In one of the more misunderstood passages dealing with the life of Jesus, the Son of God encounters a gentile woman who seeks his assistance in casting a demon out of her daughter. The gospel of Mark provides her pedigree for us: “a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia.”[1] Before we get to hear Jesus’ response to her request, Mark supplies us with the three strikes against her from the average Jewish standpoint. She was A. a woman, B. a gentile woman, and C. gentile woman who hailed from the insufferable Syrophoenician region, a region filled with people who should have been destroyed in the Canaanite genocides – their very presence a continual reminder to the Jews of their failure to fully obey Yahweh. Even the most hated woman in the Hebrew Bible, Queen Jezebel, hailed from this region. But as we shall see, our narrative redeems the Canaanite people and our woman serves as a reminder that Yahweh’s mind has changed about the decedents of Queen Jezebel.
While others would have considered her unclean, Jesus has just completed teaching that uncleanness is a matter of the heart, not the body, “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean?’…What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’”[2]
In context, Jesus puts into practice what he preaches. Even trekking through the region of Tyre and Sidon betrayed an act of rebellion. 1st century Jewish stereotypes considered this an area of “seduction to false gods and hostility to the Jewish people.”[3] Instead of judging this woman based on her gender, ancestry, and the side of the tracks she came from, Jesus addresses her as a person, not a mere stereotype.[4] Interestingly Yahweh, who originally commanded the Canaanite genocide, is, in this text, informing us that power, dehumanization and domination are inadequate means by which to spread God’s kingdom. The superiority of the gospel to violence is a probable ethical principle one could draw from this passage.The Canaanites who were once supposed be destroyed now find a place within God’s redemptive plan. This text, then, is intended to counter the Canaanite genocides – this text, above that one, displays the character of God!
While Jesus response to this gentile woman may seem harsh, he does not respond to her with sexism or racism, for that would be a violation of the sermon he has just preached. Initially the text informs us that Jesus refuses the woman’s request. Jesus notifies the woman that, as a dog (gentile), she will have to wait for the children (Israel) to be finished feasting before she can eat. While this may sound offensive to us, the woman has no such reaction. She does not react as if Jesus has insulted her. More likely, she understands that Jesus is merely stating that the time for ministry among the gentiles has not yet arrived. Demonstrating great intelligence and wit[5], she tells Jesus that sometimes dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table as the children are eating. “Now is a good time for my daughter to be healed, even if the time of the gentiles has not arrived,” she says.
Without regard for her gender or race, Jesus grants the woman’s request. With no consideration for whether or not this woman or her daughter are deemed unclean because of their gender, Jesus heals them both. He casts the unclean spirit out of the daughter, symbolizing that the gentiles by virtue of their race, and women by virtue of their gender, should no longer be categorized as unclean. He shows this woman she is not subhuman simply because of her gender or race. Neither Jesus nor the gospel writers concerned themselves with her gender; they simply marveled at her “great faith.”[6]
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[1] Mark 7:26
[2] Mark 7:20-23 – Interestingly enough, Mark describes the evil spirit within this woman’s daughter as an unclean spirit. While many of our English translations translate the word evil, in context it seems infinitely more appropriate to translate the word as unclean.
[3] Mary Anne Getty-Sullivan, Women in the New Testament. (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2001), 87. Getty-Sullivan also notes that this area was considered profane to the ancient Jews because it represented their own failures. The area was originally given to the tribe of Asher, but they failed to completely occupy it as God had commanded. This was also the area that the most hated of all OT women was birthed: Queen Jezebel, who was the great persecutor of the prophet Elijah, and the great dominator of her puppet of a husband Ahab.
[4] Stereotypes are created by people in order to make sense of an increasingly complex world. The pluralistic world of Jesus’ day and ours is filled with stereotypes simply because people are groping for a simple way to understand their crazy pluralistic world. Unfortunately, this is never neutral. Stereotypes also dehumanize the ‘other’ and keep them perpetually in a state of being sub-human. They are a means of power maintenance.
