+Does
Scripture Oppress or Liberate Women?
Catherine SegarsCrosswalk.com Contributing Writer
Editors Note: This
article was selected as a finalist in 2021's Selah Awards for “Best Online Article”!
Scripture gets a bad rap when
it comes to women. I’ve always considered this fact a bit odd because when you
compare the depiction of women in Scripture to other ancient literature and
historical accounts, the Bible is revolutionary.
Homer portrayed women as
objects, war prizes, pawns, and possessions, “the cause of all conflict and
suffering” in the world.[i] Hammurabi discusses the legal rights of women “in terms of chattel,
similar to slaves.” Hesiod, claimed that “woman was created as man’s eternal
curse.”[ii]
And then there were the great
Greek philosophers who established the definitive view on all things—more on
them in a bit. Suffice to say, these highbrow, Hellenized thinkers had a rather
low opinion of women. And because of them, every major western society has marginalized
women since.
Scripture, on the other hand,
has a very different portrayal of women than any other ancient book. We do see
the mistreatment of women in the Bible, but it is never commended or condoned.
On the contrary, the God of
Scripture creates woman from man’s rib and places her in the garden as his
equal. She is called his “helper,” or “ezer” in Hebrew, the same word used to
describe God Himself in Psalm 115:9-11 and 121:1-2. God blessed the man and the woman,
telling them both to rule over the earth (Genesis 1:28).
Let’s compare Scripture with
ancient culture to see how liberating God’s Word is for women.
The God of Scripture “Sees” Women
Jesus’ radically liberating
treatment of women has been well documented, but we see God’s concern for women
long before His Son arrived on the scene.
In the Old Testament, Yahweh
identifies with the childless plight of Sarah, Rebekah, and Hanna. He hears
their cries, identifies with their pain, and answers their prayers.
We see a very different
concern for women when the angel of God follows Hagar, a young slave girl, into
the wilderness. This woman was a nobody from nowhere, yet God expresses care
for her plight. And God gives her the same promise He gave Sarah, her
mistress—that she would have a son, and that her descendants would “be too
numerous to count” (Genesis 16:10).
Hagar then makes a claim that
all women of faith can say, “You are the God who sees me” (Genesis 16:13).
God sees women.
At a time when only men
ruled, God:
- Made Miriam one-third of
Israel’s first leadership team. (Micah 6:4)
- Promoted Deborah to the
position of chief prophet and judge over Israel, and she served the nation in
that capacity for four decades. (Judges 4-5)
- Saw a plucky prostitute in
Jericho named Rahab and grafted her into the lineage of Christ. (Joshua 2, Matthew 1:5)
- Redeemed a foreign widow
named Ruth and birthed King David through her offspring. (Matthew 1:5)
- Took an orphan girl,
Esther, and made her a queen just in time to save all of Israel.
- Used Huldah, the
prophetess, to instruct the king. (2 Chronicles
34:21-33)
God’s treatment of women in
Scripture—even in the Old Testament—is strikingly different than man’s
treatment throughout history.
Greek Ideas Dominated the Culture of the New Testament
The Greeks, however, had a
very different view of women. At the time of Christ, Jewish culture had
marinated in Greek philosophy for hundreds of years. These ideas permeated Old
Testament life and were the backdrop of the New Testament world. They dominated
Jewish thought and practice.
So, what did the Greeks
believe about women?
The father of Greek
philosophy, Socrates, argued that “being born a woman is a divine punishment,
since a woman is halfway between a man and an animal”[iii] according
to Biblical scholar, John T. Bristow.
Plato claimed that cowardly, corrupt men were “transformed, at
their second incarnation, into women…. In this fashion, then, women and the
whole female sex have come into existence.”[iv]
Aristotle believed that the
female was a “monstrosity,”[v] a “deformed male,”[vi] and argued
that “the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler
and the female subject.”[vii] Of the sexes, he believed that “equality of the
two or rule of the inferior is always hurtful.”[viii]
And let’s not forget… the
Greek poet, Hesiod, professed that “woman was created as man’s eternal
curse.”[ix]
Jewish Religious Tradition Was Heavily Influenced by the
Greeks
Unfortunately, the Jewish
male perspective of women didn’t stray far from the surrounding Hellenized
culture.
