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Puppies and Pejoratives: Did Jesus Insult the Syrophoenician Woman (Mark 7.24-30)?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2024

N. Clayton Croy Open the ORCID record for N. Clayton Croy [Opens in a new window]
N. Clayton Croy*
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School of Theology and Ministry, Southern Nazarene University, Bethany, Oklahoma, US
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Email: nclaytoncroy@gmail.com
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Abstract

Jesus' response to the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7.27 is sometimes seen as sexist, racist, or abusive. The force of his response depends in part on the diminutive form κυναριον, which is often dismissed as a faded diminutive that lacks true force. But a statistical, semantic, and contextual analysis of the word indicates that it does, in fact, have diminutive force in Mark 7:27. Because of this, the pejorative force found in direct insults employing the word ‘dog’ is lacking in Jesus' response. In addition to failing to recognise the diminutive force of κυναριον, interpreters sometimes assume a social context in which Jews routinely referred to Gentiles as dogs. Finally, the analogy that Jesus makes is often read allegorically, assuming that ‘children’ and ‘dogs’ have direct counterparts in ‘Jews’ and ‘Gentiles’. These assumptions are found to be dubious. The point of Jesus' analogy is about the proper order of events: children eat before the puppies; Jews receive the benefits of his ministry before Gentiles. The Syrophoenician woman outwits Jesus by arguing that the puppies may eat simultaneously with the children. The interpretive upshot is that Jesus' saying is unlikely to be misogynistic or abusive, but simply asserts Jewish priority, a priority that admits of exceptions and change.

Keywords

diminutivedogsexorcismGentilesmisogynySyrophoenician
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New Testament Studies , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , July 2024 , pp. 407 - 420
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Nevertheless, Hector Avalos has a chapter entitled ‘The Misogynistic Jesus’ in The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2015) 228–80Google Scholar; Waetjen, Herman C. refers to Jesus’ proverb in Mark 7.27 as racist in A Reordering of Power: A Socio-Political Reading of Mark's Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 135Google Scholar; and Sharon H. Ringe calls the saying of Jesus ‘insulting in the extreme’. See ‘A Gentile Woman's Story, Revisited: Rereading Mark 7.24-31’ in A Feminist Companion to Mark (ed. Levine, Amy-Jill; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001) 79–100Google Scholar (89).

2 Theissen, Gerd, The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 61Google Scholar.

3 Klausner, Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching (Boston: Beacon, 1925) 294Google Scholar.

4 On the morphology of diminutives, see Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920) 235, §852.3; J.H. Moulton and W.F. Howard, A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Volume 2: Accidence and Word-Formation (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1920) 344–7; F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, (trans. ad rev. Robert W. Funk; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961) 60–1, §111 (3).

5 The commentaries on Mark are divided. Those favouring true diminutive force for κυνάριον include C. E. B. Cranfield (1959), J. Schmid (1963), Vincent Taylor (1966), W. Grundmann (1971), William Lane (1974), Robert H. Gundry (1993) and James R. Edwards (2002). Those opting for a non-diminutive meaning include Robert A. Guelich (1989), Joel Marcus (2000), R.T. France (2002) and Adela Yarbro Collins (2007).

6 See C.H. Turner, ‘Marcan Usage: Notes, Critical and Exegetical, on the Second Gospel’, JTS 29 (1928) 346–61, esp. 350–2; Donald C. Swanson, ‘Diminutives in the Greek New Testament’, JBL 77 (1958) 134–51; Keith Elliott, ‘Nouns with Diminutive Endings in the New Testament’, NovT 12 (1970) 391–8; and Jonathan Watt, ‘Diminutive Suffixes in the Greek New Testament’, Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics 2 (2013) 29–74.

7 See Turner, ‘Marcan Usage’, 352; Swanson, ‘Diminutives’, 143; and Watt, ‘Diminutive Suffixes’, 45. Christian Orth observes that ‘Deminutiva auf –άριον … vielleicht einem niedrigeren Sprachregister angehoren als die Deminutiva in –ίδιον’. See Fragmenta Comica Alkaios – Apollophanes: Einleitung, Übersetzung, Kommentar (Heidelberg: Verlag Antike, 2013) 138.

