Women in the Bible

 Woman Who Anoints Jesus

Matthew 26:7, Mark 14:3-9, Luke 7:36, John 12:1

• Mark 14:3-6 While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me.”

List of Reading & Resources:

Articles

• “The Woman Who Anoints Jesus” by Elaine Wainwright (video)

• “The Women of Holy Week, Part 2: The Woman at Bethany Anoints Jesus” by Rachel Held Evans

• “Jewish Women in the New Testament” by Amy-Jill Levine

• “The Three Most Important Women in Mark’s Gospel—All Unnamed” by James Tabor

Books

• “Woman Who Anoints Jesus” (pp.434-436) by Mary Rose D’Angelo in Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament, edited by Carol Meyers (2001)

• “(Re)Presentations of Women in the Gospels: John and Mark” (Ch. 6) by Mary Rose D’Angelo in Women & Christian Origins, edited by Ross S. Kraemer and Mary Rose D’Angelo (1999)

• “Gospel of Luke” by Jane D. Schaberg and Sharon H. Ringe in Women’s Bible Commentary: Revised and Updated, edited by Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (2012)

• “Gospel of Mark” by Elizabeth Struthers Malbon in Women’s Bible Commentary: Revised and Updated, edited by Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (2012)

• “Passions and Passion: The ‘Loose’ Lady, Woman Wisdom, and the Lukan Jesus” in Dancing Girls, Loose Ladies, and Women of the Cloth: The Women in Jesus' Life by Franklin Scott Spencer (2004)