Mark 16.9-11,
Luke 24.8-11.
There’s this common modern belief that the people of the past were ignorant, and would therefore believe in any old thing. They’d believe in miracles and magic, because science hadn’t been invented yet, and they grew up hearing tales about gods and sorcerers, and crazy myths which were told to them straight-faced as if they were history. And they believed in all that stuff… so they’d believe any fanciful tale you told ’em. “Oh, a wizard did it!” or “Oh, Zeus did it!” and they’d easily swallow the story, because they lived in a dark age where this sort of thing was commonplace.
Clearly these moderns have never read myths. I did; my parents gave me children’s books which retold those old myths. (Edited for children, of course, ’cause there’s way more sex and violence in those stories than people realize. Some of ’em are worse than Judges.) One of the ancient pagan Greeks’ very favorite themes was
The One True God isn’t a fan of hubris either: “God resists the proud, / But gives grace to the humble.”
But unfortunately that’s kinda what Jesus’s students were doing when they refused to accept what Jesus’s women followers were telling them about their Lord being alive.
Mark 16.9-11 KWL - 9 [Rising early on the first day of the week,
- Jesus first appeared to Mary the Magdalene;
- he’d previously thrown seven demons out of her.
- 10 Leaving, this Mary brings the news
- to those who’d come to be with Jesus,
- who are mourning and crying.
- 11 And these people, on hearing Jesus is alive,
- that he was personally seen by Mary
- don’t believe it.]
Luke 24.8-11 KWL - 8 And the women remember Jesus’s words,
- 9 and, returning from the sepulcher,
- the women tell all these things to the Eleven
- and all the other students.
- 10 It was Mary the Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary of James,
- and all the other women with them:
- They were saying these things to the apostles.
- 11 The events appeared to the apostles
- as if these words were a fairy tale,
- and they don’t believe it.
Still, it’s kinda understandable. Dead people don’t just return from death! Yeah,
True, Jesus’s students were immature teenagers, and pretty dense sometimes. But they weren’t gullible. They knew dead people stay dead. They didn’t yet know Jesus had substantially changed everything. They’d learn. But still, that’s what we have in the resurrection stories: Apostles who totally didn’t believe Jesus is alive. No matter what the women claimed.
“Women couldn’t testify.”
I grew up hearing women, at this point in history, weren’t allowed to be witnesses in court. So supposedly this is why the men wouldn’t believe them. “Well gee Mary, we know you’re a reliable and trustworthy woman; you’ve been nothing but great ever since Jesus cast those demons out of you. But y’know, we’ve gotta follow the rules of admissibility in court, even when we’re talking about private testimonies. So we’d love to believe you, but we’re not allowed. Sorry.” You see how profoundly stupid this sounds.
Besides, it’s not even biblical. Who determines who’s allowed to witness in court? The L
Like when the five daughters of Zelophehad ben Hepher came to Moses to complain about why some distant male relative, and not they, got to inherit their father’s property. No, they didn’t hire an attorney, or have some male kinsman-redeemer present their case to Moses; the scriptures say they did it. Themselves. And testified about themselves.
Numbers 27.2-7 NKJV - 2 And they stood before Moses, before Eleazar the priest, and before the leaders and all the congregation, by the doorway of the tabernacle of meeting, saying: 3 “Our father died in the wilderness; but he was not in the company of those who gathered together against the L
ORD , in company with Korah, but he died in his own sin; and he had no sons. 4 Why should the name of our father be removed from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father’s brothers.” - 5 So Moses brought their case before the L
ORD . - 6 And the L
ORD spoke to Moses, saying: 7 “The daughters of Zelophehad speak what is right; you shall surely give them a possession of inheritance among their father’s brothers, and cause the inheritance of their father to pass to them.”
Yep, God ruled in their favor. Even put it in the Law that if patriarchs have no sons, their patriarchy goes to the daughters.
