{"id":582,"date":"2005-12-28T07:07:34","date_gmt":"2005-12-28T07:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html"},"modified":"2005-12-28T07:07:34","modified_gmt":"2005-12-28T07:07:34","slug":"women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html","title":{"rendered":"Women in the World of Jesus 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>What about &#8220;other&#8221; women? Those who were not the &#8220;norm&#8221;? Those who lived on the margins?<\/em><!--more|inline--><br \/>\nFirst, <em>Maidservants<\/em>: most maidservants were Gentiles; there were Jewish maidservants but they were distinguished from Gentile maidservants (mQiddushin 1:2-3); some had been sold into slavery (Josephus, War 3:304; 6:384).  Maidservants frequently appear in the Jewish and rabbinic documents because Jewish males had sexual relations with them (Ben Sira 41:22; mAbot 2:7; tHorayot 2:11-12). Rabbis warned about this but did nothing to protect the maidservant, who was ineligible to marry (she was suspected of sexual promiscuity). Some Jewish males ransomed Jewish slaves (bShabbat 127b).<br \/>\nSecond, <em>Proselytes<\/em>: women converted to Judaism for a variety of reasons; frequently they did so to marry (see McKnight, Light). Women did not immediately attain \u201cfull membership\u201d in Jewish society; nor were they immediately \u201cJews\u201d by marriage (yQiddushin 4:1, 65b). The most famous female convert was Queen Helene of Adiabene (Josephus, Antiquities 20:51-52).<br \/>\nThird, <em>Prostitutes<\/em>: the most dangerous woman in Jewish society. There are plenty of warnings: Ben Sira 25:16-17; 9:3-8.<br \/>\nOn Gentile prostitutes: Esther Rabbah 1:17 (9 parts of 10 of prostitutes are in Alexandria!); Josephus, Antiquities 19:356.<br \/>\nOn Jewish prostitutes: Luke 7:36-50; Matthew 21:31; perhaps Matthew 11:19 (sinners?); Psalms of Solomon 2:11; Test. Levi 4:5-6; bSanhedrin 97a. War captives were considered prostitutes through no fault of their own (mKetubot 2:9; bGittin 57b).<br \/>\nAlternatively, some evidence suggests that rabbis defined any woman who engaged in sexual relations outside Jewish norms as a prostitute:  barren woman, proselyte, freedwoman, casual sexual relations (Sifre Emor 1:7, 94b; bYebamot 61b; Ben Sira 26:9).<br \/>\nFourth, <em>Witches<\/em>: women were connected to witchcraft through a number of steps: household life, midwifery, healing, knowledge of roots and plants, etc.. Some rabbis made outlandish statements: \u201cbecause most women are inclined to sorcery\u201d (ySanhedrin 7:19, 25d; bSanhedrin 67a).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What about &#8220;other&#8221; women? Those who were not the &#8220;norm&#8221;? Those who lived on the margins?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women-and-ministry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Women in the World of Jesus 8 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women in the World of Jesus 8 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What about &#8220;other&#8221; women? Those who were not the &#8220;norm&#8221;? Those who lived on the margins?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-12-28T07:07:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Women in the World of Jesus 8 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Women in the World of Jesus 8 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"What about &#8220;other&#8221; women? Those who were not the &#8220;norm&#8221;? Those who lived on the margins?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2005-12-28T07:07:34+00:00","author":"xscot mcknight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html","name":"Women in the World of Jesus 8 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-12-28T07:07:34+00:00","dateModified":"2005-12-28T07:07:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/women-in-the-world-of-jesus-8.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Women in the World of Jesus 8"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0","name":"xscot mcknight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","caption":"xscot mcknight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/xscot-mcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}