Women in the Bible

Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church

Jaime Clark-Soles

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781646980390
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

What was it like to be a woman in the biblical period? It depended, in part, on who you were: a queen, a judge, a primary wife, a secondary wife, a widow, a slave, or some other kind of "ordinary woman." In Women in the Bible, Jaime Clark-Soles investigates how women are presented in Scripture, taking into account cultural views of both ancient societies as well as our own. While women today are exercising leadership in churches across a number of denominations and our scholarly knowledge related to women in the Bible has grown immensely, challenges remain. Most of Christendom still excludes women from religious leadership, and many Christians invoke the Bible to circumscribe women's leadership in the public square and in the home as well. It is more urgent than ever, therefore, to investigate closely, honestly, and intrepidly what the Bible does and doesn't say about women.

In a multipronged approach, Clark-Soles treats well-known biblical women from fresh perspectives, highlights women who have been ignored, and recovers those who have been erased from historical memory by particular moves made in the transmission and translations of the text. She explores symbolic feminized figures like Woman Wisdom and the Whore of Babylon and reclaims the uses of feminine imagery in the Bible that often go unnoticed. Chapters focus on themes of God's relationship to gender, women and violence, women as creators, and women in the ministry of both Jesus and Paul. Clark-Soles aims to equip clergy and other leaders invested in the study of Scripture to consider women in the Bible from multiple angles and, as a result, help people of all genders to live God's vision of better, more just lives as we navigate the challenges of our complex, globally connected world.

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Table of Contents
Series Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Of Canaanites and Canines: Matthew 15
2. God across Gender
3. Women and Violence in the Bible: Truth Telling, Solidarity, and Hope
4. Women Creating
5. The Book of Ruth: One of the "Women's Books" in the Bible
6. Magnificent Mary and Her Magnificat: Like Mother, Like Son
7. Women in Jesus's Life and Ministry
8. Jesus across Gender
9. Women in Paul's Ministry
10. The Muting of Paul and His Female Coworkers: Women in the Deutero-Pauline Epistles
Conclusion: In the End, Toward the End (Goal): Truth, with Hope
Works Cited
Scripture Index
Subject Index

CHAPTER 1

Of Canaanites and Canines

Matthew 15

So many passages in the Bible are relevant to our topic that it is impossible to cover each one or even all possible interpretations of a single passage. However, I want readers to have a sense of the variety of approaches that are available to a contemporary interpreter. There isn’t a single “right” answer for a given passage, so the task isn’t to make one correct interpretation. Rather, we readers can learn to make various interpretive decisions, understanding that we might revisit and revise those conclusions at a later reading.

The story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21–28 admits of polyvalent interpretation to a stunning degree. One-fourth of the essays in The Feminist Companion to Matthew are devoted to it. In what follows we

• review the story, offering some comments along the way,

• note varieties of interpretations,

• draw conclusions about the significance of the variety of interpretations, and

• tie the chapter into the stated goals of the book.

The Story

Immediately preceding this story, Jesus is in Gennesaret (northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee; Matt. 14:34), where he addresses the issue of defilement. It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles but rather what comes out, Jesus says, because “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart” (15:18)—the heart is the gold standard for judging. Notice that the offenses he names, including slander, involve mistreating others. This is something to keep in mind when Jesus calls the woman a dog later in Matthew 15. In the two passages that follow ours, Jesus heals and feeds. His experience with the woman is catalytic.

Jesus leaves Gennesaret and proceeds to the area of Tyre and Sidon, which is significant because that is predominantly Gentile territory. Not only is the woman who approaches Jesus a Gentile, then, but Matthew further labels her a Canaanite, an extremely loaded, if anachronistic, term. The Canaanites were among the most hated enemies of ancient Israel, although there were no longer any “Canaanites” per se in the first century. The term is a slanderous one, a point made more starkly if one compares Matthew’s version to its source, Mark, which simply calls her “Syrophoenician.” First, as Gail O’Day suggests, Matthew lumps Tyre and Sidon together as a region (Mark mentions them separately in 7:24 and 7:31) to evoke the Old Testament vitriol against Israel’s old enemies: “In the prophetic literature of the Old Testament, Tyre and Sidon are more than place names; they were Israel’s dangerous and threatening enemies (e.g., Isa. 23; Ezek. 26–28; Joel 3:4)” (O’Day 2001, 115). Second, Matthew employs the Canaanite slur (though Tyre and Sidon were real Gentile places in the first century, unlike Canaan). So, Matthew is maximizing the “unclean Gentile” theme here. The woman is not simply “other”; she is intensely “other.”

