Episode #89 - What Jesus Learned From Women with Dr. James F. McGrath

The Two Cities

In this episode we’re talking about What Jesus Learned From Women with Dr. James F. McGrath, who is Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, the host of a podcast called ReligionProf, and the author of the book that we’re discussing here, What Jesus Learned From Women (published by Cascade). Dr. McGrath’s thesis is that there are many women in the Gospels who teach Jesus various things. Acknowledging that this is a controversial claim (depending on one’s Christology), Dr. McGrath begins by noting that Jesus obviously learned from Mary, his mother, and that there are other scenes that scholars have pointed to, such as the interaction with the Syrophoenician Woman, as discrete examples of Jesus learning from women. McGrath’s book seeks to build upon those examples and draw together all possible instances of Jesus learning from women presented to us in the Gospels. In our conversation we discuss Mary Magdalene, Jesus' grandmother, the woman caught in adultery, and the woman at the well in particular. When set in modern conversations about gender, Dr. McGrath concludes from this analysis that if Jesus was a feminist at all, he was not a twenty-first century feminist, but rather a first-century Jewish feminist. Thus, Jesus shouldn’t be read as being outside of a patriarchal Jewish perspective. Rather, his views on women arise out of that Jewish context and influence. Team members on episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. Josh Carroll, Dr. John Anthony Dunne, and Dr. Chris Porter.

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