The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, by Beth Allison Barr, Brazos Press, 2021.

In chapter 3 of this book (‘Our selective medieval memory’), Beth Allison Barr might be supposed to be on pretty solid ground.  She is, after all, a medieval historian who has a special interest in women preachers of that period.

So who (myself included) is competent to doubt her when she claims that history is on the side of her particular version of egalitarianism?

Well, let’s see where this chapter takes us, and ask how it holds up against biblical teaching and theological reasoning.

The chapter begins with the painful story of her, and her husband’s, challenge to the church they served to allow her to teach high school Sunday school.  My response is one of sorrow, that they were both hurt by this experience.  I also want to object that Barr does not distinguish between different manifestations of complementarianism, allowing the unsuspecting reader to think that it is unvaryingly severe.  But I’m not going to focus on personal experience, but on the historical, biblical and theological argumentation.

As far as biblical argumentation goes, when Dr Barr and others offer Elizabeth, Anna, the woman at the well, and the Canaanite woman as examples of women of character, insight and strength we can wholeheartedly concur.  We agree that

‘Mary Magdalene carried the news of the gospel to the disbelieving disciples. In a world that didn’t accept the word of a woman as a valid witness, Jesus chose women as witnesses for his resurrection.’

It was she to whom the risen Jesus first appeared, and she who was charged with announcing the news of the resurrection to the disciples and to Peter.

The New Testament does indeed offer a ‘new deal’ for women.  But the question is what this deal looks like, and how it leaves male/female roles and relationships.

To proceed: when Barr turns to the New Testament account of Martha and Mary, the two sisters from Bethany, she claims that the modern evangelical perception of Martha is that of an exemplary homemaker.  But what (she wonders) would today’s evangelicals make of medieval conceptions of Mary?  Between the 7th and 16th centuries, Mary of Bethany was often identified as Mary Magdalene, who was one with the sinful woman who had been possessed by seven demons, and the repentant woman with the alabaster jar.

So,

‘for medieval Christians, Mary of Bethany was not just a woman who sat quietly at the feet of Jesus; she was a repentant prostitute and former demoniac. She was the apostle of the apostles—the first apostle who carried the good news of the resurrection. She was a missionary of Christ, affirmed by Peter. She preached openly, performed miracles that paralleled those of the apostles, and converted a new land to the Christian faith.’

Nor was Martha forgotten in medieval lore.  She was celebrated as

‘a noble single woman who accompanied her famous sister to Marseilles. While Mary Magdalene was preaching to the people, Martha encountered a dragon on the nearby beach. She faced a gruesome sight: a dragon that was described as a giant half-beast, half-fish with long, sharp teeth. When Martha happened upon the scene, the frightening monster was eating a man. Martha was undaunted. She sprinkled holy water on the beast, confronted the demonic creature with the cross, and calmly tied it up. When she presented the now-subdued dragon to the people of Marseilles, they stabbed it to death with their spears. Martha performed additional miracles, interspersed with a preaching agenda similar to that of Mary Magdalene’s.’

It doesn’t seem to matter to Barr that all of this is based on implausible biblical exegesis and legendary accretion.  But I think it does matter.  A lot.

Barr cites, in support of her argument, the case of Margery Kempe, who in 1417 defended before the Archbishop of York her right to teach the word of God.  But it is not at all clear what we are supposed to make of Barr’s claim that Margery Kempe was a preacher, when Barr herself quotes Kempe as saying to the Archbishop: ‘I do not preach, sir.  I do not go into any pulpit. I use only conversation and good words, and that I will do while I live.’

Margery Kempe, writes Barr, was not alone.  There was a

‘great cloud of female witnesses, not only remembered but revered by the medieval Christian world, [who] stood with her.’

Indeed,

‘Medieval churches, sermons, and devotional literature overflowed with valiant women from the early years of Christianity. Women who defied male authority, claiming their right to preach and teach, converting hundreds, even thousands, to Christianity. Women who received ordination as deaconesses and took vows as abbesses—perhaps at least one woman ordained as a bishop. Women who performed miracles and publicly taught the apostles, and even one woman who won an argument with Jesus (Matthew 15:21–28).’

