How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture

by Dan Kimball

The prevalent attitude toward women among most Jewish people at that time was not super positive. Jesus lived in a culture where women were generally not treated with the same respect, worth, and value as men. We know this from prayers from this time. For example, here’s an actual prayer the rabbinical leaders would recite daily: “Praise be to God that he has not created me a Gentile [a non-Jew]! Praise be to God that he has not created me a woman! Praise be to God that he has not created me an ignoramus!”3 Another version of this prayer included thanks to God that the men praying weren’t created to be a dog . . . or a woman. Jewish culture was patriarchal and often kept women in subordinate roles to men. In marriage, the male had the advantage. If a wife displeased her husband, he could divorce her—a wife was not granted the same right. We see this prejudice and negativity toward women throughout the Jewish religious writings going back to the time of Jesus. Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, wrote, “The woman . . . is in all things inferior to the man.” Other rabbinical writings at the time of Jesus say, “Four equalities are ascribed to women: they are gluttonous, eavesdroppers, lazy and jealous.”