Examining Paul's Perspective on 'Authority'

You find those 4 citations an improvement? So woman cannot be a teacher AND they cannot exert any unhealthy leadership. What you provide here does not lead me to the point you are trying to make in this and your other columns at all.

"Were the Ephesian women domineering over men because they had been deceived by false teachers? Is this the reason Paul asks them to learn in silence, or studiously, in the preceding verse? Does Paul insist upon their continued education because, like Eve who had been led astray by Satan's half-truths, the women in Ephesus had also embraced misinformation? Is not the remedy for deception learning in silence, or serious study?"

There is a lot of speculation in these questions. Maybe the answers are yes, but today's readers are viewing the text through an entirely different socialization than the authors. As a result, it is by no means a given that what might make logical sense to some today was the same 1900 years ago.

Mimi,

Not that I don't have any sympathy for what you're trying to do, but your exegesis proves little. If it is improper for women to hold positions of authority, any authority they might have would be usurped. Since Paul is saying that women are not allowed to teach, their authority under this passage is very constrained.

LV

That's actually not speculation. It's a standard approach by theologians when they are analyzing a text. You assume, quite reasonable, that the text was written for a reason, and look for the reasons why it was written within the text. Failing a Josephus to comment on Paul, that's all we've got- the text. Throw this approach out, and you are left with basically no understanding of any Biblical text, other than what the individual might read through his or her own cultural lenses of the moment. And that, as you said, is not an option.

I think a few items could be added to this passage.

1) "quiet" is "hesuchia", implying meditative silence. In a culture that didn't allow women to learn, which considered that inappropriate for their gender, this is huge.
2) Adam formed first, then Eve, implies that Adam was incomplete without Eve.
3) It does not say that Adam wasn't a sinner, but rather that the woman was deceived and sinned. This points back to the original Genesis text, wherein it says "and the man *who was with her* took it and ate." It reminds us that it was the woman who did all of the intellectual back and forth of the argument with the serpent. It wasn't that the man wasn't around- the text is very clear that he was, but he did and said nothing. This for my money is worse, and I think the Timothy text is pointing this out. Which is worse, to be deceived and sin, or to sin without any consideration? The man presents the opposite of hesuchia- he sits and listens without meditative thought.
4) Considering Junia, Lydia, and Priscilla, Paul obviously had no problem with a woman teaching. It must have been something unique to this congregation.
5) "But women will be saved through childbearing-if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety." is unfortunately one of the most enigmatic passages of the New Testament, and one would wish that Paul had written in the margin here what he really meant. This translation is certainly a valid one, but there are numerous other translations, equally valid, for many of the words used in this passage, not to mention the overall intent of the meaning, are rather obscure. The way it's phrased could mean that the woman will be saved through her own childbearing, or through the birth of the Christ child. It's unclear who the "they" are- women, or children. "Saved through" could mean saved from death in child birth, or saved through the process of child birth, or saved from the curse, one result of which is pains in child birth. Considering the previous statements in the pericope, I tend to believe the latter, and that Paul is suggesting salvation from the curse and all it's results- which incidently is salvation from the whole idea that a woman's desire will be for her husband and he will rule over her. But that is admittedly only one interpretation of a very complex sentence.

But the value in what she says is that Prisca doesn't have to be considered a sinner for straightening out Apollos on this poor theology.

I think this is a big "Duh!" because obviously neither men nor women should domineer over the other or each other.

As far as the speculative questions, at the least they help us discern what Paul may or may not have been getting at, so long as we do not draw decisive concluions based on those speculative questions.

Others who have looked at this text have noted the tense of the injunction for women not to teach - the literal meaning is "I am not permitting", not "I do not permit". Given that Paul was happy to acknowledge female leadership elsewhere, this suggests to me "not yet in this congregation" rather than "not ever anywhere".

I see a parallel in Mark's gospel (+ to some extent in the other synoptics) - the repeated command to people to not tell what he had just done. In the case of the transfiguration, the command to the 3 disciples is to not mention it until after he had been raised from the dead - my interpretation is that it is only then that the disciples would get the point about what he was doing on the mountaintop (preparing for a victory over death, not merely a victory over the Romans, for example), or what it meant for Jesus to be God's beloved son.

So really this is just a specific application of a general principle that has nothing to do with gender - don't teach unless you know what you're talking about. Gender only comes into it because the women of Ephesus had been deprived of the opportunity to learn and had to have time to catch up.

I suspect that the way Paul wrote it was such as to challenge certain women with the new but unpleasant idea that they were in fact domineering, and not merely "providing strong leadership", or whatever euphemism the larger egos of the day would have used.

I've been in several churches where something close to domineering behaviour has distorted relationships - sometimes by men and sometimes by women; sometimes by those with official authority, sometimes by those who merely think everyone should follow where they lead. In none of those cases would the principal offenders have admitted to "domineering".

Excellent contribution; thank you Meurig.

And I think we see that when someone, or a group, suddenly has liberties they didn't previously have, they can overreach and go too far in the other direction. Given the greater freedoms that women clearly had in the early Church, in comparison to the surrounding culture, this could have been a helpful corrective to not misuse your new-found rights in learning and leadership.

