“Nobody’s Mother,” by Sandra L. Glahn

Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament, by Sandra L. Glahn, Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2023. 187 pages.

How Is a Woman “Saved Through Childbearing”?

Sandra Glahn begins her book with her own heartbreaking story of eight miscarriages and three failed adoption applications. Her greatest longing had been to be a mother, and her understanding of the scriptures was that motherhood was every woman’s highest calling. What purpose did she have, then, if motherhood were denied her?

So began an odyssey of education and research to answer this central question. After earning her Ph.D. Gahn has gone on to author twenty books, among them the well-known “Vindicating the Vixens” (a book I intend to read). But this book, Nobody’s Mother, is the answer Gahn has been seeking.

Why Take a Fresh Look?

Gahn explains in her introduction and first chapter that in the wake of “second wave feminism,” many have now “guarded the church doors against any form of feminism while leaving the back door wide open to misogyny” (15). One of those back doors can be found in  Paul’s admittedly difficult-to-understand instruction concerning women in 1 Timothy 2.

The church’s historic stance of patriarchy, based upon the assumption of female inferiority, gave way in the mid-twentieth century to a newly-coined theology known as complementarianism. Complementarian theology acknowledges the ontological equality of women but still insists upon the practical superiority of men in the hierarchy of family, church, and, for some, work. Yet there is clear evidence in the earliest centuries of the church that women enjoyed equality in Christians families and in church as leaders and teachers, if not in the culture at large.

Gahn traces the factors that led to the decline of women’s equality (24–25)

• Redefining priesthood
• Shift towards infant baptism
• Reverting to expressions of the Law and temple practices
• Anthropology of the day (Greek-influenced “science” concerning women)

Reading Paul’s instruction through these lenses will not lead to good understanding. In light of what we now know, and the immense wealth of ancient records, inscriptions, and archaeology, it is time to revisit Paul’s first epistle to Timothy.

Ephesus and Artemis

The first five of this book’s six chapters are devoted to researching and understanding the city of Ephesus and its relationship with who Artemis is. Certainly, readers are familiar with the goddess of the hunt, the Greek Artemis—or her Roman counterpart, Diana—portrayed with bow and arrows, garbed in a short chiton freeing her legs for running, her hunting dogs and perhaps a stag by her side. But beyond that, the myths surrounding her story become murky. Is she a virgin or does she ever have a lover? Is she a creature of the woods, or does she enter the lives and tales of humans as well? Did her temple rituals involve prostitution, or what is her connection with women’s sexual lives?

In Paul’s day, Ephesus was a port city that became the Roman Empire’s capital of the Asian provinces. Its mythology features Amazons—fierce warrior women once thought to be legend, but now proved to have actually existed (click here for a Smithsonian article on the Amazons)—as “integral to the city’s origins” (41). The “Artemis of Ephesus” featured in Acts 19 was said to have been born near that city, and some variation of her deity had been worshipped for millennia in that place.

Virgin Artemis

Gahn provides a number of summaries throughout her book portraying the Artemis of first century Ephesus.

Summary of Chapters 1-3 (59-61)

• The daughter of Zeus and Leto, whom Zeus impregnated when he took on the form of a swan to get close to her.
• Artemis’s twin brother Apollo was born nine days after her.
• She is a lover of archery and game hunting.
• She is associated with being beautiful, gold, having lovely clothes, the Amazons, and Ephesus.
• She is “volatile,” easily offended, and will kill those who slight her (especially women).
• Her flaming arrows can make death pain-free (euthanasia).
• She is a perpetual virgin, chaste and modest.
• The only man she ever had romantic feelings for (platonic, presumably) was Orion.
• She was the goddess of midwifery, granting women safe delivery or a quick death.

There is no hint that Artemis is associated in any way with prostitution, or fertility, or mothering, or nurturing, and she is not anti-men. Actually, Artemis liked men, and killed fewer of them than women.

Lord Artemis

Judging from the ancient record, those who held office in the cult of Artemis were women of wealth and status, who served before they were married. Sometimes, it seems, these positions were inheritable matrilineally. Artemis herself was a god of high standing, second only to Zeus. The four titles she was most often addressed by were (86):

• Lord
• The first throne
• Queen of the Cosmos
• Heavenly Goddess

Consequently, when Paul wrote his letters to the assemblies in Ephesus, and later to Timothy, he used language that positioned Jesus as above the titles of Artemis.

Much has been made of the goddess’s appearance in Ephesus, and depictions are included in this book. Of note or the intriguing orbs which hang in rows across the Artemis figure’s torso. Gahn lists all the possibilities, beginning with breasts, first attested by two fourth century CE Christian commentators (105). Unfortunately, this first theory has driven all Christian writing on Artemis and Ephesus since, but today seems very unlikely.

The second favorite hypothesis is bull scrota, also highly unlikely. Dates, olives, eggs, deer canines, grapes, nuts, acorns, and inverted honeycombs have all been proposed, but the real answer may come from the days of the Hittites (108). Without giving too much away, the unearthing of many tear-shaped amber beads, and the Hittite practice of leather pouches holding magical emblems may solve the mystery of Artemis’s strange necklace.

Paul’s Instruction Concerning Women

Gahn devotes the last chapter of her book to exploring what Paul may have meant in his first letter to Timothy. She goes phrase by phrase through 1 Timothy 2:12, and also discusses at some length the textual context of Paul’s instruction. She briefly engages some of the research surrounding the Greek word authentein, which involves the definition of authority in some way, most likely in a negative sense. She talks about the one imperative Paul uses, that women are to learn. Using her own translation of the Greek, Gahn discusses Paul’s penchant for using “neither … nor … but” as a syntactical construction to make a strong point (139).

Gahn addresses the disruptive behavior of the men, or husbands, who are angrily disputing rather than peacefully praying. She includes first-century civil laws concerning wifely behavior, and the cultural display of status, wealth, and power through jewels and clothing. She makes note of how many single women there were in Ephesus, possibly in honor of the virgin Artemis, and how they may have been disrupting the assemblies with false teaching.

This final chapter seems to be saying there is ample historical data, now, to go beyond arguing the nuance of meaning for each word. Rather, understanding the Artemis cult will make clear the understanding Paul’s instructions.

What I Liked

This is a well-written and well-researched book, which never loses focus on the goal of researching Artemis and applying that research to understanding the phrase “saved through childbirth.” Gahn presents a credible theory of what that phrase pertains to in view of Ephesus’s worship of Artemis.

I learned a lot about the goddess, and I appreciate how Gahn was able to apply her research to her question. The book itself is accessible to the non-scholars, yet is well-footnoted, and has a great bibliography.

Though I do not agree with all of what Gahn suggests Paul might have meant (I have my own theories), I do agree with her conclusion concerning Artemis’s influence on Paul’s message.

What I Did Not Like

On a few occasions, something on the page stopped me in my tracks with a “huh?!” For instance, two sentences back-to-back seem to link the fifth century BCE with neolithic times (105), and her treatment of authentein seems to ignore the preponderance of evidence that secures this word as distinctly negative in the first century.

There is a certain amount of repetition in the book, a number of summaries that say basically the same thing, and a reprise of material already presented.

These are minor detractions, however, to a book that is not only worth reading for the background on Artemis, but which does a sturdy job of addressing a tough biblical text.