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GENDER, JUDAISM, AND LITERATURE: UNWELCOME GUESTS IN HOUSEHOLD CONFIGURATIONS


AMY-JILL LEVINE
Vanderbilt University

There is little debate today over the general configuration of the early Christian household. Among the generally accepting conclusions are that the new family of Jesus/early Christianity is based notor at least not onlyon marital or biological connection, but on loyalty to Jesus and then the church, and that the new family retains conventional roles of mother, brother, sister. The paternal role is also in place: for Jesus, the locus shifts from the earthly to the heavenly father; for the Church, the church officer (for example, apostle, bishop) assumes and the householder retains paternal privilege. Less clear, however, is the import of such familial conservatism. At this stage, social science approaches can benefit by attending more formally to gender constructs, Jewish sources, and literary-critical observations. The Problems While social modeling, be those models derived from Aristotle, cross-cultural analysis, or archaeological interpretation, is a necessary component of work on families in the Jesus movement or in early Christian settings, the models themselves are (inescapably?) androcentric, often inattentive to Judaism as a distinct culture albeit one embedded within a Hellenistic context, and at best disencumbered by notice of literary aesthetics. The converse is also true: scholars who work primarily in the fields of gender and/or Judaism, or who focus on readings in front of the text rarely cite, and rarely even demonstrated interest in, the social-scientific approaches epitomized by the publications of the Context Group. It is a shame that no kinship exists between the two voluntary associations, save for an occasional patronizing comment. Concerning gender: although polygamous relationships among Jews are attested for both first (the Herodian household) and the

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early second centuries (the Babatha documents), they are rarely noted in studies of the early Jesus movement. Studies of the Galilean and Judean women who followed Jesus typically find them in a static role, be it derived from an anachronistic construct of egalitarianism or extrapolated from a presumed a priori patriarchalism that bars women from leadership or authority. Social modeling does require generalities, and gender roles can be broadly defined for particular times and cultures. Nevertheless, studies of this messianic movement warrant the nuancing of gender roles in terms of economic resources, class, location, marital status, eschatological views, etc. Data from the New Testament itself indicate that women who followed Jesus in both Judean and Diaspora settings were householders, perhaps even in disproportionate numbers: Martha, the mother of John Mark, Dorcas, and Lydia, as well as, perhaps, Peters mother-in-law and Chloe. This phenomenon in turn may support the view that Jesus and his message held a particular appeal for women apart from male guardianship, be these women unmarried, divorced, widowed, or even deserted. This observation may in turn support the thesis that discipleship responds to particular social needs, as Destro and Pesce suggest. Again, gender may be a factor in determining the extent to which the thesis holds: what motivated Peter, James, or Levi may be substantially different than what motivated Mary Magdalene or Martha. Paul does not become a disciple of Jesus because of a particular social need (or at least because of any manifest one); nor would all argue that individuals joined the Qumran community primarily because of social needs. One might just as easily become a disciple less because of social matters such as economic pressures or political dissatisfaction than because of psychological yearnings, a response to a healing, the pull of a charismatic individual, or the conviction that religious truth can be found elsewhere. It might even be argued that because the vast majority of Jews did not become Jesus disciples, there was no generally compelling social need for people to do so. To make the case for the role of social factors in influencing families or individuals to follow Jesus, a comparison with other Jews who opted instead to join the Qumran group, affiliate with Pharisees or John the Baptist, or align themselves with anti-Roman factions would be a helpful exercise. Moreover, lacking a home in studies of the early Christian family is the Mishnahs de-

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lineation of the concept of the householder (for example, Flesher 1988). The Jewish sources do post-date the first-century; then again, so do many of the sources whence the comparative models for peasants and householders derive. Finally, unless conclusions reached by social-scientific argument are checked by literary-critical insight, analysis risks assimilating metaphor to reality rather than recognizing that metaphor indicates both a commonality and a distinction. Texts must be sifted to distinguish description of what is from prescription for what should be; the hypothetical case must be distinguished from the common practice; the move from literary characterization to social actuality should be made only with great caution.

The Christian Household Whereas Jesus uses kinship language to describe his followers and whereas his followers themselves receive welcome by an oikos rather than simply by a householder, less clear is the extent to which these familial matters reveal an interest in preserving internal domestic relations. One might, for example, argue as do Destro and Pesce on the basis of Luke 7:11-17 and 8:32-33 that Jesus shows he wants to strengthen the bonds within the household. The details of the pericopae, however may suggest alternative motives. Concerning the former account, which features as the authors themselves note a young man (neaniskos ) rather than an autonomous adult, one might conclude that Jesus is less interested in strengthening familial bonds than he is in avoiding having young people, and potentially weak young people, follow him. The evocation in 7:11-17 of Elijahs raising the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17), and the reinforcement of this connection in Jesus synagogue sermon (Luke 4:36) secure the impression that the Nain neaniskos would be a liability. Nor do either intra- or inter-textual allusions lead to the conclusion that Jesus wishes to strengthen family ties. When Jesus heals the paralytic let down through the roof and then exhorts him, Take up your bed and walk (rather than, Take up your cross and come follow me), we need not conclude that Jesus is interested in reinforcing the bond of friendship between the paralytic and his roof-removing friends. In the later case, Luke 8:32-33, the healed man is (apparently)

