The John Gospel is one of a fascinating gospel to study it provides interesting resource regarding women in early Christian communities. John Gospel portrays women in the positive light in relation to Jesus and male members of the community (Schneiders, 95). An interesting perspective shown in this gospel is the unconventional roles women play. This gospel is in a way liberating women from the stereotype of women’s role in worshipping. This paper will focus on Sandra M. Schneiders analysis of “Women in the Fourth Gospel”. This paper will address key points about the Samaritan Women, discuss the importance of Martha and Mary in the bible. Finally, discuss the importance of Jesus’ self-revelations. Women play a variety of unconventional roles …show more content…
that are approved by Jesus. The story of the Jesus and the woman of Samaria (John4: 4-42) begin with Jesus making a journey to Galilee so he had to go through Samaritan city called Sychar.
Jesus was resting by a well around noon when he encountered a Samaritan woman who was drawing water and Jesus said to her “Give me a drink”(v8). In the dialogue with Jesus, the woman gains an increasing recognition of who is. The woman says to him “I know that Messiah is coming (who is called Christ). When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us. Jesus said to her. “I am he, the one who is speaking to you”(John4: 25-26). According to Schneiders (102) “Jesus self-revelation to the woman as a Messiah whom the Samaritans were expecting is one of the most important Christological in the fourth Gospel.” It is also the first time that “I am” formula is used which causes the woman to leave in haste to bear witness to Jesus as the expected Messiah. An interesting observation that Schneiders (104) make is that “ Jesus alone decides to whom he reveals himself and who he will call to apostleship. Even though Jews don’t share things in common with Samaritans that fact that Jesus reveals himself to her is …show more content…
astonishing. John 11 and 12 present an interesting story of Martha and Mary of Bethany who is the sisters of Lazarus.
“Accordingly, though Jesus loves Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was”(John11: 5-6). Harold W. Attridge suggests, “Jesus seems to deliberately to let Lazarus die. Lazarus, however, might have already have been dead by the time the message arrived and Jesus’ delay would have timed his arrival in Bethany after the finality of Lazarus’s death had been confirmed”(v.11: 6). Martha expresses that if Jesus had been there her brother wouldn’t have died. Jesus says to Martha, “ I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, “yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into this world.” (John11: 25-27). This is important dialogue with Martha and Jesus because Jesus is asking Martha for full Christian confession of faith in him which she does give wholehearted by proclaiming him as “Lord”. According to Schneiders (106), “she speaks the faith of the community as it overcomes the ultimate scandal of death by belief in the one who is Life itself.” In John 12 begins with Jesus being a guest at Lazarus home. A prominent act that takes place in this scene is when “Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard,
anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume”(v3-4). Schneiders (108-109) states, “Mary performs an act that recalls Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet signifying his death for them. Her act is connected by Jesus to his burial. This act would have normally would have been performed by a devoted disciple for his teacher by washing his disciples’ feet and wiping them with the towel he is wearing. The anointing with precious ointment, on the other hand, is a proleptic anointing of Jesus for burial (12:7), which occasions Judas’s objection.” It is shown clearly that John portrays her as a disciple of Jesus and even defends her against Judas by saying, “leave her alone. She brought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial”(John12: 7). Jesus self-revelation is one of the interesting parts of the fourth Gospel. Jesus does not reveal himself directly in any of the other Gospels. John’s Gospel is unique in this when Jesus reveals himself to the Samaritan Woman and Mary Magdalene. Schneiders (102) states, “This revelation, however, must be understood as a dialogical process of Jesus’ self-manifestation as the one being continuously sent by the father, who is thereby encountered in Jesus, and the response of belief on the part of the disciples.” Jesus says to the Samaritan Woman “I am he, the one who is speaking to you” (John4: 26). This is the first that Jesus identifies himself in the first person and its impact on the woman causes her to leave all her belongings to announce to the town the expected Messiah has come. The second revelation that Jesus has is with Mary Magdalene when he says to her “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your god.” (John20: 18). According to Schneiders (112) “This is the first time that Jesus refers to his disciples as sisters and brothers, because it only by his exaltation that he accomplished the purpose of incarnation.” These revelations make this Gospel unique because it allows readers to know who Jesus is and how is a commission to these women affect them into being successful apostles. The women in the fourth Gospel are shown to be an advocate for the Jesus Movement. These women are portrayed to be active community members that are believers of Christ and who take on an apostleship mission to ensure that the preaching of Christ reaches all of the people. Schneiders shows that women were actively supportive of Jesus and Jesus approved their roles no matter how unconventional it is.
Matthias had always claimed that the world was a man's world, and he declared that women were evil and a man's distraction from God. Matthias’ prophecies claimed, “there would be no market, no money, no buying or selling, no wage system with its insidious domination of one father over another, no economic depression of any kind” and that, "everything that has the smell of women, will be destroyed and only real men will be saved; all mock men will be damned (Johnson and Wilentz, The Kingdom of Matthias, 93)”. Before the contributing factors to women’s status change,–The Market Revolution and The Second Great Awakening–they lived exceptionall...
