The woman at Jacob’s Well

An Easter-adjacent biblical account organized religion shies away from

Please note — this post is not paywalled.

For Easter, a bit out of the ordinary – in the form of a short story, the account of an outcast working girl who had the longest recorded conversation with Jesus.

Dialogue between her and Jesus is verbatim from John in the NRSV. The rest is imagination, though based on what is known about the woman from other sources.

Today’s is not paywalled, because of public interest – a sexually free woman of a pariah group, the Samaritans, was the person Jesus chose for the most important announcement in human history. Wonder why churches don’t bring this up?

The excerpt is from FELLOWSHIP HALL AND OTHER STORIES, my forthcoming book of short stories.

Also coming soon is my next literary novel (number four!), ABIDE FOR ME, a reimagining of Hosea, a little known book of the Old Testament.

Donkeys were beginning to bray and whuffle, fowl to crow. Each morning she took consolation from beholding the appearance of the sun, turning the silent and mysterious town of Sychar, so dangerous for a woman without a husband or close male relative, into a hot, busied cacophony.

To rise before dawn and begin the day’s labor was the lot of a woman, and what can be gained by resisting destiny? At least she had the assurance of a man sleeping inside as she went outside to relieve herself in the dark.

During daylight in Sychar, girls and women were ubiquitous. After dark either they disappeared inside the hovels or, if having no hovel, were desperate to stay alive till sunrise.

The woman built a fire to prepare lentil stew for her man. Many in Sychar called her a whore, because she and the man were not married. Everyone knew they were having sexual relations – in the close-together architecture of the time, the community heard.

After serving the man breakfast, and servicing him as he liked, the woman set off to draw water from Jacob’s Well.

To be a fallen woman was not necessarily bad, some chose this, preferring it to indenture. But whoredom meant an absolute ban on participation in proper Samaritan society.

Immoral women could not enter synagogues or homes of princes of the assembly. They had to step aside in the street if a respectable woman passed. They must keep their eyes downcast if a wife, bearing the sanction of society, deigned to address them.

The woman knew that distinction well, because she had been a wife five times.

She was sold as a child bride to a distant uncle, who died shortly after the wedding feast. Elders annulled the union leaving her, age 12, again eligible. Or perhaps age 12 – women claimed to be younger than they really were, men to be older.

A dark Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well in this 1877 stained glass made for St. Mark’s Church of Warren, Rhode Island. The window is thought to have come from 19th century stained glass artist Henry Sharp. Image courtesy artnet.

In the “vocabulary” of stained glass, Jesus and the woman are depicted as equals. They face each other at the same height, rather than one towering above.

Calendar age meant little in any case. Because of early childbearing a girl might go from tween directly to crone, never passing through any stage in between.

A year after her first husband died, still very much a girl, she was party to an arranged marriage with a man named Shechem, who desired her for her considerable beauty. Conditions of the marriage were negotiated by a group of aunts on both sides, their concern regarding the transaction being property for themselves, not the youngster’s wishes.

Shechem was a popular male name in Sychar because it was the original designation of the city, far in the past when Shechem was capital of Israel.

Seven hundred years before the woman’s birth, the Samaritan prophet Hosea denounced Shechem as a city of vice, where priests were criminals and the righteous were scorned. Said by a prophet. This was the word of God!

But judges and teachers dismissed Hosea as an idiot for lusting after a Baal courtesan. No matter the Maker instructed Hosea, “Go, marry a woman who has sex with anyone she wants. Do this because my people are like that kind of wife, and have not been faithful to me.”

A woman who has sex with anyone she wants was a pariah.

For his part the prophet Hosea ended up humiliated, though died as the greatest Samaritan until a certain Good Samaritan centuries later. By the woman’s time hardly anyone in Sychar knew Hosea had existed.

Shechem remained a popular male name though Shechem also was an ancient prince who raped Dinah, daughter of Jacob, this evil act instigating a long cycle of blood retribution. Why would any father attach to his son such an association?

