lesson four
What may we read into Jesus’ omitting women from the apostolic twelve?

• read the narration column first
• then do the exercises

1. The traditional position: ‘Jesus himself excluded women’

The Congregation for Doctrine in Rome maintains that the omission of women from the Twelve was a deliberate act by Jesus. For, they contend, Jesus’ general openness to women shows that he did in this not yield to social opinions of the time. Read the official text here.

When omitting women, they maintain, Jesus established a permanent norm. It barred women from ordination for all time to come. Read the official text here.

Jesus called twelve men to be his first apostles (Matthew 10,1-4). Did he thereby exclude women for all time?

Before starting the discussion proper, remember the ‘rules’ of Scripture interpretation we considered in Unit 2. In particular, we need to be aware of two principles:

1. the difference between the ‘literal’ meaning and the ‘literalist’ meaning;
2. that ‘literary forms’ should be taken into account.

Exercise 1

Find examples in the Gospels of Jesus, as a human person, being influenced by the culture of his time.

Exercise 2

What is the relevance to our discussion of Jesus' promise of the Spirit to lead the future Church 'into the full truth' (John 16, 12- 13)?

Exercise 3

Take one of Jesus’ parables in which men dominate as head of the family, and demonstrate its context as originating from the prevailing social customs of Jesus’ time.
Rewrite the parable for the 21st century.

2. Tackling the question itself

1. The omission of a woman from the twelve is a non-fact. The NON-FACT of Jesus not having chosen women among the twelve apostles does not prove that he decided against them for ever.

2. We should also remember that Jesus, though the incarnate Son of God, was also human. We may not read the Gospels without taking this background picture into account. As a human being who had to deal with the specific human situation of his time, he was limited by what he could or could not do during the few years of his public ministry.

It is simply not true that Jesus could overthrow in one blow all the deeply-engrained prejudices of Old Testament culture and religion. This meant, with regard to the case at hand, that it was normal for him to choose men as his first twelve symbolic companions. By this, however, he did not want to lay down a norm that had to be followed for all time to come.

The following readings expand on this:

• Jesus possessed many of our human limitations. Click here!
  
  
• He had to learn and discover new things as we have to do. He shared the knowledge and the ignorance of his contemporaries. Only in that way did he become truly like us. Click here!
  
  
• Like all of us, Jesus had to grow in character, maturity and the understanding of his own mission. Click here!
  
  
• We can, therefore, understand that Jesus did not and could not solve all the important questions that would face his Church in the future, such as the inclusion of women in the ministry. Click here!

3. Moreover, there was a perfectly simple explanation for having only men among the Twelve. For these Twelve were obviously meant to contrast with the twelve sons of Jacob who were the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Only twelve men could express this symbol -- a symbol which bridged the old and new covenants. Read the text in Mark 3,13-19.

3. What do scholars say about it? - Readings

Readings 1. Some scholars agree with the Vatican interpretation: Jesus did not want women to exercise religious leadership in his Church, they say.

• ‘The Theological Case Against Women's Ordination’, S. Atkins, OWPC 1975, pp. 18-28.
• ‘Christian Priesthood and Women’, by Louis Bouyer, MWP 1978, pp. 63-67.
• ‘Man, Woman, and the Priesthood of Christ’, Bishop K. Ware, MWP 1978, pp. 68-90.

Readings 2. The majority of scholars reject this interpretation. Jesus did not exclude women from future leadership in his Church, they say. Read at least three of these texts:

• ‘The Scriptural Argument in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’, R. Bieringer, Bijdragen 62 (2001) pp. 129 - 142;
• “The twelve apostles were men - -”, I. Raming, Orientierung 56 (1992) pp. 143-146.
• ‘Did Christ conform to social myth?’, J. Wijngaards, DCROWP 1986, pp. 36-46.
• ‘The Ministry of Women according to the New Testament’, E. M. Tetlow, WMNT 1980, ch. 3.
• ‘The Role of Women According to Jesus and the Early Church’, R. J. Karris, WPFD 1978, pp. 47-57.
• ‘The Biblical Evidence’, Ch. Evans, YWP 1978, pp. 16-29.
• ‘The Twelve’, E. Schüssler Fiorenza, WP 1977, pp. 114-121.
• ‘Did Jesus Exclude Women from Priesthood?’, S. M. Schneiders, WP 1977, pp.227-233.
• ‘Pro and Con: The Ordination of Women in the New Testament’, R. H. Fuller, TNTO 1976, pp. 1-11.
• ‘Christ, Revelation, and the Ordination of Women’, A. A. Vogel, TNTO 1976, pp. 42-51.
• ‘The Authority of Scripture’, P. Lakeland, CWBP 1975, pp. 31-46.
• ‘Women and Ministry’, E. Carroll, Theological Studies 36 (1975) pp. 660 - 687.
• ‘Holy Scripture’, H. van der Meer, WPCC 1973, pp. 10-45.

Conclusion

It is not legitimate to interpret the omission of women from the twelve apostles as a permanent norm excluding women from Christian ministries for all time to come.