The Letter to the Hebrews: Some Basics

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews describes it as a "word of exhortation," a sermon (13:22). The anonymous writer was a thoroughly-Hellenized Jewish Christian steeped in the language of the Septuagint, an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Also trained in rhetoric, he wrote some of the finest Greek to be found anywhere in the New Testament.[1] Hebrews bears a number of marks suggesting it was written to a house church in an urban setting, perhaps Rome. Like the writer, the intended audience had roots in the Hellenistic synagogues of the Jewish Diaspora. The congregation had endured persecution for their Christian faith and, in the eyes of the author, had now become spiritually sluggish. They were in danger of drifting away from their commitment.[2] The community stood in need of pastoral rebuke and encouragement, which is exactly what this sermon in written form was intended to provide.

Notes

[1] William L. Lane, Hebrews 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary 47A  (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1991), xlvii-li.

[2] Ibid., liii-lx. For this reconstruction of the historical situation, Lane points to passages like Hebrews 2:1, 5:11, and 10:32-35.

A. D. Nock on Adhesion and Conversion

Arthur Darby Nock (1902-1963)

In his 1933 book, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo, the Harvard classicist A. D. Nock distinguished between two understandings of and approaches to religious initiation: adhesion versus conversion.

Adhesion, said Nock, involves the "acceptance of new worships as useful supplements" but "not as substitutes." It does not involve "the taking of a new way of life in place of the old."[1] Adhesion is an understandable, maybe even preferable practice whenever two non-exclusive religious traditions meet. It simply involves the adoption of whatever one finds useful in a tradition that is new to him. The tradition, or folkway, has no absolute truth to tell. It has an outlook, accompanied by rituals or other practices, that might be attractive to the newcomer.

By contrast, Nock defined conversion as “a re-orientation of the soul, a deliberate turning from indifference or from an earlier form of piety to another, a turning which implies a consciousness that a great change is involved, that the old was wrong and the new is right.”[2] Conversion takes place when the truth claims of a religion, which are thought to extend to all of humanity, require the hearer to make an either-or choice. It requires "either the renunciation of his past and entry into a kingdom, . . . or the refusal of this dream as chimerical."[3]

As this overview suggests, Nock explained these two distinct approaches as stemming from two separate types of religion. Adhesion correlates to religion that is merely traditional. It is common wherever one's religion has for him "the emotional value attaching to a thing in which he has grown up."[4] In this circumstance, religion amounts to a set of time-honored customs. The religion has been "hallowed by preceding generations."[5]

Again by contrast, conversion is not rooted in traditional religion, but rather in prophetic religion. According to this type of religious lifeway, at some point in the past, an individual received a non-mediated message from the deity. Because it is the deity who has spoken to him, the deity then speaks through him, for now the prophet "has a message which he feels an inward and instant impulse to deliver."[6] And conversion is "the positive response of a man to the choice set before him" through the claims of evangelists representing a prophetic religion."[7] Such a changeover, said Nock, depended on a common cultural matrix, one that enabled hearers to make sense of the truth claims they were called upon to accept and the commands they were expected to obey. Human beings are not likely to accept what to them is entirely new. Prophetic religion truly succeeds only where it "finds men's minds in a measure prepared," which is a critical distinction.[8]

As the subtitle of his book indicates, Nock used the lens of his theory in order to examine distinctions between paganism of the ancient world as compared to Judaism and Christianity. In short, to the extent that ancient paganism reached newcomers, the new condition was the result of adhesion. But Judaism and Christianity, with their claims issued by the only true and living God, claims communicated by the prophetic figures known as Moses and Jesus, demanded conversion.

My guess is that Nock's distinction between adhesion and conversion might go a long way in explaining the religious interface between the first peoples of North America and later Euro-Americans. More about that later.

Notes

[1] Arthur Darby Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (London and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), 7.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 5.

[4] Ibid., 2.

[5] Ibid., 3.

[6] Ibid. Here, many passages from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament come to mind. In Amos 3:8, for example, the prophet asked, "The lion has roared-- who will not fear? The Sovereign LORD has spoken-- who can but prophesy?" (New International Version).

[7] Ibid., 7.

[8] Ibid., 9.

