I learn things here that i have never found anywhere else. My heart & world are expanding & the history i learned decades ago, what little there was of it, has been proven untrue just as at one time the world was disproven flat. Ignorance is not bliss in many many situations.. this wisdom shared will be absorbed, spread & more love will flow if we all just open our minds & hearts to absorb TRUTH IF WE LISTEN.
VMB, thank you for another genuinely fruitful exposition on early Islam, the fascinatingly complex role of women in shaping Islamic tradition, and humanization of Aisha. As I've said before, she and Miryam ha-Magdelah both deserve much more to be written about their contributions to these two faith traditions.
I did, however, wish to ask if you could clarify what you said regarding Yehoshua:
"The Gospels show [Jesus] teaching women openly, defending them against public humiliation, and welcoming them among his followers. Mary Magdalene appears in the resurrection narratives as the first witness to the risen Christ and the one entrusted with announcing the news to the other disciples. Jesus was not establishing a governing society or writing legal codes."
Surely it is true that he taught women, that he defended women in public, that he welcomed them as full, independent members in their own right within his movement. I see firm textual grounding for all of that. What I might suggest is missing, or perhaps misdirected, in this passage is an acknowledgement of the specific legal arguments Yehoshua was advocating and for whom they were most intended to benefit.
Yehoshua specifically rejected the takkanot [legal rulings] regarding divorce, which allowed men to dispossess women of their economic resources without any kind of juridical process. He specifically advised women (namely the many tens of thousands of Galilean widows who had lost husbands from Roman and Herodian violence) on how to legally fight back against Hillelite adjudicators who refused to grant them shemitah under the constitution. He restored women who were considered "ritually unclean" to table fellowship in communities where many dispossessed women were given their "daily bread", literally saving them from starvation. The Jubilee that he called for in towns and homesteads all across the region would have disproportionately improved the lives of women, whose ancestral and familial properties were being foreclosed on through the prosbul and the latifunda at record rates during his lifetime.
As it specifically regards "establishing a governing society" and "writing legal codes", I very much assert that he was doing both of these explicitly.
Very interesting. I've read about this years ago. Early religious movements seem to treat some women as authorities (just as they do some men), but quickly the women's ideas and authority get suppressed.
Beautiful! 🤩
I was today years old…
Women are truly Amazing 🥰💕
Brother V, thank you very much for your teachings, they’ve been a blessing to me — a gift from God.✨
I learn things here that i have never found anywhere else. My heart & world are expanding & the history i learned decades ago, what little there was of it, has been proven untrue just as at one time the world was disproven flat. Ignorance is not bliss in many many situations.. this wisdom shared will be absorbed, spread & more love will flow if we all just open our minds & hearts to absorb TRUTH IF WE LISTEN.
VMB, thank you for another genuinely fruitful exposition on early Islam, the fascinatingly complex role of women in shaping Islamic tradition, and humanization of Aisha. As I've said before, she and Miryam ha-Magdelah both deserve much more to be written about their contributions to these two faith traditions.
I did, however, wish to ask if you could clarify what you said regarding Yehoshua:
"The Gospels show [Jesus] teaching women openly, defending them against public humiliation, and welcoming them among his followers. Mary Magdalene appears in the resurrection narratives as the first witness to the risen Christ and the one entrusted with announcing the news to the other disciples. Jesus was not establishing a governing society or writing legal codes."
Surely it is true that he taught women, that he defended women in public, that he welcomed them as full, independent members in their own right within his movement. I see firm textual grounding for all of that. What I might suggest is missing, or perhaps misdirected, in this passage is an acknowledgement of the specific legal arguments Yehoshua was advocating and for whom they were most intended to benefit.
Yehoshua specifically rejected the takkanot [legal rulings] regarding divorce, which allowed men to dispossess women of their economic resources without any kind of juridical process. He specifically advised women (namely the many tens of thousands of Galilean widows who had lost husbands from Roman and Herodian violence) on how to legally fight back against Hillelite adjudicators who refused to grant them shemitah under the constitution. He restored women who were considered "ritually unclean" to table fellowship in communities where many dispossessed women were given their "daily bread", literally saving them from starvation. The Jubilee that he called for in towns and homesteads all across the region would have disproportionately improved the lives of women, whose ancestral and familial properties were being foreclosed on through the prosbul and the latifunda at record rates during his lifetime.
As it specifically regards "establishing a governing society" and "writing legal codes", I very much assert that he was doing both of these explicitly.
Very interesting. I've read about this years ago. Early religious movements seem to treat some women as authorities (just as they do some men), but quickly the women's ideas and authority get suppressed.