Character Profile: Prostitutes in the Gospels

How to cite this article: JP Staff Writer, “Character Profile: Prostitutes in the Gospels,” Jerusalem Perspective (2025) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/30558/].

Although Jesus’ reputation of being sympathetic toward female prostitutes is well known, the basis for this reputation is surprisingly slim. It rests on a single statement recorded in a single Gospel:

Amen! I say to you, the toll collectors and the prostitutes precede you into the Kingdom of God. For John [the Baptist] came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe in him, but the toll collectors and prostitutes believed him. Yet, seeing them, you did not repent thereafter so as to believe in him. (Matt. 21:31b-32)^[43]

• ^[1] See Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), 223. ↩
• ^[2] On Mary Magdalene, see Miriam Feinberg Vamosh et al., “Character Profile: Mary Magdalene,” Jerusalem Perspective (2021) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/22360/]. ↩
• ^[3] Cf. Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, 223. ↩
• ^[4] See, for instance, Beare’s surmise that “there was no great scarcity of harlots in Jerusalem and through the country as a result of the mission of John.” Francis Wright Beare, The Gospel of Matthew: Translation, Introduction and Commentary (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1981), 424. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, in her monograph In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1984), 128, on the basis of sociological considerations drew the conclusion that “the number of such women [i.e., sex workers—JP] must have been great.” ↩
• ^[5] See Bruce Malina, “Does Porneia Mean Fornication?” Novum Testamentum 14.1 (1972): 10-17, esp. 14; Laurentino Jose Afonso, Moshe David Herr, Max Wurmbrand and Eliyana R. Adler, “Prostitution,” in the Encyclopaedia Judaica (2d ed.; 22 vols.; ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik; Detroit: Macmillan, 2007), 16:625-629, esp 625. ↩
• ^[6] In the Septuagint (LXX) the noun πόρνη typically occurs as the translation of זֹנָה. See Edwin Hatch and Henry A. Redpath, A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament (Including the Apocryphal Books) (3 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1897; repr. 2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 2:1195. ↩
• ^[7] Cf. Deut. 22:21. A young woman found not to be a virgin could be stoned for having “prostituted herself in her father’s house.” ↩
• ^[8] There were slanderous reports to the effect that the mother of Jesus was an actual sex worker, who became pregnant by a Roman soldier, but there is no factual basis to this malicious rumor. ↩
• ^[9] Tal Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1995; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1996), 217. ↩
• ^[10] This dim view of sex workers was not confined to the rabbinic sages. It was also shared by Ben Sira (Sir. 9:6; 19:2), Philo of Alexandria (Spec. Leg. 1:280, 282; 3:51), and Josephus (Ant. 4:206, 246). ↩
• ^[11] Cf. Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine, 218. ↩
• ^[12] Cf. Avot de-Rabbi Natan (A) §8 (ed. Schechter, 37). ↩
• ^[13] There is, indeed, the absolute prohibition against any Israelite becoming a cult sex worker (Deut. 23:18), but the same did not apply to profane sex workers. ↩
• ^[14] See Friedrich Hauck and Siegfried Schulz, “πόρνη κ.τ.λ.,” in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich; trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; 10 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-1976), 6:579-595, esp. 585; Malina, “Does Porneia Mean Fornication?” 15, 17. Falk stated the facts delicately when he wrote, “During marriage the husband had to have marital relations with his wife.... The wife, on the other hand, was under a strict obligation of marital fidelity, for any violation of this rule endangered the legitimacy of the man’s offspring.” See Z. W. Falk, “Jewish Private Law,” in The Jewish People in the First Century (2 vols.; ed. Shmuel Safrai and Menahem Stern; CRINT I.1-2; Amsterdam: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 1:504-534, esp. 516. ↩
• ^[15] Such might be the case for an orphan, a divorced woman whose father had died, or a fatherless widow with no brothers to take her in. ↩
• ^[16] The rabbinic sages were also shocked by the severity of this punishment, and in order to curtail its execution limited the punishment to the daughters of priests who were betrothed or married (b. Sanh. 50b-51a). It may be, however, that the penalty for the daughters of priests was originally a limitation on the wider application of this penalty to all Israelite daughters, as Judah’s intention to burn Tamar (Gen. 38:24) suggests. See Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (AB 3A; New York: Doubleday, 2000; repr. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 1811. Philo, by contrast, opined that every female sex worker was worthy to be stoned (Spec. Leg. 3:51). ↩
