Women of the Bible: God has always loved and honored women
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Last Saturday, I was backpacking in Big Bend. On Saturday, while you were reading about Esther, I was climbing Emory Peak and the thought of you reading my column was on my mind. I've been writing about women in the Bible, so I also began to wonder if the Bible ever talks about a woman climbing a mountain because that's what I was doing in the moment.
Having wracked my brain for literally miles of hiking, I finally discovered an instance of not just one woman climbing a mountain, but at least five.
Mary and her sister, Mary Magdalene, a third Mary and Salome seem to be just a few of 'Many women were there looking on from a distance' (Matthew 27:55) as Jesus was crucified on Golgotha, also known as Mount Calvary.
There are two different likely locations of Golgotha, or 'the place of the skull.' No matter which is the true site of Golgotha, every tradition acknowledges that Jesus was subsequently buried in a tomb at or near the base of that hill. The Bible also states that it was close enough to the gate that people could walk by, read the sign above Jesus' cross and mock him.
In all fairness, whichever the site was, it was more what we would call a hill. Emory Peak has a prominence of 4,485 feet. Neither of the two possible sites in Jerusalem have a prominence of more than 75 feet. As I realized this, I began to push the 'women climbing mountains in the Bible' idea out of my head. After all, climbing to the top of a low hill really isn't much of a feat.
But if it wasn't difficult, why didn't more people make that climb with Jesus? The apostle John was the only male full-time follower of Jesus who went to witness the crucifixion. The rest of Jesus' followers there were all women 'who had followed Jesus from Galilee while ministering to Him' (Matthew 27:55). Some mountains are hard to climb because of their physical prominence. This one was hard to climb because of its spiritual prominence. And it was the women who followed Jesus who had the strength to do it.
It was the women who followed Jesus who were able to do what the men had so arrogantly vowed to do just the night before. While the culture that surrounded them was patriarchal and even misogynistic, Jesus — who is God in both the Old and New Testaments — was so very obviously not. Because he treated these women better than every other man in their lives, they loved Jesus more than the men in his life did. They were there for him when the men weren't because they loved him more than the men did. They understood his love and grace for them better than the men did. They climbed the mountain the men couldn't climb, save one.
Their care for him didn't end at his death, either. While the men hid in the upper room for fear of the authorities, it was many of the same women who went to his tomb the next Sunday to finish embalming his body according to Jewish custom. God chose to reveal the resurrection to women first. Imagine being the first person in the world to know that Jesus has risen from the dead.
The study of understanding the meaning of an ancient document is call Hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is often applied to the Bible, being a collection of ancient documents packed with some of the most important meaning in all of human history. One of the most common errors in hermeneutics is to confuse what is described (i.e. passages that say 'this is what happened') for what is prescribed (i.e. passages that say 'this is what should happen'). It is no secret that God revealed himself to a highly patriarchal and misogynistic culture. Most cultures throughout human history have been just as oppressive to women. It's easy to confuse God's grace toward such a culture alongside descriptions of that culture's treatment of women as approval. But God gives you grace despite your sin without approving of it, too. Instead of attributing a culture's sinful mistreatment of women to God, look at the way God himself treats women.
God the Father set a law over Israel that ended many of the most heinous mistreatment of women in Semitic cultures. Women could hold property and make legally binding oath (Numbers 27:1-9, 30:9). According to God's law both the man and the woman were culpable for adultery instead of just the woman as was the standard of the day (Deuteronomy 22:22). Women were also given revolutionary legal recourse for an accusation of adultery (Numbers 5:11-31). She also had recourse against a false accusation of promiscuity before marriage, and the man would be punished for a false accusation (Deuteronomy 22:19). Men were also given a lifelong punishment for rape (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). In the latter two cases, the punishment is that 'He can never divorce her as long as he lives.' Even if she doesn't live with him, even if she doesn't sleep with him, he has to provide for her financially for the rest of his life and he can never get out of it. Imagine a modern court saying to a rapist, 'You are on the hook to provide 100% of this woman's livelihood for the rest of your life no matter where she lives.' While these laws may not pass feminist muster today, they were revolutionary to the people they were given to.
Jesus — God the Son — loved and honored women as well. Their presence at the cross is a testimony to that. How many women with a bad reputation did he look in the eye, love and defend? He let 'unclean' women touch him and even praised them for doing it (Luke 8:45-48). He let other women with bad reputations sit at his feet to learn while he taught (Luke 10:39).
God the Holy Spirit inspired the gospel writers to record the truth that God first revealed the resurrection of Jesus to women. First century culture wickedly rejected the testimony of women, but the Holy Spirit, who inspired all Scripture, offers them as the first witnesses of the resurrection.
While the culture around them repeatedly and sinfully failed to honor the women of the Bible, God loved them, provided for them and upheld their dignity as much as he did any man.
As a man whose personal life (I have a wife and three daughters) and professional life (61 percent of the average church congregation is female according to uscongregation.org) are both filled with a preponderance of women, feminism has often looked like an attractive framework for interacting with the women in my life. But then I read my Bible and I see a much better framework. If I want to be conformed to the image of God's Son (see Romans 8:29) it would seem the best thing to do would be to see and treat the women around me as he does. Men, I challenge you to do the same.