Women Eyewitnesses Matter

EDITORIAL

Discern the Times | Amy Orr-Ewing

EDITORIAL: Discern the Times | Amy Orr-Ewing
Have you ever noticed that at the heart of the Christian faith lies the historic testimony of female eyewitnesses? This reality challenges ancient cultural norms and remains central to the gospel message.

In the ancient world during the time of Jesus, the testimony of women was often regarded as having lesser value than that of men. The historian Flavius Josephus even wrote, “But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.” Yet, at the center of the historic claims of Christianity, a vital question echoes: “Will we believe the testimony of women?”

It is striking that the foundational facts of the Christian faith, including the core tenets of the creeds, were primarily witnessed by women. The incarnation was witnessed first by Mary; the atonement was observed in all four Gospels by female eyewitnesses; and the resurrection was first reported by women. Ultimately, the central truths of the Christian faith stand or fall on the validity of this female testimony.

If we won’t listen to women, we don’t have access to the central facts of the Christian faith. Of all people in the world Christians should be those who value women’s voices. This matters. Faith in Christ is not wish fulfillment or cultural superstition; it is historically rooted. If it matters that these things actually happened, it is also hugely significant that women played such a prominent role in observing and then testifying to these events. If we believe the gospel accounts about Jesus, we will need to listen to the female witnesses that they rely so heavily upon.

Their testimony about the risen Christ was personal: John 20:18 says, “I have seen the Lord!” It also was detailed—they went to Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb as he was burying Jesus and “they saw how the body was laid in it” (Luke 23:55). Their testimony was self-deprecating. They are described as “trembling and bewildered” (Mark 16:8). 

The women who bore witness to Jesus’ resurrection were humble and honest about their own insufficiencies being included in the accounts, such as “they have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have put him” (John 20:2). They experienced telling their stories and were not believed (Luke 24:11). They were genuinely fearful and yet joyful (Matt. 28:8).

That tells us quite a bit about what testimony about the risen Christ should and will be like today too. Perhaps our Christian witness could more consciously follow this pattern shown by Jesus’ female disciples as well as the convincing, powerful, popular apologetic arguments for the resurrection we often hear put forward. 

Could we be more personal, detailed, self-deprecating and humble in our apologetics? Might we also learn from the women in the gospels and better prepare ourselves and others for the common experiences of being rejected or feeling fearful as we share Christ in this world? 

In her essay Are Women Human? written in 1938 and published in 1947, Dorothy L. Sayers wrote: “Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never has been such another.” 

The magnetic attraction of Jesus of Nazareth is as real today as it was in the first century and in the last century—if those women who were first at the cradle and last at the cross were right about him, that same Jesus is alive right now.