• ^[17] The references to Jesus’ travels in the Decapolis in Mark and Matthew appear to be the result of a misidentification of the site of the miracle of the swine in Gerasa (Jerash), one of the cities of the Decapolis. Luke’s Gospel preserves no trace of Jesus’ visiting the cities of the Decapolis. ↩
• ^[18] The sex workers mentioned in the parable of the prodigal son may be assumed to be Gentiles, since the son is said to have caroused in a far-off country (Luke 15:13). ↩
• ^[19] Cf. b. Git. 57b, which describes the deportation of Jewish captives to become sex workers. ↩
• ^[20] See Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine, 218. ↩
• ^[21] Cf. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 128. That sex work would have been an option of last resort is confirmed by the cases in which people preferred to die rather than become sex workers. The Babylonian Talmud, for instance, tells of Jewish captives who committed suicide in order to escape sex work (b. Git. 57b). Eleazar ben Yair, the leader of the rebels at Masada, urged his followers to commit suicide, after first putting their wives and children to death, rather than be captured by Romans. In the speech Josephus attributed to Eleazar there are references to the outrages against the rebels' wives the Roman soldiers were likely to commit if the rebels allowed themselves to be captured (J.W. 7:334, 382). It is not clear whether the speech refers to rape or the forcing of captured women into sex work. Perhaps both were intended. Josephus and his readers regarded death as preferable to these horrific outcomes. See Shimon Applebaum, “The Zealots: The Case for Revaluation,” Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 155-170, esp. 169. ↩
• ^[22] On the other side of the coin, Ilan (Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine, 218) suggested that most Jewish men who engaged the services of sex workers would probably have gone to Gentiles for this purpose. Cf. Josephus’ reference to the existence of brothels in Caesarea and Samaria (Ant. 19:356-357), the account in Sifre Num. §115 (ed. Horovitz, 128), which describes how a disciple of Rabbi Hiyya went to a Gentile sex worker in one of the cities of the coast (cf. b. Avod. Zar. 17a, which mentions a sex worker located in one of the coastal cities), and Shimon ben Yohai's complaint that the Romans only built marketplaces in order to provide a place for sex workers to congregate (b. Shab. 33b). ↩
• ^[23] According to Jastrow, the noun טִינּוֹפֶת (ṭi·NŌ·fet, “filth”) is synonymous with טִינּוּף (ṭi·NŪF, “filth”), which, among other things, can refer to “a discharge from the womb indicating abortion.” Gentiles were suspected of discarding aborted fetuses in cisterns, drains and dung heaps (m. Nid. 7:4). One wonders whether by referring to a latrine as a place of filth the saying insinuated that, aside from excrement, latrines were places where sex workers disposed of aborted fetuses. If so, then it was probably Gentile sex workers the saying has in mind, for it was Gentile women who had a reputation for inappropriately disposing of human remains. ↩
• ^[24] On this encounter between Rabbi Eliezer and a disciple of Jesus, see Ray A. Pritz, Nazarene Jewish Christianity: From the End of the New Testament Period Until its Disappearance in the Fourth Century (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988), 96-97; Joshua Schwartz and Peter J. Tomson, “When Rabbi Eliezer Was Arrested for Heresy,” Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal 10 (2012): 145-181. ↩
• ^[25] Gezerah shavah was a rabbinic method of stitching together scriptural verses on the basis of shared vocabulary unique to those verses despite their being widely separated within Scripture. Examples in the teachings of Jesus include the combination of “love the Lord your God” (Deut. 6:5) with “love your neighbor” (Lev. 19:18) and probably the combination of “My house shall be called a house of prayer” (Isa. 56:7) with “My house has become a den of thieves” (Jer. 7:11 [cf. LXX]). See Joseph Frankovic, “Remember Shiloh!” Jerusalem Perspective 46/47 (1994): 24-31 [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/2714/]. With regard to the tradition attributed to Jesus in b. Avod. Zar. 17a, Deut. 23:19 and Mic. 1:7 are the only two verses in the Hebrew Scriptures that contain the phrase אֶתְנַן זוֹנָה (’et·NAN zō·NĀH, “wage of a sex worker”). ↩
