The pros and cons of Eve-dropping

Faith & Science Conversation
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I think it does work if we don’t limit Paul to a single level. For both Adam and Christ, there is the individual and a collective. Paul understands Jesus as a real man but can also speak of how we are part of the body of Christ. “Adam” is a similarly flexible wineskin to hold Paul’s heady metaphor. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 15 he at one point uses it for both sides, recasting his illustration as the first Adam and last Adam. It’s not about Jesus being another man named Adam, but Christ as the humanity from heaven that raises the humanity from dust.

Again, I’m not arguing for a collective-only intent – he focuses on how they are two men as well. I think the core of our disagreement is that I think Paul – like Genesis – can fuse these different levels, while you’re saying he has to pick only one.

Because anthropos doesn’t evoke Genesis’ thick portrait of adam as effectively.

It’s similar to when Jesus speaks of the Son of Man coming on the clouds. “Son of Man” there means so much more than a male human. If we don’t see how Jesus is evoking a complex character in Daniel, we’ll miss the punch of the reference. John’s use of logos may be similar, code-mixing some Hebrew thought into a Greek term.

You’re the expert here, not me, but I can’t see how this is true. This may be normally true in speech and even in a lot of writing, but how could this work for poetry? How can it work for meditation literature that is meant to be slowly absorbed over a lifetime rather than quickly parsed?

The way Genesis uses adam is not at all like how your earlier sentence used ‘rose.’ In that sentence, each ‘rose’ was distinct enough to be basically an unrelated word, though spelled with the same letters. For adam, the meanings are not just related but tangled:

  • humankind: “I will never again curse the ground because of adam” (Genesis 8:21)
  • human as species: “He shall be a wild donkey of an adam” (16:12)
  • a group of humans: “the city and the tower, which adam had built” (11:5)
  • any particular human: “whoever sheds the blood of adam, by adam shall his blood be shed” (9:6)
  • humanity personified: “My spirit shall not abide in adam forever, for he is flesh; his days shall be 120 years” (6:3)
  • something human: “the inclination of the adam heart is evil from youth” (8:21)
  • a name for humanity: “Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them adam” (5:2)
  • a name for a man: “The days of adam after he became the father of Seth were 800 years” (5:4)

Unlike the rose sentence, finding discrete translations for each meaning of adam loses the connective tissue that links them. When we see how rich the word adam is, a story of how God formed the adam takes on new dimensions. It’s a story about a man and a woman, but not just that. The archetypal dimensions of adam are already in Genesis, not something later readers invented.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to translate the word differently in context. Translation can’t convey everything, so of course translators will focus on the central meaning. But there’s also value in translations like Robert Alter’s that try to expose some of what standard versions miss. Of course his translation misses things too, and he’s written on how difficult it is to convey some of what is in the Hebrew. My request is to not dismiss attempts to see some of what gets lost in translation.

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Pax Christi everybody,

I read this today on Thom Stark’s blog, and I am not sure how to respond:

Dr. Rollston proceeds to identify texts from the New Testament in which women are in various ways marginalized. He cites 1 Timothy 2, and his remarks are worth noting at length:

**> The author is discussing worship and begins by stating that “men should pray” and then says “women should dress themselves modestly and decently.” So men are to pray and women are to dress modestly. That’s quite a contrast. But there’s more: “Let a woman learn in silence and full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to be silent.” The author’s rationale: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Timothy 2:8-14). So, according to this text, women were to be silent in worship because they were created second and sinned first. And the final blow is this: a woman “will be saved through childbirth, if she remains in faith and love and sanctification with modesty” (1 Timothy 2:15). This text is not too different from a Saying in the Gospel of Thomas (114) that says women can be saved once they become males. In any case, for the author of 1 Timothy, eternal salvation comes obstetrically.

repeat, except for fundamentalist Evangelical scholars, Dr. Rollston’s conclusion here is uncontroversial among even many of the more traditional Christian critical scholars. While the Evangelicals continue to protest, this reading is taken for granted among those who wish to treat the texts with honesty and integrity, rather than self-servingly.

