When two very similar stories–very similiar, that is, except that one is about a man and another is about a woman–are found in a Gospel, they are called a gender pair. While gender pairs occur in all the gospels, they are particularly prominent in Luke:<\/p>\n
Possible Gender Pairs in Luke<\/p>\n
1:5\u00e2\u20ac\u201c20………………1:26\u00e2\u20ac\u201c38
\n1:46\u00e2\u20ac\u201c55…………….1:67\u00e2\u20ac\u201c79
\n2:25\u00e2\u20ac\u201c35…………….2:36\u00e2\u20ac\u201c38
\n4:27………………….4:25\u00e2\u20ac\u201c26
\n4:33\u00e2\u20ac\u201c37…………….4:38\u00e2\u20ac\u201c39
\n7:1\u00e2\u20ac\u201c10……………….7:11\u00e2\u20ac\u201c16
\n7:36\u00e2\u20ac\u201c50…………….7:36\u00e2\u20ac\u201c50
\n8:41\u00e2\u20ac\u201c42, 49\u00e2\u20ac\u201c56….7:11\u00e2\u20ac\u201c16
\n8:41\u00e2\u20ac\u201c42, 49\u00e2\u20ac\u201c56….8:43\u00e2\u20ac\u201c48
\n10:25\u00e2\u20ac\u201c37…………..10:38\u00e2\u20ac\u201c42
\n11:5\u00e2\u20ac\u201c8………………18:1\u00e2\u20ac\u201c8
\n11:32…………………11:31
\n13:18\u00e2\u20ac\u201c19……………13:20\u00e2\u20ac\u201c21
\n14:1\u00e2\u20ac\u201c6……………….13:10\u00e2\u20ac\u201c17
\n15:3\u00e2\u20ac\u201c7……………….15:8\u00e2\u20ac\u201c10
\n17:34…………………17:35
\n18:9\u00e2\u20ac\u201c14……………..18:1\u00e2\u20ac\u201c8
\n19:9…………………..13:16
\n24:12…………………24:1\u00e2\u20ac\u201c11
\n24:13\u00e2\u20ac\u201c35……………24:1\u00e2\u20ac\u201c11<\/p><\/blockquote>\nA few notes:<\/p>\n
(1) I call these ‘possible’ gender pairs because scholars don’t agree that all of them are–some may just be coincidental.<\/p>\n
(2) The appearance of 7:36\u00e2\u20ac\u201c50 in both columns is not a typo: in that case, the one story (of the penitant woman who anointed Jesus) contains two contrasted characters: the woman and Simon the Pharisee.<\/p>\n
(3) Note that the pairs occur in all different sorts of material: sometimes a pair occurs when Jesus is teaching and gives two examples:<\/p>\n
But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. [Luke 4:25-27]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
but other times they occur because two narratives are juxtaposed: this is the case with the healing of the centurion’s servant (Luke 7:1-10) and the raising of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-16).<\/p>\n
(4) Gender pairs fit in well with a characteristic of Luke’s Gospel that has long been recognized by scholars and readers alike: this gospel shows special concern for marginalized people, including the poor, widows, women, children, etc.<\/p>\n
(5) A very fruitful exercise for personal scripture study would be to consider each pair and:
\n(a) decide if you think it is a gender pair or just a coincidence.
\n(b) decide what the points of comparison are between the stories–this can help you determine the reason for their inclusion. In the one I quote about from Luke 4, the gender pair follows Jesus’ statement that no prophet is accepted in his own country. So: In what way does this gender pair support that statement?
\n(c) look for differences between the two stories–do any contrasts become apparent?<\/p>\n(6) Given the cultural context, it is easy for me to think that the women around Jesus and the women listening to Luke’s Gospel may have felt that the good news wasn’t really for, by, or about them. The existence of gender pairs in Luke’s Gospel–particularly those that are found in Jesus’ teachings–suggests that a priority was placed on ensuring that the women knew that, as we like to say today, they were full and equal partners in the work. Dare I suggest that we follow Jesus’ example by providing examples paired by gender in our own teaching?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When two very similar stories–very similiar, that is, except that one is about a man and another is about a woman–are found in a Gospel, they are called a gender pair. While gender pairs occur in all the gospels, they are particularly prominent in Luke:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}