Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (Dutch: Christus in het huis van Martha en Maria) is a painting finished in 1655 by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer. It is now in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. It is the largest painting by Vermeer and one of the very few with an overt religious motive (63"x56").

  • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
    4·
    8 days ago

    Beautiful art for a fascinating moment in the Bible. For those who’d like to know more, I wrote a small blurb:

    So this is one of those oft-misunderstood moments in the Bible. Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus while Martha works to host everyone. Martha gets all huffy at Mary for not helping, but Jesus protects Mary.

    What’s interesting is there’s subtext here that isn’t about housework or hosting.

    Sitting at the feet of a rabbi is where one learned to become a rabbi. Paul himself says he learned at the feet of Gamaliel, a famous rabbi of the day.

    Martha was upset that Mary was presuming to learn like a rabbi. She likely thought Jesus was just being nice about it, so offered a pretext for him to dismiss her. Jesus shut that down hard. Women are welcome to learn to become teachers in the kingdom he’s building.

    -Luke 10:38-42, Acts 22:3 (nrsv)