Is this assessment accurate? I know that there’s a sentiment similar in the Book of Ben Sirach. You can find the rest of the article below. Tell me what you think.

http://religionatthemargins.com/2012/09/the-affair-of-mr-blowers-and-the-blog-of-the-three-young-men-a-response-to-christopher-rollston’s-cultured-despisers/

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There’s some more that’s relevant from a different article:

Citing the woman’s deception in the Garden as a justification for the prohibition of women teaching men is not a “move away” from the point; it’s an argument in support of the point. The argument is that, since man came before woman, a woman ought not to have authority over a man, and since woman was deceived (and not man!), a woman ought not to teach in the church. Note that 1 Timothy 14 actually does say, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived,” which is of course patently false. Adam was deceived, by Eve, who was deceived by the serpent. But moving on from that point, Moo’s objection that this reading doesn’t make sense because, “does Paul care only that women not teach men false doctrines? Does he not care that they not teach them to other women?” is a total red herring, for two reasons: (1) The context is teaching in the church, not just teaching in general. So in the church, if a woman were teaching, she would have been teaching over men and women simultaneously. So Moo’s rhetorical question just misses the point. (2) Paul doesn’t have to be concerned about women teaching other women in the privacy of homes if in fact women are to be in submission to their male masters, which is also Paul’s point, because “Adam was formed first, then Eve.” So Moo’s objections just fail utterly to dispense with this deeply misogynistic perspective enshrined in our canon. The plain fact is, as the consensus holds, the author of 1 Timothy argued that women should not teach in church because they are inherently more susceptible to deception than men, as evinced by Eve, before the fall.

Moo continues:

> More likely, then, verse 14, in conjunction with verse 13, is intended to remind the women at Ephesus that Eve was deceived by the serpent in the Garden (Genesis 3:13) precisely in taking the initiative over the man whom God had given to be with her and to care for her. In the same way, if the women at the church at Ephesus proclaim their independence from the men of the church, refusing to learn “in quietness and full submission” (verse 11), seeking roles that have been given to men in the church (verse 12), they will make the same mistake Eve made and bring similar disaster on themselves and the church. This explanation of the function of verse 14 in the paragraph fits what we know to be the general insubordination of some of the women at Ephesus and explains Paul’s emphasis in the verse better than any other alternative.2

But against Moo, we’ll quote Moo:

> However, Paul tells us remarkably little about the specifics of this false teaching, presumably because he knows that Timothy is well acquainted with the problem. This means that we cannot be at all sure about the precise nature of this false teaching and, particularly, about its impact on the women in the church —witness the many, often contradictory, scholarly reconstructions of this false teaching. But this means that we must be very careful about allowing any specific reconstruction—tentative and uncertain as it must be-to play too large a role in our exegesis.3

So according to Moo, this must not play too large a role in his exegesis, but after all else fails, he’ll use it to salvage a problematic text. And Moo, who argues that 1 Tim 2:12-14 is not limited to a specific context, but is of universal import, finally winds up arguing that one part of verse 14 was limited to a specific context, even though he argues that Eve’s deception is pre-fall and therefore technically a part of the order of creation argument.4 He also cites 2 Tim 3:6-7 as evidence that women were being deceived by false teachers at Ephesus. Let’s look, indeed, at how women are described by the author there:

> For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

What a fair-minded description of women! “Silly.” “Swayed by all kinds of desires.” “Always being instructed, never making up their minds.” “Overwhelmed by their sins.” Sounds remarkably like another women we’ve met in the previous letter, who was used to provide a universal justification for the subordination of women to men: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”

Moo hasn’t “ably answered” any objection here. He’s simply providing a way out for inerrantists who don’t really like what this biblical text says about women.

