In our Sunday School class, we decided to take a class where we discuss divisive issues and discuss them and in doing so trying to learn spiritual truths. We chose a book call "A Charitable Discourse: Talking about things that divide us. By Dan Boone who is the president of Trevecca Nazarene University.
I read through the passages and have to admit that I was angered. Which is good since this is a study to get us to think. I was angered because it seems like the Biblical writers were specifically prohibiting women from service in the Church and blaming the Original Sin upon Eve.
The essential question, I believe, is does the Bible representing both cultural and spiritual truths? Is there a separation that we, as modern Christians, should ignore as cultural truths as irrelevant and rather cling to the spiritual truths? And if we should ignore the cultural truth, do we distinguish one truth from the other? Do spiritual truths suffer because of unclear separation, if any?
There is little doubt, I believe, that culturally it was a male dominated society. A patriarchy which actively subdued and subordinated women by denying them basic education, a social voice and a means to become better than they were. Without a doubt, we should consider them a dictatorial regime and a fear monger. But did the early church promote this bullying tactic or simply realized that they had an more important message that needed to be expressed first?
First the sadness of this episode should be expressed. Roughly half of the people are women and half men. And obviously there has been a very small percentage of people through out history that were involved in making significant achievement. By relegating women, half the potential geniuses, to noneducational and basic servant-hood, your yield is immediately halved. How many advances would have taken place, if not for the short-sighted, if any, advantages of a patriarchy mindset?
Lets start with the beginning. The story of the Garden of Eden. Eve has been characterized, by the patriarchy establishment (remember, he who wins the war writes the history book. Or in this case he who is taught to read/write writes the history books), as described in Dr. Boone's book as "As a result, women were viewed like Eve before the serpent—gullible." (Boone, Dan 2011, Kindle Location 854). However, I think a closer look at Genesis Chapters 2 and 3 is needed. What we find is this.
- God gave the command to Adam (Genesis 2:16-17)
- God created Eve (Genesis 2:21-22)
- Sometime Adam tells command to Eve
- Eve argues with serpent and quotes commandment (Genesis 3:2-5)
- Eve believes the serpent and decides to become a goddess. (Genesis 3:6)
- Eve gives the fruit to her husband and he eats it WITHOUT argument. (Genesis 3:6)
Dr. Boone's, and the patriarchy, description that Eve was gullible seems to fly in the face of the very words written in the Bible. For if any was gullible, it was Adam. He made no argument, he was obviously aware of the command since he transmitted it to Eve. If the Bible said at least that Adam responded with "No! God said we shouldn't." or "Oh yes, I want to be like God too!" then his part would have been active, but it wasn't. Yes, Eve was deceived but Adam was stupid, mute, and obedient to her rather than to God. It seems clear that Eve was the one making the decisions in the Garden.
Following that, we have the punishments. The punishments were meant to turn nature from being a supporter of human-kind to an adversary. The punishments 1) eat by the sweat of your brow, 2) child birth would be painful, and 3) woman would desire men and men will lord over women. If the punishments were meant to change the situation, and it was natural for men to lord over women, then #3 wouldn't have needed to be said because it would be redundant. However, it was explicitly mentioned giving it statement relevance. So clearly it was not the intent, but for the curse and therefore unnatural, for men to lord over women. Perhaps it also says that women, or at least Eve, were designed to be better leaders since God would be aware of his creations actions and correct it if it was outside his will.
So, the world, being cursed, finds itself at the time of Christ, in a predicament of the natural course of affairs . I don't find, however, Dr. Boone's conclusions that Paul was the radical feminist convincing. I admit that perhaps I am to close to a modern way of thinking about women's rights, but a person who wishes to change the culture and right the wrong about women should set forth a longer term plan. Paul, at least in the translations that I can see, uses absolute statements such as "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent." (Boone, D., 2011, Kindle Location 846-847.) For Dr. Boone further elaborates the word "authority" as "In other literature of the time, the word for authority meant 'to murder, to assassinate, or to destroy.'” (Boone, D. 2011. Kindle Location 863) This would indicates that Dr. Boone believes that these passages would say Paul does give a man the right "to murder, assassinate, or destroy another man" which seems counter to Christian beliefs. In addition, if this were truly about women being uneducated or steeped in the pagan priestess ways, why not make the statement "no one without proper training" or "outside the faith and learned". Or once women learn, then they can teach.
Paul also exhibits this absolutism against women when he says "As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church" (1 Cor. 14:33-35. NIV) Again, Dr. Boone tries to placate by stating that this is only dealing with disruptive behavior. I can see that especially when reading the Message paraphrase. But the sad truth is that this passages, among others, has used as proof of the rightness of the subjugation of women and harms us all.
The last thing that Dr. Boone states seems to give the church and these passages credit for changing the world towards a more freedom oriented and equal rights. Yes, we have equal rights and there were a great many church goers who marched and lead the cause towards equal rights. But just as many and more so throughout history have used these passages for the subjection of women. Either the Bible translators or writers themselves didn't seem to create a path to bring about equality of race, creed, gender... but our Lord Jesus, did create a vision that is seemly more gender-agnostic. Perhaps we can attribute that it takes Jesus to lift himself out of culture and create a vision that stretches beyond today.
Again, what a great tragic commentary that so muchbrilliance was snuffed out of relevance simply because of her gender or his color.