Adler, Selig. "The United States and the Holocaust." Abstract

Adler, Selig. "The United States and the Holocaust." American Jewish Historical Quarterly 64, No. 1 (September 1974): 14-23.

Adler cites in footnote 1 several authorities who agree that "the United States could have done more to mitigate the catastrophe" (14). But the U.S. did not because of three factors: (a) Washington's incorrect assumptions about the Jewish plight in Europe and what the U.S. could do in order to alleviate it. (b) The refugee predicament came far behind other concerns of the time, especially the war. (c) The aid which did come was too little, too late (14). Most of the article concerns the political mistakes and misdeeds of the U.S. during the Holocaust which resulted in many, many more deaths.

The Berlin Anti-Jewish Riots of 1935 (3rd of 3)

In the previous two posts, I described the Berlin anti-Jewish riots of 1935. How to interpret such events from the past has been, and continues to be, a major question for those who study the Holocaust. Who was ultimately responsible?

In this particular case we know that, at the time, Hitler and the Nazi party had compelling reasons for creating at least the appearance of fairness for German Jews. For one thing, the leaders of the Third Reich did not want to risk a boycott of the next year’s Olympic Games, the threat of which was now renewed. [1] As early as mid-March 1933, Hitler had met with Dr. Theodor Lewald and Heinrich Sahm, president and vice-president of the German Olympic Committee. Following his conference with them, he “expressed great interest in the arrangements and said: ‘I will do everything possible to advance the Games, as well as all sports interests’.” [2] From that time until the successful production of the winter and summer Games of 1936, the regime did what was necessary in order to prevent a boycott. [3]

More-general economic concerns loomed as well. For example, on August 20, 1935 several ministers of the regime met in a conference called by Hjalmar Schacht, the Minister of Economics. Schacht emphasized to his peers “the damage caused by the anti-Jewish disorders and warned that the developing situation could threaten the economic basis of rearmament.” As one might expect, he was worried about present and future economic conditions. Of course, Schacht “agreed that the party program had to be implemented.” But he also insisted “that the implementation had to take place within a framework of legal instructions alone.” Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, and Gauleiter and Bavarian Minister of the Interior Adolf Wagner agreed with Schacht, and their conclusions were soon communicated to the Fuehrer.

Less than a month later, Hitler delivered a speech before the Reichstag, assembled at Nuremberg on September 15, 1935. He blamed international resistance to his regime for a supposed recent Jewish uprising in Germany. According to the Fuehrer, Jews living within the Reich sensed that they had strong support abroad. As a result, they had now concluded that the time had come for them “openly to oppose Jewish interests to those of the German nation.” Hitler continued with a general characterization and with a specific example from Berlin:

From numerous places vigorous complaints have been received of the provocative action of individuals belonging to this people, and the remarkable frequency of these reports and the similarity of their contents point to a certain system of operations. This attitude actually resulted in demonstrations which in a Berlin cinema were directed against a foreign film by which, though harmless in itself, certain Jewish circles felt themselves to be offended.

Having established the need for the German people to be protected from the supposed menace of an unresolved Jewish problem, Hitler then announced that a resolution was possible:

If this proceeding is not to lead to very determined action in its own defense by the outraged population—the consequences of which in any single case cannot be foreseen—the only way to deal with the problem which remains open is that of legislative action. The German Government is in this governed by the thought that through a single secular solution it may be possible still to create a level ground on which the German people may find a tolerable relation toward the Jewish people. Should this hope not be fulfilled and the Jewish agitation both within Germany and in the international sphere should continue, then the position must be examined afresh. [4]

And with that, Hitler initiated the so-called Nuremberg Laws which were then unanimously promulgated by the Reichstag.

Clearly, the Berlin riots of 1935 were connected to the enactment of the Laws. But more than that, they were a major part of the pretext for the Laws. To that extent, the riots represent a significant step in the long march from persecution to extermination. But exactly how significant were they? As I see it, Moshe Gottlieb oversimplified and overreached when he summarized the meaning of these events as follows: “The Berlin Riots mark the turning point in the final annihilation of German Jewry; for these attacks led directly to the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws, the Kristallnacht episodes of 1938, and the ‘final solution’ of the 1940’s.” [5]

