First, it should be noted that Jesus had women disciples, talmidim, or followers which no rabbi before him, contemporary with him or after ever had. According to Bailey in his book [[Bailey2008-fu|Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels]] the word disciple appears in its feminine form in [Acts 9:36](https://www.bible.com/bible/59/ACT.9.36) where Tabitha _(Dorcas)_ is called mathetria _(disciple)_. In Jesus in response to his family appearing and desiring to speak with him he replies, > [!bible]+ [[Matthew 12:48-50](https://www.bible.com/bible/59/MAT.12.48-50) - ESV](https://bolls.life/ESV/40/12/) > 48. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49. And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 50. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Jesus gestured with his hand towards his disciples addressing them with both male and female terms. Jewish, Middle Eastern men would have never used the feminine form when referring to disciples. This communicated to the listening audience that Jesus’ group was composed of men and women disciples [(p.192, 2008)](https://paperpile.com/app/p/6dfd458b-d1a9-048c-9850-6e7bc61137bd "Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels"). Rabbis in Jesus’ time felt that women were too stupid to learn and so would never allow them to become a disciple of theirs. A woman’s word was not allowable in a court of law because they were not considered reliable witnesses. [Luke 8:1-3](https://www.bible.com/bible/59/LUK.8.1-3) provides an account of Jesus and his disciples traveling to cities and villages preaching and in this passage, women were providing some of the funding for his itinerant ministry [[Bailey2008-fu|(p.192)]]. Again, rabbis in Jesus’ time would consider it unthinkable to have women funding their ministry much less traveling with them and their entourage. In[Luke 10:3](https://www.bible.com/bible/59/LUK.10.3) Jesus enters the home of some of his best friends, Martha Of Bethany, Mary Of Bethany, and Lazarus Of Bethany where we find Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus with his male disciples. In the Middle East a woman would not have been in the room with the male disciples of a rabbi, for to sit at a rabbis feet implied that she was an actual disciple of the rabbi. All of Bailey’s points here go to giving validity to women as reliable witnesses because Jesus has validated their ability to be disciples and to be a person of value and worth. Jesus is flipping the cultural, religious, male-dominated religious world on its head. He is doing the unthinkable, the unheard of. When it comes to the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb and appearing to the women first, they become central to the story [[Bailey2008-fu|(p.192)]]. When Jesus appears to the women first and then tells them to go to his disciples and let them know that they have seen him risen from the dead he is assuming that they will be reliable witnesses to his male disciples. The fact that a number of women who saw Jesus first and were witnesses to his resurrection exceed the two or three witnesses needed for a trial and a verdict to be reached. No self-respecting Jewish or Middle Eastern male much less a Jewish rabbi would have lowered themselves to using women as witnesses no matter how important the issue at stake was. All of this goes to adding validity to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead because no self-respecting male would have ever contemplated doing what Jesus did in using women as witnesses, much less having something published revealing this fact.