Women are weaker in some ways and stronger in others.
Likewise for men.
Any misogynistic language in the pastoral epistles should be considered in the light of the fact that many New Testament scholars doubt they were written by Paul.
Praise God that men and women are complementary rather than redundant.
This is an interesting missive by a conservative scholar:
that is an interesting statement and one i am quite keen to get into. To answer your comment here with another (to further your statement rather than detract from it)…
The biblical serpent originally was a beautiful creature that could fly. However, as punishment for its own deviance in tempting Eve, it was also cast to the ground, onto its belly. So if a serpent, apparently a reptile by today’s standards, could fly prefall of mankind, in which category of creation did it fall under, creeping things on the ground or birds of the air. What about other reptiles that could fly were they under the bird’s category or the creeping things category? Were they made on the fifth day or the sixth day? I recall years ago there was the belief that dinosaurs were not created by God but came as a result of sin. Obviously, that is a difficult position to hold, however, i wonder if perhaps SOME dinosaurs were not created by God but a corruption/mutation of the kind of animals they originally were created to be?
From the article:
Paul prohibits women from teaching men (2:12) because this is a reversal of the God-ordained hierarchical order (2:13).32
That is certainly the correct exegetical interpretation of that passage. He goes on in a footnote:
The real point of this passage is hard to miss: The original hierarchy of creation was: God—man—woman (Satan is out of the picture). But in Ephesus this order had become reversed: Satan—woman—man (God is out of the picture). The creation motif does, however, seem to have one restriction: it regards the exercise of authority and teaching in spiritual things, though whether this is restricted to a church setting would be difficult to prove since there were no parachurch organizations in the first century. Furthermore, since the hierarchical order is connected to the creation order and possibly constitutional differences between men and women (the “for” in 2:13 makes such a connection), to restrict this just to the public worship of the church is to fly in the face of the context.
His defense of the pastorals was learned and better than a lot of conservatives I’ve seen but he makes a ton of assertions of how “Paul could have still been the author” as if this suggests Paul was the author. Clearly he thinks Pauline authorship is the default position and it’s up to everyone else to prove him wrong. In an age with hundreds of forgeries, this is not at all how serious history works. While informed it reeks of harmonization and canonical bias.
1 Tim 2:7 makes little sense from Paul to a close confidant/companion and fellow worker in the Lord who was on the front lines with him. Unless all of Acts is made up? Just like Paul’s misogynistic statements here make little sense given what he writes in his genuine epistles (e.g. Junia in Rom 16:7). So either Paul contradicts blatantly himself (writers do do this) or someone else wrote this work.
Vinnie
I agree that in the biblical story it seems to imply the serpent could fly, as opposed to be walking around. I even made a post on it a while back but I don’t think a single person responded to it. However, that’s not scientific evidence that snakes could fly, but that in the story the snake seems to have been associated with a heavenly being. But I’m not willing to spend the time on why evolution is true and why genesis 1-11 is not a historical account. There are plenty of posts already dedicated to that. It’s not that I can’t, it’s just it consumes too much time and bears to little fruit. Ideas that snakes, flightless birds and so on are byproducts of sin is just too silly for me to spend time on just to try to circle back around to transgendered people. So I know I’m not going to convince you of what the science says. So my posts , while answering your questions occasionally, are going to be written more for the sake of people who accept science and are trying to find a way for it to harmonize. So I’ll basically just recap and pull off.
To begin I hope your kid is ok. That definitely sucks that they did not have a spotter. In order for him to really get strong and grow he needs to either find a spotter or he needs to switch to working out his check using a smiths machine, a workout machine used for the chest or he needs to consider dumbbell presses. For many switching from a bar to dumbbells can be humbling and make them feel insecure because it drops the weight a lot. Like if he’s struggling with 180lbs on the press he probably will only be able to press 40lbs dumbbells in each arm enough times to do his reps. It does build up the muscles in a free weight style though far better than with a bar. Plus he can move the heavier weight with a machine. He will be safer than trying to life heavy without a spotter. Men do die from that or get seriously injured.
Now back to genders. So a few things we that that’s true. We know that scientists as a whole seem to agree that transgendered people exists. We know that there are men and women with chromosomes like
XXXY because the women can get pregnant and the men can get women pregnant. We see these chromosome mutations in many ways such as a male cat with orange and white and black is almost always female. Like 99.99% of the time. But some of these cats are orange, black and white and are male and very rare and it’s because they end up having XXY chromosomes. So looking at that alone it’s not simply black and white .
