Women's Place in Biblical Society

The amount of scholarly, popular, and polemical writing on this subject has now reached such a bulk that attempting to cite or discuss any significant percentage of it would exhaust a paper of this length without allowing any significant conclusions to be drawn. Instead, it seems sensible to turn directly to the key scripture passages and see what they actually say, taking advantage of extant scholarship where needed for translation and interpretation of these passages.

One may note that the literature on this topic tends to fall into two camps. One is the ôliberalö school that attempts to argue for complete and absolute equality between men and women. The other is the ôconservativeö school that attempts to argue that the ôtraditionalö family values which relegated women to second-class status were based completely on Scripture; Grudem is a typical example of this sort of thought. Although this writer generally has problems with liberal th

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prayers that begin the Sabbath observance and who has other ritual duties. If no woman is present to say these prayers and carry out these duties, then the men will have to settle for eating an ordinary meal. So far all that has appeared has been circumstantial evidence. One would want to have a pronouncement by Jesus himself on this topic in order to be sure of his attitude. Fortunately, such a pronouncement does exist. The incident in the Gospels that provides the key to JesusÆs attitude toward women is in the famous story about Martha and Mary. When Mary sits at JesusÆs feet with the other disciples, in the position that a rabbiÆs students ordinarily assumed, Martha complains that Mary is not helping her with the housework. However, Jesus replies that Mary has chosen the better vocation and that she shall not be deprived of it. The essential point here is that the Greek word moira has the ordinary meaning of ôa choice of careerö; and it carries the same connotation as the modern term ôvocationö as referring to a choice of a religious life. Jesus is saying that Mary has chosen to be his student just like the men, that she has chosen this as her spiritual path and career--in modern terms, that she is just as entitled to
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2830
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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