The literature covered in this chapter is diverse not only in its generally accepted date, but also in its audience. Mark's Gospel may have been written as early as AD 66–8 in and for a Roman congregation. The Fourth Gospel may date as late as AD 96–100 and could hail from an Asian province. The First Gospel probably dates between these two extremes, and if it is dependent on Mark, then we should date it at least a decade after that Gospel. Finally, the Gospel called Matthew's has a certain Jewish Christian flavor and may have been written to a Syrian audience.

How does all this affect the Evangelists' presentation of women in the Gospel story? To anticipate our conclusions it appears that: (1) Mark has only a moderate interest in women and their roles; (2) the First Evangelist has some interest in this theme but also wishes to stress informed and reformed male leadership for the community that follows Jesus; (3) the Fourth Evangelist has a real interest in portraying certain key women in the story (Mary, Mary and Martha, Mary Magdalene, even the Samaritan woman) as models of awakening faith and as witnesses for the Johannine community at the end of the first century. Once again, we must stress that our focus is not on sources or the thorny historical problems all this material raises, but on what and how the Evangelists present material that bears on the question of women and their roles in the earliest churches.