Teaching a woman the
Scriptures was considered “a waste of time—or even worse. Rabbi Eliezer said,
‘If any man gives his daughter a knowledge of the Law it is as though he taught
her lechery.’”[x]
Similarly, the Jerusalem
Talmud states, “Let the words of Torah be burned up, but let them not be
delivered to women.”[xi]
The noted Jewish historian
Josephus wrote that the Jewish law declared a wife to be “inferior to her
husband in all things.” [xii]
The Berakhot, a Jewish instructional book on prayer, said that
“every (Jewish) man is obligated to recite three blessings daily… thank God
that I am not a gentile, a woman, or a slave (or in earlier formulations, a
boor). This language echoes Greek prayers preserved first by Plato.”
The Greek philosophical view
of women is seen in a holy book of Jewish prayers. It is seen in the laws and
traditions of a very male-dominated Jewish culture. According to devout Jewish
men, women were on par with pagans, slaves, and imbeciles. Teaching women the
Scriptures was at best, pointless, at worst, sinful.
The Rabbis didn’t get
their ideas about women from Yahweh. They got them from the Greeks.
Jewish Culture Did Not Allow Women to Even Speak to
Men
How bad was Jewish culture
for women?
During New Testament times,
relations between men and women were so restricted that the Mishnah, the first
major written collection of Jewish legal theory and oral tradition, warns men
to “talk not much with womankind. … He that talks much with womankind brings
evil upon himself and neglects the study of the Law and at the last will
inherit [hell].”[xiii]
This Jewish book of
instruction goes on to completely forbid a man from speaking with a
woman he is not married to:
“A man might divorce his wife
and not have to return her dowry if she were guilty of speaking to another man;
and even the act of speaking to a man in the street might be used as evidence
of a bride’s unfaithfulness to her intended.”[xiv]
So, a woman might lose her
husband and her home if she spoke to another man, and if she spoke to her
husband too much, that might send him to hell.
Women weren’t just considered
insignificant or irrelevant in Jewish culture—they were dangerous. According to
Jewish written and oral tradition, women were, as Hesiod claimed, “man’s
eternal curse.”
The New Testament Liberated Women and Gave Them a Voice
Into this world, Jesus came
with a radically different treatment of the female sex. Christ continued God’s
tradition of care and concern for women in the Old Testament.
When Jesus conversed with the
woman at the well, his disciples “were surprised to find him talking with a
woman” (John 4:27). Of course they were. They didn’t expect this revered
Rabbi to engage in an activity that could send him to hell. But unlike the religious
Jewish men of his day, Jesus spoke with women in public. He honored them. He
said that their stories would be told wherever His story was told (Matthew 26:13).
After Christ’s death, for the
first time women were brought into the services and their voices were heard.
How do we know this?
Pentecost Ushered Women into the Ministry of the
Church
In Acts 2, the women were assembled with the men at one of the
very first gatherings of the church. Suddenly, “All of them were filled with
the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled
them.” (vs. 4)
The Holy Spirit cannot cause
someone to do what God forbids them to do. Nor would the Holy Spirit fill women
with a gift that He would not allow them to use.
Still, everyone was shocked.
Loren Cunningham, author of Why Not Women? explains that
“Peter had to get up and quickly explain. After all… many women were
preaching, declaring the wonders of God! This just wasn’t done. So Peter
reminded them the words of the prophet Joel: ‘And afterward, I will pour out my
Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy… Even on my
servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days’”[xv]
(Joel 2:28-29).
Peter reminded the people
that God’s plan for women is different than man’s. For the first time, women
were ushered into the ministry of the church, and their voices were heard.
Pentecost changed the church’s official stance towards women:
If God Himself spoke
through women in the church, who has the right to silence them?
Scripture Liberates Women
The Holy Spirit broke the
Greek curse implemented through Jewish tradition that kept women bound for
centuries. But while man had been silencing women’s voices throughout history,
God had been using their gifts all along.
God spoke to Sarah and through Hagar, reminding women that He is the God who sees us. God
used Miriam to worship, Deborah to judge, Huldah to prophesy, Rahab to spy, and Esther to deliver. He made Anna the first evangelist, Priscilla a teacher, Chloe a house church leader, Phoebe a deacon, and Junia an apostle. And women were the first to testify of
Christ’s resurrection.
Scripture is abundantly clear
on this account. God sees women. He hears women. He gives women a voice. He
uses our gifts for His glory. No other book in history honors and liberates
women as the Bible does, because no other god sees women as our God does.