Why should that statement be regarded as a stretch? For two main reasons. First, as the earlier parts of this paper show, the Berlin riots were especially notorious because they occurred in a section of the capital city that was full of visitors from other countries, press correspondents, and representatives of foreign governments. They were far from being the only major persecutions or the worst measures taken against German Jewry in 1935. Second, as Daniel Fraenkel explains, the Nuremberg Laws were indeed “an essential and logical step in the process of destruction unleashed against European Jews.” But he adds that “it would be a mistake to construe the enactment of the September laws as a direct prologue to the Final Solution.” Instead of “a frontal assault on the physical foundations of Jewish existence,” the Laws represented “an act of public and symbolic humiliation of German Jews.” [6]

Contrary to Gottlieb’s assertion, not even the Nuremberg Laws were decisive in any final sense. In my opinion, the complexity of the dynamic between expediency and the long-term goals of Hitler and other leaders of his party has been expressed quite well by Saul Friedlander:

The crimes committed by the Nazi regime were neither a mere outcome of some haphazard, involuntary, imperceptible, and chaotic onrush of unrelated events nor a predetermined enactment of a demonic script; they were the result of converging factors, of the interaction between intentions and contingencies, between discernable causes and chance. General ideological objectives and tactical policy decisions enhanced one another and always remained open to more radical moves as circumstances changed. [7]

The anti-Semitic riots in Berlin during the second half of July 1935 bear every indication of having been carried out, or at least permitted and controlled, by the leadership of the Nazi regime. It was in this way that Hitler and the party elite not only attacked the relatively-prosperous and significant Jewish population of the capital city, they also tested the resolve of the world community. Because they discovered an attitude that was unbelieving, lax, and even complicit, they then took the next steps along their ever-evolving but resolute path.
_________________________________________

[1] “Berlin riots mar Olympic planning,” New York Times, July 26, 1935. In the second half of 1935, the push for the U.S. Olympic team to abandon the games in Berlin intensified. See, for example, “Statement of non-Jewish advocates of boycott,” New York Times, October 25; “Jahncke asks ban on Olympic games,” November 27; and “N.A.A.C.P. asks A.A.U. to abandon Olympics,” December 14.

[2] “Hitler promises full support for the 1936 Olympic games,” New York Times, March 17, 1933. See also a piece that appeared in the Times two days earlier, “Hitler support expected for Olympics of 1936 in Berlin,” March 15, 1933. See also Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume I: The Years of Persecution 1933-1939 (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 138.

[3] In addition to the sources identified in the previous two notes, the pertinent literature on the story of the 1936 Olympic Games includes the following pieces from the New York Times: “Germany seeks 1936 Olympics for Berlin: government funds aiding 1928 campaign,” February 16, 1927; “Brundage’s views stir Berlin press,’ April 20, 1933; “Reich now says status of German Jews in next Olympics has not been settled, May 29, 1933; “Proposal to shift Olympics growing,” June 4, 1933. See also Moshe Gottlieb, “The American Controversy Over the Olympic Games,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 61, No. 3 (March 1972): 181-213; Bruce Kidd, “The Popular Front and the 1936 Olympics,” Canadian Journal of History of Sport and Physical Education 11, No. 1 (May 1980): 1-18; Allen Guttmann, The Games Must Go On: Avery Brundage and the Olympic Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); “Olympic Games,” in Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, ed. Christian Zentner and Friedemann Bedurftig, trans. Amy Hackett (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 2:669-71; David Clay Large, Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 (New York: Norton, 2007).

[4] Adolf Hitler, My New Order, ed. Raoul de Roussy de Sales (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941), 339. I owe this quote to Moshe Gottlieb, "The Berlin Riots of 1935 and Their Repercussions in America," American Jewish Historical Quarterly 59, No. 3 (March 1970), 308, note 9.

[5] Gottlieb, 328.

[6] “Nuremberg Laws,” in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, ed. Walter Laqueur (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 454.

[7] Friedlander, 5.