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a gentile: he lives outside of Galilee and Judea, in an area where swine are present. For Lukes Gospel, the time of the gentile mission has not begun; the return of the demoniac to his oikos therefore may be motivated less by familial interest than by mission focus. While strengthening of familial bonds results from the healing, neither Jesus own mission nor Lukes narrative depiction of it requires the conclusion that such strengthening is the healings intent. For this narrative, a literary-critical approach might even yield an expanded range for oikos-language. The oikos to which the man is commanded to return (8:39) is not the family but the whole city where he proclaims his healing. Or, the man may have to find an oikos: unlike most of the healed people in Luke, he has no supporting friend, parent, or sponsor, no oikos to which to return. Literary-critical analysis of Luke 18:28-30 (/ / Mark 10:28-30; Matt. 19:27-9) presents a similar caution. From the logion, Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life, one could conclude with Destro and Pesce that according to Luke the person who abandons his relatives to follow Jesus is a male belonging to the intermediate generation between the parents above him, and his own children below. While the conclusion may be correct, the means offers another reading. Luke, who includes not only house and brothers but also wife in this list, may be signaling completeness: the point may be less the social situation of the disciple than the insistence that everything and everyone possible is left behind. Turning to what may be called the Parable of the absent mother (Luke 15:11-32), Destro and Pesce find that it offers a positive opinion of father and householder, but perhaps a less positive one toward the two sons. Aside from the parables confirming Elliotts point about the lack of an egalitarian model (I suspect when the older son talks about working like a slave, the slaves present had a different view), this reading might be too generous. The father is as prodigal as his younger son, and the parable can easily be read as a critique of the household structure rather than its endorsement. Nor is it clear that the eldest son seems to fit happily into the household or have a defensive attachment to it, for no one even thinks to invite him to the celebration. Then again, the elder son will have everything (panta) that the father

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now has, so the hierarchical household remains within the context of at least a presently dysfunctional family.

The Women Similarly ambiguous is the household status of the women who follow Jesus. Destro and Pesce conclude that they would hardly seem to be householders, even though some of them are wealthy property owners, and from this point of view could also be householders in their own right. Yet Luke tells us neither that the women were well off (to provide support, especially in Lukes Gospel, does not require wealth [see, for example, 21:1-4]) nor that they were propertied. If they were, then their status begs the question: why not see them as householders? One possible response is that of Jesus itinerant followers, most (both married and unmarried, both men and women) belong to the households of their fathers. I would be more sanguine about this claim were the women identified by father rather than by husband, geographical location (Magdala, Nain) or simply by name (Mary, Martha, Susanna). Some may even be slaves (for example, Joanna, for Chuzas position of oikonomos was often held by a slave). The presence of these women may also argue against Jesus intent of strengthening the oikos. Indeed, no married couples, with the exception of the infancy narratives and the parents of 8:51 (who are not followers of Jesus), appear together in Lukes Gospel. Luke 12:53 both highlights the roles of womenDestro and Pesce remark only on the generational focusand supports the conclusion that such disruption had a strong gender basis. The verse may offer a sufficiently detailed model to become a point of reference for the classification of the kinship relations within the household, but given that it is a citation of Mic. 7.6, where the context concerns community corruption, caution is needed in moving from fulfillment citation to social history. Whether householders or not, that women played larger roles and gained more respect in the churches is commonly asserted. Less common is discussion of the comparison basis: the synagogue? the Isis cult? [see Bassler, 2002]. The roles themselves also go undefined. To provide support is not equivalent to prominence; to pay the bills is not equivalent to determining policy. Recent feminist critique of Lukes Gospel propose that the third