[5] Intelligence and wit are only a small part of what this woman displays. Her determination to get what she has come to Jesus for is another quite remarkable attribute.
[6] Matt. 15:28 – Matthew adds this praise for the woman in his account of the event. Mark, the earlier gospel that Matthew used as a source for his gospel, does not record Jesus praising her for her great faith. We see, however, in Matthew’s addition, that it was important for him to correct first century assumptions about the faithlessness of women and gentiles.
Is the term “dog” really that inoffensive? It seems that Jesus could just as easily be keeping this woman in her tertiary place (as you’ve pointed out, she’s below secondary position in her contemporary society). He calls her a dog, and only when she affirms Jesus’ demeaning title (by calling herself a “dog”) does Jesus grant her the request. She even prostrated herself before Jesus, and that wasn’t enough…she had to take on the label’s of the powers that be. According to Jesus’ metaphor, this woman (a dog) isn’t even HUMAN by comparison to the Jews (children). How is that not racism? Mark’s version (in this case) can just as easily be read to try and keep the woman suppressed, and shows her (unfortunately) active acceptance of this subjugated position. This would thus be one of the few places (IMO) that Matthew may actually have a (slightly) better view of women than Mark.
This is just an alternate reading…and given the cicumstances I currently see it as equally valid to yours (though I would much rather accept yours). Labels are powerful, and there seems to be a glaring one in this pericope. If you had a way of getting around what I see as a pretty huge problem, I would accept it with open arms.
We just finished a class called the miracles of jesus.
This was one of the miracles we talked about. We also made the point that this lady had to be really sharp to have come up with that little reply – and to say it to a rabi nonetheless.
Overall, we focused on her faith for he says to her: O woman, great is your faith
We also talked about how the “I was sent only to the children of israel” might’ve been a play on words to the disciplines since they seemed to inconvenience by her. after all, they didn’t want to do anything with gentiles.
His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”
She humbled herself, and was patient. She trusted in God to deliver her.
We read from Matthew by the way.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matt.%2015:21-28;&version=50;
Thanks Matt, for your thoughts. Believe me, I have not overlooked the possibilities you have suggested. I completely agree that the term ‘dog’ was offensive and was intended to be used that way – just not by Jesus. I’m thinking that he used the term in a subversive manner – one which would have played with the word, yet also sought to destroy it.
I say this for 4 reasons (just off the top of my head):
1. The flow of the narrative – Jesus, for the whole chapter, has been about breaking down stereotypes – so, for him to indulge in one now would be contradictory to the immediate passage and message Mark is communicating. I’ve got no problems with ‘contradictions’ in the Bible, but this would be odd for sure.
2. The portrayal of Jesus in the gospels – For Mark/Matthew to portray Jesus as breaking down existing power structures all throughout their gospels, and then, for some odd reason, just throw in this passage where Jesus acts like a jerk – would seem to go against the intention of their writings. Indeed, I think if we’re speaking in terms of narrative criticism, Jesus is acting out of character is he is indulging in ‘othering’ here.
3. Falls outside the bounds of the overall message of its own pericope – this pericope, in the end, is about communicating the inclusive love of God for these once cursed people. It may be that Jesus uses ‘dog’ in a way that would communicate what Jews normally thought about this woman, but then heals her daughter to demonstrate how God is really oriented toward them. The whole plan of redemptive history now includes the ‘dogs.’
4. Finally, the traditional answer – he uses the term in a way which will challenge her faith and inspire discussion. He is testing her? (weakest answer to me, but I think it may have some validity)
All that to say – yup, he uses an offensive term, but I think he does it in a subversive manner.
Probably doesn’t convince anyone – but, it’s still worth discussing. Great question, brother.
[...] Fuerst, at Theology for the Masses, discusses Jesus, the Syrophoenician Woman, and a Reversal of Violence. Also from Theology for the Masses, but by a different author, Henry Imler: Justice. And again, [...]
