Jesus healing the bleeding woman
Jesus healing the bleeding woman (or "woman with an issue of blood" and other variants) is one of the
Context
In the Gospel accounts, this miracle immediately follows the
Narrative comparison
There are several differences between the accounts given by Mark, Matthew and Luke.
Mark
The incident occurred while Jesus was traveling to Jairus's house, amid a large crowd, according to Mark:
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" "You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?'" But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.
— Mark 5:25–34, New International Version[5]
The woman's condition, which is not clear in terms of a modern medical diagnosis, is translated as an 'issue of blood' in the
Because of the continual bleeding, the woman would have been continually regarded in Jewish law as a Zavah or menstruating woman, and so ceremonially unclean. In order to be regarded as clean, the flow of blood would need to stop for at least 7 days. Because of the constant bleeding, this woman lived in a continual state of uncleanness which would have brought upon her social and religious isolation.[7] It would have prevented her from getting married – or, if she was already married when the bleeding started, would have prevented her from having sexual relations with her husband and might have been cited by him as grounds for divorce.
Matthew and Luke
Matthew's and Luke's accounts specify the "fringe" of his cloak, using a Greek word which also appears in Mark 6.[8] According to the Catholic Encyclopedia article on fringes in Scripture, the Pharisees (one of the sects of Second Temple Judaism) who were the progenitors of modern Rabbinic Judaism, were in the habit of wearing extra-long fringes or tassels (Matthew 23:5),[9] a reference to the formative ritual fringes (tzitzit). Because of the Pharisees' authority, people regarded the fringe as having a mystical quality.[10]
Matthew's version is much more concise, and shows notable differences and even discrepancies compared to the Markan and Lukan accounts. Matthew does not say the woman failed to find anyone who could heal her (as Luke and Mark do), let alone that she spent all her savings paying physicians but the affliction had only grown worse (as Mark does). There is no crowd in Matthew's account; Jesus immediately notices that the woman touched him instead of having to ask and look amongst the crowd who touched him. Neither is the woman trembling in fear and telling him why she did it. Jesus is not said to feel a loss of power according to Matthew; the woman is only healed after Jesus talks to her, not immediately upon touching his cloak.[11]
Commentary
Cornelius a Lapide comments on why the woman, after being healed was fearful of Jesus, writing that she had "approached secretly, and, unclean," touching Christ who was clean, and so had, "stolen a gift of healing from Christ without His knowledge." Thus it appears she was concerned that Christ might rebuke her, and potentially recall the benefit, or punish her with a worse disease. From this Lapide concludes "that she had not perfect faith."[12]
Given that the woman was cured when she touched the hem of the garment,
In art and later traditions
When
Having heard that at Caesarea Philippi, otherwise called Panease Paneades, a city of Phoenicia, there was a celebrated statue of Christ, which had been erected by a woman whom the Lord had cured of a flow of blood. Julian commanded it to be taken down, and a statue of himself erected in its place; but a violent fire from the heaven fell upon it, and broke off the parts contiguous to the breast; the head and neck were thrown prostrate, and it was transfixed to the ground with the face downwards at the point where the fracture of the bust was; and it has stood in that fashion from that day until now, full of the rust of the lightning.
— Wilson 2004, p. 99
However, it has been pointed out since the 19th century that the statues were probably a misunderstanding or distortion of a sculptural group in fact originally representing the submission of Judea to the Emperor Hadrian. Images of this particular coupling, typical of Roman Imperial adventus imagery, appear on a number of Hadrian's coins, after the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136. The statues seem to have been buried in a landslide and some time later rediscovered and interpreted as Christian. Since Caesarea Philippi had been celebrated for its temple of the god Pan, a Christian tourist attraction was no doubt welcome news for the city's economy.[18][a]
Representations of the episode which seem clearly to draw on the lost statue, and so resemble surviving coins of the imperial image, appear rather frequently in
The story was later elaborated in the 11th century in the West by adding that Christ gave her a portrait of himself on a cloth, with which she later cured Tiberius. This Western rival to the
References
Notes
- ^ For other possibilities, and possible visual depictions of the statue, see Wilson 2004, pp. 90–97
Citations
- ^ Matthew 9:20–22, Mark 5:25–34, Luke 8:43–48
- ^ Donahue & Harrington 2005, p. 182.
- ^ Edwards 1989, pp. 193–216.
- ^ Shepherd 1995, pp. 522–540.
- ^ Mark 5:25–34
- ^ "Matthew 9:20 Commentaries: And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak". biblehub.com. Retrieved 2018-04-18.
- ^ MacArthur 1987, p. 80.
- ^ Strong 1894, p. 43, G2899.
- ^ Matthew 23:5
- ^ Souvay 1909.
- ^ Matthew 9:20–22
- ^ Lapide, Cornelius (1889). The great commentary of Cornelius à Lapide. Translated by Thomas Wimberly Mossman. London.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ 2 Kings 13:21
- ^ Acts 5:15
- ^ MacEvilly, Rev. John (1898). An Exposition of the Gospels. New York: Benziger Brothers.
- ^ Wace 1911, p. 1006.
- ^ Brown 1989, p. 93.
- ^ Schaff & Wace 1890, note 2296.
- ^ Schiller 1971, pp. 178–179.
- ^ a b Schiller 1972, pp. 78–79.
Sources
- Brown, Peter (1989). The World of Late Antiquity: AD 150-750. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-95803-4.
- Donahue, John R.; Harrington, Daniel J. (2005). The Gospel of Mark. Sacra Pagina. Vol. 2. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-8146-5965-6.
- Edwards, James R. (1989). "Markan Sandwiches the Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives". Novum Testamentum. 31 (3). Brill: 193–216. JSTOR 1560460.
- MacArthur, John (1987). Matthew 8-15 MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody Publishers. ISBN 978-1-57567-678-4.
- Schaff, Philip; Wace, Henry, eds. (1890). A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Series 2. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
- Schiller, Gertrud (1971). Iconography of Christian Art. Vol. 1 : Christ's Incarnation. Childhood. Baptism. Temptation. Transfiguration. Works and Miracles. London: Lund Humphries. ISBN 9780853312703.
- Schiller, Gertrud (1972). Iconography of Christian Art. Vol. 2: The Passion of Christ. London: Lund Humphries. ISBN 9780821203651.
- Shepherd, Tom (1995). "The Narrative Function of Markan Intercalation". New Testament Studies. 41 (4). Cambridge University Press (CUP): 522–540. S2CID 170266008.
- Souvay, Charles Léon (1909). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company. . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).
- Strong, James (1894). The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. New York: Hunt & Eaton.
- Wace, Henry (1911). Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature. London: J. Murray.
- Wilson, John Francis (2004). Caesarea Philippi: Banias, the Lost City of Pan. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-85043-440-5.