So, at best, we have a speculative scenario in which Paul could, maybe, have been referring to a previously unmentioned over-correction.

Not in the slightest! The post your responded to was far more speculative than my earlier posts. Secondly, we know this scenario that I just laid out to practically occur, in churches today, when women join a church, such as in China in the 40s, and suddenly have much more freedom than they did in their surrounding culture. Thirdly, this fits with the culture of the time period. Fourthly, we find evidence internally within the Timothy letters that such a scenario would have occurred, as described above. And Fifthly, as I stated earlier, this is a standard manner of approaching the text- looking within it to see why it was written, with the admitted assumption that there was a reason for it being written. (Though of course Paul could have been writing really poorly for no reason at all, writing in common with those in asylum, and not in accord with good writing.) If, however, we do not use that approach, then we must therefore throw out everything we know of exegesis and understanding first century culture of these Biblical texts, and reduce ourselves merely to eisigesis and reading our own culture into the text. Admittedly far easier, but I don't think it gets any closer to the truth.

Just to be clear, I think there's a case to be made for women ministers, I just don't think that Ms. Haddad has done much to advance it here.

LV

Gotcha! What I got out of her post was that when Paul says "teach or exercise authority over" he means to misuse the vocation of teaching to control someone - as Jesus prohibited- Matt 22:24-30. And I also think his main concern was in the context of the marriage.

I concede that there was a reason he wrote the text. The simplest explanation was that women were teaching over men, thereby having usurped their authority, and were not dressing modestly. There was confusion as to how the genders should behave, and so Paul cleared up the issue by citing the Old Testament.

"Considering Junia, Lydia, and Priscilla, Paul obviously had no problem with a woman teaching."

That's not at all obvious, considering they are not referenced as teachers.

They teach, or are referenced as apostles- which implies a good deal more authority than a teacher. I suppose you could argue that Paul was saying women could be apostles but not teachers, but I'm not sure how much sense that would make.

But if we go that route, then we have to ignore the places where Paul refers to women teaching; the transient nature of the verb "I am not permitting", as someone else pointed out; and the rest of the passage, which gives the justification that man was formed first, when any quick reading of the Genesis stories indicates that those created *last* gain authority by their order of creation- which would imply either that Paul was unfamiliar with the Genesis stories, or was arguing a different point. Also, recall that until it was pointed out that the word meant "domineering authority", most conservative scholars believed that it meant that a woman couldn't teach *or* have authority. It was only afterwards that they changed their argument to say that the two were linked together.

Yes, we agree, that Paul gave more freedom to women than the outside cultures. But it seems to me rather an easy religion if we now argue we've achieved that freedom culturally, and no longer have to strive in that arena. I would say instead that Paul is amazingly freeing, and is radically misinterpreted through the mysoginist eyes of the Early Church Fathers. Not their fault- they could only read through their own cultural lenses, and didn't probably mean to corrupt the text through new interpretations. But in any sexist society, such an interpretation becomes popular, for do we not all create God in our own image?

Acts 18: 24 Now there came to Ephesus a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures. 25 He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord; and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; <BIG>when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately</BIG>.

Hi Kevin,

Since you didn't use the reply function to my post, but rather your own, I didn't see this till just now.

Yes, the passage you cited very well documents a woman teaching. And since the custom of the time was to always put the man or husband's name first, unless there were special circumstances, most Biblical scholars believe that it was Priscilla who was in charge in that family and teaching relationship.

Sorry- I see now that you were resonding to the other Kevin, and that you are a second Kevin.

Actually, after searching through this entire thread, I see nowhere you noted the difference, other than to state there was a difference. Nor do I see a distinction made in the Bible. For this to work, you would need to be able to point to a place where "sharpening" exists in opposition to "teaching", with separate definitions for both. Otherwise, it is too easy to see them in their natural categories, as merged together, and sharpening being a subset of teaching. It seems that, rather than the Bible making the distinction clear, you are coming up with some rather arbitrary words to further your POV. And again, this is the problem with Biblical Literalism, as it bends over backwards to make it's point.

I cited Titus on the question of leadership, and noted that the standards for being an elder are different from simply being a Christian. Iron sharpens iron implies a mutuality (I sharpen you; you sharpen me) that is not present in a teaching relationship.

Yes, and I responded to that where you cited him- but you didn't mention sharpening in that place. (Do a word search within Community and you'll see.)

As a Quaker, I can strongly affirm that mutuality is present when dealing with a teacher or elder or leader. You are reading the text from your own cultural preconditioning. And we all do that, but in this regard you are misreading the text. The text doesn't set up such a heirarchy where the teacher is not sharpened by her followers, but you are seeing that in the text because within your culture - American or the subset of American conservative Christian culture that you are part of - leaders and teachers do not.. This is not the model that we see in the apostles, or in Jesus, or for that matter in God's approach to us throughout the Bible, where he comes to us in humility, though he has all power.