HERMENEUTICS AND THE ROLE OF WOMEN

I received the following comments and questions regarding my post:  IS EVERYTHING IN THE BIBLE TRUE? :

“… how do I know when a writer is expressing his opinion and not a direct edict? I don’t care so much about the O.T. as I don’t live under that covenant. But how do I know in the New Testament? In Romans 7 and I Corinthians 7 it’s pretty darn clear. But what about places like I Timothy 2 where he says 'I want' and 'I do not' all over the place?

Naturally, I want 1 Timothy 2 to be just Paul’s opinion – those of a man who lives in a patriarchal society that greatly inhibited the roles of women – but I don’t want to force my opinion onto the text. I would look at it in light of other scripture but I don’t see Peter, James, John or even Jude addressing the role of women in the church.

So my main question is: when no one else discusses the subject, how do I know when it’s the writer’s opinion vs. God’s instruction?

And my secondary question is about the role of women in light of the above.

 

And last, in that vein, the woman who wrote about Biblical Womanhood in Sojourners mentioned that Jesus did not come to set up more laws which seemed right but is it?  I do find her comments about how the new 'laws' enforce the existing power structure at the time to be very compelling - we know the gospel is not about power by servanthood - any comments on all of this?"

Wow, there are two very different questions here:  one on hermeneutics or interpretation; and the other about the role of women.  The two are, however, inseparable.

The first regarding when a writer is expressing his own opinion, versus a direct edict:  I believe we are to take the apostolic writings as authoritative unless there is a qualifier, as I mentioned in the previous post.  I used 1 Corinthians, chapter 7 as an example, because Paul, in this chapter puts qualifiers on much of what he says:

·        “Now I say this as a concession not as a commandment” (verse 6).
·        “I don’t have a communication from the Lord, but I give advice as one shown mercy by the Lord as being faithful” (verse 25).
·        “… I suppose ...” (verse 26).
·        “… and I want to spare you …” (verse 28).
·        “Now I’d like you to be free of care …” (verse 32).
·        “I’m saying this for your benefit …” (verse 35).
·        “… according to my opinion; and I suppose that I too have the Spirit of the Lord” (verse 40).
In this same passage he also uses seven “but ifs” (verses 9, 11, 15, 21, 28, 36, 39).  He allows for exceptions.

He seems to be making clear distinctions between commands versus advice, opinion or exceptions.  Commands would be binding.  The others would not.

We should also notice that Paul’s opinions or bits of advice don’t contradict his authoritative remarks.

As far as Paul’s “I want(s)” in 1 Timothy 2, I’ll agree that when he does this he is giving non-authoritative advice.  He actually only uses the word once in this chapter – verse 8, although some translations add it in verse 9.  The verb he uses – boulomai – usually has the meaning of “wish,” “want” or “desire,” even “intend” and this is the way Paul uses it elsewhere:

·        “… I intended to come to you at first …” (2 Corinthians 1:15).
·        “I wasn’t vacillating when I intended this, was I?” (verse 17)
(Apparently Paul didn’t come when he intended.)
·        “Now I want you to know brothers …” (Philippians 1:12).
     Also see Titus 3:8 and Philemon 13.

He uses it twice elsewhere in 1 Timothy.

·        “So I want the younger (widows) to marry …” (5:14).
·        But those who want to get rich …” (6:9).

However, Paul uses a different word in 1 Timothy 2:12:

·        “… but I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man …”  The verb epitrepo always has that meaning – “permit” or “allow.”  See Matthew 8:21; 19:8.

Paul only uses it in two other places:

·        “… if the Lord permits” (1 Corinthians 16:7).

And in what is relevant to the passage in 1 Timothy:

·        “… for it is not permitted for them (women) to speak” (1 Corinthians 14:34).

I’m not going to get into all the questions regarding women’s roles except for a few attempts at clarification especially of some of the details of the 1 Timothy 2 passage.

·        The context of this passage seems to be of universal application.  Any attempts to interpret it as dealing with specific incidents in a specific church, run into a problem.  The word “all” is used six times in the first eight verses:  “First of all …  …all people … all those in authority … all godliness … all people … a ransom for all … in every place.”
·        The word translated “quiet” or “quietly” in verses 11 and 12 does not necessarily mean “silence” but an attitude of restfulness or stillness.  It is used in verse 2, not of women only, but of us all.
·        I believe the two verbs that Paul forbids:  “to teach” (didaskein) and “to exercise authority” (authentein) are linked together.  Paul is not forbidding women to teach altogether, but to teach men in an authoritative manner.
·        The related passage cited earlier (1 Corinthians 14:34) should be interpreted in light of the 1 Timothy passage.  Paul in this passage (1 Corinthians 14:26-36) is not demanding total silence of women.  He had previously (11:5) mentioned women “praying or prophesying” in the assembly.  Here he is speaking of the exercise and regulation of the various gifts in the assembly, in this case of a teaching/learning situation.  And as the 1 Timothy 2 passage, 1 Corinthians 14 appears to have universal application – “… as in all the churches …” (1 Corinthians 14:33); it is not directed merely to a specific problem in Corinth.