This chapter was removed from Reimagining Church due to a lack of space. But there’s a footnote to this document in the book. See also God’s View of a Woman.
Warner's book details the special importance of the Virgin Mary throughout Christianity and explores her religious and secular meaning. She discusses such things as the Church's attitude toward virginity, the role model of the Virgin martyr, the Virgin's relics, and her role as an intercessor with God.
In this paper, I will be examining the major arguments that Miri Rubin presents in her book Emotion and Devotion: The Meaning of Mary in Medieval Religious Cultures. Rubin’s book is divided into three chapters or areas of focus which are: The Global “Middle Ages;” Mary, and Others; and lastly Emotions and Selves. In each of these chapters, Rubin explores a particular topic that she thinks is important to the understanding of the challenges that exist in studying the religious culture of the Middle Ages—especially in their relation to the figure of Mary. I will begin this paper by drawing out the main argument that is offered in each chapter, along with the supporting evidence that Rubin provides. Then, I will briefly evaluate the quality of Rubin’s three arguments and explain why I agree with them.
"As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother, and he revealed that in everything, and especially in these sweet words where he says:... I am he, the power and goodness of fatherhood; I am he, the wisdom and the lovingness of motherhood"(Damarosch,478). In today's society it is commonplace, even routine to think of Christian divinity in terms of male gender. How amazing it seems then, to be presented with medieval language which portrays God as a female gendered divinity. Where did the idea arise to portray God as feminine? And what purpose does it serve? This essay seeks to examine whether Julian of Norwich's gender construction of the divine is subversive and radical in light of the reduced power of women in medieval Christianity.
Adding to her discussion of the field’s origins, she begins this section with the conception of European ideals of women and their roles through the Bible and philosophers like, Augustine. She then discusses the Renaissance phenomenon of la querrelle des femmes when Boccaccio in 1380 reopened discussions of women’s virile spirits in frail bodies making them like men as highest compliment in De mulieribus Claris, and its follow up by Christine de Pizan. (20) These laws and many writers involved in this querelle show an early interest in trying to understand women in a society formed around religions based on male privileges, which she notes stemming from the dual stories of Creation in the Bible and church men like Tertullian. (15-16) Economically, women’s bodies most often occupy domestic based work roles, but, Wiesner argues their access to capital and consumption offers more interesting and bountiful historical
The humanity of the world, and especially the humanity of Jesus Christ and his Passion and death, was the entire focus of the development of and the point of devotion in Christocentric and affective spirituality. Imagining scenes from Jesus' life on Earth and his human feelings in order to move oneself to compassion was a large part of the affective spirituality. Women of the medieval era used their femaleness as a sign of closeness to Christ, and that for Christ as "divinity is to humanity, [for women, it was] as male is to female" and the Incarnation of Christ was the "ultimate identification" (12). Women with the mentality of affective spirituality expresse\ confidence in the Incarnation in their devotion to the Eucharist, and revered "Christ's physicality, his corporality, his being-in-the-bodyness; Christ's humanity" as above all, that his humanity was his "body and blood"
In Women, Church, God: A Socio-Biblical Study, Caleb Rosado uses a socio-biblical approach to discuss the role of women in the church today and how they were treated in the Bible, during the patriarchal times. Rosado looks at the connection between what people believe now, their culture, and how they treat women in regards to how one perceives God. This book contains ten chapters in which several topics are discussed, including the nature of God, the treatment of women in the Bible, patrimonialism, servitude, and servanthood.
In a normal day a European women were required to stay home all day except to go to church. The church became a place of reunions to women of the top...
In John 2: 1-12, we find that on the mother of Jesus has been invited to a weeding Cana in Galilee. Jesus and his disciples were both also invited to the weeding. Jesus and the mother of Jesus are both at the weeding when the wine runs out. This is of course a large issue as every weeding needs wine. The mother of Jesus tells them that there is no more wine and this was her way of telling Jesus to fix this the problem in some way. Jesus then states that his time has not come, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”, however Jesus does end up doing something about the problem and thus he starts his mission on the request of his mother. The mother of Jesus then tells the servants to do anything Jesus says. To Jesus’s
Mary of Bethany did what she believed was right and also was able to mourn with Christ. When Martha wanted to make the stay of Jesus as perfect
Later in the story, the narrator builds the theme of religion by indirectly revealing a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This devotion is taken t...
“Today I appeal to the whole Church community to be willing to foster feminine participation in every way in its internal life. This is certainly not a new commitment, since it is inspired by the example of Christ himself….nevertheless, he also involved women in the cause of his kingdom; indeed he wanted them to be the first witnesses and heralds of his resurrection. In fact, there are many women who have distinguished themselves in the Church’s history by their holiness and hardworking ingenuity.”
“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well
not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a