Her Shechem mistreated his new wife from the first night. She asked for divorce but a wronged woman had no leverage under the law, which accorded the testimony of one man the same weight as testimony of three women.

The woman begged her brothers to kill her so her suffering would end. Instead one night a band of assassins killed Shechem: he did not pay gambling debts.

After the prescribed period of mourning, during which the woman shaved her head to make herself unappealing to men, judges declared her a widow.

In those days young widowhood was a condition of status. As a young widow she was shown respect in the marketplace.

Settlement of Shechem’s estate brought her a fine Arabian tent, some fabric and a few jewels. For a time the woman lived well.

She wanted to learn about the texts and rules men cite to justify their privileges, so hired a tutor who taught her the Samaritan interpretation of the Torah, and schooled her in Hebrew.

Powerful men around her talked Hebrew, girls never received instruction in this tongue. They spoke patois and could communicate only with other girls, while taking simple directives from husbands and male relatives.

Because of the language barrier, at public meetings and synagogues women mostly did not understand what men were saying. The woman realized this wasn’t some oversight. Knowledge is power. Denying knowledge to women kept them in thrall.

From the tutor she heard the stories of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Leah, Moses, the Commandments; of Noah’s brave family and the human brush with extinction. She learned why Samaritans believe God asked for a temple on Mount Gerizim while Jews believe God chose Mount Zion. The woman was taught why elders in Jerusalem excommunicated Samaritans, declaring them unclean, though Samaria had been capital of northern Israel for a long time.

“Christ and the Samaritan Woman” by the 16th century Venetian painter Vincenzo Catena.

Most, she learned the difference between what faith intends and how it is used.

“Don’t ever think religion is about love or charity,” the tutor said. “Individuals show love. Individuals do charity. Religion is about social control.”

When her brothers found out she was seeking education, they were incensed. They threatened the tutor. He stole off into the desert, taking a ruby as his stipend.

At this juncture the brothers held the woman in captivity: this was best for her! Most of the woman’s time was spent cleaning, preparing food for her brothers and walking back and froth to Jacob’s Well, where she cranked up water and returned with the dear liquid carried on a rod across her back.

When no one was watching she would study samples of writing the tutor left, teaching herself to read.

The brothers arranged a third marriage, to a trader who lived in Syria. The trader usually was not present in Sychar, which was suitable, but expected strong drink, sex and submission when he was.

On the wedding day the woman grabbed a ceremonial knife and tried to cut her throat to end her earthly suffering. One of her brothers stopped her.

The third husband departed for Damascus on business, first giving her a long, sadistic beating after he was unable to become erect owing to new wine. He never returned from the journey.

In months that followed the brothers were kind to her, because a hermit told them she was being tested by God.

The brothers arranged a marriage to a cousin. Considering her first husband died, the woman could be taken by a family member without loss of face. Elders called this an enlightened view, preventing widows from being cast into penury.

The cousin did little more than drink and demand service. When he caught his wife reading, he ran into the street crying of witchcraft.

In short order the cousin pronounced a bill of divorce. A husband could divorce a wife by a statement on any material that was not touching the ground when signed. No appeal from the wife was brooked. By divorcing her, the cousin received her tent and jewels. She became penniless.

For a while the woman was taken in by relatives who had fields and herds. She worked diligently, dawn to dusk, to repay their generosity.

When she went to a synagogue to ask why God had chosen her for this fate, relatives were scandalized. Women must not enter synagogues or address elders. Hearing of such indecent behavior, the relatives tossed her out.

On the street she agreed to marriage to a stranger, solely to have shelter and protection from crime. The stranger would sit with her and discuss what he had seen in faraway places such as Nineveh and Utica.

The tales were fascinating, and the woman wondered if finally she found her heart’s mate. One night he began to whisper to her of devil worship. He was Baalim and wanted her to join. She would need to renounce the God of Abraham and urinate on reliquary stolen from a shul. Fearing for her soul, she fled.