8 ‘No branch of ancient literature displays a richer selection of diminutives than the comedy.’ Leiv Amundsen, ‘Some Remarks on Greek Diminutives’, Symbolae Osloenses: Norwegian Journal of Greek and Latin Studies 40 (1965) 5–16 (5).

9 For a slightly different categorisation, see Watt, ‘Diminutive Suffixes’, 43–4.

10 The ancient grammarians coined the term ‘hypocoristic’ (ὑποκοριστικός from ὑποκορίζομαι) to denote words that expressed tenderness and affection. See Moulton and Howard, 2.344, n1.

11 The possibility of a derogatory usage in Mark 7.27–8 has been suggested. See Amundsen, ‘Greek Diminutives’, 12; Edwin K. Broadhead, Teaching with Authority: Miracles and Christology in the Gospel of Mark (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992) 130 n1; Alan H. Cadwallader, ‘When a Woman is a Dog: Ancient and Modern Ethology Meet the Syrophoenician Woman’, The Bible and Critical Theory 1 (2005) 1–17 (3); and Cadwallader, Beyond the Word of a Woman: Recovering the Bodies of the Syrophoenician Women (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2008) 80–1. But the non-diminutive form κύνɛς would be far better suited for this meaning. The κυνάρια in Mark 7.27–8 are indoors, under the dining table, and are to be fed, even though the children have a prior claim. The survey of κυνάριον in section 4 below indicates that the diminutive form is more likely to be neutral or hypocoristic rather than derogatory.

12 Smyth, 235 §855.

13 An even more complete replacement occurred with the word ἱμάτιον (‘clothing’, 283 times in biblical Greek). It derives from ɛἷμα, a word that never appears in the Greek Bible but was common in the Classical period. If ἱμάτιον originally had diminutive force, it was lost during the Hellenistic period. The same is true of ποτήριον ‘cup’, 64 times in biblical Greek; 5279 times in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae), which derives from ποτήρ, a word that never appears in the Greek Bible and is found only 28 times in the TLG. By the Hellenistic era ποτήριον seems to have replaced ποτήρ completely.

14 BDAG, 749, 750.

15 Matthew (17.18) also substitutes παῖς for Mark's παιδίον (9.24) in the story of the demon-possessed boy.

16 R. Larry Overstreet, ‘The Greek Concept of the “Seven Stages of Life” and Its New Testament Significance’, Bulletin for Biblical Research 19 (2009) 537–63; see esp. 555–8.

17 A different word for ‘puppy, small dog’ (κυνίδιον) occurs twice in Philo (Spec. Laws 4.91; Praem. 1.89). Both are true diminutives. The latter reference is to Maltese dogs.

18 Another likely example of a faded diminutive in biblical Greek is βίβλος / βιβλίον. The regular form occurs 40 times (LXX, 30; NT, 10); the diminutive form occurs 220 times (LXX, 186; NT, 34). There is no consistent distinction in size between the terms. Βιβλίον appears to have lost its diminutive sense by the first century ce, perhaps earlier.