Secondly we know that intersex people are born. That’s people with genitalia that does not match the typical male and female anatomy. So morphology alone is not a perfect indication of gender. As mentioned, we all start off in the women morphologically as female. Few weeks later those with Y chromosomes typically experience testosterone which causes male genitalia to develop. But we know that things don’t always go like it typically does and mutations occur. We know these mutations can occur genetically, morphologically and even be restrained just in the brain where the chemical and hormonal composition of a man is more closely similar to that of a woman. There is a lot of scientific data on this out there. A pretty good book thst dives a bit into the genetic and epigenetic aspect of this is “The Epigenetics Revolution” by Nessa Carey. It’s on Hoopla for free as a audiobook , at least for those in America. She has 2-3 chapters dedicated to transgender issues and get a pen ready to take notes.
We also know that biblically there are verses that seem to swallow up intersex people under the phrase “ born as eunuchs “. We can also look at texts from the first century where these uniquely made men and women in the image of god are born. Even in the very patriarchal systems of Rome it seemed that intersex people were often placed in a position of higher power than cis women.
It should also be noted that there is an entire debate centered around science and philosophy that makes a distinction between gender and sex. Someone’s biological sex can be male, but their gender is female.
There are also many social lies that exist. Such as trans women are just men in sports who were failing and so they transitioned in order to play against those they find physically weaker. This baseless argument because the overwhelming majority of trans women are not athletes. We also know that the belief that tran women are just bathroom perverts waiting to prey on women and kids is not true since the overwhelming majority of trans men are not ever accused of predators, but actually are the ones who get preyed upon. Such as “ if a trans woman tries to go inside the bathroom with my wife in there I’ll kill him or he will leave in the ambulance “ type of stuff. Most likely the only predator in that situation is the cis man. It’s also not true that trans women are just gay men. Plenty of trans women still remain attracted to strictly cis women and are not even attracted to other trans women.
We also know that trans rights are basic human rights. We should not criminalize or penalize someone just because they don’t fit a typical heteronormative landscape.
Being made in the image of God is not related to gender. In both of the creation myths ( genesis 1 and 2) in there different stories we see one where males and females were made in the image of God meaning whatever that image is that you are thinking of, God showcased the masculine and feminine aspects of it. In the other account it says women came from man. Adam was split in half ( not merely a rib ) and the other half became a woman meaning that just like with god, both of these things can be found in one person.
This is probably my last comment. I’m not sure how to further contribute to it.
Ha, maybe this will be the last reply 
Genesis 1:27
וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם
The two bolded Hebrew words are זָכָ֥ר (zakar) and וּנְקֵבָ֖ה (uneq’vah) and mean male and female respectively. Linguists view these words as concrete in that they can be observed physically and are defined by physical characteristics. Zakar and uneq’vah are the words used by the biblical authors to express gender unambiguously. Moreover, the biblical authors (and presumably God who inspired them) do not view these words associal or cultural constructs. Finally, as you might expect, they are almost always used in a procreative context such as the next verse (1:28) when they are commanded to go forth and procreate.
Note that zakar stands in contrast to 'adam or 'ish. The word 'adam means man, mankind, or human. The word uneq’vah stands in contrast to 'ishshah meaning woman.
Leviticus 18:22
וְאֶ֨ת־זָכָ֔ר לֹ֥א תִשְׁכַּ֖ב מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֑ה תּוֹעֵבָ֖ה הִֽוא
This famous translates literally as
Not shall you lie with a male (zakar) as with a female (uneq’vah).It is an abomination.
In other words, the biblical author is being crystal clear. Gender is in view. Not person.
Blessings,
When I found this, it helped explain the Junia issue better than anything I had seen before:
“So, it’s going to be an interpretive decision no matter how you look at it. Either, as an egalitarian, you’ll take your presuppositions and cram them into the ἐν or, as a complementarian, you’ll do the same. This isn’t meant to be bad. None of us can theologize or even translate in a vacuum. But it is important to note that this isn’t some obvious translation decision.”
This is the first book to read if you are interested in the subject:
Junia: The First Woman Apostle. Eldon Jay Epp
Review by the Gospel Coalition:
Epp’s case is conclusive as far as I am concerned.
Thanks Vinnie, for the recommendation and a link to the review which I read. It would have been helpful if the review considered the interpretative issue Steffaniak brings up:
Clearly, the interpretation hinges on how we translate ἐ ν. The name of the person being masculine (Junius) or feminine (Junia) is irrelevant.
