ABSTRACT
Brooten collected many examples of named Jewish women elders, presbyters, synagogue mothers, heads of synagogue, and priests, and showed that previous scholars had made many wild assumptions in order to ignore such inscriptions. Examples of women synagogue leaders discussed by Brooten and others show people that the “official” texts of rabbinic Judaism, only give people one side of the picture. Several texts aimed at relegating women to silent roles of support made their way into the New Testament or were written by authors who later gained the stamp of approval as “church fathers.” It would be simplistic to say that one of these directions was patriarchal and the other was “feminist.” Sources indicate that distrust of women and a pushback against women in leadership roles were part of an overall trend in the wider Roman world as early Christianity developed.