Surely there are other interpretations?

http://religionatthemargins.com/2012/03/another-attempt-to-discredit-my-book-discredits-itself/

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I feel like you are talking about two different things and conflating them: the intended referents of Paul’s sentences referring to Adam and Christ (the meaning of the sentences), and the literary “meaning” of creating an analogical archetype using Adam and Christ to communicate about humanity. The meaning of the analogical archetype is not located in the senses of Adam and Christ. The meaning of the archetype is a discourse level meaning, not a semantic level meaning.

Every word in an utterance can only have one sense unless it is an intentional pun or double entendre. It is not the case that within a given usage, the entire semantic domain of a word is accessed to process the utterance. Only the intended sense is, and most utterances are not at all ambiguous as to which sense is intended. If I remember correctly this idea that the entire semantic range is activated with every use was even one of the things D. A. Carson covered in his Exegetical Fallacies book about things preachers do during word studies that should not be done.

What you have shown is the semantic range of adam. There is no English word with the same semantic range, and this is a normal situation in translation. There is no English word with the same semantic range as NT sarx either. But when sarx is used to refer to an animal’s body it doesn’t also refer to sinful nature, even though both meanings are part of its semantic range. It requires multiple words in English to translate.

Native speakers don’t notice when they are selecting a sense from a word’s semantic range, because it happens subconsciously. But you do understand a single sense, you don’t access all of them at once.

For example, the semantic range of earth in English includes, soil, ground, globe, world, and it can be used as a proper name for the third planet from the sun in our solar system.

He cupped a handful of the sandy earth in his hand.
The kite went up into the sky and then fell to the earth.
He was the first pilot to fly around the earth.
The whole earth sings.
Earth is between Mars and Venus.

In translation, you probably would have words with semantic ranges that are not exact overlaps for your possible choices. In Spanish you’d have to choose what was most appropriate between tierra, suelo, globo, and mundo. But if you are a native English speaker, it’s clear what sense is intended when it is used in a context, and when you read the first sentence about soil you aren’t thinking about the planet or the inhabitants of the world.

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What exactly is his assessment? That 1 Timothy has been used throughout Christian history to marginalize women? Correct. That Paul intended to teach that women can be saved if they become males and salvation comes obstetrically? Never heard any such nonsense before.

Moo is a complementarian who wants to maintain that women can’t teach men.

The Evagelical egalitarian interpretation is usually that Paul was giving specific instructions into a specific cultural context where specific heresies where being taught.

See here for some examples:

I like the Artemis worship angle.

The word translated ‘have authority’ authentein occurs one time in the NT and rarely in the extant literature and what it means is hard to establish.

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Hi @Combine_Advisor, I’d say that some of that reflects a standard view, but there’s a lot of rhetoric that goes well beyond the facts.

So men are to pray and women are to dress modestly. That’s quite a contrast.

It’s a terrible contrast. 1 Timothy 2:1–4 begins by urging prayer without limiting it to one sex. When the discussion continues, it appears that men and women are called out for different bad behaviour. Men should stop arguing and lift up their hands to pray instead of fight. Women should make sure their professions of godliness (i.e. when they are praying out loud) are not contradicted by their extravagent clothing and accessories. To dress modestly here means not showing off their wealth.

So both men and women are praying, but they’ve been doing it badly. The text corrects them both so they can both pray properly. The sentence begins and ends with the out-loud speaking of each sex, “the men should pray … as is proper for women who profess reference for God” (2:8–10). It’s not about women professing silently any more than the men are praying silently. Both are speaking, and their speaking is not the problem.

So, according to this text, women were to be silent in worship because they were created second and sinned first.

For the created second, sinned first stuff, see this excellent post by Christy. For the silence, here’s something I wrote several years ago:

In 1 Timothy 2:11, a woman is to receive instruction quietly (hēsychia); this word also ends verse 12, and appears twice elsewhere in the New Testament.[1] In Acts 22:2, it is moderated by “more,” showing it does not mean complete silence. In 2 Thessalonians 3:12, it refers to avoiding needless chatter and distraction. Unfortunately, this word is frequently translated as “silence” when addressed to women[2] even though it consistently indicates a quiet demeanour.