19 Walter Petersen, Greek Diminutives in –ION: A Study in Semantics (Weimar: R. Wagner Sohn, 1910) 170-1.

20 The location of the dogs in Jesus’ remark is implicitly inside. The reference to ‘throwing’ the bread has sometimes been taken to mean that the dogs are outside the home. See Susanna Asikainen, Jesus and Other Men: Ideal Masculinities in the Synoptic Gospels (Leiden: Brill, 2018) 112 n25; and Francis Dufton, ‘The Syrophoenician Woman and her Dogs’, Expository Times 100 (1989) 417. But βαλɛῖν need not mean ‘throw outside’. (Note that Matt 7.6 uses δίδωμι and βάλλω in a parallelism.) Moreover, Jesus’ use of κυνάρια implies household dogs. Ulrich Luz correctly says that ‘Only with the household pet does the contrast between dogs and children make sense.’ See Luz, Matthew 8-20: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 340. Similarly, John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 634. The suggestion that Jesus refers to outside, scavenging dogs and the woman refers to indoor pets is highly unlikely. Pace Jim Perkinson, ‘A Canaanitic Word in the Logos of Christ; or the Difference the Syro-phoenician Woman Makes to Jesus’, Semeia 75 (1996) 61–86, at 75. This would almost certainly require two different words rather than the repetition of κυνάρια. The καί before τὰ κυνάρια in Mark 7.28 is ascensive. It does not introduce a new idea but rather elevates something that was previously mentioned or implied. Cf. καί in Mark 1.27; 2.28; 4.25; 7.37.

21 J. P. Louw, Semantics of New Testament Greek (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1982) 50–1. See also Eugene A. Nida and Johannes P. Louw, Lexical Semantics of the Greek New Testament (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992) 21–34.

22 Suetonius, Cal. 59, and Dio Cassius 59.29.

23 Peterson, Greek Diminutives, 178.

24 Watt, ‘Diminutive Suffixes’, 66.

25 The statement in BDAG (830) that the use of πλοιάρια in Aelius Aristides (50, 35; Sacred Tale 4) is ‘plainly’ a faded diminutive is incorrect. The passage in question speaks of small boats (πλοιάρια) in a harbour that were cast up on land or destroyed by a violent storm. But in the very next sentence, Aelius speaks of the large merchant ship (ἡ ὁλκάς) that carried him and his companions as tossed about but spared destruction. In this case, πλοιάρια refers to boats whose small size made them more vulnerable in the storm. See Charles A. Behr, P. Aelius Aristides: The Complete Works (Leiden: Brill, 1981) II, 325.

26 The non-diminutive form (κύων) occurs 13,943 times in the TLG database, over 53 times the number of the diminutive forms.

27 E. Chambry, Aesopi fabulae (Vol. 2; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1926) #346.

28 J. D. M. Derrett rightly recognises this usage of κυνάριον in Plato as ‘a pure diminutive’. See Derrett, ‘Law and the New Testament: The Syro-Phoenician Woman and the Centurion of Capernaum’, NovT 15 (1973) 161–86 (169 n4).

29 Demetrios V. Kaimakes, Die Kyraniden (Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1976).

30 BDAG 575.

31 I thus agree with the view of A.L. Connolly, who argues that Plutarch, Arat. 7.3 illustrates a true, not a faded, diminutive. See Connolly, ‘κυνάριον’, in New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity 4 (ed. G. H. R. Horsley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 157–9; 158.

32 According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, in Greek antiquity ‘the commonest pet was the small white long-coated Maltese dog’. (OCD 3rd, 1150). See also Kenneth F. Kitchell, Animals in the Ancient World from A to Z (London: Routledge, 2014) 53.

33 J. Méndez Dosuna notes that ‘Maltese dogs are almost invariably referred to by the diminutives κυνίδια, κυνάρια’. See J. Mendez Dosuna, ‘What's in a Name? An Epitaph for a Maltese Dog in the Greek Anthology’, Seminari Romani di Cultura Greca 10 (2007) 267–75 (269).

34 Phrynichus, The New Phrynichus (ed. W. Gunion Rutherford; London: Macmillan, 1881) 268, #157.

35 See Eleanor Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 96–7.

36 Phrynichus, Phrynichi Sophistae, Praeparatio Sophistica (Edited by Ioannes de Borries; Leipzig: Teubner, 1911) 84.

37 Stefano Valente, The Antiatticist: Introduction and Critical Edition (Sammlung griechischer und lateinischer Grammatiker 16; Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2015) 202; #87.

