Recently, this article appeared in Christian Today: Women, gender roles and the Church: what does the Bible have to say and why does it matter?

And as it discusses Jewish women I want to offer a response.

According to the author of this article, Jewish society at the time of Jesus "was deeply misogynistic; women were nobody and nothing and it was really a deeply broken society for women. Some rabbis at this time even believed it shameful to teach daughters theology because women were not to be trusted. In court, the word of a woman could not be used..."

Unfortunately, this approach to the status of women in Judaism is far from unusual and reinforces general stereotypes about contemporary Jewish women which do nothing to assist good community relations. At a time when religion is under attack from all sides and every religious community feels vulnerable, I do feel Christians should make an effort to examine the facts of their parent religion of Judaism, the rock from which they are hewn.

And this is especially the case today when the latest statistics have been released about the huge rise in antisemitism in our own country and also about the huge rise in the number of Jews who have been fleeing Europe during the last 20 years, and making instead for the State of Israel. A conservative estimate has put this as 25% since 9/11, but I would put it at nearer to 50%. We are now down to only a million Jews in Europe, and if we are not careful, Europe will become completely Judenrein once again.

Returning to the article highlighted above, while it is expressing personal opinions, I would have liked to have seen a basis for the assertions, which I understand are typical of much Church thinking on Judaism, and especially on Jewish women.  While it may not have been intended as such, it is important to say that from my perspective as a Jewish woman, such views do feel denigrating towards us Jews.

And such misconceptions have real-life consequences beyond the Church too, as we can see in the current thinking about the 'oppression' of the Jewish woman that Ofsted wants to rectify through social engineering in Jewish schools rather than respecting religious freedoms.

So with all of that in mind, I would like to try here to rectify some of the misconceptions which exist about Jewish women of 2,000 years ago.

In fact, Jewish women have always been highly respected. This may be one of the reasons why, 2,000 years ago, far from being put off a "deeply misogynistic' religion in which "women were nobody and nothing", around 10% of Roman pagan women, especially those from the aristocratic strata, chose to convert to Judaism.

Why would aristocratic Roman women choose to leave the safety of their own homes to join the despised Jewish community of that time if the Jewish religion was as unattractive for women as many Christians would like us to believe?

I asked Dr Rowan Williams, who has written a number of books on the subject of Christianity in its Roman context, what he thought about the role of women of that era, and especially of the misconceptions surrounding the person of Jesus. This was his response:

"I think that Jesus' attitude to women was probably more of a shock to Roman than to Jewish culture of the time. It's an extraordinary fact that Roman women of the upper classes were known only by their family names; while Jewish women of course had a very different place, and Jesus' own ministry is supported by influential and independent Jewish women (Mary Magdalene was almost certainly such a person; it's interesting that we know the personal names of about half a dozen of Jesus' women supporters, which definitely suggests the visibility of women in that world).

"I suspect the misrepresentation arises from a couple of things: the fact that Jesus' resurrection is first witnessed by women was obviously an embarrassment for the gospel writers, given the restrictions on women's ability to give evidence in law, and this has been taken as meaning that women as such were oppressed in the Jewish world at this time. You make a very good point about Roman women converting – and these women often come from just that upper-class Roman background where (ironically) they would be most restricted, or from the world of commerce where they already had some independence. And the prominence of women in many early Christian communities (some of them clearly originally Jewish businesswomen) was seen as eccentric by Roman observers and has to be played down in some ways."

So one reason that Roman women converted to Judaism appears to have been because Jewish women had a great deal of freedom in their lives, as well as being influential in business and in other ways. And this perspective put forward by Dr Williams contrasts, it seems to me, with the majority view that Jewish women were oppressed and regarded by Jewish men as second-class citizens.

And is it actually the case that Jewish women were unable to give evidence in law, or even to be trusted to do this? I was wondering myself about this thorny problem when I happened to bump into a local Jewish sage, known affectionately as 'the Scholar of Salford'.

I told him that I had a slight problem and it was to do with the resurrection. He understood immediately that this was really a problem to do with the Church and Christian teaching and he immediately set his brilliant mathematical mind to solving the conundrum.

"Put bluntly," I asked, "is it true, as many Christians appear to think, that in the Roman times of 2,000 years ago Jewish women couldn't be witnesses and were 'not to be trusted'?"

"Absolute rubbish," he stated. "The answer lies in the biblical parsha of Mezora (Leviticus 15:28) and the comments of Rashi on that passage."

He promised to send me the Talmudic references later and he did. 

So here are all the references to prove that women can act as witnesses, first stated in the biblical book of Leviticus and from which the entire law of witness derives.

1) Gittin 2b, Artscroll translation note 13. 'the term "the single witness" is believed regarding prohibitions.'

