Jesus' Healings of Women: Conformity and Nonconformity To Dominant Cultural Values as Clues for Historical Reconstruction

Abstract

The six synoptic miracles involving females are studied with attention to gender, classification of miracle narratives, presence of conforming and counter-cultural behavior, issues of orality and textuality, and comparison to the early Christian miracle lists. Those women's stories with strong counter-cultural elements are also those that have strong oral story dynamics. The story of the woman with the hemorrhage and the story of the Syrophoenician woman and Jesus certainly derive from oral tradition, probably transmitted primarily by and among women, and may go back to Jesus. The far greater overlap of synoptic miracles involving males with the written miracle lists suggests that the male stories have been more influenced by textual transmission than the synoptic women's stories. The transmission history of the women's stories may be significantly different from that of the men's stories, maintaining a higher counter-cultural emphasis because of less interaction with textuality.In this article I look from a variety of perspectives at the healing narratives involving females in the synoptic tradition. I am concerned with issues of cultural conformity and non-conformity, issues of orality and textuality, and issues of historicity and oral transmission. I focus on the stories involving females for three reasons.First, scholars have often found that using gender as a major category of analysis reveals aspects of texts and tradition hitherto unnoticed.Second, it should be quite easy to identify counter-culture and culture-conforming elements in the narratives because the strictures involving women and women's interaction with men were culturally fairly rigid (Malina 1981: 25-70, 94-121;1989). Since subdominant groups not only internalize the values and prescriptions of the dominant society but also may resist them, I would expect to find in the description of women's behavior both conformity to the dominant cultural values and counter-cultural behavior (see Scott). As I am using the term, counter-cultural behavior is behavior that is deviant or subversive, from the perspective of the dominant culture.Finally, I am as interested in investigating the women in the reign-of God movement (D'Angelo 1992: 206-09) as I am in investigating the historical Jesus.Part I of the study is introductory, looking at issues of conformity and counter-culture as they may interact with oral and textual transmission. Part II addresses classification of miracles, finding Antoinette Wire's system most helpful for identifying possible oral narratives. Part III analyzes the culture-conforming and counter-cultural elements of the six synoptic miracles involving females, according to Wire's categories. The fourth and final part compares the sicknesses of the females in the synoptic healings with the sicknesses commonly listed in the early Christian miracle-record lists. Culture and ChallengeAlong with many biblical scholars today, I share the belief that the historical Jesus was a popular healer and also the skepticism about our ability to demo...

Jairus, His Daughter and the Haemorrhaging Woman (Mk 5.21-43; Mt. 9.18-26; Lk. 8.40-56): Research Survey of a Gospel Story about People in Distress

“…The author of Mark communicates a twofold message to his audience: ‘Anyone can be a follower, no one finds it easy’ (p. 47). See, for similar conclusions, also Dewey 1994: 2.470-509; 2001: 23-29.…”

“…Further socio-critical (feminist and/or intercultural) interpretations of the episode can be found in Minor 1992; Dewey 1994: 122-31; Kinukawa 1994; Sibeko and Haddad 1997; Wainwright 2000, 2001; Dube 2001, and Frederiks 2003.…”

Index of Ancient Sources

“…Although the 87 Nolland (1989, 419;see also 2005, 396) argues that unlike in Matthew, who means a tassel, in Luke a more general "edge" or "hem" is meant. 88 Dewey 1994, 127. 89 Haber 2003 woman's behavior is not necessarily transgressive, she does not behave in a way that is traditionally expected of women.…”