Despite the first and fifth chapter of the entire Bible making direct, universal statements of gender equality (and also racial equality) in Genesis 1:26-27 and 5:1-2, at least one variation of Rabbinic Judaism hold that women should not serve as witnesses in legal cases. By the time of Josephus, as indicated in his Antiquities of the Jews, this position was entrenched enough in Jewish culture that he declares it as if it is part of Yahweh's laws in the Torah, which I emphasize are obligatory across time and national/geographical boundaries according to the Bible itself (Leviticus 18:24-30, 20:22-26, Deuteronomy 4:5-8, 9:4-6, 12:29-31, 18:9-13, 20:16-18, Psalm 119:46, Ezekiel 5:5-7, 1 Timothy 1:8-11)—something that, except when logical necessity demands otherwise, must be logically true if a thing really is good or evil in itself although Rabbinic Judaism tends to contradict these facts as well. According to these laws that reflect (mostly) universal obligations on true Judeo-Christianity, are women unfit for formal or public testimony? A handful of passages provide moral requirements for witnesses in legal proceedings, the most overarching one being found in Deuteronomy 19. Besides two upcoming passages, all fully displayed verses are from the most recent New International Version:
Deuteronomy 19:15—"One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses."
The verse says nothing about the gender of the witnesses one way or another, though some more conventional or literal translations (when it comes to words rather than meaning/applicability) like the King James Version refer to the accused party using male language. In no way does even this necessitate a meaning that excludes women at all, and in fact, such translations of the Bible and seemingly the original manuscripts repeatedly mention men and women separately before referring to both together in male nouns or pronouns, or they alternatively use male nouns or pronouns before explicitly mentioning both men and women. Of the many examples inside and outside of Yahweh's laws in the Torah (including Exodus 21:20-21, Leviticus 13:29-39, Deuteronomy 13:6-10, 15:12-18, Job 31:13-15, and Esther 4:11), I will only provide two from Mosaic Law to illustrate not just the possibility of male language referring to collective humans (which is true and knowable due to logic alone), but also the clear Biblical use of this linguistic phenomenon. One teaches as a multitude of other verses do that the same offense against a man and a woman is equally severe and therefore deserves the same justice, and the other teaches as other verses do that being a man or woman makes no difference as to whether committing an act is sinful or what punishment should be imposed:
Exodus 21:27 (KJV)—"And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake."
Numbers 5:6-7 (KJV)—"Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the Lord, and that person be guilty; Then they shall confess their sin which they have done: and he shall recompense his trespass with the principal thereof, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it to him against whom he hath trespassed."
In Deuteronomy 21:18-21, it is not stated quite this directly yet is nonetheless true that in the scenario of parental disobedience addressed, both parents are or could serve as the two witnesses required at minimum; this on its own refutes the idea that women are ineligible to be witnesses on Mosaic Law, something that is already never so much as misleadingly hinted at elsewhere, though some Rabbinic Jews believed otherwise in their legalistic irrationality. Mothers as well as fathers must participate in bringing their habitually disobedient child--one who disobeys their logically and morally legitimate instructions, for no one could obligated to obey sinful or otherwise invalid instructions--before the elders/judges to tell of the wrongful disobedience against both of them.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21—"If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid."
As the passage explicitly words it, both parents are owed a special degree of honor, both are to be involved in discipline of their child without differentiation based on gender, and both (if still alive) are to bring their child's sin before the elders for punishment. Most relevant to the primary focus of this post is the fact that the mother and father alike testify about how their son (or daughter) has engaged in hedonistic and egoistic practices, including not obeying them when they instruct their child how to live according to God's laws. Given that both the father and mother observed the same individual offenses of this sort, the mother and father jointly act as witnesses. Obviously, here is an instance where Mosaic Law allows or requires women to formally testify, in a capital case, no less.
Other offenses by a child against one parent or the other could easily be witnessed by both if all are present, including the former's verbal cursing or unprompted physical assault (as in, outside of self-defense) of the latter. Neither the related verses nor Deuteronomy 19, or any other passages, prohibit mothers from testifying any more than Yahweh's laws instruct other women to not serve as witnesses on the basis of their gender, which is not at all:
Exodus 21:15—"'Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death.'"
Exodus 21:17—"'Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.'"
Leviticus 20:9—"'"Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head."'"
From these verses about capital sins against fathers and mothers alone, there are explicit as well as unmentioned but permitted allowances for women to be witnesses in legal cases. Another excerpt from Deuteronomy goes even further by prescribing the execution of a male rapist when the female victim was assaulted out in the countryside, the text specifying that no one else was around to help her. There would still be two witnesses, the rape victim and the rapist; other evidences could still be relied on to meet the basic moral requirement of two or three witnesses if the rapist does not confess. Either way, the woman's testimony as a witness would according to the text necessarily be an integral basis of executing the offender:
Deuteronomy 22:25-27—"But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her."
The woman in this case law must be a witness, unless only the voluntary confession by her male rapist, who might very well be uninterested in turning himself in, is the catalyst for the execution. There are other sexist misinterpretions of this passage against women and men, but I have addressed them elsewhere and will not shy away from continuing to write about them in the future. For instance, it is absolutely untrue that capital punishment Biblically applies only to the rapist who assaults an engaged women. Just as the Bible does not prescribe that women should not be witnesses in criminal cases or other contexts, it absolutely never denies the equal victimhood of men raped or otherwise sexually assaulted by women or the equal guilt of the female rapist, who would by necessity also deserve to be executed. Multiple other verses shown in this same post have logical ramifications for this issue although they focus on other instances of assault.
In far more ways than many people think or openly acknowledge, in any of the aforementioned subjects and others, the Bible is unflinchingly, overtly gender egalitarian. Rather than privileging men or women above the other gender, the Torah teaches true gender equality explicitly without statements like those in Deuteronomy 19:15 regarding witnesses contradicting this whatsoever. Rejection of female witnesses due to misogynistic stereotypes is but one of the heresies against strictly logical truths and genuine Biblical doctrines that Rabbinic Judaism teems with. Since logic is inherently true, as there would have to be some sort of logical reason why logic is necessarily false and thus it is true either way, a concept must be consistent with logical necessity to be possible. Gender egalitarianism is the rationalistic truth of the matter, and the Bible agrees, most clearly and frequently in the Torah misunderstood to be riddled with misogynistic philosophy.
Logic, people. It is very fucking helpful.
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