Gospel Women

What is the significance of "the women" in the life of Jesus and in the testimony of the early church?  To address this I am looking at Luke chapter 8 and Acts chapter 1.  Luke says this:

Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Mag'dalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joan'na, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means. 
Luke 8:1-3 (RSV) 

Discussing Joanna in chapter 5 of his book, Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels  (Eerdmans 2002) Richard  Bauckham argues that Jesus  has two groups of close followers in the Gospel of Luke: the twelve and the women. Joanna  provided financial support for Jesus and the twelve.  Joanna was most likely from an elite Galilean Jewish family and married a Nabatean who held a very prominent position in Herod’s court.  See this book review  of  Gospel Women by Kenneth Litwak in   Review of Biblical Literature (Vol 6 2003).

We rarely hear that that Jesus had two groups of close followers, the twelve and the women.  This passage from Luke chapter 8 which ties the presence of the women to Jesus' "preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom" is a powerful statement showing that Bauckham is right to say that "the women" are Jesus' second group of close followers.   Acts chapter 1 further supports the idea: 

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey away; and when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
Acts 1: 12-14 (RSV).

Here you see "in the upper room"  those who knew Jesus  from the beginning, the eleven,  the mother of Jesus, and his brothers, and "the women." 

This post is a revision of the post of August 4, 2012.