Loading...I have recently had some discussions with other scholars about the role of women in the early church. I’ve dealt with that issue on the blog before, of course, but now that I look I see that my fullest discussion was a thread from over ten years ago. Time to do it again! These posts deal with a variety of issues, starting with Paul, notorious in some circles for his views. But … justifiably?
In my NT course I have every student participate, as part of their grade, in a formal debate on this or that topic. The topics are meant to be controversial, and one of them, years ago, was “Resolved: The Apostle Paul was a Misogynist.” Students had to choose a side to argue (I would often assign them to argue the opposite side of the side they said they preferred arguing!), they spent weeks doing research on the topic, and then they would present their debate before their small group recitation class. It was a great topic, made even more interesting by the fact that some students didn’t know what the term misogynist meant and didn’t bother to look it up. (!) Since then I’ve changed the topic to: “Resolved: Paul’s Views of Women Were Oppressive.” I think this too is a great topic, especially because of the tense of the verb: “were” (not “are”). It leads to some great debates.
So, I will give some posts over to the question of women in the early church, starting with
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Shouldn’t we make a distinction between misogyny and sexism? The former being hatred and contempt for the female and the latter being prejudice. Using this distinction Paul would be a sexist. Jack the Ripper would be a misogynist. Far from being pedantic this distinction acknowledges that not everyone who harbors prejudice against women hates and despises them.
I’d say it’s very hard to draw lines, since prejudice is usually driven by something other than itself.
The importance of name order cannot be overstated. So Rom 16 does indeed tell us that Prisca and Mary were very prominent. My JSNT article on 1 Cor 14:34-35; 16:19 is now online. I argue there that Paul named Prisca before Aquila, even at 1 Cor 16:19.
Hi bart
You said talking about lunar eclipses “In any event, yes, all that is completely hopeless for scores of reasons, among them the idea that the world really did go dark when Jesus died.” Why is that?
Do you think the gospel writers clearly think it symbolicly? Acording to my calculatsions there are 12 full moons in a year and one is passover and there is also like 2 lunar rclipses then getting a lunar eclipse in the span of rhe reign of Pontus is notting crazy olny the timing is roughtly correct to i would say 1 out of 10 ods. But is it possible that they can know the calander so precisly.
I don’t think there’s any way to know what they were thinking.
Do you believe that 1 Corinthians 14:34 is an interpolation?
Yup. I fyou search the blog via a word search you’ll se some posts on it.
Hi Bart. Thank you for your work so much. I’m reading your book: “Heaven/Hell-history-of-the-after-life” and I like it so much/far. I was hoping I could hear your opinion about this.
In Virgil, souls are playing sports, that means, compared to Odysseus, they have enjoyment, but have no physical existence and you mention that this is ambiguity. Maybe, they have no physical existence when they’re seen by the eyes of non-deceased people(Aeneas) and that’s what Virgil is trying to say. For sure, non-deceased person, logically, shouldn’t be able to feel the touch(in my opinion, it’s logical that Aeneas can’t hug his father). Why do you call this ambiguity ? In my opinion, Virgil is trying to say that even though souls have no physical existence, they can still have enjoyment and it doesn’t have to be the same way as non-deceased feel. What’s your thoughts about this ? I have 2nd question which I will type after this.
Did I say that it was ambiuous that they have no physical existence in Virgil? It seems like they have very physical existence indeed! If yo uhave a page number, let me know so I can figure out what I meant!
In Virgil, I didn’t quite understand what souls are allowed to come back to life for second chance.
Souls that live in heaven, don’t need to come back, so reincarnation wouldn’t happen for them, so it’s tormented souls in hell. Basically, these soul go through torment, punishments in hell and after some time, they’re brought back to life for 2nd chance such that if they live good this time, they will avoid eternal hell, is this correct ? and if so, does Virgil mention which tormented souls are given this chance ?