Five marriages failed and none produced children. She consulted midwives who mixed potions for her. The potions only made her retch, never resulting her being with child. At this point the woman accepted she was of no value to any upstanding man. She had exhausted all options save becoming a prostitute.

Making matters worse, she enjoyed sex. For a woman to take pleasure in sex was forbidden.

Men seemed to like sex more if the woman was suffering. Didn’t Genesis say women were cursed with misery during intercourse?

That is not the wording of the verse, which refers to childbearing. But since hardly anyone ever saw the actual scripture, elders were believed when they told their all-male audiences God commanded women to suffer throughout sex.

You’d think men would encourage women’s sexual license. You’d think many things. The reality was any woman who experienced orgasm was shunned.

Accepting whoredom, the woman made an arrangement with a man who could protect her. She agreed to cook, clean and service him. Her idyllic girlhood a distant memory, a harlot by society’s definition, her new role was an outcast among outcasts.

It was from the dwelling where the woman lived as a whore that she set off one morning for Jacob’s Well.

Dug into limestone, struck by the patriarch himself when he reached the West Bank, the well produced groundwater for a thousand years. The day long Jacob’s Well was surrounded by women and girls with jugs and buckets. No man would engage in such a low task as water-carrying.

Often the woman’s back hurt from using the pulley to bring water up from the deep shaft, from constant walking with water buckets on poles across her shoulders. But the backs of mothers who had borne children hurt more. Who was she to complain?

Approaching the well, the woman beheld a traveling party passing through Sychar. They were dusty and disheveled from journeying on foot. One seemed the leader, though wore no ephod or crested belt or other sign of rank, just a tattered robe.

From his side curls, the woman surmised he was a rabbi. Jews were not unknown in Samaria, but viewed with suspicion.

The rabbi was accompanied by acolytes. They were shabby, not like those who follow landholders or chiliarches.

“The Woman at the Well” by 16th century painter Annibale Carracci of Bologna.

As she drew closer, the woman knew from smell the disciples were fishermen, a low and reviled role, the male equivalent of being a prostitute. What manner of rabbi travels with fisherfolk?

She overheard one of them say they should go into the market to purchase food for their master. Departing, they argued amongst themselves about whether anyone had money.

Some time later it was the woman’s turn to bring her bucket toward the well.

Newcomer and woman made eye contact. They regarded each other. His skin was dark as wet sand, his countenance sweet.

The rabbi said, “Give me a drink.”

Usually men pronounced such things to women as commands. This statement was gentle, familiar, as if the two had known each other a long time.

The woman learned young to bite her tongue. Something about this moment emboldened her. She said,

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”

Because Judaism considered Samaritans unclean, no Jewish teacher should be seen using a container touched by a Samaritan, much less a woman to whom he was not related.

The sweet, dark man answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Living water! the woman thought. Some joke!

She liked jokes and decided to play along.

Woman: “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Arguing the relative greatness of ancestors was, she knew, the national sport among Jews.

Sweet man: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. Those who drink of the water I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

This caused woman to wonder if teacher was intoxicated. Rabbis got smashed more often than the authorities cared to acknowledge.

Deciding to outwit the drunken teacher, the woman said,

“Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

A fine rejoinder!

The dark man looked her over, impressed at such bravado. He answered, “Go, call your husband, and come back.”

Casting her eyes downward to show submission, forcing herself to remember even the devout of Sychar viewed her as a whore, the woman said, “I have no husband.”

The man replied, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

Those from different cultures might think the sweet man was mocking the woman. In rabbinical tradition, to deem someone’s statement “true” is praise.

The woman was astounded the visitor could count the number of her husbands. How could such be known to a traveler?

The sweet dark man regarded her with deep chestnut eyes, as if he could look through her to behold every moment of her life.

She said, “Sir, I see you are a prophet.”

Taking a breath she resolved to enter into religious disputation, something she heard many men do, but never any woman.

Referring to their presence near Mount Gerizim she noted, “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say the place where people must worship is Jerusalem.” In this usage you meant Jews.