It is difficult for the nonspecialist reader to know what to do with that word ‘overflowed’.  But there is enough slippery language here to lower the index of confidence: for Barr appears to be importing modern conceptions into ancient usages of words such as ‘preaching’, ‘ordination’, ‘deaconess’ and ‘bishop’.

Undeterred, Barr proceeds to inform us that, in pre-modern times, there were many women who

‘broke free from marriage to serve God, whose preaching brought thousands to salvation, and whose words openly defied the patriarchy around them.’

These included 4th-century Saint Paula,

‘who abandoned her children for the higher purpose of following God’s call on her life.  [She] ‘founded a monastery in Bethlehem and worked alongside Jerome to translate the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin.’

Barr seems happy to celebrate a woman who ‘abandoned her children’ in this way.  I’m sorry, but if this is what egalitarianism leads to, count me out.

The story of Margaret of Antioch (also 4th-century) is related.  She, allegedly, was eaten by, and then emerged safe from, a dragon.  But, again, we are in the world of legend here.  Indeed, the authoritative Dictionary of the Christian Church (Eds Cross and Livingstone) says of Margaret of Antioch, ‘nothing certain is known of this woman’.

Barr quotes Larissa Tracy:

‘The legends of female saints, especially in vernacular collections like the Gilte Legende provided strong, visible role models for medieval women through the diversity of their speech and the eloquence of their silence, elevating women above the traditional roles assigned to them and giving them a power of their own.’

Other notable women are mentioned by Barr.  Clotilda is said to have had a key role in the conversion of her husband, Clovis, king of the Franks, in the late 5th century.

According to ‘hagiography’, Genovefa of Paris acted as bishop of Paris, while Brigit of Kildare actually was a bishop (although made to by accident).

Then there is Hildegard of Bingen, ‘the twelfth-century German mystic, author, theologian, Benedictine abbess, composer, and preacher.’

Much of this, by Barr’s own admission is based on ‘legend’ and ‘hagiography’.  But what value can we reasonable derive from a medieval celebration of women’s ministry that is so heavily dependant on just-so stories?

What did the medieval church do with this ‘cloud of female witnesses’?  Sadly (for Barr), although they were remembered and revered in medieval piety, the church as a whole could not accept female leadership as normative, because it had inherited the patriarchy of the Roman world.  Early church leaders such as Clement of Alexandria and Jerome clearly taught that women were inferior to men.  Whereas in the 1st millenium some women were ordained for leadership, this practice disappeared.  Still, Peter Abelard could champion women’s ordination, building on the biblical precedent of deaconesses.  According to Abelard, women could preach because women did preach (citing Anna, Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, and the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John).

In the power battles of the day, the medieval church needed male authority, and it needed women out of the way.  Mysogyny and clerical celibacy became the orders of the day.

And modern evangelicalism keeps women out of the way.  In telling the story of the Christian church, it favours men over women.  It presents a masculine perspective that minimizes female leadership.  It does so for a simple reason: ‘to protect and enhance the authority of men.’

Beth Allison Barr wants us to recover the medieval church’s esteem for women’s ministry.  But if, in doing so, we revert to medieval biblical exegesis and medieval historiography, then the price is much too high.  Scripture and history tell a wonderful story of female value, dignity and service.  But it is not the story that is told by Dr Barr.

He book represents, in my view, a missed opportunity.  I agree with Kevin DeYoung, who comments:

‘Barr could have made a compelling case that women throughout history have been key players in the story of the church and have often acted in ways that contemporary Christians might find surprising. If this were the story, we could then explore how to understand these women in their historical context, how they understood themselves, how others viewed their ministries, and in what ways their examples are worth emulating today. That would be a worthwhile discussion—one that would likely provide evidence “for” and “against” current assumptions about biblical womanhood.’