It is very much relevant since countless exegetes, desperate to remove a woman apostle from the canon, have taken that route. Seems the author here might be reluctantly conceding defeat on that point and retreating to the next safety spot. So you are asking about “distinguished among the apostles” vs"well known to the apostles?" First a bit of context:
Also from Epps:
Earlier I asserted and provided some evidence that Juntas, whether as ’Iouuias or Ίουηιάς·, cannot be documented in the Greco-Roman world, at least to date—a view shared by many other recent writers on the subject. 6
Here is his footnote if you want to see more sources:
- E.g., Charles Ernest Burland Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh; T. 8c T. Clark, 1979; reprint, 1994), 2:788; James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9-16 (WBC 38; Dallas; Word, 1988), 894; cf. “The male name Junias is unattested anywhere,” Metzger, Textual Commentary2, 475. Also, Richard S. Cervin, “A Note regard ing the Name‘Junia(s)’in Romans 16.7,”NTS40 (1994) 466-67; see 468-69 on “Junius,” an ancient, common Latin name; not so with “Junias.”
The testimony of the early church is pretty clear. Junia became male later on because it was thought a woman couldn’t be an apostle. Look at this review:
A similar example from only a decade ago, also reported earlier, is the 1994 statement in the Textual Commentary1to UBS that “Some members [of the UBS Committee], considering it unlikely that a woman would be among those styled ‘apostles,’ understood the name to be masculine.”10 Of course, this statement represents an improvement over the position taken in the first edition of 1972, when no question at all was raised about placing the male Junias in the UBS text.
Its maddening what has happened with Romans 16:7 the last hundred years or so…but I digress.
Is Paul calling her an apostle? Epps writes:
By all counts, the characterization of Junia, along with Andronicus, as επίσημοι eu τοΐς άποστόλοις should not have raised any controversy, for the description was widely understood to mean “distinguished among the apostles,” rather than being read as “well known to the apostles.” Sanday and Headlam in their influential commentary on Romans provided the following reasons for “distinguished among the apostles.” First, the translation was in accordance with the literal meaning of επίσημος (stamped, marked), hence: “those of mark among the Apostles.” Second, the phrase was thus understood “appar ently … by all patristic commentators.”1Over time, however, this phrase, in spite of its clarity in the early centuries of the church, has become a major factor in the debate about whether Junia was, in fact, an apostle, or, alternatively, whether “apostle” really means “Apostle.”
It should just be open and shut but some people don’t want a woman apostle so here is a lengthy section of Epps:
Example after example shows how bias tries to make Junia male or once that evidence smashes someone upside their misogynistic head, not an apostle but known to them. Its a defeated, retreating position and a refusal to accept the plain statement of scripture. The bottom line is some people just think a woman could not be an apostle so they will do anything to avoid the blatantly obvious fact that both Paul and the early Church knew, Junia was a woman and an outstanding apostle.
Vinnie
Thank you for providing all that. It’s an important passage for egalitarians and complementarians, who I’d prefer you not refer to as misogynists. It is also not the only passage.
Best Regards
I get it. The Gospel coalition writes:
Complementarians, however, do not believe that men, as a group, rank higher than women. Men are not superior to women. Women are not the “second sex.” Men have a responsibility to exercise headship in their homes and church family, and Christ revolutionized the definition of what that means. Authority is not the right to rule—-it’s the responsibility to serve. We rejected the term “hierarchicalism” because people associate it with an inherent, self-proclaimed right to rule.
Sounds great. I want to buy some of that Kool Aid until I see what those sentiments actually looked like throughout history. In my country, when did women get the right to vote or own a credit card? Masters were also told to treat their slaves nicely were they not? People may believe that today but in practice it has been a hollow platitude throughout history.
I don’t think all complementarians are misogynists but clearly that sort of thinking runs rampant in the church and in other parts of the Bible. The view that a woman cannot be an apostle drives the discussion. Period. The Bible unequivocally teaches otherwise in Rom 16:7 at least, as understood by the early church and the most reasonable translation of the passage.
I am aware. The case for interpolation in 1 Cor 14:34-35 is weighty and strong. Epps devoted a section to this and William Walker Jr, has a great book on the subject. The pastorals are written in Paul’s name and the passage under discussion in this thread is clearly subordinating women and views them as inferior (textbook misogyny).
For us Christians the issue is complicated. Because even though the pastorals were not written by Paul, they are in the canon. So we have to admit the councils messed up and remove them or deal with them as what God wanted in the canon. We have the created order. A woman apostle and a seemingly more egalitarian Jesus and Paul compared to their peers. Woman are to remain silence. There are examples of redemptive hermeneutics in the Bible but there is also the opposite. Then there is later “Paul” contradicting the actual Paul. Conservative Christians and even liberals like me are in an interpretive pickle to be sure.