Yes, it is true that Jesus did not come to set up new laws, but there are other factors involved.  We must be careful that we don’t use this truth to discredit the authority of the New Testament.  This has been done many times to justify all sorts of behavior (i.e., “Jesus said nothing about gay marriage, therefore it’s permissible.”)

But Jesus did teach ethics and He based much of His ethical teaching on the Old Testament – and even tightened up some of its principles.  (See:  THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.)  “You have heard that it was said … but I’m saying to you …” (Matthew 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43).

The New Testament writers – Paul, James, Peter – also based their ethical and doctrinal teachings on the Old Testament and also on Jesus’ teachings.  See:  FORFEIT AND GAIN and PAUL AND JESUS.  I believe the reason we see more “laws” in the epistles than in the Gospels is that the writers were dealing with ethical, moral and governing problems of first generation, mostly  gentile Christians in the new churches they had planted.  The apostles had different functions from those of Jesus.  They were planting churches and seeking to establish them.

In conclusion, I believe that the New Testament gives women, along with men, the freedom to teach, preach, evangelize or whatever they feel led of God to do, with the one exception being that in 1 Timothy 2:12.  Its application today may be debated, but I would say that it certainly forbids women from a role as senior pastor in a church.

I feel a bit of irony here, as I at one time was considered by many of my other evangelical friends as being too liberal, (and still am by some), having women deacons or song leaders in my churches and being married to a woman church office manager (Uni).   I felt there was a line drawn, but saw no reason not to push right up to the line.

Today, however, I feel that many have crossed the line and left me behind and I am perceived by many now as being too conservative.

Also see:  SHOULD MY WIFE WEAR A HAT TO CHURCH? and SHOULD MY WIFE WEAR HER JEWELRY?

THE GIRLS IN THE FAMILY TREE

A while back, I received an amazing and exciting gift from a niece of mine: a printed copy of my personal genealogy. Though I had known a bit about my family tree from some research done by an uncle, this one was mind-boggling. I found the names of ancestors on my father’s side going all the way back to the 9th century. There were famous people, even royalty, as well as a few scoundrels.

It’s nice to know one’s family tree, even if there may be a few horse-thieves hanging from it. It somehow makes you feel a bit more connected to history and to the rest of the human race.

The gospels give us the genealogy of Jesus – in fact, two genealogies. Luke gives His genealogy through his mother, Mary; Matthew gives His genealogy through his stepfather, Joseph. Luke’s goes back to Adam, the father of the human race; Matthew’s goes back to Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel. Both trace His lineage through King David. They show us His Jewishness, His royalty, His humanity.

Matthew begins his gospel with the genealogy and leads us right into his version of what we would call “The Christmas Story.”

We usually consider during this season, the incarnation of the Son of God, the fact that as John says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Matthew seems to be telling us “start here!”

And as we read through the list of all the “begots,” if we read carefully, we may notice that four women (besides Mary) and four only, are included in the list of Jesus‘ ancestors. Of course, if my math and my biology are correct, there should be one woman for each of the males listed. We may ask, why these four?

Look at the women listed: Tamar (Matthew 1:3); Rahab (verse 5); Ruth (verse 5); and “her of Uriah” (verse 6). That’s all. Who are they?

Tamar (Genesis 38) was probably a Canaanite by birth (this was before there were laws forbidding intermarriage). Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, had three sons. He “took a wife for Er his first-born and her name was Tamar” (38:6). “But Er … was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD took his life” (verse 7). So Judah told Onan his second-born to take Tamar and inseminate her to raise up offspring for his brother. Onan, however, had sex with her but “spilled his semen on the ground,” so the LORD took his life also (verses 8-10). So Judah told Tamar to wait for his third son, Shelah to grow up. But he never gave him to her (verses 11, 12). Desperate for a child (apparently her biological clock was ticking) she disguised herself as a prostitute and had sex with her father-in-law Judah. (This was considered incest in the later Mosaic Law and a capital offense for both parties: Leviticus 18:15; 10:12). When Judah found out his daughter-in-law was “pregnant by harlotry” he wanted to put her to death till he found that he was the father (verses 13-26). And so through this soap-opera union, Perez entered the genealogy of Jesus (verses 27-30).