The Berlin Anti-Jewish Riots of 1935 (2nd of 3)

The foregoing reports match up perfectly with dispatches issued during the spring and summer of 1935 by William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany. Dodd--pictured above with his wife in Berlin in 1935--wrote several lengthy reports for Secretary of State Cordell Hull. The gist of his communications was that the situation for Jews in Germany was then taking a turn for the worse. Ever since the early part of 1933, when Hitler and the Nazi party came to power and forced many Jewish professionals from their positions, the status of German Jews had actually stabilized. But now things were different. On April 1, Dodd wrote to Hull:

. . . there have been signs of an intensification of pressure upon the Jews in Germany. Fresh outbursts against the Jews in public speeches, additional discriminatory ordinances, and finally undercover work by the police all seem to furnish evidence that the State, profiting by the period of internal calm and by the strengthening of its hand through the declaration of military subscription, is engaged in a new anti-Jewish drive. [1]

Dodd noted, however, that compared to the obvious terror of 1933, the new campaign was being carried out, for the most part, “unobtrusively.” Furthermore, the recent measures seemed “to be directed at a further restriction of Jews’ legal rights.” Dodd said that he had no idea how far the regime might take the new measures, but he thought it was worth mentioning that an announcement had been made “of an early codification of the German citizenship laws and that in this connection many Jews here fear the worst.” By the end of April, things were much clearer. Dodd wrote to Hull:

Reichsminister of the Interior Frick, in an interview published in the Berlin Nachtausgabe of April 27, briefly outlined some of the details of the forthcoming citizenship law which, if they are ultimately incorporated in that law, will undoubtedly make it unique of its kind, inasmuch as it may be inferred from his remarks that citizenship shall be denied all non-Aryans and furthermore may only be acquired after the taking of a solemn oath to the Nazi State. [2]

By May 17, the situation had worsened. On that date, yet another dispatch from Dodd reported the following:

As the anti-Jewish campaign proceeds with official encouragement, it is only natural that, as is being continually reported by our consulates in various German cities, the instances of persecution should multiply in acts of personal humiliation of the Jews, press attacks against individuals, appeals to boycott Jewish stores, the changing of Jewish-named streets, and so forth. . . . The Consul General in Frankfurt has submitted a summary, enclosed as of possible interest, prepared by the National Society of Baptized Jews, showing the professions and callings barred to non-Aryan Germans. It will be seen that the disqualifications extend over practically the whole field of German life. . . . [3]

From these and other messages prepared for the U. S. Secretary of State and sent from Berlin, one can easily gather that the Nuremberg Laws, promulgated on September 15, 1935, had been in the planning for several months. What also seems clear enough is that the intensification of anti-Jewish measures that same year—even the ones blamed on rowdies or the public—were in fact well-coordinated. In yet another one of his communications to Hull, Dodd provides what appears to be independent evidence that the Berlin riots were not spontaneous. On July 17, two days after the outbreak of violence, Dodd wrote that the anti-Jewish campaign in the German press had “prepared the public mind” for the subsequent atrocities. Moreover, “[a]ccording to the best eye-witness accounts, outbreaks occurred at various times and places, but with a precision and common purpose evincing some sort of advance plan. . . .” [4] Significantly, Dodd’s communication was dispatched from Berlin on July 17, but was not received until July 26, nine days later. Moreover, it was apparently never answered. [5]
____________________________________________

[1] Moshe Gottlieb, “The Berlin Riots of 1935 and Their Repercussions in America,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 59, No. 3 (March 1970), 309. For the Dodd correspondence, Gottlieb quotes from Foreign Relations of the United States, 1935, Vol. II: Germany, 392-95.

[2] Gottlieb, 310.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., 311.

[5] Ibid.

The First 100 Pages of the First 3000 Years

A few days ago, I started reading the newish book by Oxford church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. It's a big book, over 1,000 pages long. What follows are a few of my reactions after reading the first three chapters, which take up about 100 pages.

Of course, nowadays authors are expected to come up with a title or a subtitle that intrigues and reels in the prospective buyer. The title Christianity doesn't create much of a stir. Here it's the subtitle, The First Three Thousand Years, that raises the obvious question. I thought Christianity was only two thousand years old. So what's the author up to? In the first few pages, you find out. MacCulloch believes that the Christian faith owes so much to its roots in (a) the ancient Greek tradition and (b) the history of Israel that it's no stretch to say that the Christianity sort of began about a thousand years before the time of Christ.

