Was Jesus Egalitarian?
We had a chance to sit down with Professor Amy-Jill Levine and get her thoughts on Jesus and women. We began with one question, “Was Jesus egalitarian?” Please, leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Interesting post. However, while I am sure that the the celibacy of Jesus was striking, and perhaps anomolous, the idea that the whole circle surrounding Jesus was celibate runs into difficulties with the mention of Peter’s mother-in-law in Luke 4:38? Also 1 Cor 9:5, which seems to suggest that a number of the apostles,including Peter, had wives?
Jesus did say that divorce was possible for reasons of adultery (I believe in Matthew). Also, the apostles, at least in Peter’s case, was/were NOT celibate. Peter was clearly married. I think the fact that Jesus hung around sinners, at least in the eyes of the public, like today, people on welfare, LGBT, and so forth, means that Jesus was closer to egalitarian than libertarian, which is the contrast. It isn’t that one is egalitarian or not. The contrast is libertarian, and Jesus was NOT libertarian. Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s — and Rome was certainly not a democratic power.