The next woman mentioned was Rahab (Joshua 2; 6:21-25). Rahab was a genuine prostitute, not just a pretend one. She was also a Canaanite and as such was doomed to die at the hands of the invading Israelites (Deuteronomy 7:1-3). But Rahab hid two Israelite spies and gave a confession of faith in the LORD, “ … the LORD your God, He is God in Heaven above and on earth below” (Joshua 2:11). She and her family were spared death when her city Jericho was destroyed. She is remembered elsewhere in the New Testament as a woman of faith (Hebrew 11:31; James 2:25). Later she married an Israelite man named Salmon and gave birth to a son named Boaz.

Ruth, the third woman on the list (the Book of Ruth), was from Moab, the widow of an Israelite, who came to Israel with her (also widowed) mother-in-law, Naomi. Like Rahab, she, as a foreigner was considered part of a despised group. A Moabite was not permitted to “enter the assembly of the LORD … even to the tenth generation” (Deuteronomy 23:3-6). But like Rahab (her future mother-in-law) she confessed faith in the LORD. She says to Naomi, “Your people shall be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). Through faith, divine providence and (it seems to me) a little scheming, she ends up married to Boaz, a rich relative of her deceased husband and becomes the great-grandmother of King David. (I guess Boaz couldn’t be too uptight about marrying a foreigner. After all, his mother was both a foreigner and a hooker!)

The last woman in Matthew’s list isn’t even named. He simply refers to her as “her of Uriah.” Her story is found in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. Her name is given as Bath-Sheba and she is the (former) wife of Uriah the Hittite, a foreign mercenary in King David’s army. She is an Israelite by birth, the only one of the four women who is. (Her genealogy can be found in 2 Samuel 11:3; 23:34). Most of us know the story of David’s illicit affair with her and how he had her husband murdered. Yet she became the mother of both King Solomon (Joseph’s ancestor) and of Nathan (Mary’s ancestor).

Certainly if I were setting down the genealogy of the One whom we claim as God-in-the-flesh, I could have chosen better ones than these, couldn’t I – some of the good wives and mothers of the kings in the Old Testament? On the other hand, if Matthew was looking for some real baddies, he could have found them: Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel, the woman who murdered her own children and grandchildren and almost wiped out the royal line of David.

So why these four? Well they do have some things in common.
· None of them belong here! Each should have been excluded by the Law that God gave Israel. Two were prostitutes; one committed incest; one committed adultery; and three were foreigners, two of whom were to be excluded by the Mosaic Law. By the way, most of the men in this list weren’t fit to be here either!
· Most likely all four were believers. We have the statements of faith of two of them.
· Therefore they are examples of grace, people who can make no claim to privilege, people who are “outside,” or as Paul says, “ … Gentiles in the flesh … separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now … brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:11-13).
· They demonstrate the reality of the incarnation. Jesus chose to be born into a family of sinners. He put it all on the line: He “emptied Himself” of the prerogatives of Deity (Philippians 2:6-8) and took on all the dangers of being human: physical dangers as well as dangers to His reputation (cf. John 8:41, 48).
· Perhaps as well, they are there to tell us that we need to empty ourselves of any pride we may have in ourselves or our ancestry. We need to recognize that we too come from a family of sinners and are sinners ourselves, and place our faith in the One who put it all on the line for us.

Bill Ball
12/11/2008

A SUITABLE HELPER

Emily said … (comment on THE WOMEN AT THE CROSS).
“Sweet!!! Man, that must have been a ... unique (for lack of a better word) place to have been, Watching your son/savior/friend dying, watching people either spitting on him or crying beneath him ... hm. Wow ... amazing. Now, what’s the significance of the women being present? Was it that since the men all fled, the women were the ones to remain and care for the body?”

Em: Thanks for your comment. It has forced me to think, but I still don’t have a neat answer to your question. “Significance” questions are hard to deal with. Webster defines significance as “something that is conveyed as a meaning often obscurely or indirectly.” So then, is the Bible trying to “convey” something to us through the women being present, while the men had fled, or is it simply recording history?