38 Carey A. Moore, Tobit: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Bible Commentaries; New York: Doubleday, 1996) 197; see also 261–2. See the negative assessment of dogs in D. Winston. Thomas, ‘Kelebh, “Dog”: Its Origin and Some Uses in the Old Testament’, Vetus Testamentum 10 (1960) 410–27. Geoffrey David Miller provides a more balanced treatment in ‘Attitudes toward Dogs in Ancient Israel: A Reassessment’, JSOT 32 (2008) 487–500. Joshua Schwartz's study is especially thorough: ‘Dogs in Jewish Society in the Second Temple Period and in the Time of the Mishnah and Talmud’, Journal of Jewish Studies 55 (2004) 246–77. Schwartz (266) concludes that, while it is possible that some Jewish homes had dogs as pets, ‘it is improbable that dogs in Jewish society were the objects of the same degree of affection as they received in the Graeco-Roman world or the Persian world’.

39 Alan H. Cadwallader notes that dogs lack rationality (λόγος) and relates this to the fact that the woman is commended for her λόγος in v. 29. It is questionable, however, whether the word means that in its Markan context. See Cadwallader, ‘When a Woman is a Dog: Ancient and Modern Ethology Meet the Syrophoenician Woman’, The Bible and Critical Theory 1 (2005) 1–17 (2); and BDAG, 600 1aγ.

40 See Tobit 5.17, 6.1 (S), 11,4 (S). The hunting/herding use of dogs is found in Job 30.1; T. Job 9.3; Josephus, Ant. 4.206; and Philo, Abr. 1.266. In a remarkable passage, Philo (Decal. 1.114) speaks of household dogs that protect their masters to the point of death. He also notes that herding dogs risk their lives for the sheep and the shepherd. Philo uses these examples to enjoin human beings to follow the dogs’ example! J. Martin C. Scott's sweeping statement that ‘it is impossible to find plausible affirmative references to people as either little dogs, puppies, or house pets’ requires some qualification. See Scott, ‘Matthew 15:21-28: A Test-case for Jesus’ Manners’, JSNT 19 (1997) 21–44 (27) (author's emphasis).

41 See Luz, Matthew 8-20, 340. See also P. Pokorný, ‘From a Puppy to the Child: Some Problems of Contemporary Biblical Exegesis Demonstrated from Mark 7.24–30/Matt 15.21–8’, NTS 41 (1995) 321–37; esp. 325. See the index of references to dogs, both positive and negative, in Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) 7.115–6.

42 See J. M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973) 102–24; and Kenneth F. Kitchell, Animals in the Ancient World, 47–53. Connolly (158) notes there are several gravestones that depict pet dogs of the deceased, including some in which the dogs are near tables or funerary couches.

43 Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 367.

44 Jonathan Rolands, ‘Difficult texts: “A dog at the table” in Matthew 15.21–28’, Theology 122 (2019) 285–8; esp. 286.

45 See David M. Rhoads’ narrative analysis of the passage, especially Mark 6.30–8.10, in ‘Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman in Mark: A Narrative-Critical Study’, Currents in Theology and Mission 47 (2020) 36–48; esp. 38.

46 The passage contains five separate words with nine occurrences due to repetition (θυγάτριον; δαιμόνιον 3x; κυνάριον 2x; ψιχίον; and παιδίον 2x). Rhoads (‘Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman’, 46) sees the accumulation of diminutives as the narrator's development of the motif of ‘least-ness’. Derrett (‘Law’, 169 n5) cautions, ‘The number of diminutives in our passage is interesting, but it is not conclusive of a ‘devaluation’ of vocabulary in “popular” Greek.’

47 This fact is illustrated by the following English example: ‘After the banquet, the woman attended a marionette show. During an intermission, as she lit up a cigarette, she realised that she had left her bracelet in the banquet hall's kitchenette.’ The italicised words are diminutive in form. Native speakers immediately recognise that only the last of these has diminutive force.

48 Summing up his analysis of the word, Connolly (158) concludes that ‘as for κυνάριον the few literary and documentary examples suggest that it was not simply a faded diminutive, but could take on various nuances expressed by the diminutive form’.