[1] This summarizes the use of the noun form that occurs in the passage. A related cognate adjective, hēsychios (1 Tim. 2:2; 1 Peter 3:4), refers to the quiet lives and quiet spirit that are to characterize all Christians. A related verb, hēsychazō (Luke 14:4; 23:56; Acts 11:18; 1 Thess. 4:11), is used variously, but the only Pauline use refers to living quietly.

[2] Of the four occurrences (Acts 22:2; 2 Thess. 3:12; 1 Tim. 2:11; 2:12), the first refers to a Jewish mob, the second to people who had become busybodies, and the last two to women. The NASB and ESV translate all four occurrences using a form of “quiet.” Other translations are less consistent (italics indicate surrounding words):

  • HCSB (2003): “quieter,” “quietly,” “silence,” “silent.”
  • NRSV (1989): “quiet,” “quietly,” “silence,” “silent.”
  • NIV (1984): “quiet,” “settle down,” “quietness,” “silent” (the last becomes “quiet” in the 2011 update).
  • NKJV (1982): “kept all the more silent,” “quietness,” “silence,” “silence.”
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IIRC, this point was made forcibly (scathingly?) by James Barr in his classic The Semantics of Biblical Language.

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Yes, I think I have been messy in how I’ve talked about this. Maybe a different example would help. Rebecca is told, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” It’s straightforward to determine what the words ‘elder’ and ‘younger’ mean. It’s more difficult to nail down what they refer to: her children Esau and Jacob or the nations Edom and Israel? The primary intent seems to be nations, but since the prophecy locates these nations in her womb, I do think we’re supposed to see how her sons’ lives echo these words. Even though it’s not a pun (unless one expands that word more than usual), it does seem we’re supposed to understand it on two levels. But given how it’s written, we’re also not supposed to see this as two separate levels but as one reality.

But back to adam. I think the conflation you pointed out muddled how I described Genesis 5:1–3. I was using the literary meaning to say the 5:2 Adam is humanity and the 5:3 Adam is a man, but this doesn’t account for how there’s a single intended referent for the proper name Adam in this passage. It isn’t distinguishing two Adams. It’s beginning the genealogy of Adam by saying how God created humanity, male and female, named them Adam, and when Adam was 130 he became the father of Seth. The name Adam refers to one character, but this character is both male and female and the father of Seth. This character is both the human-who-becomes-two-people we met in Genesis 2 and the man who is one side of that character. This genealogy insists that we view these as a single character: Adam.

So when Paul names Adam as the one man he’s talking about in Romans 5, I believe he’s pointing to the same literary character. He attributes actions by both of them to the man the same way Genesis does. I agree with your critique that seeing all humanity in Adam in Romans 5 is an implication of his archetypal analogy rather than embedded in the name Adam. But because of how Genesis 2–5 is written, Adam and Eve are both embedded in a reference to the Adam of Genesis.

Agreed. Would you agree that sometimes a target language forces more precision in that sense than was present in the source language? For instance, we distinguish wind/spirit/breath, but perhaps they were originally taken as pretty much the same sense of ruach, even while Spirit was indeed a different sense. Similarly, if some alternate English language had the terms ‘sniff’ and ‘pant’ but lacked a general term like ‘breathe,’ then a translation from a text in our English would introduce more specificity to some instances of breathing than was originally there.

That’s the sort of thing I think may be happening with adam – some of its single senses are wider than what different English translations convey – but I certainly agree that I can’t just select whatever sense suits me.

