Women who followed

Women acting as financial patrons was not unusual, and they often served as patrons of religious groups, though much less often than men. A movement's critics could still attack it. Women following a teacher, though, may have looked scandalous to outsiders. Women were not usually seen as a threat of revolt the way men were, and men tended to treat brave women as exceptions. Bailey, drawing on Ben Sirach, argues that by Jesus' day women were clearly ranked below men, and that self-respecting rabbis did not talk with women in public. He holds that Jesus had women disciples who traveled with him and helped fund the movement. Comparing Mark's burial account (15:40-47) with the resurrection account (16:1-8), Bailey finds the women at the edges of the first and at the center of the second. On the woman with the perfume, Keener suggests it may have been her dowry, an inheritance, or her own means. Family and friends were usually present at an execution, and only the male disciples were in danger as suspected allies of a rebel. Women's testimony counted for little. Keener says the surrounding culture "considered their witness worthless," so choosing women as the first witnesses of the resurrection runs against what the culture valued. Paul's greetings in Romans 16 name about twenty-eight people, nearly 40 percent of them women, and he commends the work of more than half of those women.

Women followed and supported Jesus' movement, which outsiders could find scandalous, so their presence at the cross and the tomb, as in Mark 15:40-41, stands out after the men have fled. Luke 8:2-3 names women who supported the group from their own means, and Paul's greetings in Romans 16:1-7 commend women as patrons and coworkers.