Hearing the Women of the Bible

QUESTION: “I feel discouraged that there seem to be so few books of the Bible centered on women, especially since Ruth and Esther are so short. Are there other ways to hear from the women of Scripture? I have heard that there are other women-focused writings like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene that may have been left out of the Bible?”

A Common Misunderstanding

This is a very good discussion, and it is an easy one to get tangled up in because there’s so much misinformation out there when it comes to the women of the Bible, how the Bible thinks about women, the role women play in the Bible, what God has to say to women about women, and the wisdom that the Lord has breathed out and preserved for us in Scripture through the women who followed Him over the years.

There’s a lot we can talk about here, but I want to start in the simplest place possible.

More Than Two Women’s Books

That is, on the surface, it seems like there are only two books that are written from a woman’s perspective, which would be Ruth and Esther, both of which are relatively short, but the truth is actually that women almost certainly played a major role in the writing of almost every book in Scripture, and they play extremely important roles at every point in the story the Bible tells.

The Names of Biblical Books and Authorship

Even in the books that are named after other people, ironically, the names that we use to refer to the books of the Bible today are names that were given after the fact, so they are not part of the books themselves.

In other words, First Samuel is a divinely inspired writing, but the name First Samuel is not a divinely inspired name. It’s just the name that we often refer to this particular divinely inspired writing as.

The same is true for Ruth and Esther and Matthew and Luke, and on and on.

The fact that the book of Ruth is named Ruth today doesn’t mean that it was written by Ruth.

The fact that the book of First Samuel is named for Samuel doesn’t mean it was written specifically by Samuel.

As strange as it sounds, the book of Ruth may have been written primarily by a man.

First Samuel may have been written primarily by a woman.

There are exceptions with books like Jeremiah, which was quite literally written by the prophet Jeremiah. Matthew was written by Matthew, and so forth.

But many of the stories in the Bible that primarily follow a male figure may have primarily been preserved and then recorded by female figures.

Women and the Preservation of Scripture

Most of the Old Testament historical books, such as Ruth and Judges and the books of Samuel and the books of Kings and onward, were written by the prophets, which was a very large group spread out all over the Promised Land.

We tend to think of them primarily as people who predicted the future in some way, but that was only a tiny part of what they did.

They were also responsible for teaching, for seeking out God’s perspective on current events that were taking place, and for preserving important parts of the past that God’s people needed to remember for generations to come.

Male and Female Prophets

It shocks a lot of people to hear this, but there were both male and female prophets, something that people today often gloss over without even meaning to, but it’s not something that the Bible hides.

So, strange as it sounds, the entirety of the Old Testament especially is the product of both men and women working together.

Beyond that, so many of the stories throughout the Scriptures were passed down by women, not men.

Women as the Original Preservers of Biblical Stories

Sarah and Hagar

One example would be the story of Sarah and Hagar.

So much of that story involves things that happened when there were no men present, so the only way for them to have ever been remembered and passed down was for either Sarah or Hagar to have passed the story along from her own perspective.

Rebekah

The story of Rebekah is filled with moments that only Rebekah could possibly have known about, so she would have to have been the one who passed the story on.

Leah and Rachel

The story of Leah and Rachel is filled with moments where only Leah and Rachel were even present, so they can only have been passed on by one of those two.

Hannah

The same thing is true with the story of Hannah in the early chapters of First Samuel.

There are long stretches that essentially record her thoughts, but the only way to know Hannah’s thoughts is for Hannah to tell that story to others and then help them preserve it and pass it down.

Mary, the Mother of Jesus

The same is true for Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the early chapters of Luke, and on and on.

Female Tradents

The term that scholars use for this is that Scripture was overwhelmingly passed down by female tradents, women who pass down sacred memories, family histories, songs, genealogies, prayers, and stories.

Quite literally, so much of the Old Testament especially consists of things that would have been passed down primarily by mothers, grandmothers, female servants, wives, concubines, handmaids, midwives, and beyond.