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Good example. Clearly at the discourse level this is intended to be taken as a prophesy and Jacob and Esau and their personal stories do indeed become part of the tribal identities of the Israelites and the Amalekites. But at the semantic level, it’s clear the “nations” in her womb are metaphorical. Jacob is
a metaphor for Israel and Esau is a metaphor for the Amalekites. ‘Nations’ does not refer to them because those referents don’t exist in Rachel’s womb. Plus nations aren’t elder or younger, twins are. (I’m using ‘refer’ in the formal semantic sense.)

It incorporates metaphorical thinking, as does most of our language processing.

But…what would motivate any embodied, gendered human hearing the story to interpret it this way? It’s convoluted and unnatural.

So then in Timothy he’s referring to a different literary character, a male named Adam created before Eve, to make a very specific point about men and women, not humanity? That doesn’t make sense.

Yes, often. It is difficult to maintain the exact level of ambiguity or clarity present in the original or recreate the same pragmatic effects. I’m actually listening to the Bible Translation conference right now and I just sat through a whole paper on the issues with translating the vocative, “woman” that Jesus uses when talking to his mother at the wedding at Cana. Most interpreters feel it was to some degree formal and distancing (as opposed to “mom”) and a way of asserting that he was at the wedding as a rabbi with a public ministry. But in many languages, you can’t call your mother “woman” like that without sounding rude. Or without implying you are married. So do you say, “Dear woman,” make it “madam,” use “mother” anyway and obscure the significance of the fact that he didn’t use mother. It’s all very tricky.

I guess my main bone of contention with gender-neutral human Adam (who fathers children :face_with_raised_eyebrow:) is that, even leaving translation out of it, I don’t see a compelling reason why the Hebrew speaking audience would have come away with that interpretation. I’m pretty sure it isn’t at all reflected in the Septuagint, and those translators would have been very familiar with the Hebrew understanding of what the text meant and would be in a different position than us know when it comes to translating. It doesn’t seem to me to be how Paul interpreted Adam in the other places he is mentioned.

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The way the genealogy of Adam does not include two different figures called Adam. To take the same proper name and split it into two entirely different proper names with different referents even though in context they are linked does not seem like a reasonable approach.

My whole point is that we shouldn’t create two different literary characters when Genesis presents them as one character. We may want to talk about them differently, in ways that don’t perpetuate the male slant of the text, but that comes after understanding what’s being said.

This is not much different to how the biblical claim that God (leaving aside the incarnation) is not male or human is sometimes obscured by the Bible’s androcentric language and culture. So we may choose to use different God-language than the Bible in order to communicate the same truths about God in our own culture and language. Similarly, we might want to talk about Adam and Eve or Humanity instead of collapsing the man and woman into Adam the way Genesis does.

[self-editing a bunch where I got into the weeds]

I’ve said, “The name Adam refers to one character, but this character is both male and female and the father of Seth. This character is both the human-who-becomes-two-people we met in Genesis 2 and the man who is one side of that character.” I’m not sure why you characterize this as a gender-neutral character, or why fathering children raises an eyebrow (this character can mother them too!).

If the problem is that Adam can’t possibly be male and female no matter what Genesis 5:2 says because it’s simply impossible, I’d suggest again how Rebecca can have two nations in her womb. They are metaphors, and ones we’re supposed to take seriously.

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I know, I’m doubting that anyone would naturally hear the story as about the neuter Adam you think is there. I don’t think there are two capital A-Adams. I think there is textual evidence the named entity Adam was always interpreted to be a male character. I don’t buy proper noun Adam referring to a single ungendered human character who is part of the geneaology as a genderless father. That’s sus, as my kids would say.

So are you saying, it’s irrelevant what the original audience or Paul thought about Adam and his gender, we should make him a neuter character?

It’s not impossible, it’s unnatural and I would assume if it was the intended meaning that they would have put some effort into clarifying since the common ground with the audience that is being used to construct the meaning has zero experience with a genderless human person.

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Christy your argument is with your culture.

So here is my question for you. Is the Holy Spirit a he?