2) Chullin: Rashi states that there is no scriptural source, but it is self-evident that women (and specifically one woman on her own) are to be believed on matters of fact

3) Yebamot: 88a also Rashi

4) Tosafot in Ketubot 72a disagrees with Rashi and cites that there is a source, i.e., Leviticus 15:28. A woman can be her own witness..... From this, she is to be believed on the kashrut of her home and many other essential matters that contribute to Jewish life as it is lived on a daily basis. This Gemara expounds on the biblical phrase 'for herself'. This is the source not only for a woman's word to be taken as factual evidence, but woman as a trustworthy and believable human being is the source for any witness (including a man) who is a single witness. So for judicial prohibitions, this is the basis for any single witness to be believed regarding matters of fact.'

And for those who want to read further regarding the difference between giving evidence of a factual nature and on points of Jewish law, as suggested in a further e-mail from Rowan Williams, see HERE for Talmud Sanhedrin chapter 3.

I put all these further points to Rowan and this is his response:

"There is nothing in the NT itself that touches on this directly. The references to women as legal witnesses have come up in modern scholarship in two contexts.

"First, why does the earliest account (St Paul) of the resurrection not mention the female witnesses? Because he doesn't want to offer a testimony that could be seen by his readers as unreliable? But I think this would apply equally to Jewish and Gentile audiences, and his main readership in the Corinthian letters is Gentile.

"And second, the apologetic point that if the resurrection stories are second generation inventions, it would have been more persuasive to invent more male witnesses; a point of debatable authority, but it's sometimes aired.

"But this is, as I say, mostly modern stuff, and I mention it only to bear out what I suggested – that the supposed legal restriction on female witnesses is sometimes used to back up the idea that women were systematically demeaned in the Jewish world of Jesus' time. As I think I said ... the prominence of independent Jewish women in the early Christian movement bears out what you say in general about the position of women in the Jewish milieu, and these details of the legal discussions are a really important corrective to a widespread cliché.

"Incidentally, though we don't know the exact ages of the women witnesses, they are likely to have been of a notably older generation, as two at least are mothers of named disciples; artistic representation shows them often as young women, but the text suggests something different. As for Mary Magdalene, I've long suspected that she is precisely one of these independent Jewish businesswomen, as she's named earlier along with a group of other women who are obviously economically independent; we can forget the flowing tresses of conventional devotional art, and the fantasies about her."

So, Paul isn't even addressing Jewish would-be converts, but gentile would-be converts in Corinth.

Christian readers will have to ask themselves why Christian writers should want to suggest that Jewish men downplayed the status of Jewish women, based on evidence that Paul was actually addressing gentiles in Corinth. Did Christians know that they were fabricating a story against their parent religion of Judaism? Was this maybe because they wanted to split at all costs, both in order to appease the Romans and in order to demonstrate their independence?

But the result of this misreading of the facts, and of great concern to the contemporary Jewish community, is that these attitudes to Jewish women are still with us after 2,000 years. The concept of 'Jewish female oppression' is taken so much for granted by contemporary general culture that even present-day social engineers, who otherwise don't seem particularly sympathetic to any religion, including Christianity, nevertheless use this particular stick with which to beat us.

I have argued this before but I think it's worth repeating that it would be far better if Christians acknowledged the debt that they owe to Judaism rather than portraying it in a negative light in a way that is not supported by the evidence.

In fact, given the general oppression of Jews by others throughout history, if not for the prominent role of Jewish women, I doubt that Judaism would have lasted as long as it has done. By the law of averages, Judaism should actually have died out by now, and I have always believed, from my own research and academic work, that it is much to the credit of Jewish women throughout the ages that it has managed not only to survive, but to have flourished against all odds.

I'm sure that in your hearts you know very well that Jewish women have always run the show. From Eve, Sarah, Rachel, Leah, Rebecca, Ruth (ancestress of the Messiah), Deborah (the judge) up to Queen Esther who appeared at the right time to save her people; no other religion has extolled the virtues of women as much as the tiny religion of Judaism.

And let's add to that list the childless prophetess, Hannah, who taught both Jews and Christians how to pray. She is honoured in the Rosh Hashana service at Jewish New Year.

And what about Eshet Chayil, the 'woman of worth' from Proverbs? 

This celebration of women is recited every Friday night just before the Shabbat meal and, for Jews, is one of the best-known parts of the Bible. The term is hard to translate. I think 'Wonder Woman' is the best translation for the present age. And here is her present reincarnation, celebrated in another article on Christian Today.

And, finally, many thanks to Dr Rowan Williams and to 'the Sage of Salford' for their input into this article. It's good to know one has friends in the very lonely task of correcting 2,000 years of Christian theology that has, unfortunately, got things wrong regarding the status of women in Judaism. 

And to end on a high regarding the status of Jewish women, the definition of whether you are Jewish or not always goes through the mother and not the father.

Dr Irene Lancaster is a Jewish academic, author and translator who has established university courses on Jewish history, Jewish studies and the Hebrew Bible. She trained as a teacher in modern Languages and Religious Education.