So there is probably not a single book in the Bible that wasn’t in some way co-authored by a woman, except for those rare cases like the letters of Paul, where he specifically names his own co-authors or wrote alone, or the letters of Peter, James, John, Jude, and so forth, where they clearly indicate that they themselves are the only author.

The Bible Frequently Shifts Into Women’s Perspectives

Once we realize that that is the case, we suddenly start to notice all the different ways that so much of the story the Bible tells is told from the perspective of the women involved.

The Hebrew Midwives

When Pharaoh commands for all the Hebrew boys to be killed as soon as they are born, it immediately flips into the perspective of the Hebrew midwives who sneakily saved the lives of as many as they could.

Jochebed, Miriam, and Pharaoh’s Daughter

When Moses is secretly placed into the basket and set down on the Nile, it is suddenly shifted into the perspective of his mother, Jochebed, his sister Miriam, and Pharaoh’s daughter, who all played roles in saving him.

Rahab

When the Israelites are scouting out the Promised Land and have to hide from the Canaanite authorities in Jericho, it suddenly flips into the perspective of Rahab, a prostitute in Jericho, who declares her faith in Yahweh and hides them.

Deborah and Jael

When God’s people are under attack in Judges 4 and 5, and the official leader Barak refuses to do his duty to protect the people, it suddenly flips into the perspective of Deborah as she takes up the Lord’s call and leads the people to victory.

Then it jumps to the perspective of another woman named Jael, as the villain Sisera manages to escape being killed by the armies and the men search everywhere to try to find him but cannot find him by any of their means, only for Jael to emerge from the shadows and put Sisera down with a tent peg.

Abigail and Huldah

Abigail

In First Samuel 25, when David is betrayed by a wicked man named Nabal, he comes close to losing his cool and killing Nabal, which would cause him a long list of problems down the line, and it suddenly flips into the perspective of Abigail, the wife of Nabal, who finds a way to solve the issue without anybody dying.

Huldah the Prophetess

In Second Kings 22, when God’s people have been led by wicked kings for generations and have drifted further and further from the Lord, and so many of the male prophets have either turned coat and begun to follow the pagan gods or have lost their nerve and given up, the good King Josiah has to search for a prophet who can help interpret the Law of Moses so that they can get the nation back on track, and it suddenly flips into the perspective of Huldah the prophetess.

She plays a pivotal role in bringing the nation back to the Lord after years of rebellion and wickedness reigning supreme.

Women Leading Worship and Preserving Songs

In the same way, it’s easy to miss, but in Exodus, when the people cross the Red Sea and they reach safety and are able to breathe easy, the worship service that they put on in response to the Lord’s protection and faithfulness is led by Miriam, who was also a prophet.

The lines of the song that the Israelites were singing came from the mouth of Miriam and were repeated by the people.

We are suddenly jumping into her perspective.

The same thing is true of Deborah’s song in Judges 5, Hannah’s prayer in First Samuel chapter 2, the song of Mary in Luke chapter 1, and onward throughout the four Gospels and the book of Acts.

We constantly jump into the perspective of one of the women who was involved.

Stories involving Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and others are almost certainly told from the perspective of these women as the Gospel writers, such as Mark and Luke, traveled around to gather these eyewitness stories.

The Gospel Writers and Eyewitness Testimony

Even in cases like Matthew and John, which were both written by apostles themselves, they would have almost certainly gone back around and talked to as many of the eyewitnesses as possible to fill in any details they didn’t remember themselves, collect stories they didn’t recall off the top of their heads, and gather additional information from other eyewitnesses in each of the towns that they went to.

Women and the Preservation of the New Testament

But it actually goes even deeper than that because, in a similar way, beyond just co-authoring so many of the stories and playing vital roles in the story at every turn, the preservation of the books of the Bible was also not just something that men did.