• ^[26] On Hebrew as a living language in the time of Jesus, see Shmuel Safrai, “Spoken Languages in the Time of Jesus,” Jerusalem Perspective 30 (1991): 3-8, 13 [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/2551/]; David N. Bivin, “Hebraisms in the New Testament,” Jerusalem Perspective (2013) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/11224/]. ↩
• ^[27] Horsley’s interpretation of the saying, “that neither the tax collectors and prostitutes nor the addressees of the saying will enter the kingdom,” is probably going too far. See Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, 223. ↩
• ^[28] On the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, see R. Steven Notley, “Let Him Who Is Without Sin…,” Jerusalem Perspective (2004) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/4564/]; Guido Baltes, “Did Jesus Save the Life of an Adulteress?” Jerusalem Perspective (2021) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/22176/]. ↩
• ^[29] On Jesus’ attitude toward toll collectors, see Guido Baltes, “(Why) Did Jews Hate Tax Collectors–Or Did They? The Evolution of a Modern Stereotype in Biblical Studies,” Jerusalem Perspective (2024) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/28688/]. ↩
• ^[30] On the wearing of ritual tassels in the first century, see JP Staff Writer, “Tangled up in T^echēlet: Tzitzit (Ritual Tassels) in the Time of Jesus,” Jerusalem Perspective (2023) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/27237/]. ↩
• ^[31] Notice how already in the narrative the Gentile woman has switched from swearing by the pagan empire to swearing by the worship of Israel’s God in the Temple of Jerusalem. This change in disposition prefigures her conversion to Judaism. ↩
• ^[32] Cf. the stories in b. Kid. 81b; b. Avod. Zar. 17a; Seder Eliyahu Zuta §22. ↩
• ^[33] By “double standard” we mean that adultery is defined as sexual relations with another man's wife. A married man who has extra-marital sex with a woman who is not married is not guilty of adultery. ↩
• ^[34] By “equal standard” we mean that neither the husband nor the wife is permitted to have extra-marital sex. ↩
• ^[35] On Jesus’ view of divorce, see Peter J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles (CRINT III.1; Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 112-116; idem, “Paul’s Jewish Background in View of His Law Teaching in 1 Cor 7,” in Paul and the Mosaic Law (ed. James D. G. Dunn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 251-270; idem, “Divorce Halakhah in Paul and the Jesus Tradition,” in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature (ed. Reimund Bieringer, Florentino García Martínez, Didier Pollefeyt, and Peter J. Tomson; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 289-332. ↩
• ^[36] It is for this reason we cannot accept the view that Jesus did not forbid remarriage after divorce except when divorce took place in order to marry someone else. (From a legal point of view the only reason to divorce was to be free to marry someone else.) For this view see David N. Bivin, “‘And’ or ‘In order to’ Remarry?” Jerusalem Perspective 50 (1996): 10-17, 35-38 [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/2756/]; R. Steven Notley, “Divorce and Remarriage in Historical Perspective,” Jerusalem Perspective (2004) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/6037/]. ↩
• ^[37] Paul knew of no exceptions to Jesus’ prohibition against divorce (1 Cor. 7:10-11). In the synoptic tradition only Matthew’s Gospel allows for an exception in the case of πορνεία (por·NEI·a), i.e., sexual relations forbidden in the Torah (Matt. 5:32; 19:9). Since the exception is known only to Matthew, it may be a concession the author of Matthew made to his community. ↩
• ^[38] See Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine, 215; Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law, 105-106. ↩
• ^[39] Eusebius (Praep. ev. 8:6-7) attributed to Philo a statement that the Essenes lived in a state of celibacy. See Geza Vermes and Martin D. Goodman, The Essenes According to the Classical Sources (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 26-31. ↩
• ^[40] Josephus himself espoused the view that sexual relations should only be for the purpose of procreation (Apion 2:203). Might his opinion reflect the influence of the Essenes upon Josephus (cf. Life §10)? ↩
• ^[41] Here we use the term “prostitution” because it is extra-marital sex, not paid sex work, that is under discussion. ↩
• ^[42] See Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine, 127. ↩
• ^[43] For an in-depth analysis of this saying, see Joshua N. Tilton and David N. Bivin, “Refusing John the Baptist,” The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction (Jerusalem Perspective, 2025) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/30118/]. ↩