A crowd gathered, amazed a woman would speak to a teacher in the manner teachers speak. Those from Sychar who knew the woman’s station were offended.

The apostles began to return. Asking who was speaking, they were horrified to learn she was both Samaritan and fallen. Their master refused to converse with princes and elders. Why was he talking to her?

Oblivious to those around him, the dark, sweet man took a long, satisfying pull from the Samaritan’s water jug. This caused Jews in the crowd to gasp.

Thirst quenched, the man pronounced, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

The woman thought, God is spirit, not a regal figure on a throne.

Worship the Father in spirit and truth, regardless of whether Samaritan or Jew or Gentile, regardless of birth circumstances.

The hour is coming and is here now.

Having heard enough prophetic talk to understand these words could mean only one thing, she told the man, “I know that Messiah is coming.”

People in the gathering began to say it was outrageous a filthy slut should be aware of the Messiah concept, much less discuss the matter in public with a rabbi.

The woman continued, “When Messiah comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”

Jesus said, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

At Christ’s birth, an angel told shepherds the child was their savior. The sheepmen spread the news, and it seems, were not believed. Who would believe the indigent?

Knowledge of the angel’s statement was lost. People who came to hear Christ preach did not know they were listening to their savior, for Jesus did not call himself Messiah until this moment, well into his ministry.

The most important announcement in human history, the arrival of the Redeemer, was given not to the high-and-mighty but to a working girl from a pariah class. In the same way the previous most important announcement, the Christmas birth, was given to destitute shepherds abiding in the fields, because they were too poor to hire guards for their flock.

Christ’s disciples were appalled he chose to reveal his identity not just to a Samaritan, not just to a woman, but to a sexually free woman.

The Gospels suggest the Son of Man passed through his incarnation without any intimate encounter – though plenty of encounters with wine!

Making his own choice to abstain from sex, Jesus never judged those who sought pleasure of the senses, the way many are judged today by the toplofty.

Christ called infidelity a sin, if the matrimonial vow is made before God. Otherwise Jesus had no objection to worldly sensuality, by anyone of pure heart.

At the Well, once Jesus revealed his true nature, the woman put down her water jar and ran into the city, bare feet rubbing on hard stone. She said to the residents of Sychar, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

Hundreds accompanied her back to Jacob’s Well, where Jesus healed the sick, ministered of prophecy and salvation, dazzled his listeners by describing each person’s specific sins, forgave each sin.

As they parted the dark, sweet man smiled at the woman and placed his peace upon her.

Through the course of the sacred writings, dialogue with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well was the longest recorded conversation Jesus had with any person.

The woman tried to return to daily life. Now she could walk down the street without having to step aside for members of patrician families. The last had been made first.

One day she heard the terrible news Jesus was executed on trumped-up charges. His expulsion of dove sellers and money changers from the Temple undercut the revenue of political insiders. His larger vision of universal brotherhood threatened every establishment everywhere.

“Woman at the Well” by contemporary spiritualist painter Liz Lemon Swindle.

Later the woman heard the good news. On the third day Jesus rose and asked his disciples for a breakfast of roast fish. Resurrection certainly seems like it would give you an appetite!

Having looked into his infinite eyes, the woman had no trouble believing he triumphed over death.

Jews would be impugned for the turns of events in Jesus’s final days. But the woman understood that symbolically Jesus was rejected by all humanity, then redeemed all humanity.

Had Christ been born in Persia and crucified by Zoroastrians, anyone who blamed the Zoroastrians would show he did not understand what the Maker was saying. Anyone who claimed only adherents to the Jesus Way could gain heavenly grace would show she did not understand what the Maker was saying.

After receiving the good news, whose Greek root words are pronounced in English as gospel, the woman packed a duffel and began to travel the countryside witnessing. She was accustomed to spartan existence, and there was no dishonor in leaving a man who never offered marriage.

For years the woman walked Asia Minor, asking for a meal and a place to rest, telling whoever listened about her conversation with the Redeemer at Jacob’s Well. With many men and many women she spent many evenings discussing the sacred writings, her wisdom increasing.