Phoebe and the Book of Romans

One major example is the book of Romans.

It’s another thing that we often just kind of miss or unintentionally gloss over, but Paul says in Romans 16 that the person delivering this letter to the churches in Rome is a woman named Phoebe.

He mentions that she is a deacon at the church in Cenchreae, so she is one of the leaders in that church, and she is presumably one of his disciples as well, since she is playing this role delivering the letter.

Why Delivering a Letter Mattered

The reason is because, in the ancient world, they didn’t have the U.S. Postal Service like we do, which, for all the problems that it does have, still pretty reliably gets mail delivered from point A to point B in a relatively timely manner, so that you can more or less guarantee that most of the things that you send in the mail today are going to reach their destination.

It wasn’t like that in the ancient world.

In the ancient world, you had to find someone that you could trust completely, with zero reservations, to do absolutely everything that was necessary in order to deliver the mail that you were sending because the only way to actually get it delivered was to board one boat after another, which you could only do during certain seasons because during some months the waves would be so intense that it was almost impossible to do anything by sea travel, and then trek along as many difficult, rocky, dangerous roads, mountain passes, and so on as necessary in order to get to the destination, all while avoiding thieves, kidnappers, and others who may be laying in wait to ambush them and steal whatever they have on them, as well as small villages that would be instinctively hostile because, in the ancient world, they distrusted strangers and out-of-towners by default and especially hated foreigners.

The list goes on.

In other words, you would have to send any letters with someone you had complete faith in to overcome every single one of those obstacles and faithfully finish the task.

More Than a Mail Carrier

But it was even more important in the case of Paul’s letters, like the letter to the Romans, because what we know from history is that with biblical letters like the letters of Paul, Peter, James, John, Jude, and so forth, the people who delivered the letters were not just sent to drop off the letter and then leave.

Their job was to go to each of the churches in the town, read the letter out loud to the congregation, and then explain the letter they were delivering in full detail and depth to make absolutely sure that everyone in the congregation understood it as well as they possibly could.

Then they would help the congregation copy down the letter as many times as they could so that they would have extra copies in case the government ever showed up to confiscate whatever books of Scripture they had, as well as to pass additional copies of the letter along to other churches that they knew in nearby towns.

Phoebe’s Responsibility

So Phoebe has a huge responsibility here.

She is responsible for making sure the letter gets to the Romans in the first place.

Then she is responsible for essentially doing an in-depth, weeks- or months-long expository Bible study on the letter of Romans with each of the Roman churches.

Then she is responsible for making sure they copy it down as many times as they possibly can with as many of the literate church members as they have and then spreading it to as many other churches as they possibly can.

We don’t know exactly who was responsible for delivering every other one of the letters of the New Testament, but there is no reason to assume that Phoebe or one of the other many women who were disciples of Paul and others did not also fulfill this role in other cases, which means that women like Phoebe are part of why we have the books of the Bible today.

Paul may have been the author of the book of Romans, but he entrusted Phoebe with the responsibility of making sure the book of Romans was both delivered to its destination and then copied again and again and disseminated to other churches to copy as well so that it could eventually be collected together with the rest of the writings of the apostles into the New Testament.

Other Women Who Helped Preserve the Faith

Beyond that, the same thing is true not only of Phoebe, but also of so many of the other early church leaders, like Priscilla, Lydia, Nympha, Apphia, Mary the mother of James and John, and others.

Lydia

Lydia was one of the leaders of the Philippian church that came to be in Acts 16, and she would have likewise been responsible for making sure the book of Philippians was copied down and spread and collected together with the rest of the writings that today make up the New Testament.

Nympha

Nympha was one of the leaders of the church in Colossae and would have been responsible for ensuring that the book of Colossians was preserved and passed on.