Those two strands of Christian pre-history take up the first two chapters of the book. Here, MacCulloch packs a lot of information into a few dozen pages. The reader can learn a good bit about how ancient Hellenism and Judaism shaped the world into which Jesus and his movement were born. At times, MacCulloch offers up some refreshing takes on well-known texts. A good example is found on page 50:

Around Abraham's rackety grandson Jacob are woven several engaging tales of outrageous cheating and deceit, and they culminate in an all-night wrestling match with a mysterious stranger who overcomes Jacob and is able to give him another new name, Israel, meaning 'He who strives with God'. Out of that fight in the darkness, with one who revealed the power of God and was God, began the generations of the Children of Israel. Few peoples united by a religion have proclaimed by their very name that they struggle against the one whom they worship. The relationship of God with Israel is intense, personal, conflicted. Those who follow Israel and the religions which spring from his wrestling match that night are being told that even through their harshest and most wretched experiences of fighting with those they love most deeply, they are being given some glimpse of how they relate to God.

Through the first two chapters of the book, MacCulloch's presentation is mostly good. But then comes Chapter 3, "A Crucified Messiah (4 BCE--100 CE)." Here the reader easily detects a zeal for debunking the Four Gospels that appears to have gone to seed.

For example, on page 79 MacCulloch says that “the Gospels agree on hardly any detail about Jesus’s infancy.” But the fact that Matthew and Luke report different traditions surrounding the birth of Jesus does not mean that they necessarily disagree. In fact, they don’t.

On page 83, we read: “The Gospels do not give a definite answer as to whether Jesus’s ministry lasted one year (John) or three years (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).” Here it’s hard to know where to begin. It is true that upon reading one of the first three Gospels one might guess that the public ministry of Jesus took up no more than one year. However, this is far from the notion that any of the evangelists state that one year was the time frame. On the other hand, the church derives its tradition that Christ’s ministry lasted three years from John’s Gospel, which mentions three Passover festivals (see 2:13, 6:4, and 11:55). Not only does MacCulloch insinuate a disagreement where there isn’t one, he also makes the confusing mistake of reversing the categories. Again, it is not the Synoptic Gospels, but rather John who establishes the three-year time frame.

Although it is not intended to contradict the Gospel accounts, one can only wonder about MacCulloch's discussion of the parable, Jesus’s favorite form of teaching. The author suggests that Jesus invented the device and adds that parables “emerge as a literary form in later Judaism only after Jesus’ death” (p. 87). He then asks, “Was this form of Jesus’s teaching so successful that it impressed and influenced even Jews who did not become his followers?” The entire section is unaware that instructing and convicting others by means of narrative metaphor finds its origin not in the teaching of Jesus, but in the Hebrew Bible, the Scriptural tradition in which Jesus stood. How did MacCulloch, the son of an Anglican priest, forget how the prophet Nathan revealed to King David the true character of his sin with Bathsheba?

There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup, and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him (2 Samuel 12:1-4).

Other examples from the Jewish Scriptures include Jotham's parable of the trees in Judges 9, the parable of the two sons told by the wise woman of Tekoa in 2 Samuel 14, and several others, like those found among the oracles of the writing prophets; for example, the story of the two eagles and a vine in Ezekiel 17.

These mistakes and misreadings in Chapter 3 do not inspire confidence in MacCulloch who otherwise seems to be a competent historian and a fine writer. So, anyone else out there who has read or who's reading MacCulloch? I'd be interested to hear your reactions. If not this book, then what are you reading these days?

My First Seder, Gene Shelburne on Baptism

I have a biblical Hebrew reading group that meets for a few hours almost every Tuesday night. One of the participants serves as the director of a Christian synagogue here in Amarillo.

He invited me to come to their Passover Seder which was held last night (Friday). Why not Thursday night? It has something to do with the new moon, counting days, etc. I took their word for it.

Anyway, Michele and I went and stayed for most of it. An interesting experience. One thing I notice is that the more I'm exposed to rabbinic interpretation, the more I get a feel for what's going on in the New Testament, how very Jewish it is.

Ever been to a seder? I know of some churches that have had them. Ever been a part of something like that? I'd like to hear about it.

- - - - - - -

People in the Churches of Christ think we have a point about baptism. Many of us don't want to be contentious or ugly about it (though some do). It's just that we believe the New Testament teaches that baptism isn't some command to be obeyed a couple weeks after you take Christ into your heart. To us, it appears that in the Bible baptism is an integral part of the salvation experience, a faith-repentance-baptism experience that marks off a person's entry into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

But how do you say that; say what we are convinced the Bible says, without picking a religious fight? I think Gene Shelburne did a very good job of it in today's Amarillo Globe-News. Here's his article, Baptism allows faithful a rebirth in the spirit of Christ.