49 Similarly, a pejorative sense for κυνάριον in Epictetus 4.1.111 is required by the context.

50 Mark 7.24–30 has generated a huge amount of scholarly reflection, including specific treatments from different hermeneutical angles. For a helpful survey of interpretations, see Jaime Clark-Soles, Women in the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2020) 17–42. Amy-Jill Levine offers a creative parable of quarrelling siblings who take starkly different approaches to the interpretation of Matthew's story. She commends, critiques and mediates between historically oriented and ideologically oriented approaches. See Levine, ‘Matthew's Advice to a Divided Readership’, in The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study (ed. David E. Aune; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 22–41. Julien C. H. Smith refers to a range of interpretations in ‘The Construction of Identity in Mark 7:24–30: The Syrophoenician Woman and the Problem of Ethnicity’, Biblical Interpretation 20 (2012) 458–81; see esp. 460–1 nn.4–11. Finally, Dorothy A. Lee discusses missional, paedagogical, paradigmatic, and Christological readings of the Markan story in ‘Clean and Unclean: Multiple Readings of Mark 7:24-30/31’ in Terror in the Bible: Rhetoric, Gender, and Violence (ed. Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon and Robyn J. Whitaker; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2021) 67–87.

51 Kelly Iverson, Gentiles in the Gospel of Mark: ‘Even the Dogs Under the Table Eat the Children's Crumbs’ (London: T. & T. Clark, 2007) 48–9. See also Bas M. F. van Iersel, Mark: A Reader Response Commentary (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998) 250: ‘the use of the diminutive relativizes this [the unfriendly image]. These little dogs are not stray or watch dogs but well cared for pets that share the life of the family’. See also Rebekah Liu, ‘A Dog under the Table at the Messianic Banquet: A Study of Mark 7:24–30’, Andrews University Seminary Studies 48 (2010) 251–5; esp. 254.

52 Pace Rhoads, ‘Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman’, 40, 42.

53 Stefan Schreiber,‘Cavete Canes! Zur Wachsenden Ausgrenzungsvalenz einer neutestamentlichen Metapher’, Biblische Zeitschrift 45 (2001) 170–92 (175 and n18).

54 As Walter E. Bundy observes, ‘the dogs here are a part of a word-picture with no odious comparison’. See Bundy, Jesus and the First Three Gospels: An Introduction to the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955) 280. David D. M. King rightly comments that Jesus’ use of the word κυνάριον ‘is within the context of metaphorical speech. He does not directly say, “You and your daughter are dogs”’. See King, ‘The Problem of Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman: A Reader-Response Analysis of Mark 7:24–31’, Journal of Religion, Identity, and Politics 3 (2014) 1–21 (4 n1).

55 If a modern parallel may be permitted, suppose a university is in financial straits and is barely able to make payroll. If someone says that the school's employees are fleeing ‘like rats off a sinking ship’, the employees are not being called rats. The speaker simply sees a parallel between the employees’ action and that of rats on a sinking ship. The statement is not an insult, despite the fact that ‘rat’ is often used derogatorily.

56 See the critique of this claim a century ago in Israel Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1924) 195–6. More recently in Mark D. Nanos, ‘Paul's Reversal of Jews Calling Gentiles “Dogs” (Philippians 3:2): 1600 Years of an Ideological Tale Wagging an Exegetical Dog?’ Biblical Interpretation 17 (2009) 448–82; and Ryan D. Collman, ‘Beware the Dogs! The Phallic Epithet in Phil 3.2’, NTS 67 (2021) 105–20. On the thrust of Jesus’ metaphor, see Collman, 113: ‘Jesus uses the term… in the context of a household illustration to explain his present mission to Israel, not to belittle the woman for her ethnic or moral status.’

57 One could argue, however, that in Mark 7 both the discourse (7.1–23) and the events (7.24–37) signal a re-evaluation of the lower priority of Gentiles.

