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Loading...This now is the final guest post by blogger and New Testament scholar, James McGrath, based on his book What Jesus Learned from Women. Are you interested in more? Buy the book! As you’ll see here, it gets onto important ground, with intriguing hypotheses that you probably have never heard before! Many thanks to James for making these posts for us.
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James McGrath is also the author of Theology and Science Fiction and The Burial of Jesus, among other books.
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It is almost impossible for modern readers of the New Testament to come across the word “demon” and to not think of The Exorcist and other depictions of the phenomenon of “demon possession.” Ancient people certainly attributed what we today would categorize as psychiatric conditions or mental illnesses to demons. However, these are but a small subset of the ailments that they thought of in these terms. We see this in the stories about women in the Gospels. In no instance are we presented with a woman whose symptoms are specified to have been like those of the Gerasene demoniac who was said to wander among tombs and inflict harm on himself (Mark 5:1-20). Sometimes the ailment is unspecified, as in the cases of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter and of Mary Magdalene. In other stories we hear of symptoms that do not naturally bring demons to mind for a modern reader. One example is yet another woman whose name we are not told, so that she is sometimes simply called the “bent woman” (Luke 13:10-17).
Whether we think of physical ailments like osteoarthritis, or the kinds of mental characteristics and behaviors that could be more naturally associated with demons in our minds, they afflict women more frequently than men. The stresses that women bear in patriarchal societies combined with the risks of childbirth in a society without medicine make it unsurprising that so many women in Jesus’ time felt the need for healing.
I think that the “bent woman” and Mary Magdalene provide some indication of how these women (and many others) experienced healing in connection with Jesus. Healing, then as now, is an art that is learned. When the Gospel of Luke says that Jesus faced criticism for healing the bent woman on the Sabbath, Jesus referred to her as a “daughter of Abraham.” That isn’t a common phrase in literature. When it does occur, as for instance several times in IV Maccabees, it refers to the mother of seven sons who encourages them to embrace martyrdom rather than compromise their allegiance to God and Torah. The woman Jesus healed probably didn’t have to do anything quite so heroic in relation to male ideals of heroism. She had probably just sacrificed and worked incredibly hard to give birth to and raise the next generation of Abraham’s descendants. Luke depicts Jesus as recognizing the heroism in that. If he had healed a male war hero on the Sabbath there would probably have been no criticism of Jesus even if the same objection had occurred to the leader of the community. Jesus paid enough attention to women to notice the inequities in how they were treated.
We know astonishingly little about Mary Magdalene’s story, given the way her place in the story has taken on mythic proportions. Some have tried to make her out to be a prostitute, even though there isn’t even the slightest evidence of that. Others have made her the wife of Jesus and the mother of his children (who, in one version, become the kings of France) even though there is still less evidence of that. When the post-New Testament sources discuss Mary’s authority, there is no hint that her claim to know what Jesus taught is rooted in a romantic relationship with him, nor do those who oppose her influence claim anything other than that she is a woman, questioning whether Jesus would have entrusted his secrets to her and not to his male appointees. Even the reference in the Gospel of Philip to Jesus loving her more than his other disciples and kissing her frequently does not either offer evidence that they were married or lovers and so this was to be expected, nor that they were none of the above and so this requires explanation and defense. Instead, it is simply stated. My surmise is that Mary was older than Jesus and that he kissed her the way one might greet an aunt or a close family friend. She was a friend and likely a mentor, as well as a supporter and provider.
She also suffered from some intense ailment, or perhaps from multiple symptoms, indicated by the reference to seven demons. Jesus said that if one casts out a demon and does nothing further, there is a risk that it will come back with seven friends and make things worse than they were before. Mary probably sought help with her ailment(s) on multiple occasions from healers and exorcists. Each time she probably experienced some relief. Each time the symptoms returned, perhaps worse or with new ones added.
For there to be cure and wellness rather than temporary healing, the root causes of illness need to be addressed. For many women, the unfairness of their situation, the change of status as they were passed from being considered the property of their father to being considered the property of another man, all led to suffering on many occasions. While we cannot go into the ways that Christianity experimented with gender egalitarianism and other things that reduced or alleviated some of the stresses that woman (and slaves and others) experienced in that time and place, Jesus seems to have had a sense of how women suffered, why they did, and how to cultivate a community that removed and remedied at least some of the stress factors.
For this to have been so, he must have listened to and learned from women. He learned that to effect long-term cure it required addressing the root causes of suffering. That required the creation of a new community in which people who were marginalized and burdened could experience welcome and support.
If there is a message in this, a point I hope that readers of this blog post and/or of my book What Jesus Learned from Women take away with them, it is that this seemed miraculous, and to many today seems miraculous and an indication that Jesus was something more than human. My question is whether that reaction isn’t sad, even heartbreaking. Why should women be put under such stress that it causes them to behave in ways that the society then declares demonic? Why should paying enough attention to women’s stories and experiences to craft an alternative be something so outside the norm that it is judged super-human, rather than a characteristic that seems part and parcel of what we might expect from human males?
My book wrestles with many issues. A human Jesus who learns and the influences on him. Patriarchy and gender inequity ancient and modern. I may be wrong about some and perhaps many things. I only hope that the topics I bring into focus will get more attention in the future than they have up until now.
Look up cutaneous horn some day. I’d be surprised if that wasn’t considered a sign of demonic possession.
“… the kinds of mental characteristics and behaviors that could be more naturally associated with demons in our minds, they afflict women more frequently than men.”
Actually today this is not at all true. Suicide is several times more common among men than among women, and this also holds in grossly patriarchal societies. Autism is several times more common among men than women. For schizophrenia the situation is not no clear, but several studies indicate that the incidence of schizophrenia is higher in men. Most of the studies found the age of onset to be earlier in men than in women.