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evangelist is interested in restricting womens roles within the church (for example, DAnglo 2000; Levine 2002), not in celebrating their prominence. Perhaps womens prominence was an (unintended?) effect of itinerancy. Following Gerd Theissen, Destro and Pesce distinguish between the itinerant disciples who follow Jesus, and sedentary disciples who remain within the household. Similarly, for Elliott, households served as mission bases. To these observations, the categories of gender and Judaism again provide additional insight. For example, women may have been additionally empowered when the middle-generation of men chose to follow Jesus (Levine 1990); they may also have been impoverished when these men chose to divest themselves of property, or perhaps they were now completely responsible for the care of the older generation (for example, of Peters mother-in-law) as well as of the children. In either case, the effects may have been limited: there is no indication that the itinerancy was permanent, and the case can be made that it did not exist at all in the Galilean context (Arnal 2001). Whether or not women were empowered by a call to the male householder to divest, the movement did not, as Elliott recognises, create a discipleship of equals. This skepticism, grounded in textual analysis and cognizant of the problems of anachronism, should now be extended beyond the general matter of egalitarianism to the precise category of gender construction. Elliott describes the early Christian household (a description which reads from the perspective of a [Galatian] gentile) as a setting wherein union with God was no longer sealed and signified by a circumcised penis and hence was no longer a male prerogative. Yet a gender inclusivity framed in this manner is also a post-Enlightenment view. Early Christian sources do not speak specifically to how baptism rather than circumcision is gender-inclusive whereas Judaism is not; early Christians, be they Jewish or gentile, knew that there were Jewish women, and Jewish womenboth those born into Israel and those who chose to convert (Elliott does not remark on female converts to Judaism)did not think a penis the prerequisite for being Jewish. This false phallus focus is of a piece with the claim that Slaves, like women, are no longer excluded from the company of Gods people. Neither women nor slaves were so excluded. Finally, these false impressions about Jewish women and slaves support the similarly false impression given by the claim that only within the

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church, access to Gods grace is now available to all who trust/ believe, and trust/belief is possible for all. This claim implies that such access was not previously available within Judaism. On the one hand, gentiles could, and did, convert to Judaism, so ethnicity was not a permanent barrier. On the other, various groups of Jews posited either through the Noachide commandments or the concept of the righteous gentile that divine grace was not only available but also manifest and accessed by non-Jews. Even the Jerusalem Temple offers open access to Israels God: that is why there is a court of the gentiles and a court of the women. Consequently, claims such as Luke-Acts highlights the shift of the community from the Temple and its purity system to the household and its domestic sphere as the new locus of the Spirits actions need nuancing. Certainly Luke is no fan of the Jerusalem Temple (or of Judaism), but the comment on the Temples purity system is overstated. The purity system actually functions as a leveler, since both High Priest and slave fall under its jurisdiction; the Temple is the place of both tax collectors and Pharisees, poor widows and rich priests. Nor is it the only locus of purity, and Luke-Acts tends to stress Pharisaic home-based purity rather than the Temples involvement. The role of purity in gentile environments (something rarely noted in such studies [DAngelo]) also requires consideration: Lukes depiction of the Temple and/ or purity may function as a literary construct with implications for how gentiles in Lukes community relate to their own purity and temple systems.

Postscript The early Christian oikos existed at the intersection of numerous concerns: the roles of men and women, slave and free, child and adult; social realia and narrative representation; civic institution and private space; the sacred and the profane. This diverse category set requires an approach informed by a diverse set of analytical frames. When tested by deliberate focus on the categories of gender, Judaism, and literary criticism, the results of social-science modeling find support in some areas (in particular, the role of the male householder) but require rethinking especially of conclusions on womens roles and the Jewish context of the mission.

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amy-jill levine Abstract

Investigation of the early Christian household, frequently based on social-science models, can benefit by attending more formally to gender constructs, Jewish sources, and literary-critical observations. The category of householder should be expanded to include independent women; the role of women and slaves in Jewish environs should be examined in light not only of Greek and Roman political and philosophical ideals but also of early Rabbinic thought; social models applied to and/or gleaned from the Gospels should be checked against the evangelists narrative art.

Bibliography
Arnal, William 2001 Jesus and the Village Scribes: Galilean Conflicts and the Setting of Q . (Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress.) Bassler, Jouette M. 2002 (forthcoming) Limits and Differentiation: The Calculus of Widows in 1 Tim. 5.3-16, in Amy-Jill Levine (ed.), A Feminist Companion to DeuteroPaul (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press). DAngelo, Mary Rose 2000 (Re)presentations of Women in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke Acts in Ross Shepard Kraemer and Mary Rose DAngelo (eds.), Women and Chrstian Origins (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 171-95. Flesher, Paul Virgil McCracken 1988 Oxen, Women, or Citizens? Slaves in the System of the Mishnah (Brown Judaic Stu-dies 143; Atlanta: Scholars Press). Levine, Amy-Jill 1990 Whos Catering the Q Affair? Feminist Observations on Q Paraenesis, in L.G. Perdue and J.G. Gammie (eds.), Parenesis: Moral Instruction in Judaism and Early Christianity (Semeia 50; pp. 145-61). Levine, Amy-Jill (ed.) 2002 A Feminist Companion to Luke (London: Sheffield Academic Press).

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Bernard C. Lategan Questing or Sense-Making? Some Thoughts on the Nature of Historiography Jrgen Ebach Kanon und Widerspruch Ben C. Ollenburger Discoursing Old Testament Theology Robert Morgan Historical and Canonical Aspects of a New Testament Theology Werner G. Jeanrond Biblical Challenges to a Theology of Love

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