4:16 He said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.” 4:17 The woman replied, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’ 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”

To what extent (if any) is Jesus being critical of this woman’s morality?

And to what extent (if any) are commentators quilty of slander when they comment adversely on her sexual history?

Gail R. O’Day

Writing in the Women’s Bible Commentary, Gail R. O’Day criticises ‘many’ commentators for raising questions about this woman’s moral character.  In doing so, says O’Day, they attempt to ‘delegitimize’ the woman as a recipient of the gospel.

Unfortunately, this writer does not provide any evidence to support her criticism of the ‘many’ commentators.  Nor does she seem to understand that it would be a very ignorant commentator indeed who thought that dubious morality ‘delegitimized’ anyone as a recipient of the gospel, for such a commentator would have to ignore the entire tenor of Jesus’ teaching and ministry, summed up in the saying, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners”.  Furthermore, there is a question about the woman’s morality, and this is pinpointed by our Lord, when he says to her, “The man you now have is not your husband.”  This question about her morality (though not dwelt upon by Jesus) is also hinted at in the fact that she was visiting the well alone (suggesting that she was a social outcast), and the fact that she hid the fact that she was living with a man who was not her husband.

Meredith J.C. Warren

More radical yet is the view of Meredith J. C. Warren, who avers that:

‘Receptions of the passage as inclusive often perpetuate the tendency known as slut-shaming, a tactic frequently employed to denigrate women and police their sexualities.’

Such ‘slut-shaming’ techniques, claims Warren, are ‘common’ both in scholarly and popular works on this passage, and are also employed by the biblical author.  To claim that this passage demonstrates an ‘inclusive’ reading is to run the risk of engaging in the same ‘slut-shaming’ that is present in the text itself.

Warren claims that:

‘The Samaritan woman’s Otherness—in terms of her gender, her Samaritan identity, and, most importantly of her sexual history—is exploited in order to portray Jesus as generous and benevolent.’

In Warren’s own words, her essay:

‘investigates the many levels at which the Samaritan woman has been slut-shamed, contributing to the prevalence of rape culture in biblical interpretation. I will demonstrate how past readings of Jesus and the Samaritan woman tend to gloss over how slut-shaming occurs in the text, and how they even reinforce the slut-shaming performed by Jesus in their own comments on John 4, or try to apologise for the woman’s sexual history by providing alternate, sociallyacceptable justification for the number of her partners. After contextualizing the Samaritan woman’s sexuality through the lenses of slut-shaming and the femme fatale, I conclude by connecting scholarly approaches to the Samaritan woman’s promiscuity to issues of rape culture and sexism in the field of biblical studies as a discipline.’

According to Warren, the claim that Jesus ‘hung out’ or dined with sex workers is not supported by the biblical text (Lk 7:37 not excepted).  When he is described as fraternising with ‘sinners’, this is:

‘always used as a hyperbolic insult designed to denigrate Jesus’s opponents; it is not a rallying cry to inclusivity.’

Jesus is not arguing for inclusion, but rather he is:

‘using women, sinners, and tax collectors to shame his real interlocutors.’

Moreover, this claim that Jesus hung out with sex workers does nothing to recognise:

‘the autonomy, humanity, or acceptability of sex work itself.’

What the text does, along with many of its commentators, is to engage in sexual slander of the woman on account of her many sexual partners.  What is represented by many scholars as acceptance of the woman on Jesus’ part is actually (says Warren) disdain: he rudely sexualises her in the midst of a conversation with her.  And such an attitude of ‘slut-shaming’, as perpetuated by scholarship, ‘is but one part of systematic rape culture in the guild.’

The commentator may seek to affirm or even amplify Jesus’ ‘slut-shaming’, or, alternatively, defend the woman’s sexual history as normative or even virtuous.  Either way, it is done in public, for both the biblical text and the biblical commentary are in the public domain.

Warren cites a number of scholars as shaming the woman in some way:

• Brown comments adversely on the number of marriages (five).
• Zahm comments on her ‘immoral life’.
• Neyrey suggests that her currect relationship is one of adultery or concubinage.
• Along with others, Eslinger thinks that this episode is very similar to well-side betrothal scenes.  Eslinger sees the entire conversation as flirtatious and full of double entrendres.  Jesus seeks to end the flirtation (and showcase her promiscuity) by asking the woman to fetch her husband.
• Some feminist commentators seek to rehabilitate the woman, pointing out that she is an equal conversation partner, that the text imputes neither sin nor shame to her, and that Jesus does not call her to repent.  But (says Warren), these attempts at rehabilitaton serve to reinforce sexual norms within the boundaries of heterosexual marriage.

This women is presented in the text as an unashamd femme fatale.  The woman refuses to be shamed by Jesus.  But she is disappointed that what started out as an intellectual conversation between equals becomes (yet another?) evaluation of her personal life.  This is matched by commentators’ ‘gleeful horror’ as they describe her sexual history.  And it is mirrored in contemporary anxieties about ‘women’s liberation and independence from men and the heteronormative family unit’.

Scholars have been pre-occupied with either pointing out this woman’s sexual past or by seeking to minimise it.  She is a threat to our assumptions about Jesus: ‘his singleness, his celibacy, his open-armed acceptance of all types of people, his divinity.’  By ‘slut-shaming’ the woman we excuse Jesus’ rudeness towards her.  It is notable that, according to Jn 4:28f, many Samaritans from her community believed her testimony, appearing not to be bothered by her sexual past.