Mary, the Mother of John Mark

Mary, the mother of John Mark—there were a lot of Marys back in the day—was hosting a group of believers in her house in Acts chapter 12, which usually meant that the church met in her house, which likewise usually meant that she was probably one of the leaders in that church because churches almost always met in the house of one of the leaders.

Junia

The same thing would have been true for a very important early church leader named Junia, who Paul refers to in Romans 16 as an apostle, and specifically a particularly outstanding apostle.

He’s not using the term apostle in the sense that she is one of the Twelve, of course, but in the early church they used the term apostle to describe what we today often refer to as a missionary church planter, essentially someone who goes to a place where the gospel has not reached yet, begins evangelizing people, making converts, and then discipling them, training them in the faith, raising them up to maturity, and forming them into a church.

So Junia was one of the many missionaries and church planters during the New Testament era who would form churches in people’s homes, train them in how to follow Jesus and how to teach and lead others, so she could eventually move on to another place and do it all over again.

In that process, she would have been responsible not only for teaching them the Scriptures that they already had, but also for ensuring that they received copies of as many of the Gospel accounts and New Testament letters as possible, which they, as always, would then copy down to make even more copies of so they could then spread them to even more churches in nearby towns and areas.

Why Some Ancient Christian Writings Were Rejected

Ironically, these women and others like them are a major part of why today books like the Gospel of Mary and others that claim to be accounts by these early Christian women are not in our Bibles.

There is a common myth—we see it in movies like The Da Vinci Code and in some History Channel documentaries and other things like that—that claims there were other books written by women and about women, but that they were hidden by the church or the government because they wanted to keep women down.

But the reason that these books are not in our Bibles today is not because they used to be part of the collection but were removed by powerful men later.

It’s because they were never preserved and collected with the authentic writings in the first place.

The reason we have Romans is because women like Phoebe made sure it was delivered, preserved, copied, and passed on, but books like the Gospel of Mary were not written by actual eyewitnesses of Jesus, and they especially were not written by Mary.

They were written hundreds of years later by people who never met Jesus, never knew Mary, and were part of cult-like groups that actively broke away from the true churches and often attacked the apostles and spread lies about Jesus.

The Apocrypha and the Deuterocanonical Books

There are books like the Apocryphal books, or the Deuterocanonical books.

Those are two different names for the same thing.

They refer to books that both Catholic and some Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, and other groups consider to be divinely inspired.

These are books like the Book of Judith, or the Book of Tobit, or the Wisdom of Solomon, or Sirach, and others.

These are books that the earliest Christians considered to be very helpful and filled with wisdom that were great for Christians to read and learn from, but that they did not consider to be divinely inspired.

One of the fundamental disagreements between Protestant groups, such as Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Presbyterians, non-denominational Christians, and so forth on the one hand, versus Catholic or Orthodox groups on the other hand, is whether or not these books are divinely inspired.

Are the Apocryphal Books Worth Reading?

The Apocryphal books are actually pretty great.

They’re definitely worth reading for anyone who has the time.

There’s a lot of fantastic stuff to be found in them.

But they didn’t grow to be considered divinely inspired until much, much later in history.

The Protestant Canon

The 66 books that make up the Protestant canon of the Bible are the 66 books that all Christians everywhere have essentially agreed on throughout history.

They are the 66 books that the earliest Christians made abundantly clear to be authentic writings from the apostles and the prophets.

Why Some Books Were Rejected

The Apocryphal books that Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians also include are books that the earliest Christians seemed to see as good, worthwhile, and beneficial, but not divinely inspired, kind of the way that we would see a very good Christian book today.

The books that were rejected or ignored, such as the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and so on and so forth, are books that the earliest Christians very quickly spotted as forgeries written in order to deceive God’s flock and therefore never bothered to preserve in the first place.

You can find the fragments that are left of them online, but the evidence very strongly suggests that they are not real accounts from real witnesses, but that they are fake writings written essentially by con artists or cult leaders.