Once the woman was witnessing in Antioch, then part of Greece, now part of Turkey. Antioch was the first place anyone used the term Christian – a word Christ never spoke nor heard.

Followers of the Jesus Way met in Antioch to listen to the woman and marvel at her knowledge. They baptized her under the name Photina, which means luminous: the English word photo derives from the Greek root word for light.

The woman was thrilled to be given a name beyond hey you.

Now calling herself Photina, she continued to travel and preach of truth, prophecy and salvation. Photina was the first woman evangelist. She would not be the last.

One day Photina heard the apostle Paul had written to the Galatians, who were practicing the Jesus Way in central Anatolia, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all are one in Jesus Christ.”

This seemed to Photina to encompass the dream of her life. And if, two thousand years later, some would express horror at blurring the lines between male and female, they might pick up their Bibles and see the idea raised by Paul when the bright flame of the apostles lit a path to holiness in our world.

After Jesus ascended, Photina learned Emperor Nero was persecuting Christians, including having Paul beheaded for the crime of loving God above the state. In societies to follow, many would be persecuted for loving higher purpose more than those sitting in chairs. This continues to our day.

Followers of the Jesus Way urged Photina to go into hiding. Instead she went straight to Rome to evangelize in public where anyone could hear, just as Jesus went straight to Jerusalem for Passover, despite knowing the authorities wanted him dead.

By Nero’s time, in Rome it was legal to be Jewish, a crime to affirm any belief other than Judaism or the state-sanctioned pagan creed. Some argued the Jesus Way should be considered an adjunct to Judaism, not a separate religion: therefore, lawful.

Whether Jesus intended to create a new faith, or reform an ancient one, or move the world beyond religion as such -- to a social order based on kindness and righteousness -- one can only speculate.

Christ was silent on the denominational questions people later fixated about. Jesus instructed us to love one another; did not say be Jewish or Christian; never spoke of the latter in any context.

It’s hard to believe God sent the divine child to tell the world to become Christian -- but Jesus forgot!

Owing to the legal risk about confessing Christ, Photina was able to draw crowds, but performed few baptisms.

So she stated her own confession in public, knowing she would be arrested.

Brought before an imperial judge, Photina was informed she had only to complete a brief ritual of obeisance to Jupiter and charges would be dismissed. Instead Photina told the court, speaking loudly to ensure all present could hear, the words Nero forbid – “I am a Christian.”

The judge bound Photina over to soldiers, telling them to use torture to obtain a retraction. Though in her fourth decade Photina, object of the affections of so many men, remained attractive. The soldiers had quite a bit of fun that night.

The following morning they returned Photina, bruised and stumbling, to the judge. He pleaded with her to recant. Speaking loudly to ensure all present could hear, Photina told the court, “I am a Christian.”

At this juncture the judge informed Photina he had received instructions from the emperor on the means of execution. Because she was seen at a well with the domestic terrorist Jesus, Photina was to be thrown down a well.

The judge repeated his offer: bow to Jupiter and go your way. Again the woman pronounced the forbidden words. Photina was dragged off as onlookers jeered.

Soldiers took her to a dry well, deep enough the bottom could not been seen.

A centurion arrived to supervise the execution. He begged Photina to praise Jove and save herself.

She said that as an officer could not violate his orders, she could not violate the commandment, “No other gods before me.” Photina told the centurion, “I know where I am going. Do you know where you will go?”

The centurion knelt before Photina and asked her to forgive his sins. She did.

Soldiers in the unit bowed before her, weeping. She forgave their sins, promising to meet them soon in paradise. Then they threw her down the well.

Photina survived the fall, lying in pain without hope of rescue. Hours passed till she expired from blood loss and dehydration.

After an early life of degradation, her earthly existence ended in glory. Those who mistreated her are forgotten, while Photina cast her lot with eternity. Dying at the bottom of a dark well, she was never alone.

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