And she’s a loud mother “other.” She shouts a command to Jesus using some of Matthew’s favorite words: “Have mercy on me, Lord” (eleēson me, kyrie; Matt. 15:22). Eight of the fifteen occurrences of “mercy” in the Gospels occur in Matthew (four in Luke; three in Mark; zero in John). And “Lord” is a christological confessional title in Matthew. In fact, often where Mark has someone call Jesus “Teacher,” Matthew changes it to “Lord.”

Next, the woman calls Jesus “Son of David.” Why is this important? Matthew alludes to David and his relationship to Jesus far more than any other Gospel; “Son of David” is one of the most important christological titles in Matthew. So this woman “gets it” with her doubly correct christological confession.

The title “Son of David” links this Canaanite woman to the understanding of Jesus expressed back in Matthew’s genealogy, which ties Jesus directly to David, through an ancient Canaanite woman—Rahab. That is, Rahab and Salmon begat Boaz; Ruth and Boaz begat Obed; Obed begat Jesse with an unnamed woman; Jesse begat David with an unnamed woman. A lot of begetting, which takes two of course, even though the genealogy focuses on men. That’s all the more reason to take note of the exceptional spots where women are named, including the Canaanite Rahab, the foremother of Jesus himself and also, in some ways, the Canaanite woman in the story, given that only Matthew insists that the woman who engages Jesus is a Canaanite. In fact, the genealogy is one of the most important and rich texts in the New Testament for appraising the topic of women in the Bible. (For more on Matthew’s genealogy, consult chap. 7, “Women in Jesus’s Life and Ministry.”) I particularly appreciate Stuart Love’s treatment of the ways the genealogy connects to our passage (as well as the ways our passage is inextricably tied to the hemorrhaging woman in Matt. 9). He argues, “The Canaanite woman’s story remains a significant memory for the Matthean community. Old external/internal boundaries have been crossed or are being challenged.” Further, he asks, “But what can be said about marginal, non-Israelite women in this contentious, polemical, fluid and uncertain period? Does the Canaanite woman’s story provide a social transparency of a gender issue being faced by Matthew’s community?” (Love 2009, 158). After rehearsing some of the history of scholarly interpretation of the genealogy, Love suggests that the four women in the genealogy have more in common with the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 than they have in common with Mary. He also asserts:

We believe the inclusion of these women in the genealogy anticipates the “surprise and scandal” of the Canaanite woman’s story. But as in the time of Jesus who as an Israelite healer had difficulty negotiating his own defined boundary limits (only to Israel), so now, the Matthean community must pass through its own boundary taboos by accepting outcast non-Israelite women. Following the model, her example upsets the “order of the social system.” (160)

In this view, then, the Canaanite woman represents women who are “out of bounds” in some way and the conversation taking place in Matthew’s own late-first-century community about where such women fit into the new community.

After she calls Jesus “Son of David,” the NRSV has the Canaanite woman telling Jesus that her daughter is “tormented by a demon” (15:22). That translation does not convey the full force of the language here. “Evilly demonized” would be better. This is deeply harrowing, excruciating language. The adverb (kakoms) comes from the adjective that means evil or wicked. The verb (daimonizomai) shows that the daughter is a victim who is acted upon; the Greek present tense emphasizes the ongoing nature of the situation such that we could justifiably add the word “constantly.” Notice that the woman asks for mercy on herself, not her daughter. Anyone who has watched someone who is their very heart suffer will understand her choice of words. Is there a more heart-wrenching scene in the Bible?

How does Jesus react to the mother’s cry for mercy? The text says: “But he did not answer her a word” (15:23, my trans.). Period. While we may want to fill in felt “gaps” here, to do so is to add to the text, and that move should be overtly acknowledged. Jesus remains silent.

How do the disciples react to the mother’s cry for mercy? They do not talk to her at all; rather, they talk about her, presumably right in front of her. They, unlike the woman, approach Jesus with no honorific title, just a command of their own: “Send her away.” Why? “Because she is [repeatedly] crying out after us” (my trans.).That is the sole reason given. They find her an annoying bother.

Finally, she gets a response from someone: Jesus. He delivers the unfortunate (for her as a Gentile) news: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15:24). When you picture the exchange, is Jesus saying this to the woman, to himself, to the disciples, to some or all of the above? The text does not specify. At any rate, the statement is entirely in keeping with Matthew’s understanding of both Jesus’s and his disciples’ mission, as the reader recalls from Jesus’s command to his disciples in 10:5–6: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Indeed, Matthew’s genealogy squarely ties Jesus to Judaism, from King David all the way back to father Abraham. Only Matthew specifies that the child is to be named Jesus because “he will save his people from their sins” (1:21; emphasis added). Jesus is a Jewish Messiah for Jewish people.

