Paul, Women, and Wives

S. Keener Craig

Description

Paul's letters stand at the center of the dispute over women, the church, and the home, with each side championing passages from the Apostle. Now, in a challenging new attempt to wrestle with these thorny texts, Craig Keener delves as deeply into the world of Paul and the apostles as anyone thus far. Acknowledging that we must take the biblical text seriously, and recognizing that Paul's letters arose in a specific time and place for a specific purpose, Keener mines the historical, lexical, cultural, and exegetical details behind Paul's words about women in the home and ministry to give us one of the most insightful expositions of the key Pauline passages in years.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• New Testament

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 juin 1992
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441237156
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

This book is dedicated to all our sisters in ministry, especially those who have had to endure opposition to follow God’s call. May God fulfill all the work of your calling.
© 1992 by Craig S. Keener Preface © 2004 by Craig S. Keener
Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 bakeracademic.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Ebook edition created 2012
Previously published in 1992 by Hendrickson Publishers. Baker Academic ebook edition created 2012. ISBN 978-0-8010-4676-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part 1: The Roles of Women in the Church
1. Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:1–16
2. Questions about Questions 1 Corinthians 14:34–35
3. Learning in Silence 1 Timothy 2:9–15
Part 2: Women’s Roles in the Family
4. Why Paul Told Wives to Submit The Social Situation of Ephesians 5:18–33
5. Mutual Submission in Ephesians 5:18–33
6. A Model for Interpreting Wives’ Submission: Slaves in Ephesians 6:5–9
7. Closing Words
Appendix A: Women’s Ministry Elsewhere in Paul
Appendix B: Mysteries, Music, Women, and Wine Ephesians 5:18-21 and the Threat of Subversive Religions
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Ancient Sources
Back Cover
Preface (2004)
As Paul, Women, and Wives enters a new printing, I am grateful for the opportunity to revisit some of the issues this work raised and to bring it more up to date. My primary academic interests are exegetical and historical, and I hope to have time in years to come to develop those questions in future commentaries on some of the New Testament letters addressed in this book. (Questions about particular Pauline letters’ authorship raised by some critical reviewers would also need to be addressed more fully in those works.)
Nevertheless, I also have a pastoral interest in the subject (how we apply Paul’s teaching in the twenty-first century), which will not be addressed so easily by purely academic works. Further, most of the response to this book has been theological, and since I am less convinced that I will have opportunity to revisit this book’s theological questions in future works, I am especially grateful to be able to offer the present preface.
In some circles, debates over the pastoral application of Paul’s teachings on gender are settled, but in others they are just warming up. Among those Christians who regard Paul’s teaching as authoritative, the debate over gender roles is probably more polarized now than it was when this book was first written. Political and rhetorical battle lines have been drawn, and many Christians have suffered wounds at the hands of fellow Christians. Having no desire to add to the rhetorical bloodshed, I urge readers to take this book’s insights as an exegetical study with pastoral implications. At the same time, I want to remain clear where I think the pastoral implications point. Since writing Paul, Women, and Wives I have served in ministry under women pastors and alongside women colleagues and am certain that the body of Christ would have been far poorer without the spiritual fruit of their ministry.
In addressing introductory issues where I need to supplement the book, I begin this preface with some comments on gender roles in antiquity (directed more toward advanced students). Then, on a less academic level, I summarize aspects of the shape of the current debate among readers seeking to apply Paul’s teaching, especially among evangelicals. Finally I conclude with comments on the hermeneutical principles that necessarily underlie my (and most other egalitarians’) approach.
GENDER ROLES IN ANTIQUITY
This section may appeal primarily to specialists, yet it is important for me to include. Scholars have published numerous works on women in both early Judaism and the Greco-Roman world since I completed my original manuscript for Paul, Women, and Wives . [1] A number of these works significantly advance our views of the diverse positions held by women in antiquity. Although they do not alter the central thrust of this book, they would influence how I would write the book if I were starting it today.