The daughters of Zelophehad are an obvious example from
- Like the woman of Jesus’s
Persistent Widow Story, who demanded an unjust judge defend her.Lk 18.1-8 She didn’t hire an attorney either! - Or the “woman of Tekoa,” who came to King David ben Jesse’s court to supposedly seek justice for her son—and testified about what her “son” supposedly did, and David accepted her testimony… until she revealed this was just a parable, and she was really sent there by David’s nephew Joab to convince David to forgive his son.
2Sa 14.1-21 - Or the two whores who wanted King Solomon ben Jesse to suss out which of them was the true mother of a baby.
2Ki 3.16-28 Both those women testified. In court. And Solomon accepted their testimony—though it’s obvious one was lying.
So where’s this idea that women can’t testify, come from? The Babylonian Talmud. Which was written around the year 500; about 47 decades after Jesus’s resurrection. Yep; it’s an anachronistic interpretation of what was going on here.
In Shevuot 30a, the Pharisee rabbis concluded women can’t be witnesses, ’cause they can’t be sworn in. Even though, in the Law’s instructions for when a woman is accused of adultery by her husband, the priest swears her in.
Centuries later, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (also known as Moses Maimonides or Rambam), in his commentary on the Talmud, commented the real reason for this prohibition on women’s testimony, comes from this passage in Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy 19.15-17 NKJV - 15 “One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established. 16 If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, 17 then both men in the controversy shall stand before the L
ORD , before the priests and the judges who serve in those days.”
The word “witnesses” in verse 15 translates the Hebrew word
Of course this is a ridiculous interpretation. Generic masculine nouns, unless it’s explicitly spelled out they only apply to men, apply to people—to both men and women. And as I’ve pointed out in the other scriptures, women appeared before judges and kings multiple times in the bible. History likewise records plenty of cases of women in Jewish history—with the full or grudging approval of their rabbis!—testifying in ancient and medieval synagogues.
So yeah, this idea women couldn’t testify comes from the wrong time, isn’t biblical, and is grounded in sexism instead of anything Jesus taught. Because the simple fact is Jesus told the women to testify.
Matthew 28.10 NKJV - Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.”
If women can’t testify, what’d be the point in our Lord telling them to do any such thing? Why would he later rebuke his male disciples for not believing them?
Nah; this teaching is rubbish and always has been. I used to teach it myself, till I investigated it and found out there’s no basis for it. Any time someone tells you, “Well the Jews back then had a law…” but this “law” they speak of can’t be found in the bible, challenge them. Demand chapter and verse. The only law the Jews had was the Law; they weren’t allowed to add to it,
Ergo women could testify. So that’s not the reason the apostles dismissed what they had to say. Wasn’t because of custom. And considering who these women were, and how the men knew these women, we can’t say it’s because they figured these women were silly idiots who were trying to psyche themselves into believing Jesus is alive.
More likely, most likely, it’s because the men simply couldn’t believe it. Jesus was dead, and dead people stay dead!
Yep, even though Jesus taught them otherwise.
More than once Jesus told his kids they were going to Jerusalem, he’d be killed, but he’d rise again on the third day.
Luke 18.34 NKJV - But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
The students couldn’t fathom the idea their Master would die, then rise from death. Like I said, Pharisees taught ’em resurrection takes place at the End. And after it finally sank in that Jesus was really, truly alive, some of ’em thought the End was coming right away.
Really we all have a lot to unlearn. We have all sorts of cultural baggage clogging up our Christianity. Like the problems I brought up in this article: The assumption people of the past—including people in the bible!—were ignorant and dumb. The assumption these people were sexist, or that we get to be sexist too, or even (blasphemously) that God endorses sexism and commands us to perpetuate it.
The apostles back then were woefully closed-minded about these new revelations Jesus has for them, and the reason this story is in the bible is to warn us lest we, too, get woefully closed-minded when Jesus is trying to get us to move. He’s alive, and has stuff for us to do! Stop acting like he’s long dead, like his instructions are ancient and aren’t any more alive than he is, and stop dismissing all the people who claim we’ve seen him.
