ABSTRACT
We begin the story of women and Christianity with the Jesus movement, and, as is common in so many contexts, looking for clues to understanding women’s experiences here is a difficult task. There are pitfalls to avoid:
Jewish and Christian scholars are prone to reconstruct early Judaism and Christianity not only in terms of what has survived as ‘normative’ in their own respective traditions but also as two distinct and oppositional religious formations. Since ‘rabbinic’ Judaism and patriarchal Christianity were the historical winners among the diverse inner-Jewish movements, such a reconstruction insinuates that only these represent pre70 Judaism in general and the Jesus movement in particular.215