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“Christy your argument is with your culture.”

ROTFL, heartily agreed with your assessment, @Paul_Allen1. But which “culture” is that Christy is arguing with? Mexican?

Intentional gender disquiet and unrest, apparently also protesting the Apostles and the Orthodox Church for individualistic (protestant) “religion” in an “individualistic culture”, seems to mark the attitude of 21st century “enlightened liberal evangelicalism”.

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Gender culture is reaching into the church and some object to Eve in Genesis being a type for Christian women today. (I think of which are temporary measures)

Whereas I hold Galatians 3:28 makes us one in Christ where we work together.

Oneness, being part of one another, enables hierarchy to exist without worry about inferiority or superiority (1 Cor 12:15–26). Likewise, the oneness of husband and wife should eliminate questions of superiority and inferiority.

Harmony should be further ensured by the knowledge that every believer has equal standing in Christ.

Paul does not say that all will be one in Christ; rather, he boldly proclaims that all are one. Galatians 3:28 was true when Paul wrote it, even though Jews scorned Gentiles, slavery existed, and women, by civil law and custom, may have been at their husband’s mercy.

The fulfillment of Galatians 3:28 does not depend on the existence or obliteration of any social institution, custom, or gender inequality created by sinful humans who fail to see the image of God in all persons.

There should be no distinction between women and men.

So before I get shot down. A lot of this involves Paul’s and tradition. Paul refers to his specific teaching as “custom” (I cor 11:16). NIV “practice”; “habit.” which does not mean tradition.

Paul’s use of this word brings the point into focus. Three terms can be applied:
(1) The tradition may be the relationship of husbands and wives, specifically, in this passage, that the wife should not shame her husband. It may also be the exercise of spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. (2) Woman’s ministry in a first-century church is the circumstance in which the principle or tradition is to be applied.
(3) The covering of women’s heads is simply a custom by which the Corinthians were to apply the tradition in that particular circumstance.

I won’t go on but I do note there are still popular misapprehensions that believe traditions whereas the texts counter traditions about restricting women. People don’t study the Bible

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Clearly. One shaped by centuries of sexism in the church.

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For some background, Paul, the current prime minister of my homeland is openly “feminist”. There’s obviously “good feminism” and “bad feminism”, do you agree? If so, how do you tell the difference?

“There should be no distinction between women and men.”

That reminds me of a song that I don’t like: “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try.”

First, the signifiers that you refer to are not spelled the same. That’s a fair distinction, isn’t it?

Please forgive me if I’m misunderstanding, but are you trying to de-gender the Scriptures? What to do, e.g. with Ephesians 5:25 where gendered language is used?

“Harmony should be further ensured by the knowledge that every believer has equal standing in Christ.”

Yes. Please don’t let bad feminism distract you from that understanding. There’s a lot of bad feminism out there nowadays, surely you’ll agree. Bad masculinism too, of course, but bad feminism is a serious problem in “our culture” of 21st century North America. Do you agree?

“The covering of women’s heads is simply a custom by which the Corinthians were to apply the tradition in that particular circumstance.”

Have you ever been to an Orthodox monastery with women, Paul? There was an Orthodox women’s monastery a few hundred meters from where I used to study (outside of N. America). It might help if you’re blaming culture, to start admitting the problems with yours openly and up front, otherwise it comes across as a superiority complex condescending to “uncivilized” others.

The problem in this case is that you & I both will get wrongly accused of “sexism” by “bad feminism”, which is mostly what the “ancient church” is accused of by “modern radical feminists”. So, we need to understand and acknowledge how bad, radical feminism is intentionally iconoclastic, indeed having a harshly negative impact on the Church. Otherwise, it’s just a slaughter won by relativism.

Eve is certainly not absent in Orthodox churches or liturgy, Paul. That should be known to you before you start accusing “church” of “sexism” along with Christy, if that’s your angle here at BioLogos.