After Jesus’s pronouncement, he stops speaking to the woman or about the woman. Nevertheless, she persists. She approaches Jesus, prostrates herself before him (proskyneom has a number of meanings, including “worship”), calls him by an honorific title (Lord) again, and issues another imperative from beneath him: “Help me!” (15:25).

The text then says that Jesus answers. Again, it does not specify to whom Jesus is speaking. Is he speaking to her directly or to someone else (the disciples; himself)? Pay attention to what he says: “It is not good to take the children’s bread [artos] and cast it to the little dogs” (15:26, my trans.). The children are those belonging to the house of Israel. The dogs are non-Jews.

She takes the comment as directed to her and responds, for the third time calling him “Lord.” She absorbs the slander of being called a dog and rolls with Jesus’s logic in order to defeat his argument: “Yes, Lord [kyrie], but even the little dogs eat the scraps of the things that fall from the table of their lords [kyriomn]” (15:27, my trans.). Note that the children sit at the table; the proper place for a dog is on the ground, where she is as she says this.

For the first time since the story began, the text notes that Jesus answers her directly. In 15:28 he calls her “Woman” (the only place in Matthew where he does this) and extols her: “Great is your faith!” He then issues a command: “Let it be done for you as you wish.” The story ends thus: “And from that hour her daughter was healed [iaomai]” (my trans.).

In the chapter before ours, Jesus feeds bread (artos) to a multitude and heals many people in his own Jewish territory. Immediately following, the reverse happens— Jesus heads back to his own Jewish territory and heals (therapeuom) innumerable people who are at his feet. He also gives them bread (artos). Jesus heals many people and then feeds a multitude. This pattern, called chiasm, puts the attention on the center element, C, highlighting it as crucial:

A. Feeding bread to thousands in Galilee

B. Healing many in Galilee

C. Canaanite woman and her daughter in Tyre and Sidon: Who should receive bread and healing?

B1. Healing many in Galilee

A1. Feeding bread to thousands in Galilee

The story is a watershed moment in the narrative where we learn that, in fact, the ministry of Jesus (and the church) extends across boundaries of many sorts.

Traditional Interpretations

Traditional interpretations of this passage fall into the following categories.

1. This Is a Test. It Is Only a Test.

The first line of interpretation sees the episode as Jesus testing the woman’s faith and often attempts to downplay Jesus’s harshness. According to this approach, Jesus intended all along to respond to her; furthermore, the point is made that Jesus calls her a “little dog,” more like a “puppy,” such that it is a term of affection. A variation of this approach claims that Jesus is testing the disciples in the episode.

2. Faith as a Prerequisite for Healing

The second approach focuses upon the importance of faith for healing to occur. Jesus praises the woman’s faith and grants healing on the basis of her faith. (We return to this line of reasoning in the section on disability below.) Often, her faith is seen as a foil for the lack of faith of the scribes and Pharisees, with whom Jesus is wrangling in this part of the narrative.

3. Jesus Includes Gentiles

In the third approach, “the point” (because many interpretations assume that there can be only one point) is that the woman is a Gentile, and Jesus, unlike the scribes and Pharisees, accepts her as part of the people of God. The eventual inclusion of Gentiles is foreshadowed at certain places in the Gospel, including, perhaps, the genealogy; the arrival of the magi (Zoroastrian priests; Matt. 2); the healing of the centurion’s servant (Matt. 8); and the encounter with this woman. The earthly Jesus primarily came to the Jews as the promised Messiah; in this way it can be said that God kept God’s covenant with God’s elect people. The resurrected Jesus (and his disciples, in his name) have all nations as their scope. This would help Matthew’s own church understand and explain why the church has both Jews and Gentiles in it.

Whenever contemporary Christians take up the issue of how Gentiles fit into God’s plan of salvation history, it becomes important to notice the potential for the interpretation to go off the rails in a variety of ways, including promoting anti-Semitism. Thus, a brief word is in order. Matthew’s own historical context made for a variety of tensions between his church and the surrounding world. Usually thought to be in Syrian Antioch where there was a substantial Jewish community, Matthew’s own church contained both Jews and Gentiles near the end of the first century. Presumably, it was at least bilingual and bicultural. The first tension exhibited in Matthew, then, is that while Jesus is the fulfillment of the promises to Israel, his chief opponents are from that group. Perhaps Matthew’s most vitriolic moment in this regard occurs at 27:25: “Then the people as a whole answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’” (emphasis added). I imagine that Matthew, himself most likely a Jew speaking to a largely Jewish audience about a Jewish Messiah, would be horrified to discover that his love of hyperbole has resulted in a terrible history of anti-Semitism on the part of Christians over the centuries. Words matter and sometimes have unintended consequences.

How might this play out in some interpretations of Matthew 15:21–28? Let me overstate the case for illustrative purposes. One might argue: “Jews were ethnocentric ...