For me, I’ll just side with the earliest church and the image I see from Jesus and Paul. What I won’t do is pick a side and then force everything else to agree with me. Even Paul was not egalitarian enough for me (slavery) and Jesus never touched on some important issues as far as we know (slavery). Inerrancy advocates are in especially bad interpretive shape when it comes to women in the Bible. I don’t envy the cognitive dissonance it engenders nor do I support viewing women as inferior (formed second and Eve ate the fruit) as one passage in the bible does. I quoted a bunch of passages showing ancient Mediterranean ideas about women both inside and outside the Bible. That is the proper context for these passages. Not trying to excuse them as a limited and temporary critique of unmentioned Artemis worship.
Instead of Romans 16:7 being a refreshing and much needed beacon of light shining on the Church’s many gender sins, some exegetes drown it in the cultural sea of misogyny it is supposed to be illuminating.
Vinnie
We are a work in progress. This probably has nothing to do with the conversation, but I have deep distrust for people who think boys don’t need their fathers. That two moms can do the same job. When Paul said, he does not allow a woman to have authority over a man, I see it as especially important in mentoring type of relationship.
I would agree but two moms and no father are better than one mom and no father. Fatherless homes (single mother), statistically, produce extremely disadvantaged children in todays world whether that is just cultural or intrinsic to creation. There probably aren’t any reliable statistics on two parent same-sex homes as it’s relatively new and still outlawed in some places is it not?
Tons of kids need to be adopted into loving homes regardless of the sex of the parents. There are other things more important in this case. That the children get a loving home should be the primary goal.
So many Christians are so vehemently anti-abortion (I’m not a fan for sure) and against same sex-adoptions. If only that same intellectual exuberance was applied to actually helping children in need…
If older men would simply show that they care about the fatherless men, then it’d probably do more for the women in their lives than telling them to be an egalitarian.
It is all about the gospel and if you are following the true gospel. And yes, God created gender, male and female he created them.
Yeah, but it’s kind of a moot point that “male” and “female” were not viewed as social contructs in the ANE. It’s “man” and “woman” that are viewed as social constructs today. And who cares. The ANE didn’t have the racial constructs of “Black” and “white” either, but that doesn’t mean our modern minds shouldn’t refer to them.
You should take the time to understand the difference between biological sex and gender so you understand what other people are talking about. (Source: https://www.accordalliance.org/learn-about-dsd/faqs/)
The short answer is this: sex is about your body, gender is about who you feel yourself to be, and sexual orientation is about to whom you’re attracted sexually.
Now here’s the longer answer:
“Sex” is the term we use to refer to a person’s sexual anatomy (his or her sexual body parts). So if a doctor were to say that a girl is female in terms of her sex chromosomes, her sex organs, and hormonal make-up, the doctor is referring to the girl’s sex (her body).
People with disorders of sex development (DSD) are born with a sex type that is different from most men’s and most women’s. Rather than being male typical or female typical, people with DSD have one or more sex atypical traits. That means a woman with DSD has some sex traits that are relatively unusual for females, and that a man with DSD has some sex traits that are relatively unusual for males.
Recall that disorders of sex development are defined by the medical community as “congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal or anatomic sex is atypical.” So DSD is an umbrella term covering a wide variety of conditions in which sex develops differently from typical male or typical female development.
“Gender” is the term we use to refer to how a person feels about himself as a boy/man or feels about herself as a girl/woman. Gender identity is the term for how a person self-identifies in terms of being a boy/man or girl/woman. When you say, “I’m a man,” you are stating your gender identity.
Gender role refers to social roles that are assigned by a society according to gender. (In the U.S., gender roles have been changing a lot in the last hundred years, as society has become less restrictive about what roles men and women may take on.) Gender assignment is the social process by which children are labeled girls or boys at birth. So when someone announces at a birth, “It’s a girl!”, that’s a part of that girl’s gender assignment.
“Sexual orientation” is the term we use to refer to a person’s sexual (erotic) feelings. So when we talk about a person being homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual, or gay, straight, or bi, we are talking about that person’s sexual orientation.
Statistically speaking, most females are anatomically sex-typical, they gender-identify as women, and they are sexually oriented towards men. Statistically speaking, most males are anatomically sex-typical, they gender-identify as men, and they are sexually oriented towards women. But there are many alternatives to these combinations of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation in the human population, because human development is very complex.
