The Rabbinic precept ran: “Let no one talk with a woman in the street, no, not with his own wife.” The Rabbis so despised women and so thought them incapable of receiving any real teaching that they said: “Better that the words of the law should be burned than deliver to women.”
They had a saying: ‚ÄúEach time that a man prolongs converse with a woman he causes evil to himself, and desists from the law, and in the end inherits Gehinnom.‚Äù [that’s HELL]
By Rabbinic standards Jesus could hardly have done a more shatteringly unconventional thing than to talk to this woman.
They had a saying: ‚ÄúEach time that a man prolongs converse with a woman he causes evil to himself, and desists from the law, and in the end inherits Gehinnom.‚Äù [that’s HELL]
By Rabbinic standards Jesus could hardly have done a more shatteringly unconventional thing than to talk to this woman.
РWilliam Barclay’s commentary on John 4.27-30
Ok, in light of this, are you not just totally amazed at how amazing Jesus is? In this kind of culture, with this kind of hatred and taboo going around, he asks this lady for a drink of water. I have no idea of what the modern day equivalent of this is. She’s had half a dozen husbands Рstrike. She’s Samaritan Рstrike. She’s a woman Рstrike. What else could be so dispised? And here is Jesus talking to her and working through her to bring a city to Himself! How is it that every single thing this man does is so amazing?
Tags: Jesus, women, rabbis, John
