The heroines are in the details: Rediscovering the women in the resurrection narratives

Abstract

The four earliest extant resurrection narratives record that women find the empty tomb first. This consensus suggests that although the resurrection narratives diminish the roles of women in these scenes, women undisputedly witness the resurrection. The details of women’s authority and leadership that remain in the narratives preserve their primacy. Isolating these details reveals a pattern of gendered redaction in the three endings of Mark and the four canonical resurrection narratives that diminishes, obscures, and excises women from these texts. This study rediscovers these women. Buttressed by early Christian art, the details of women’s authority and leadership evince new evidence for Historical Jesus reconstructions of these events, the priority of the longer ending of Mark, vestiges of women’s leadership in early Christian worship, and a strong affirmation for the reliability of women’s witness. Analyzing redaction that erases women reveals that the heroines are in the details. By recovering women’s narratives, this article contributes to the study of ancient Jewish and Christian Pseudepigrapha by giving a model of how to recover women’s narratives in other literature as well.