Turid Karlsen Seim,
The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke & Acts.
Abingdon. 1994.
Reviewed by Robert M. Price
Are
the Lukan writings, which constitute so large a slice of the New
Testament canon, pro-women or anti-women? That is, in terms of the
contemporary discussion, does Luke-Acts foster the equality of women
in church life and ministry, or does the work impede such equality?
For a long time, traditionalist exegetes saw "the ladies" in Luke-Acts
in sentimental, patronizing terms. More recently, feminist exegetes
have appealed to Luke's depiction of women in roles of religious
service as evidence for a "discipleship of equals" in sectarian early
Christianity. But no matter which side of the debate one seeks to
recruit Luke-Acts for, the book remains an ambiguous witness, as when
“Jane Roe” allowed herself to be placed before the cameras as the
newest protege of anti-abortion forces but then admitted she still
didn't exactly opposed all abortions. Oops. Turid Karlsen Seim joins
with the most recent group of exegetes who realize Luke is not that
easily pigeon-holed. His texts point in opposite (or at least
disparate) directions. Seim carefully delineates the stance of Luke as
the inheritor of traditions depicting the Christlike service of women,
and as an ecclesiastical theorist for whom women are disqualified from
holding positions of church authority. Luke seems to make it about as
explicit as he can that the ministering women from Galilee lived out
the ideal of the disciple who follows Jesus and donates worldly
possessions for the upkeep of the apostolic "poor." And Luke makes
equally clear that leaders of the church are to emulate Jesus, who
came among his people not as the one served but as their servant. What
comes next? We would expect that the women, having been positioned for
the job, would be celebrated as leaders of the early church. But
instead we see them by-passed in favor of self-important males who
disdain serving at table as their master did; they have more important
things to do, like preaching the word of salvation. Luke tries to
camouflage the abrupt transition by applying the euphemism "service"
to whatever it is the male apostles are in fact shown doing.
Similarly, Seim shows how Luke hermetically seals off the home as the
place where women may minister and prophesy, while the public sphere
is the domain of men and male leadership. Ironically, Luke shows a
gradual transition from public spaces (temple and synagogue) to
house-church as the center of Christian activity, but this does not
lead to the conclusion we would have anticipated, that women's
leadership grows more important. Just the opposite. Seim argues that
Luke probably did not even intend the reader to imagine the presence
of women in his public crowd-preaching scenes. When he has Peter say
"Men and brethren," he means it! As Origen and the Princeton
theologians of the last century argued, even women's prophecy was
exercised only in the home. In short, Luke, as Seim paints him, was
pretty much like that first group of exegetes who saw Luke as putting
women on display in a gilded cage.
Whence
the double message? Seim seems to view Luke as some "biblical
feminists" view Paul, as someone who could not help appreciating the
leadership gifts of women and their equality in the gospel, but just
could not see his way past traditional male chauvinism. Pretty much
like the Pope. The ambivalence must be traced back to Luke himself,
not just to his preservation of traditions ill-suited to his
redactional purpose (the approach I take in The Widow Traditions in
Luke-Acts: A Feminist-Critical Scrutiny, Scholars Press, 1997),
Seim argues, because the portrait he paints of the Galilean women,
idealizing them, seems to be his own work.
The
Double Message is fascinating not only above but equally below the
footnote line. Her (polite) critiques of Ben Witherington (the
Benjamin Warfield of our generation) on the right and of Luise
Schottroff, Bernadette Brooten, and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza on
the left are consistently informative and illuminating. Must we
understand the Mary versus Martha pericope as a discussion of the
diaconate of women? Only if we can be sure it reflects some uniform
ecclesiastical terminology, ands we can't. Can we be sure that Phoebe
or female synagogue patronesses were more than big donors? Not without
more evidence than we have.
Seim's
is a rewarding study written from an informed and independent
perspective. It is as resistant to stereotype categorization as
Luke-Acts itself, and that is much to its credit.