Do we have any evidence that the situation was different in antiquity?
First I would ask whether you have evidence that the things you mention were associated with demons in antiquity.
Suicide explicitly so, in the case of Judas.
The other two are severe mental health problems.
The Gerasene demoniac clearly has severe mental health problems,
Where is the suicide of Judas associated with demons? You seem to be combining a detail from John with accounts found only in the Synoptics.
The story of the Gerasene demoniac is political satire, in which Roman demons try to exorcise Jesus to keep from being expelled from the country, and so I wouldn’t make too much of it.
The vast majority of illnesses attributed to demons were physical ailments and not in any obvious way associated with mental health problems, although the two can obviously go hand in hand on occasion.
I agree—it shouldn’t be considered super-human to be that attentive to the problems of women, or men either. It’s just what humans should do for each other.
This is why I’m not terribly interested in the famous problem of the historicity of Jesus. Does it matter whether he was a real person in history, or just a fictional character about whom very meaningful stories were written, like Melville creating Ahab and Moby Dick, or Joyce writing a great book about Leopold, Molly, and Stephen? These writers very likely had real persons from their experience in their minds as they were writing, but maybe not. That matters only to literary scholars.
Of course the reality of Jesus matters a great deal to believers who are counting on a real Son of God, and a real God, for that matter, to actually answer their prayers for a cure for an actual illness. The rest of us are free to consider the scriptures of Christianity, or any other religion, as profound literature.
“Jesus said that if one casts out a demon and does nothing further, there is a risk that it will come back with seven friends and make things worse than they were before.” As doctor I see this as Jesus explaining why some of those who were “healed” later relapsed. (For example, someone with epilepsy might appear to be healed – until the next seizure.) But even if Jesus could not heal diseases I appreciate the concern and compassion expressed in such stories, such as reaching out to those wrongly said to be possessed, or touching a leper, or simply openly interacting with women in a male-dominant society.
Thanks for posting on this forum. I look forward to reading your book very much.
Since you’re available I have to ask you about your research on the Mandaeans which interests me greatly. I have a copy of The Book of John, and I was fortunate enough to find a copy of the Ginza Rabba printed privately in Germany. I’ve seen striking images which I understand are part of a scroll, the Abatur (sp?). Has such a document been printed and translated? (I have a crude PDF which looks like somebody clumsily used an old black and white copy machine to record the images.)
I apologize if I bore you with biography but I’m not an academic. I had a profound religious experience as a young man when I was baptized and I have been fascinated with the rite ever since, both in Christianity and elsewhere. I was amazed to discover a living practicing group for whom baptism is not just a rite but a sacrament. On top of everything else their literature and poetry is very beautiful.
Happy to hear of your interest both in the new book and in the Mandaeans! Yes, the Mandaean illustrated scrolls like Diwan Abatur are really fascinating, and there is so much more work to be done on them, from the perspective of art history as well as in relation to the texts. I hope in the not too distant future to turn my attention squarely onto the writing of a book about the historical John the Baptist, bringing the Mandaean sources into the picture. In the past they’ve either been used uncritically or largely ignored in the context of that topic, and I believe that a more balanced critical approach leads to some really interesting and exciting insights and possibilities.
For those who don’t know these works, there is a nice short piece with pictures here: https://www.thetravelclub.org/articles/traveloscope/783-mandaeans-diwan-abatur
The text (without illustrations) can be found here: https://archive.org/details/e.-s.-drower-diwan-abatur.-progress-through-the-purgatories/page/1/mode/2up
I will also mention that I had the privilege of seeing the copy of Diwan Abatur that a Mandaean family in Australia has, and shared a photo of myself with it on my blog here: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionprof/2020/02/musical-hell.html
“…a society without medicine” is hardly accurate. Herbal remedies, for example, were used in ancient societies, as they still are in many traditional communities around the world. Many are effective treatments for a variety of ailments.
I discuss a number of the remedies, most of which I trust you find appalling. I also mention the proto-scientific method behind the curation of such folk wisdom. If you wish to insist that these count as “medicine” then feel free to gloss what I wrote with “modern medicine.”
@luigi – “Herbal remedies, for example, were used in ancient societies, as they still are in many traditional communities around the world. Many are effective treatments for a variety of ailments.”
I beg to differ. It’s “fashionable” to talk up traditional healing and to accord it equal status with evidence-based medicine. It’s wrong; it’s usually just a way of pandering to traditional patriarchs; it keeps the poor in the power of the powerful;
With the political will there are simple ways around it, eg. Simply make equal rules for ALL medicine. Any treatment that is accepted to work by an independent panel gets “certified” and those that don’t work are not certified. So any “effective treatments” that actually ARE effective would be welcomed, but the rubbish, the snake oil, and the abuse would be weeded out.
I enjoyed your post, can you give any examples of how Jesus’s way of being worked towards gender egalitarianism?
I’m sure your book is full of them, but I’m always a bit sceptical when I hear someone say Jesus was…. A small government conservative, a proto Marxist, an engineer. Suspiciously often the designation aligns with the authors world view. So it’s good to get some explicit examples to parse, and as I don’t have your book yet I thought I’d ask, many thanks for the post!
The book focuses not on Jesus being a feminist (at best an anachronistic term to apply to any ancient person) but on his becoming more open to including women in the movement around him in various capacities as a result of what he learned from his encounters with women. So, for one example, the story of Mary of Bethany sitting at Jesus’ feet makes clear that her action was her initiative. Presumably Jesus’ character and teaching was such that she felt she could dare to do this, but Jesus’ response makes clear that she was not simply doing something he already said women connected with him and his movement should do. I thus hope that the book avoids to the extent possible the pitfall of making Jesus a spokesperson for modern values.