Yeshua/Jesus and the women

Our “Round Table” series has been using the name “Yeshua” instead of Jesus in most cases. Why? As we know, most of the people who came to live in the lands we call home were not English, but we have English names mostly. That is the mark of a conquered people, to have their names reshaped in their conqueror’s tongue.{{more}} So out of respect and as a way of getting closer to the meanings of the original times, it is the Hebrew Yeshua-Yahweh is salvation that we will use, rather than the conqueror’s Latin -> Greek -> English term, Jesus. While Jesus has an acceptable sound, Yeshua has meaning.

In this week’s Round Table, we reveal that our reporter in Palestine, who is investigating the Yeshua events, is a woman. Her report #4 today breaks the silence around women and Yeshua in the movement to Calvary and beyond.

The Report

When Yeshua carried out his message around the districts of Galilee, his gospel theme was “Make Room for God’s Community/Reign.” His campaign message, his teaching about righteous relationships, his perspective on the prophets and the Torah, accompanied by his deliverance from suffering and his street fellowship excited the people. They gathered around him, and his openness to women drew them into his movement. It was such a novel momentum that pulled people to join Yeshua, working women and middle class women together made the gospel tours, demonstrating a new type of community/reign where women were not sexual victims or pretty objects of the Empire or perpetual housemaids. The female members of Yeshua’s movement were gospel agents on a mission of renewal and liberation.

What then do we discern about sexual relations in the Yeshua, Son of Man teaching and practice? The women speak of a release from male pressure and a new self-respect. “I feel a new ability to be tender and compassionate towards others without guilt or shame”, was how one woman put it. Another woman tells how Yeshua told the disciples that “to look at a woman with the desire to possess her is already to commit adultery.” His example was not to possess, but to cherish others and that is how we tried to treat him too.