On page 110 chapter 5
section "Person and Place" Crossan explains how male missionaries
would have a sister wife or in other words, a female missionary that would
travel with a male missionary. He mentions that this tactic offers social
protection for females. However, I was wondering if this tactic could have
also helped the male missionaries look less intimating given the fact that
missionaries could have been traveling during the day when the women and
children were home and the men were working in the field?
I believe that your observation is true, but there are also other variables. Yes the men were out working and that is why Crossan stated that it was improbable that the 12 apostles traveled together, because they would be too intimidating. The paring of men and women did provide protection and was less intimidating, but I think it was important because it included women. In a time when women were excluded from everything and were barely part of a family, for a woman to travel and preach was a step forward for women, and was an example of the egalitarian world Jesus was attempting to create on Earth.
ReplyDeleteI also think that it was important because it included women, and it did provide them protection, but I also think it disguised the fact that Jesus believed in open commensality. I know that it would have been hard, but if Jesus could cure society of its prejudice against lepers and social outcasts, why couldn't he have tried harder to make them believe in gender equality?
DeleteI suspect he tried very hard indeed to challenge specifically that hierarchy. He took the problem very seriously, and acted on it. I'm not sure what more you're suggesting he might have done. Remember that this particular challenge was so revolutionary that the transmissional and redactional levels have to work very, very hard to paper it over, and even then don't succeed in obscuring it completely.
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