The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom: A Feminist Historical-Literary Analysis of the Gospel of John

Abstract

The Women in Life of Bridegroom: A Feminist Historical-Literary Analysis of Gospel of John, by Adeline Fehribach. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998. Pp. viii + 22. $19.95. Adeline Fehribach identifies her study of women characters in Gospel of John as a feminist analysis. Part of her agenda is to explain combination of attention to strong, vivid women characters and presence of traces of patriarchal understandings of gender that have been observed by feminist readers. Her method combines literary and historical reading with a reader-response approach. Using text in its current state (that is, including John 21 but not 7:53-8:11), she attempts to construct responses of a first-century reader. To do this, she selects an extratextual repertoire for ancient readers, consisting of 1) commonly known historical facts and figures; 2) classical and canonical literature; 3) literary conventions such as stock characters, scenes, topoi, etc.; 4) social norms and structures (p. 16). She also delineates an array of resources for disclosing reader's horizon of expectation for female characters: 1) Hebrew Bible; 2) Hellenistic Jewish writings; 3) popular Greco-Roman literature: 4) of `honor and shame' as used by cultural anthropologists for study of gender relations in Mediterranean area; 5) history of women in GrecoRoman world (p. 9). In Fehribach's reading, analogy put into mouth of John baptizer in 3:29 is used to organize and interpret all presentations of women. Beginning from appearance of Jesus' at wedding at Cana (2:1-12), Fehribach argues that when Jesus responds to her with words my is not yet come (2:4), (ancient) reader is led to interpret coming hour as that of Jesus' own wedding. Jesus would then be seen (again, by ancient reader) as refusing to take limelight away from bridegroom. His mother, cast in role of a mother of an important man (cf. Sarah in Gen 21:9-21 and Rebecca in Gen 27:1-46), urges him to increase his own honor at bridegroom's expense. The reader is then left to expect that high point of narrative will be wedding of messianic bridegroom, through which familia dei will be reproduced and children of God begotten (1:14). John 4:1-42 (the Samaritan woman at well) and 11:1-12:8 (Martha, Mary, and Lazarus) are, like 2:1-12, read largely through type from Hebrew Bible and the honor and shame concept derived from cultural anthropology. The scene that initiates betrothals through a meeting at a well locates Samaritan woman as a metaphorical bride, a representative of Samaritan people, divorced from supposed five male gods of Samaria and reunited with her true bridegroom through whom many children (the converted Samaritans) are produced. Mary is seen as fictive bride of Messiah on behalf of Jewish people, while Martha and Lazarus become his in-laws. The portrayal of Jesus' death is read as an example of dying king typescene; of Jesus is thus passed on to his heir, as first Darius and then Alexander pass on their female dependents. At cross and tomb, Mary Magdalen appears climactically as bride representing entire community. Fehribach reads death of Jesus as consummation and conception. The appearance to Mary (John 20:14-18) is juxtaposed with recognition scenes in Greek romances Chaereas and Callirhoe and An Ephesian Tale, in which lover believed dead is fortuitously discovered to be in fact alive. …