Many Biblical Christians do not consider this a moot point. Nor are they just “accepting social constructs from the ANE” as your response might imply. That is uncharitable. They are accepting social constructs from the Bible, a text they think was inspired by God and free from error. They are accepting social constructs they believe their Lord and Savior also accepted. Not all Christians think scripture was accommodated due to the glaring errors inside (they don’t admit these). Instead, they feel we have to accommodate ourselves and our doubts and trust in God’s word. They also are not fond of reading all modern liberal values into the Bible and excising anything that disagrees with them as “accommodated ANE culture.” They approach from a different angle altogether and accept the plain words of scripture and Jesus unless there is extreme reason to suspect otherwise. Even then, the Bible is never wrong to them. It is either our interpretation of the Bible or our understanding of the word. The problem is one of inspiration and hermeneutics.
“We” is a little loose. It might apply to the person and who said it and like-minded individuals and I am aware of that definition but I don’t use it that way. I’d guess millions if not billions of others don’t either. I would think most people just blend gender and sex together in everyday thinking.
What exactly is a biologically born woman identifying as when such an individual claims to be or have a male gender? What does it mean to be male? What are they claiming to actually be? If I identify as a duck we can ostensibly define a duck. I can point to one and show you one. We can describe it. What does it mean for a biologically born woman to identify as a man? The gender/sex bifurcation is a clever way of framing the question and defining terms but I don’t see how sex can be completely be removed from the question because then the terms lose their meaning altogether.
I also wonder if it would be socially acceptable for me, a white male, to identify as a black woman? Then I can talk about the 400 years of slavery and abuse me and my people had to go through-- and all the additional abuses as a woman me and my sisters have endured. That probably comes off as absurd to a lot of readers. A “woman” claiming to be a “man” is the same for others.
Vinnie
That isn’t how social constructs work. We get social constructs from our own socialization in our own culture and society. We can’t have the same social constructs as the ancient Hebrews because we are raised in a different social reality. That’s why we don’t have arranged marriages and bride prices and concubines and covenants made by walking through halves of animals. We can try to understand their social constructs and how God’s revelation showed them truth that we can apply today, but we don’t get our social constructs from the Bible any more than they got theirs directly from the Law. Revelation works on the concepts and constructs we already have to bring them more into alignment with God’s truth.
My point in what I quoted was to say you were conflating sex and gender. Male and female in the Bible are observations about the typical sex differentiation in human biology. Male and female in that verse doesn’t have anything to do with a social gender construct of what being a man or being a woman is supposed to be like in society.
Language is a shared community construct. In our modern English-speaking speech community, this is the agreed on use of gender. If you want to use the word a different way, you will not communicate well with the group.
I don’t disagree with any of that but convincing ourselves that the male-female created order is not from God does not follow from any of that. There are a lot of verses in the Bible touching on the issue as systematic theologians are fond of synthesizing. Shall we also move away from any understanding of Jesus’s death as a “sacrifice” since we no longer believe in blood magic or the sacrificial system of the ANE world? It is a slippery slope and many Christians are uncomfortable when we start chopping out sacred bits. Adam and Eve, male-female, the household, nuclear family and marriage. These are not trivial issues or mere social norms to a lot of people. They are part of the purpose of life itself.
Agreed upon by who? The meaning and connotation of words does change over time. Words mean what most people use them to be. Otherwise communication does not happen. If 10 specialists (sociologists) use a word one way and a million non-specialists use it another way, I am going with the colloquial use as the actual meaning of the word. If I write a scholarly paper, I’ll define my terms. When talking to others I’ll use the words as I think everyone else does. Case in point, is not a gender reveal the same thing as a biological sex reveal to parents as obviously a child cannot “choose” a gender? Neither can the parents if that is the case. I doubt they think of themselves as forcing a gender on the child without their consent. They are also not just saying “I am going to raise this child capable of giving birth as if its s a girl.” The pink and blue colors are social constructs. The child being a girl or boy is not. It’s dictated by biology.
We can talk about gender in terms of the social expectations of male and females, but we are what we are–regardless of what we think we are. Carbon can pretend to be oxygen but the 6 protons in its nucleus tells another story. But being a woman does not mean you need to be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. We can shun social expectations. I am just not sure why people claim to be something they are not.
And again, when a woman claims to be a man (gender wise) what exactly is man referring to? What is the ostensive definition of man the biological born female is claiming to be? And what is the ostensive definition of “women” this person is claiming to not be? What are the rules and criteria for distinguishing between them? Remove sex from the discussion and those rules and criteria are gone and language, our shared social construct loses its meaning here.
Vinnie
Some people accept this recent redefining of the term gender.
Many do not.
Those accepting the redefining of gender seem to be a dedicated, loud minority.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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