58 Feminist interpreters often observe that the Syrophoenician woman gets the better of Jesus in the exchange. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1992) 96; Sharon H. Ringe, ‘A Gentile Woman's Story’ in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (ed. Letty M. Russell; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985) 65; and Gail R. O'Day, ‘Surprised by Faith: Jesus and the Canaanite Woman’ in Feminist Companion to Matthew (ed. Amy-Jill Levine; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001) 114. O'Day (117) observes, ‘In our story … Jesus is not the protagonist; the Canaanite woman is.’ Finally, Dorothy Lee (‘Clean and Unclean’, 82) observes that ‘Jesus loses the verbal conquest and accedes to the woman's request. Far from attempting to claw back lost honor, Jesus willingly relinquishes the power of winning the debate.’

59 Elmer A. McNamara concludes: ‘The principal point of Christ's teaching … does not lie in the comparison of the children to the little dogs, as if this were the relative worth of Jew and Gentile before God. The whole force of the comparison rests rather in the element of precedence and time.’ See McNamara, ‘The Syro-Phoenician Woman’, The American Ecclesiastical Review 127 (1952) 360-9 (368).

60 John Nolland rightly observes (vis-à-vis the Matthean parallel) that ‘As with all forms of particularism, the affirmation of Jewish privilege here sits uncomfortably with postmodern sensibilities… . The biblical tradition, however, while not without sensitivity to such concerns, is committed to a metanarrative that inevitably involves particularity.’ See Nolland, Matthew, 635.

61 The priority of Israel is unmistakable in Pauline theology (Rom 1.16; 2.9–10) and in the missionary strategy of Paul (Acts 13.46). On this question, see Manson, T.W., Only to the House of Israel? (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964)Google Scholar; and Bird, Michael F., Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission (London: T. & T. Clark, 2006)Google Scholar.

62 Theissen, The Gospels in Context, 64. See also Robert A. Guelich, Mark 1-8:26 (World Biblical Commentary; Dallas: Word Books, 1989) 387.

63 Matthew's parallel, which removes the word ‘first’, is more problematic on this point. On the other hand, the Matthean Jesus praises the woman's response effusively (Matt 15.28).

64 Asikainen, Jesus and Other Men, 113. Admittedly, the hint of a later feeding for the puppies provides ‘no comfort to the woman in her present anxiety about her daughter’. See Jeremias, Joachim, Jesus’ Promise to the Nations (London: SCM Press, 1958) 29Google Scholar.

65 See Cristiana Franco, Shameless: The Canine and the Feminine in Ancient Greece (Oakland: University of California Press, 2014). See Sirach 26.25 (only in the Syriac and a few Greek manuscripts): γυνὴ ἀδιάτρɛπτος ὡς κύων λογισθήσɛται, ‘A headstrong wife will be regarded as a dog.’ In contrast to Mark 7.27, note that: (1) the abusive title is directly attributed to the γυνή; (2) κύων is used, not κυνάριον; and (3) the adjective ἀδιάτρɛπτος makes the derogatory nature of the statement unmistakable.

66 T. Alec Burkill, ‘The Historical Development of the Story of the Syrophoenician Woman’, NovT 9 (1967) 161–77; quote on 173. Burkill's remark has often been repeated in the literature. See, e.g., Ringe, ‘A Gentile Woman's Story’, 69; Gench, Frances Taylor, Back to the Well: Women's Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004) 9Google Scholar; and Bird, Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission, 49.

67 Deb Beatty Mel comments, ‘In contemporary Western culture, where “bitch” is one of the most demeaning epithets for a woman, especially a bold and outspoken one, we are bound to read insult in this statement. However, there is no evidence from any of the other healing miracle stories that Jesus ever treated a supplicant with disrespect.’ See ‘Jesus and the Canaanite Woman: An Exception for Exceptional Faith’, Priscilla Papers 23 (2009) 8–12Google Scholar (10). If one extends the database beyond Mark, both John 4.1–26 (the Samaritan woman) and John 7.53–8.11 (the woman accused of adultery) also portray Jesus as one who interacts respectfully with women.