100 Reasons to Believe New Testament History
24. The Women’s Testimonies
In the ancient Middle East, a woman’s testimony was seen as next to worthless, and no woman’s testimony was admissible in court A. In all four Gospels, however, we read that the first to encounter the resurrected Jesus were women. If an author wanted to propagate a false resurrection story, it hardly makes sense that women would figure prominently as key witnesses. It is not unthinkable therefore, that the women’s testimonies were included because the Gospel writers simply wanted to present a record of the facts, not a formal defense for their faith.
24. The Women’s Testimonies - Notes and References
A. “Women were on a very low rung of the social ladder in first-century –Palestine. There are old rabbinical sayings that said, ‘Let the words of the Law be burned rather than delivered to women’ and ‘Blessed is he whose children are male, but woe to him whose children are female.’ Women’s testimony was regarded as so worthless that they weren’t even allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a Jewish court of law.” William Lane Craig, PH.D., D.TH., interview with Lee Strobel, “The Case for Christ”, Zondervan, 1998, pp. 217-218