Frauen im Matthäusevangelium – revisited

This article tries to rediscover the role women play in the text of the Gospel of Matthew, in dialogue with former works about women in the Gospel. The focus lies on the way women are presented in the narratives and on the question if their performance in the story identifies them as disciples although they are never called disciples explicitly. Whereas the main story of the gospel has to be called androcentric showing women in stereotypical gender roles, this analysis reveals an underlying counter story that shows women in gender roles unexpected for the time the text was written in. This counter story already starts in the genealogy by breaking through the male line of succession referring to five women. Through the main part of the Gospel several other stories show women in unexpected places and roles. The counter story culminates in the passion and resurrection stories where women take over the main acting parts, instead of the male disciples, thus helping the story to continue.

Norm and Anomaly in the Jewish Life of Jesus (Toledot Yeshu)

The Toledoth Yeshu, the “Generation,” or “Life of Jesus,” have been described as an anti-Gospel, or a parody of the Gospel. This protean tradition, witnessed in more than hundred manuscripts and printed editions, offers a “counter-history” of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity. According to this mischievous narrative Jesus was an illegitimate child turned charlatan, and his disciples a bunch of violent and senseless rogues who continued to stir up trouble in Israel even following their leader’s shameful hanging. The Toledoth Yeshu is the story of an anomaly (Jesus and the birth of Christianity). It is also a story about confusion: marital confusion, social confusion, and religious confusion. As an exercise in “historical imagination,” the Toledoth Yeshu offers a narrative of religions compared, and a reflection on social and religious borders, on their instability and fragility, and ultimately on their necessity. The present paper will explore the normative dimension of the Toledoth Yeshu tradition: the way the “disorder of things” the narrative relates also conveys a powerful discourse on social and religious norms. We will also seek to map this tradition in the broader context of medieval Jewish discussions on Jesus (particularly Maimonides) as a “case” in the religious history of mankind, addressing issues of false prophecy, religious deviation, transgression, and heresy.