Paul's Radical Views

November 8th, 2009

My husband and I have been attending a Methodist Church and gave Adult Sunday School a try.  It was actually quite interesting.  The class has been going through a series with Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.  Today the lecture was given by John Dominic Crossan on Paul’s view of women.

Remember this from Galatians 3:28?

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free man, male nor female; for you are all one in Christ.

I don’t profess to know what Paul meant by this, but Crossan makes an interesting point that Paul had totally radical ideas about slaves and women.  For instance, Paul was very clear in the first chapter of Philemon that once an individual becomes a Christian, in good conscience, he must free his slaves.  Philemon’s slave, Onesimus, had run away to Paul and Paul sent him back to Philemon.  Paul writes to Philemon…

I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. ¹³I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. ¹⁴But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do will be spontaneous and not forced. ¹⁵Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good— ¹⁶no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord.

Crossan says this is proof that all of the other passages condoning slavery were not written by Paul, like these statements in Ephesians and 1 Timothy, both of which are attributed to Paul by some scholars…

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5)Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed.  If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful.  You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts.  Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2)

So what’s going on?

The same, exact contradiction occurs with women.  Paul sent his letter to the Romans by way of a female.  Phoebe is a deacon/minister – diakanos.  (Paul uses the term, diakanos, 34 times.  But the only time it is interpreted as “servant” is when it is used with a female.).   He had to entrust her to not only deliver the letter, but to be able to read it to the various congregations and also to be able to explain it to them.  In Romans 16: 1-16, he heaps praise on several females and goes so far as to say Adronicus and Junia are outstanding among the apostles and were in Christ before Paul.  So what happens to Junia in the interpretations?  She becomes Junianus in the middle ages – which is to say – she becomes a he.    Crossan says the early Christian Church didn’t have a problem with female leadership but as the Church increasingly adopted the Roman hierarchical structure, women were denigrated so passages were re-interpreted and rewritten and sometimes scribes added their own views.

Why, for instance, would Paul entrust Phoebe with his letter to the Romans, but then in 1 Corinthians write:

As in all the congregations of the saints, ³⁴women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. ³⁵If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

It really doesn’t make any sense.

Personally, I don’t know what happened back then and I’m not sure any historian can say with any certainty that he/she does, either.  We don’t have the actual texts to know for sure.  We have copies of ancient texts that were copied by scribes, who translated the texts according to their own interpretations.

Obviously, I find Biblical history fascinating.  But I’m not as interested in it now as I once was.  I think why I found it so interesting, previously, was that I needed to unlearn all of the crazy things I had been taught.   I don’t know that Crossan’s interpretations are the “right” ones.  But I think what they help to show is that the Bible is not infallible.  Until about 10 years ago, I felt the need to prove that something was “right” or “ethical”, etc. because it says so in the Bible.  It took a very, very, VERY long time to get over that need, however.  Like most of us, I was taught to trust in authority rather than myself.  I am slowly, but surely, learning to trust my own inner wisdom.  But I’m not completely confident about this yet so I sometimes get defensive. I’m getting much better, though!

Anyway, don’t think I’ll go back to this Sunday School class even though it is very interesting. Studying Biblical history just keeps me in my head and I already spend far too much time there.  Opening my mind was the first step.  Now I want to open my heart.