Gospels, Jesus violated this taboo continually, speaking to women of every social level and often healing their illnesses.
A more telling fact is the presence of women among JesusÆ disciples. Now, what was a disciple? The Greek word that is being translated and that transliterates as mathetes is simply the ordinary Greek word for a student. That is, the ôdisciplesö were merely the students of Jesus as a Rabbi (which is Hebrew for ômy masterö)--and the terms of address used for Jesus in the Gospels seem often to have been given translations that are literally correct (Master, Teacher, etc.), but that disguise the fact that Jesus was being addressed as a Rabbi.
The presence of women among JesusÆ disciples is reported more frequently by Luke than by any of the other evangelists. Talbert argued almost thirty years ago (in a dissertation that is still considered foundational) that Luke did this in order to counter the propaganda of the early Gnostics, who were taking an extremely radical approach to male-female equality and who claimed to derive their spi
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