The Bible is full of stories of women who acted when men were afraid to. One of my favorites is in Judges 13 about a man named Manoah and his (unnamed) wife. The Angel of the LORD (probably, as many believe, the pre-incarnate Christ) had appeared to the woman, told her she was going to give birth, and had given specific instructions about her pregnancy. She reports to her husband who is full of doubts and questions. At the end of the story Manoah finally realizes who they’ve been dealing with and cries in a panic, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” His wife calmly reassures him with an answer something like this (if I may paraphrase), “Calm down. If God wanted to kill us, would he have gone to all this trouble?”

Or the story of Deborah, the prophetess, who had to accompany the reluctant general Barak into war (Judges 4:4-9).

Of course, sometimes the women led the men in the wrong direction, as Eve with Adam in the garden, or Sarai offering her servant girl to Abram. In both cases it says that the man “listened to the voice of” the woman (Genesis 3:17; 16:2).

We are told in Genesis 2:18, “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper (not “helpmeet” as the King James is incorrectly read) suitable for him.’” The Hebrew word translated “helper” is ezer and does not mean a subordinate; it is usually used of God as the helper or provider. “Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield” (Psalm 33:20). “But I am afflicted and needy; Hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay” (Psalm 70:5). The Hebrew word translated “suitable” is neged, which is defined as “in front of” with the idea of being conspicuous. “Corresponding to” would be perhaps a more accurate translation here. One commentator paraphrases it “a helping being, in which, as soon as he sees it, he may recognize himself.” I like to see it as the woman being the missing piece in a two-piece jigsaw puzzle.

So I guess we should look at the women at the cross, and afterward at the grave as simply filling in what is lacking in the men, as they have done through the Bible and through all history.

Opa
5/15/2006

THE WOMEN AT THE CROSS

The gospels are full of stories about Jesus’ 12 male disciples, but at the climactic moment when He was arrested in the garden, all fled (Matthew 26:56b; Mark 14:50) as Jesus had predicted (Matthew 26:31). Later, Peter followed at a distance and denied Christ, while John alone of the 12 stood at the cross (John 19:26). But there were other disciples there, the women. All four gospels mention them.

How many women were at the cross and what were their names?

Matthew 27:55 says, “Many women were there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, while ministering to Him.”

Verse 56, “Among them was Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.”

Matthew clearly names only three women out of an indefinite number (“many”). It should be noted that the second Mary was not Jesus’ mother, but most likely the mother of James the son of Alphaeus, one of the 12 (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18).

Mark 15:40, 41 says, “There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Less and Joses, and Salome. When He was in Galilee, they used to follow Him and minister to Him; and there were many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem”

Mark also names three women out of the “many”. The first two are the same as Matthew’s first two. If Salome is the same as “the mother of the sons of Zebedee,” we have the same three as mentioned by Matthew. If these two are different persons, we now have four women.

Luke 23:49, 55 simply speaks of “the women who accompanied Him from Galilee” without giving names or numbers. In 8:1-3 he names some women who earlier had accompanied Jesus. “Mary who was called Magdalene,.. Joanna, the wife of Chuza,.. Susanna, and many others.” In 24:10 he mentions, “Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James,” with “other women,” as witnesses of the resurrection.

Assuming the women at the tomb were also present at the cross, we now have at least four women or possibly six named.

John 19:25 says, “But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”

John is the only evangelist who tells us that Jesus’ mother was there. He also mentions Mary Magdalene as do the other three evangelists.

The question here is whether “His mother’s sister” and “Mary the wife of Clopas” are the same or two different persons. Neither the English nor the Greek readings are unambiguous. On the side of their being two different persons is the fact that if they were the same person there would be sisters with the same name.

Some have attempted to identify the unnamed sister with “the mother of the sons of Zebedee” in Matthew, thus making the apostles James and John the first cousins of Jesus. Although this is possible, there is not to my knowledge the slightest hint of this elsewhere.

So who were the women at the cross?
The long list – eight named women, possibly nine:
1. Mary Magdalene (all four gospels)
2. Mary the mother of James the less and Joseph (or Joses) (Matthew and Mark)
3. The mother of the sons of Zebedee (Matthew)
4. Salome (Mark)
5. Joanna (Luke)
6. Mary, Jesus’ mother (John)
7. His mother’s sister (John)
8. Mary the wife of Clopas (John)
9. Also possibly Susanna (Luke 8:3)

If (4) Salome is (3) the mother of the sons of Zebedee and if (7) Jesus mother’s sister is also (8) the wife of Clopas, we have shortened our list to a minimum of six.

We should note again that of Jesus’ 12 original male disciples, all but one (John) had fled. The only other sympathetic men mentioned as being at the cross were Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, both “closet disciples” until this point (John 19:38, 39).

Bill Ball 7/2004