Jesus of Arabia by Andrew Thompson

Author:Andrew Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781538109458
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

In practice, women have been excluded from substantial areas of Islamic ritual. Menstruation, while not implying a ritual contagion in Islam, serves as a barrier to ritual performance for the woman concerned. Thus while men have nothing to fear from women being present at prayer, the ritual status of a woman would be on full public view as she could only come when she was ritually pure.6

Some cultures in the Arabian Peninsula view women as threatening in terms of their sexuality. Men took on the responsibility of guarding the honour (chastity) of women, and the failure to deliver her on her first wedding night as a virgin brought great shame on the family and the woman. The prescribed legal penalty for such shame was death. Another response to such shame was to seclude the offending woman from society. In its extreme form, this meant the woman literally being forcibly confined to a cell or room in the family home, and in its mildest form being shunned by family and community members. The latter makes for a lonely and pitiable existence. Going out to do chores meant running a gauntlet of jibes and prejudice from family and neighbours. It was better to be alone.

The Samaritan woman at the well was one such woman. Normally, collecting water from the well was a group activity for women. They would collect the water first thing in the cool of the morning, and the heavy task was lightened by going as a social group. There was of course an added benefit in that the group provided a layer of protection from any unwanted attention. The fact that the Samaritan woman was coming alone to the well in the midday heat speaks volumes about her treatment by members of her own community. She was a woman marked by shame. The proper response then from any person of religion or faith would therefore be to shun her. She would be seen as a threat because of her perceived out-of-control sexuality and as such would be seen as an agent of pollution. That she is still alive would have been seen as an act of mercy; the community were legally entitled to stone her to death. The honour of women is still a live concern of families in the Middle East. Media coverage of so-called ‘honour killings’ only serve to illustrate the strong sense of shame linked to sexually deviant behaviour.

To avoid any such possible ‘wrong’ encounters, the public behaviour of women was carefully regulated. It was therefore unusual for a woman to be alone with a man who was not related to her. This could be interpreted in a most undesirable way with dire consequences for the woman.

This explains the surprise of Jesus’ disciples when they saw him conversing with a woman who was on her own. But their surprise had an extra layer of prejudice. Not only was Jesus talking to a woman on her own, thereby risking the chance of ceremonial and spiritual pollution along with his personal reputation, but she was also a Samaritan.

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