Nicely done, Gene.

The Wine of the Passover and Lord's Supper

Most Christians realize that when Jesus began what came to be known as the Lord's Supper, the context was the Passover Feast. By that point in Jewish history, the cup of the Passover was likely four cups of wine (the number found in the Mishnah) interspersed throughout the meal. This helps to explain why it is that in Luke's account there are actually two cups, one on either side of the bread.

In the Mishnah, the four cups are specifically called "wine." And what was the character of this drink? It was wine mixed with water: When they have mixed the first cup of wine-- . . . . They mixed for him a second cup of wine. . . . They mixed the third cup for him (m. Pesachim 10:2-7).

The earliest specific references to these mixtures has a ratio of two parts water and one part wine (m. Niddah 2:7). Later, in the Talmud, the ratio is three to one (b. Erubim 54a and b. Nedarim 55a). The mixing of wine with water was evidently an early practice in Judaism as well as among the Greeks. For example, Song of Songs 7:2 speaks of "mingled" or "blended" wine, which is clearly thought of as being good. See for yourself.

When it came to "wine" or "the fruit of the vine," early Christian practice mirrored that of Judaism. For example, in that famous passage in Justin Martyr's First Apology which describes Christian worship, the elements of the Lord's Supper are bread and "wine mixed with water" (Apology I, 65). Similar passages are found in the writings of Hippolytus, Irenaeus, and Cyprian.

Someone might ask, But if the ancients used the term "wine" to refer to the wine-and-water mixture, then why does Justin mention both wine and water? Probably because he wanted to protect the church from the pagan accusation that Christians were drinking their wine straight, unmixed.

By way of summary, the wine of the ancient world and what we call "wine" are not the same things. Do both contain alcohol? Yes. But who today mixes wine with a larger amount of water? Or any water at all?

Were there people in the ancient world who got drunk on wine that was unmixed or only slightly diluted? Of course there were. But again, even the average pagan considered such practice to be pretty low. The only wine fit to drink had been mixed with a large amount of water, which was the universal practice.

Female Deacons, 2

In the first post on this subject I hinted that in my view the New Testament speaks of female deacons. I also mentioned that this view is apparently consistent with

(1) NT background
(2) early Christian history
(3) the views of early reformers in the Restoration Movement

Not wanting to drag this out or make anyone's eyes glaze over, I do want to identify a few bits of evidence that might jump start your own thinking. Consider the first item: the New Testament background.

I begin with the assumption that the most significant aspect of NT background is the Judaism(s) leading up to and including the time of Jesus and the earliest Christians. And what do we see when we examine the synagogues of that period? Plenty to suggest that females in official roles would have been nothing new to those folks:

1. For example, a Greek inscription discovered at Smyrna (Izmir) and that dates from the early Christian centuries reads as follows:

"Rufina, a Jewess and head of a synagogue (Greek: archisynagogue), built this tomb for her freedmen and her house-slaves . . . "

2. Another text comes from Myndos (in Caria, western Turkey) and reads as follow:

[The beginning is lost] . . . . "of Theopempte the head of a synagogue
(archisynagogue) and her son Eusebius."

3. A third comes from Kisamos (on the island of Crete):

"Here (lies) Sophia of Gortyn, an elder (presbytera) and female head of a synagogue (archisynagogissa) of Kisamos. (May the) memory of (this) just woman (be) forever. Amen."

As heads of synagogues these women would have been, in the words of rabbi and scholar Shaye Cohen, "responsible for supervising the services, specifically for deciding who should read the Bible, lead the prayers, and give the sermon. The archisynagogue was something between a president and a rabbi."

In addition to the three quotes given here, there is inscriptional evidence from the same period indicating that at least some Jews of that time recognized certain women as priestesses. Impressive indeed. But it's my goal here simply to show that, if the earliest Christian communities appointed female deacons, this would have been no break with the Judaism of that time.

Source: Cohen, Shaye J. D. "Women in the Synagogues of Antiquity" Conservative Judaism 34 (November-December 1980), pp. 23-29.

Reactions? Comments? Criticisms?