In my experience it’s not so much that “the texts counter traditions about restricting women” and men, or that “People don’t study the Bible”, but rather that “protestantism has sold-out to ‘the world’ in adopting its morality”, including ideological feminism. However, in contrast to these “liberal evangelicals”, the Church teaches the “equality” that you value, even if not in the way that most N. American protestants are taught about it today. There’s “evolutionary christianity” to face before that can be dealt with, apparently, right?

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This might help calm people from trendy postmodern accusations of ideology against the Holy Church.

It’s a wonderful wife-husband musical duo. Sarcastic critic hat: Perhaps he sings a bit too loud, or doesn’t let her sing in the right places? No self-reflection or personal responsibility? Believing something’s gotta be wrong before it’s right marks bad feminism.

I hope people enjoy the music, instead of pointing their fingers at one or the other and accusing them/us of bias by birth. Inheritance - YouTube

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I want to believe these passages can be salvaged but the skeptic in me is telling me we can make the Bible say whatever we need it to if are willing to prize some passages over others and make it fit in the direction we want. I think there is a solid mixture of misogyny, gender roles, egalitarianism and equality all in scripture.

1 Cor 11:3-16 is a problem. It makes a very clear and unambiguous claim that women are inferior to men. The comparison is men to Christ and women to men. Men are pretty darn inferior and subservient to Christ! We can argue the policy about head covering is a custom but the arguments before that about the nature of men and women seem tied into the very created order. At any rate, I feel strongly that section in Paul is an interpolation. Per Walker:

He puts forth a number of other arguments of various strengths and weaknesses. I find Walker and Trompfs articles are pretty convincing to me that this section of Paul is very problematic and likely not original. I think the early movement was egalitarian and the pseudo-Pauline texts and later communities may have felt the need to curb some of this new equality. I also think some textual critics have been grotesquely naive to the point of being laughed out of academia in thinking that changes generally need to show up in the manuscript tradition to be credible. At any rate, I think Walker’s book and Trompf’s articles are worth the read.

On Attitudes Toward Women in Paul and Paulinist Literature: 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 and Its Context: Trompf The Catholic Biblical Quarterly Vol. 42, No. 2 (April, 1980), pp. 196-215 (20 pages)

Interpolations in the Pauline Letters, William O Walker Jr, 2002, JSNT, 2001, 1 Cor 11:3-16 is specifically on pg 91-126.

Vinnie

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That’s probably fair. It’s especially difficult because they mingle within the same passages. Even Genesis 2, one of the clearest expressions of the parity between man and woman, still privileges the male perspective.

I think it’s more than a simple interpolation – it’s two voices that disagree. I can’t see how one writer can be both saying “if a woman does not cover her head, have her also cut her hair off” (:6) and “her hair is given to her as a covering” (:15). And though one voice sees a clear hierarchy because “man does not originate from woman, but woman from man” (:8), the other voice undermines such rankings, pointing out the flip side that “man is born of woman, and all things are from God” (:12).*

Unfortunately, we have a long tradition of people flattening this text and showing how all the contradictory words can be pureed into Paul’s voice. We’ve already been told by Paul that he’s going to address “the matters about which you wrote” (7:1). We don’t have the Corinthians’ letter to Paul. We can’t see the quotation marks, and sometimes we won’t be able to tease it apart perfectly. But if we allow that Paul is arguing with their view (which I think is also quoted in 14:34–35), not only are the passages more coherent, they’re a lot less misogynist. Paul still writes from a man’s perspective and often with a male default, but he’s not a jerk.

  • See Lucy Peppiatt’s Unveiling Paul’s Women: Making Sense of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 for a strong attempt to tease apart the voices.
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Have you guys seen stuff referencing that Troy Martin article about the medicine of the time that thought women’s hair was part of their genitalia? It’s pretty wild, but kind of fits.

Talk about Scripture accommodating ancient science. That’s next level.

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