In conclusion:

Attempts to present Jesus as wholly inclusive or tolerant lack convincing evidence.

Any proposed dichotomy between the OT (an intolerant and violent God – see, eg, Judges 19) and the NT (God and Jesus are loving and kind) runs into difficulties on this reading.

Inherited assumptions about Jesus’ unfailingly kind attitude towards women are hereby undermined.

‘Slut-shaming’ is on the spectrum of sexual violence and perpetuates rape culture:

‘When women in control of their own sexual and marital choices and pleasures are seen as shameful, then gendered violence that befalls them is depicted as a consequence of their own moral failure, or even as “deserved.”’

One step forward would be to question the systems and processes whereby we seek to protect and prioritise the reputation of Jesus.

Response

It will come as no surprise to my readers that I have multiple problems with these perspectives – particularly that of Warren.  She appears to deny even Jesus the right to comment adversely on a woman’s sexual history.

But the question remains, in this narrative, whether Jesus does, in fact, comment adversely on her sexual past.  Related to this is the question of what the commentators have to say about this.

A central claim of both O’Day and Warren is that this Samaritan woman has been slandered – both at the popular and the academic level – by commentators who raise questions about her moral character.

Given the nature of her work within a one-volume Bible commentary, I would not expect O’Day to give us much by way references to those she criticises.  But I would expect Warren – in a focussed academic article – to provide better support for her contention.  Of the authors she cites, I only recognised one name – that of Raymon Brown – as a representative of main-stream biblical commentary.

So, what do the commentators say?

Some ancient commentators regarded the ‘five husband’s as symbolic of the Five Books of Moses (the only part of the Torah which the Samaritans accepted).  Augustine regards them as symbolising the five senses, and the last man referred to – not yet her husband – as the Holy Spirit.  According to Ryle, Euthymius refers to the view that the woman  typifies human nature, that the five husbands five different dispensations, and that the man with whom she now lived the law of Moses.  Origen says something similar.

A futher symbolic interpretation understands the ‘five husbands’ to represent the gods worshipped by the Samaritans (2 Kgs 17:29–34).

All such spiritualising of the text is unwarranted, but it least it does exonorate the commentator from any accusations of moral judgmentalism.

Matthew Poole thinks that she had been divorced by her previous husbands because of adultery or something similarly serious, and that our Lord does not regard her present partner as her husband because her previous husbands were still alive.

Ryle’s own view is that the woman had probably been divorced by prevous husbands because of adultery, and that she was in adultery at the present time.

Cullman (Early Christian Worship) says that there are references, in the conversation between Jesus and the woman, to baptism.  Therefore, it is possible that Jesus is exposing the sinfulness of her former life.  But this is by no means certain, because ‘in the text itself there is no mention of sin’.

Barrett:

‘It is possible (a) that the woman had had five legal husbands who had died or divorced her, and that she was now living with a man to whom she was not legally married; (b) that she was now living with a man who was legally her husband, according to Mosaic law but not according to Christian standards (Mark 10:11f. and parallels). It is to be noted that the Rabbis did not approve of more than three marriages, though any number was legally admissible (S.B. II, 437). It does not seem probable that John’s intention is to show that, though both are now transcended, the Samaritans are morally inferior to the Jews. In fact, it is quite possible, and may well be right, to take these words as a simple statement of fact, and an instance of the supernatural knowledge of Jesus (cf. 1:48); this view is supported by v. 29 (πάντα ἃ ἐποίησα).’

F.D. Bruner cautions against harsh judgement of this woman’s sexual history:

‘It is not necessary, and it can even be insensitive to paint the woman’s moral life with lurid colors. It is as possible that she was as much or more the victim of thoughtless men’s divorces or of tragic men’s deaths as that she was an immoral waistrel herself. We simply do not know the details, and in their absence Jesus’ courtesy may be the best policy for church interpretation as well…Only Jesus’ last observation, that the man she is now living with is not her husband (he is someone else’s), which Jesus’ sentence emphasizes, marks her as a guilty person. Objectively, therefore, I think we can fairly say that in the eyes of her culturally conditioned readers she will seem to be second-class not only in gender and nationality but also in morality. At best, I think, her moral situation may be described as irregular or unusual.’

Kanagaraj (New Covenant Commentary):

‘Some argue that the woman might not have been an “immoral person,” for she might have married five husbands who all died in succession, or she might have divorced her previous husbands, or they might have divorced her one by one. However, the woman’s plain statement “I have no husband,” while she had a man whom she could not call her husband, makes this conjecture unacceptable. The word “now having” is deliberate to indicate that she was not living with a legally married person. In conformity with the oriental view on morality, the Samaritans also must have considered frequent remarriages as dishonorable and illegitimate. Jesus touched the core of her life because he wished to give eternal life to the marginalized woman and admit her into God’s new community.’

So much for attempting to ‘”delegitimize” the woman as a recipient of the gospel’!

Kruse maintains that the main focus of the passage is not moral, but relational:

‘It seems Jesus’ intention in mentioning these things was not to create a sense of guilt, but to confront the pain in her relationships with men. This would accentuate her thirst for a meaningful relationship with God and make her receptive to the revelation he was offering her.’

Grant Osborne:

‘Her five marriages probably included several divorces. Judaism did not prohibit divorce but generally allowed only two or three marriages for women (so Schnackenburg). If this was true of the Samaritans, she was immoral for the number of her husbands as well as for her current living arrangement.’