Thank you <3
It’s a great question, but would require a long answer. Basically, their souls have been tained by their bodies and they need purificaiton. But there are complexitis in the entire scene. I discuss the passage in Journeys to Heaven and Hell in the section on virgil dealing with the Myth of Anchises of you want to see my attempts to explain it all.
The issue of chastity is rooted in more practical topics.
As Paul explains in 1 Cor 7:34:, while the married woman ‘is anxious about worldly things’, the single one ‘is anxious about the things of the Lord… be holy in body and spirit’, that will include working for the church (and thus for Paul) and not for her own family.
Immediately after dictating that verse to his scribe, Paul realizes he went too far and fixes the problem in 1 Cor 7:35.
Paul explains that denying the single woman the possibility of having a family instead of working for him (I mean for the church) is, in fact, ‘for her OWN BENEFIT, not to LAY ANY RESTRAINT UPON [HER], but to… SECURE [HER] DEVOTION to the Lord!
As in the case of the Philippians supporting Paul’s finances (Philippians 4:16), it is not that Paul ‘seeks the GIFT’, but ‘it is fruit that increases to [THEIR] CREDIT’ (Philippians 4:17).
From this credit, the Philippians could eventually make a withdrawal (Philippians 4:19) made up of ‘riches in glory in Christ Jesus’.
Paul explains this magical transformation between ‘material’ and ‘spiritual’ things in Romans 15:27.
The belief that Jesus had a select group of 12 male close companions began with Mark’s Gospel. Is it possible that this author (who was writing about 15 to 20 years after Paul wrote his letters) or one of his sources created 1) the story of Jesus selecting these men and 2) the conversations and interactions Jesus has with them? The same author created the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil, which may be true to the extent that there were some recollections that Jesus was a bit of a rebel when he was young, but then settled down and adopted a religious fervor during his late 20s or early 30s. (I personally believe Jesus left crowded home (5 younger siblings, possibly fathered by his step father) could be what motivated him to “move on.” I believe is is likely he joined a caravan as a camel attendant, went to India, stayed there in a Jewish community, and became educated in both Jewish scriptures and the writings of the Buddha’s writings (which are somewhat similar to some of Jesus’s teachings and sayings). He obviously became a Learned man somewhere.
Bill Steigelmann
It’s possible. But the “12” are mentioned in other sources outside of Mark and before him — e.g., Paul in 1 1 Corinthians 15. So they were widely thought to have existed — so much so that some of the names vary from one Gospel or another (showing that everyone knew there were twelve even if they didn’t know who they awere.) Moreover, “12” fits in well with Jesus’ apocalpytic message, and with some sayings that later Xns would not have been likely to put on his lips (“You twelve will be ruling the 12 tribes — after on eof those twelve betrayed Jesus, it’s unlikely someone would make up the idea he too would be one of hte future rulers in the kingdom)
If there is ample, Biblical evidence of female leadership in the early church, what is the primary justification Southern Baptists use to ban female pastors? Is it 1 Timothy 2? Are they not aware that letter is falsely attributed to Paul? Or do they simply choose to ignore that fact?
Yup, 1 Tim. 2:11-15 and 1 Cor. 14:33-35. THey are aware that critical scholars claim the book was not written by Paul, and they don’t ignore the claim. They think these scholars are wrong, and they have scholars on their side who argue their case.
Invariably, when Southern Baptists refer to scholars they disagree with, those scholars are labeled “liberal”. In those circles, to be “liberal” is akin to being communist, subversive, atheist, etc. In Hitler’s Germany “liberal” had roughly the same sort of connotations… I wonder whether Southern Baptists are aware of the company they keep, so to speak.
When Paul, and others write to the various “churches”, is he writing to any group of size? Sometimes referred to a group who met in homes, but is there any evidence of a larger body of attendees? Where and what size?
We have no evidence of church “buildings” until about two centuries after Paul’s letters. The evidence almost entirely indicates that in his day churches met in private homes; unfortunately guessing their sizes is … guessing. When the church began to grow more then houses were not sufficient and so many communities met in outdoor spaces — especiaily cemeteries, as it turns out….