Paul, Women, and Wives did note the diverse roles of women, both Jewish and Gentile, in different parts of the Empire, [2] but I have long wished that I had emphasized this point more fully. It is more helpful to compare Paul with a range of his contemporaries, and then rank him among the more progressive of them (as I think the evidence warrants), than to enter into fruitless debates over who was the “most progressive.” Among the options articulated in his day, he (like most other “progressive” voices) sometimes sided with dominant practices in his culture, just as he supported obedience to the state under normal circumstances (Rom. 13:1–7) and other writers supported allegiance to the king (1 Pet. 2:13). Sometimes the reasons for maintaining such popular arrangements were explicitly apologetic, both addressing the behavior of slaves (1 Tim. 6:1–2), wives (Titus 2:5; cf. 1 Tim. 5:15), and others (Titus 2:8). [3] This was an important concern to a minority religious movement in an environment where such movements were sometimes charged with social subversion. On other occasions, however, Paul’s statements fit among the most progressive of his contemporaries (as this book emphasizes).
The same may be even more the case for his comments on slavery. Although the wilderness Essenes and some other radical communities rejected slavery in principle (generally because they rejected all private property), the most progressive views expressed among those in mainstream society generally promoted only slaves’ equality in nature and their fair treatment. By arguing not only for their human equality but for something like mutual submission between slaves and slaveholders (Eph. 6:9), Paul was easily among the more progressive voices of his day.
Where I do not think the evidence points is that everyone, or even most people, would have been as progressive as Paul. Scholars have rightly collected many examples of highly educated upper class women, but those who depend on such collections without reading the entire range of ancient sources will fail to distinguish the exceptions from the general practice. (A person actually surveying the ancient sources directly will recognize that the preponderance of sources do not suggest anything close to gender equality.) Likewise, Jewish women attended synagogue and learned the law, but, with possibly rare exceptions, were not raised to recite it the way most boys were. While we should take note of the exceptions (which provide a context for the many “exceptions” also in the New Testament), we should not lose sight of the fact that these were (in most of the Empire) exceptions.
Although we know of women in positions of prominence, they constituted a far smaller percentage than men. Of course, the same is true in Paul: the women in visible ministry were a small percentage compared to the men in such ministry, and their percentage tended to be higher in locations (and perhaps classes or occupations) where women had more social freedom. But the point must be that Paul approved of these women’s activities, in contrast to the tendencies of a good number of his contemporaries. Likewise, while there is plenty of evidence for diverse positions in different parts of the Mediterranean world, none of these suggest a society that would allow women to vote or to engage in activities alongside men in the way that almost all of us (at least in western society and some other cultures) take for granted today. Again, it may be objected that Paul does not, so far as we have record, press beyond his society by advocating women’s (or anyone’s) suffrage; he addressed the issues of his culture. But again, I stand by my argument in this book that Paul does make statements about gender (such as Rom. 16:1–3, 6–7, 12; 1 Cor. 11:5, 11–12; Gal. 3:28; Phil. 4:3; cf. Col. 4:15) that rank him among the more progressive voices of his day. That he also has more conservative statements (the focus of the body of this book) does not negate the more progressive ones, especially if, as I argue in this book, he articulates these for culturally strategic reasons. [4]
We may compare Paul, for instance, with the much earlier writer Xenophon, who was also very “progressive.” Various ancient writers spoke of forms of mutuality while preserving (in various degrees) a measure of hierarchy (an observation important, for example, in the exhortation to children in Eph. 6:1–3). [5] Xenophon, who offers a remarkably progressive view in classical Athens, argues for partnership ( koinōnia ) between spouses ( Oec. 7.18, 30), yet argues that nature has suited wives’ bodies better for indoor work and husbands’ for work outdoors ( Oec. 7.22–23, 30). The husband has more courage ( Oec. 7.25), but both are equals in memory and self-control ( Oec. 7. 26–27). [6] Xenophon’s position restricts women more than most complementarians (gender hierarchicalists) would today; but he has moved significantly beyond the typical views of his Athenian contemporaries, and it is in this context that we must judge him historically.
Paul does move beyond such statements in emphasizing mutual submission (Eph. 5:21), [7] and this contrast is instructive, but should not be overstated. On the one hand, the statement of mutual submission in Ephesians 5 is so directly connected with the wife’s submission as to challenge hi