman, was a norm for the Jewish community of the first (1st) century.
Jesus the Christ’s activity, the way he treated women, seemed exaggerated when he was dealing with the Pharisees and Essenes. From the Pharisees’ and Essenes’ point of view, which were small groups of a much larger community and whom had a much stricter view regarding the treatment of women, the activities of Jesus the Christ and the manner he treated women seemed to them as out-of-place and out-of-the-ordinary. However, in some cases, a woman was considered forbidden because of the tribe she came from, for example, Samaritans (John 4:7 NRSV); However, we do not know whether all Jews considered them forbidden or just some of them. Afterall, these Samaritans had to make a living as well. And, in the case of defending themselves, they had to interact with other Jewish communities, even though they were outcaste by other Jews since the Assyrian conquest of Israel. Even today, they live their lives as Jews, but speak Arabic. In this case, the Samaritan woman in John 4:7 NRSV was a representative of her nation and an oracle as well. John 4: 39-40: “Many Samaritans from that city believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’”
Germano stated that “the general population of first-century Palestine did not live as Pharisees, nor as Sadducees, nor as Essenes.” But, at the same time, looked at from the point of view from other Jewish groups who were more Hellenized, Jesus the Christ’s way of life did not stand out as much. It is unclear to what degree the Pharisees’ and Essenes’ way of life was a reaction to Hellenism, which they wished to have nothing to do with.
They resisted Hellenism, albeit influenced by it, and rejected any accommodation with the pagan world. As lay teachers of the Torah, the Pharisees drew mainly from the middle and lower classes.
(Germano 2000)
One could find much similarity in the way the Armenian and the Jewish cultures survived—they made their cultures sacred. They made their covenant with God part of their everyday life. All myths are about the importance of keeping a promise with a deity or God. It is an oral tradition that keeps a group identity together. Their culture, attempting to respond to change, which most often comes about from a contact from outside, changed the rituals and its context to be more acceptable with the dominant culture. I have come to believe that change in ritual brings about new myth and with it new laws. Jewish women in the first (1st) century were in the midst of a ritual change, and energized by it, made use of unwritten social laws to interact in the public realm. What seems surprising to us today, in fact, might not have been the case for the culture in the first (1st) century. The Greeks, Romans and Persians, as they rolled through this area, left their mark on this landscape. But by far, Hellenism had the deepest impression, where Hebrews tried either to live by or counter. The oral tradition of the Hebrews was surely impacted by Hellenism and one cannot forget the hardships that they must have felt when they lost their temple and began their dispersion. The oral tradition was certainly influenced by the calamities prior to its appearance on paper. But whatever was written from the second (2nd) to the six (6th) century has now become the norm. We cannot with any certainty know to what degree these laws were enforced, but surely they changed it in order to fit their circumstances, as did Christians. While Christian women were known to be active disciples, they lost their position when the founding fathers declared them unfit. Prior to the arrival of Christianity, being an oracle was a norm and females filled this position very often as leaders and elders of their community. Some were merchants or dealers; others were leaders of the synagogue. Some women who were known as oracles penetrated into men’s space unannounced, performing one single action as if pointing—a symbolic form of communication that has lost its true meaning in our lives today. When the founding fathers began to teach and move from one location to another, they came in contact with other cultures. Some of these had strict rules about women and others, even though they had not yet written it in stone, had certain ideas about morality and the place of women in society. It was the founding fathers who tried to satisfy these groups by attempting to downplay the role of women whom had until then been equal to them. "In New Testament passages where women leaders played prominent roles, the male authors muted their contributions by the way they wrote their stories" (Torjesen: 13).
Future scribes found women disciples’ writing unimportant and, hence, never copied them. Or, if they did, they changed the female name to a male name. The central point is that the ideal morality that philosophers had written about in the past took center stage as the culture began to look into the universality of its existence, superimposing itself on other cultures in the process. What was debated had now become part of the real world.
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11. Morony, M. 2002 lecture notes at University of California, Los Angeles.
12. Nahvi, S. (2003). Cinderella complex. In Ballet instructor’s newsletter, [Online]. Available: http://www.100megsfree4.com/ballet/balletnewsletter8.html [October 18, 2003].
13. Plutschow, H. (1996). Matsuri: The festivals of Japan (2nd ed.). Avon, England: Bookcraft.
14. Plutschow, H. (2002). Xunzi and the ancient Chinese philosophical debate on human nature. In Anthropoetics (8 (1)), [Online]. Available: http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0801/xunzi.htm [February 22, 2003].
15. Plutschow, H. 2003 lecture notes at University of California, Los Angeles.
16. Sabean, D. 2003 lecture notes at University of California, Los Angeles
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