The Big Picture

I know that this is very long, but the big picture is that, although it takes a little bit of looking, we can absolutely hear from the women of the Bible without having to try to find other writings that may have been lost or suppressed because, from the very beginning, even though so much of our culture ignores women—even so many churches, so many pulpits, so many preachers and teachers, and beyond ignore women—the God who created women does not.

Mary and Martha

I think it’s especially important.

While Martha is playing her culturally assigned role as homemaker and caretaker, furiously trying to make food and everything else, Mary is doing something her culture forbade.

She is sitting at the feet of Jesus, the rabbi, which was taboo at that time because women were not permitted to sit at the feet of a rabbi.

Sitting at a rabbi’s feet implied that you intended to become his disciple, which implied that you intended to grow into a rabbi of some sort yourself, which was forbidden to women in that culture at that time.

So Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus, essentially signaling that she wants to be His disciple and follow in His footsteps.

Martha yells at her and tells her to get back in her place and start making food and washing dishes like her culture told her to, but Jesus says she’s doing exactly what she should be doing.

She is exactly where she belongs.

The Proverbs 31 Woman

Interestingly enough, although it is kind of a cliché by this point, I think it is worth really diving deep into Proverbs 31, which is famously the godly woman poem that we hear often on Mother’s Day and in sermons about biblical womanhood and other things like that.

One of the things that we once again often inadvertently gloss over or ignore unintentionally is how different the Proverbs 31 woman actually looks from what we tend to think of as a woman in her place.

Common Cultural Assumptions

We’re often told that a woman’s place is to stay out of business, stay out of public life, let men handle the finances, don’t own property, don’t engage in commerce, don’t make major decisions, don’t be in charge of employees, don’t manage wealth, and don’t do anything except be barefoot, pregnant, and waiting at home for your man with a forced smile on your face that never says no to any of his whims.

What Proverbs 31 Actually Describes

Proverbs 31 describes this image of a godly woman as using her own wisdom to evaluate a real estate opportunity, deciding whether it’s worthwhile, then purchasing it as her own property, then turning it into an income-producing asset.

She is literally investing in a resource and then turning it into an independent income source.

She is straight-up starting a business, and her godly husband supports her in that, helps her however he can, and is excited to see her spreading her wings.

Then it says she runs multiple businesses, produces goods for the market, figures out how supply chains work, finds a customer base, interfaces with merchants, oversees production and distribution, and it says she literally manages employees.

She’s the administrator over a fine linen business, delegating tasks, supervising people who need help, and directing resources.

It says that she then goes out and is a well-known, important, influential member of the community in the public sphere, where she buys land and plants vineyards and trades with merchants and sells products and beyond, and that her strength and independence actually benefit her husband’s work as well.

Strength, Influence, and Leadership

Verse 23 says her husband is known in the city gates implicitly because of her.

The city gates were where the government was situated in the ancient world, meaning, in other words, that because of her strength and independence, her husband and her whole family are growing increasingly powerful and influential in the city and even in government.

It even says that she is physically strong.

In verse 17 it says she girds her loins with strength and strengthens her arms, which would have been very strange the first time you ever heard it as a person living in the ancient world because, in the ancient world, they believed that women were meant to be weak, fragile, and helpless, and that men were supposed to essentially be an external source of protection for them because they were meant to be the strength, the income, the power, and the influence, while women were simply meant to be delicate, easily breakable, but beautiful and dependent on their husbands.

But the image that Proverbs 31 casts of what a godly woman looks like is the complete opposite.

Conclusion

That’s a long side digression, but the point is that although we have been practically trained to miss or even ignore these things, the Bible is actually packed full of God’s heart for women, His compassion on women, and the reality that He sees women, cares for them, wants what is good for them, and has made them to be strong, dignified, capable, resilient, wise, intelligent, and brave.

There is a lot more that we could talk about, but we can focus on whatever you specifically have questions about if you want to dive deeper into any of these things!