Abstract
The question mark in the book’s title (drawn from Luke 1:42) creates ambiguity between the phrases “Blessed among Women” and “Mothers and Motherhood in the New Testament,” thereby challenging the notion that motherhood is a requirement for being blessed. Myers deftly explores this ambiguity by reading New Testament (NT) passages about motherhood, childbearing, and breastfeeding within the broader context of ancient Mediterranean philosophical, anatomical, and medical texts. Now available in a more affordable paperback edition, the book seeks to problematize…simple acceptance of maternal motifs in the NT by using gender analysis to uncover the ambivalence toward mothers and motherhood that was common in the ancient Mediterranean world and that is repeatedly reflected in the NT writings. (p. 3)
The NT and ancient Mediterranean texts share a gendered anthropology. Masculinity, which is viewed as superior to femininity, is valued for its orderliness, rationality, and control, which represent perfection, whereas femininity, an inferior later creation with a tendency toward vice, is valued for its reproductive ability and needs male control as depicted in the stories of Eve and Pandora and in the interpretation of these stories. In ancient Mediterranean texts, the ultimate end or purpose (telos) of men is perfection, and the telos of women is the perpetuation of men via women’s reproductive capacity. Myers rightly argues that the telos of men and women is subverted in the NT and early Christian writings. Mary’s blessedness is not a result of her maternity or motherhood (as reflected in the book’s subtitle) but rather of her obedience to God, which becomes the telos of all people, regardless of their gender.
The origin stories of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John “reflect the common belief of their time that life and rationality were imparted and maintained by the pneuma” or spirit (p. 74). In Matthew and Luke, Mary is visited by God’s Holy Spirit (pneuma). This spirit is manifest in Jesus throughout his life, and in the book of Acts, he imparts this same spirit (pneuma) upon his followers. The gospel of John, which is very different from the other three canonical gospels, describes Jesus as the masculine, rational, and eternal logos.
Salvation, the telos for early Christian women, is realized in a new way, not just through marriage and childbirth (as in 1 Timothy, Titus, Colossians, and Ephesians) but also by the rejection of marriage and childbirth and submission to the heavenly Paterfamilias and his Son (as in 1 Peter, the Acts of Andrew, and the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas). As Myers notes, “new families of believers were formed based not on biological or household relationships, but on shared confessions of Jesus as God’s Christ” (p. 15). This was true for women and men.
Chapter 4 (“Taste that the Lord is Good! Breastmilk and Character Formation in the New Testament”) is the most groundbreaking and thought-provoking section of the book. Myers again analyzes relevant ancient texts and applies her analysis to relevant NT passages. In ancient Mediterranean texts, breast milk is described as inseminated menstrual blood ready for consumption after birth; as such, it contains character-forming features. The NT draws on this understanding of breast milk in passages where the Apostle Paul becomes a mother to Jesus’s followers, who are begotten by God alone, by feeding or nursing his children (the same Greek words are used in medical texts and in the NT texts) and thereby educating them regarding obedience to God the Father. The gospel of John includes descriptions of Jesus (the logos) feeding his followers with his flesh and blood (an allusion to menstrual blood); it also includes depictions of the “beloved disciple” at the bosom of Jesus.
Myers’s methodology—closely reading biblical texts alongside other contemporaneous texts—can serve as a model for understanding the larger milieu of the Bible. Her conclusions about the fluidity of gender roles of Jesus and early Christians provide “insights into how this fluidity continues in contemporary contexts” (p. 17). The book, with its dense and thorough analysis, is well written and very readable, especially the conclusion, in which the author considers the relevance of her scholarly work for today by reviewing American notions of motherhood. This section of the book would be of particular interest to Affilia readers. Myers joins other scholars in asserting that during and between World War I and World War II, women’s autonomy was encouraged; however, after World War II, there was a resurgence of masculinity and more rigid understandings of masculinity and femininity, understandings which were closer to ancient Mediterranean understandings with men expected to function in the public sphere while women were confined to the privacy of their homes. In the past few decades, gender fluidity has become more accepted, a welcome trend that hearkens back to some early Christian texts.
