The Book of Isaiah

Chapter 1 V.1 Part 3.4

Paul & the Female Controversy 7

Unequal in the Assembly

Paul’s authentic letters were written to communities and not to individuals, with the exception of Philemon. The letters to Timothy and Titus are three inauthentic post-Pauline letters to individuals, to Timothy, imagined as left by Paul in charge of Crete. There is, by the way, not the slightest hint in his authentic seven letters that Paul ever left anyone in charge of the communities he founded – that is why he always writes to the Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians, Phillipians, Romans, but never to a presiding elder or overseer as representative of the community.

The subject of female leadership within the Christian assembly arises in the post-Pauline 1 Timothy, but also as an intersection within the Pauline 1 Corinthians.

1Ti 2:8 I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.

 1Ti 2:9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;

 1Ti 2:10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

 1Ti 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

 1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

 1Ti 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

 1Ti 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

 1Ti 2:15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

In this text female leadership is absolutely forbidden by this psuedo-Pauline author. Women are not allowed to teach or instruct men. Women are to remain silent.

Clearly of course, psuedo-Paul would not bother to forbid what never happened. That prohibition therefore, tells us that women were praying and teaching within the community’s catechetical practise and lithurgical worship. But this text dismisses women from those functions and relegates them to home, silence, and childbearing. Augustus, you will recall, would have been particularly pleased with those injunctions.

1Cr 14:33b but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

1Cr 14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but [they are commanded] to be under obedience, as also saith the law.

 1Cr 14:35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

 1Cr 14:36 What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?

The problem here is not with an inauthentic Pauline letter like 1 or 2 Timothy or Titus, but with an insertion from that later tradition into an original earlier authentic letter of Paul. In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible this unit appears in parentheses. Those parentheses emphasize manuscript problems in the earliest textual transmission.

First the passage is not at its present location but at the end of the chapter in some manuscripts. Second, those verses are given as a separate paragraph in all Greek manuscripts. Third, that section was deemed problematic very early, and this is the most important argument for its later insertion into Paul’s original text.

Bear in mind, the above is a continuation from the  same book I’ve been posting from in the previous posts on this. Please don’t respond under the delusion that I am claiming that anything in the bible is inauthentic. I’m merely exposing you to what this biblical scholar had to say about this, and you can draw your own conclusions.

On another note, the continuation of “The Big Camping Adventure ” is forthcoming, but I need time to upload all of those pics and make some slide shows. Have a blessed weekend.