Very interesting dialog. I found your site on the Christian Carnival and enjoyed my visit. Thank you!
Since this story (in the Matthew version) is the Lectionary text for 08/17/08 this discussion came in handy. Your notion that Jesus may have been using a culturaly acceptable racial slur (’cause that’s what it was) as a way to challenge the disciples’ assumptions is an interesting one. How much trouble do you think it would cause if the story were re-cast with Jesus as a white man and the woman as African American, and the word he used was the “N” word?
How does one justify the Jesus who spoke of love and tolerance with this Jesus who so readily uses an insulting epithet? Or maybe that’s reading too much 21st century sensitivity back into the culture of the New Testament.
Thanks mnwillems,
If you’d like, I recently wrote a longer article on this text. I could send it to you if you shoot me your email.
Excellent discussion. I’m preaching on the Matthew text on Sun 18 Aug 2008 and looked up the issue on the ‘Net,’ and came across your site.
You are quite right that we can’t lift this story and its “quotations” out of the context that both Mark and later Matthew lay out for their readers. The context is the growing controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees about maintaining the Jewish codes of holiness. Every time this controversy arises in the Gospels Jesus takes the side of those who are victimized by legalistic adherence to such codes. I think Mark and Matthew would have noticed the divergence in this story from the context in which they set it. Therefore, it is correct to interpret the strangeness in the story from the context, and assume that Jesus is using this offensive language in a subversive way.
The gospel writers are trying to drive home a point about a thorny issue that beset the late first century Jesus movement–the place of Gentiles in the church and the reign of God. Matthew, in particular, must have heard words exactly like the ones he put on Jesus lips from his own contemporaries fifty or sixty years after Jesus ministry. Matthew thus powerfully combats this view by having Jesus “bested” in an argument. With a woman. With a Gentile woman. From Jezebel’s country.
Note how Matthew changes Mark’s description from a “Syro-Phoenician” to a “Canaanite,” emphasizing the connection with Israel’s once-hated enemies. It is precisely those who are considered thoroughly unclean–unable to even understand the difference between clean and unclean– that become the model of persistent faith that can change even the heart of God.
For those who don’t understand the term “dog,” it is derisive, but not in the way most people believe. A dog eats anything edible–indiscriminately–unable or uncaring to consider which foods might be ritually clean and which foods not. That’s why Gentiles are like “dogs” for observant Jews of Jesus time and earlier.
And that leads us back to the point of the story: In his quarrel with the Pharisees about eating only kosher foods, a view Jesus utterly rejects in the Gospels, this story with its use of the epithet “dogs” is meant to magnify Jesus opposition to using religious codes to oppress and marginalize.
By the way, some historical perspective from our own recent past might help. In the early and middle years of the Civil Rights movement, we had to fight like crazy just to get people to see that black people were part of the human race. We had to argue without letup with editors and tv producers that such a view was not “political” but an established fact (they were so nervous about offending white bigots). During those years I heard similar uses of the word “nigger” by black and white preachers to their respective black and white congregations. Only by saying the word from the pulpit was the offensiveness of what most whites thought in their hearts finally revealed.
Thanks for your good work!
ps. I’d love to read your article on the subject.
Gordon,
I’d be happy to have you read it. What is your email address?
So, what does this say about Yahweh? Sure, murder and genocide used to be cool, but not anymore! Did he learn his lesson? I am still wrestling with these implications.
Okay, let me say that the paper I wrote disagrees with some of what I wrote in this blog.
Also, I too have wrestled with whether God ‘learned’ that the Genocides were bad. I’m not, to be honest, all the comfortable with that answer. So I’ve not quite come to a conclusion yet on that matter.
I would say that the Syro story reveals that Yahweh’s character is loving and inclusive. That story more adequately reveals the character of God as found in the cruciform messiah than does the Genocides. This doesn’t come without its difficulties, but that’s where I’m at right now.
I understand and agree with you – God’s character is most fully on display in the New Testament, most specifically in the incarnation of Jesus.