What exactly is Paul saying about women? What are we supposed to believe?

Read: Question #33, p. 132-136, in Banned Questions about the Bible by Christian Piatt.

It’s easier to make a case that women are considered as valuable and worthy as men in the New Testament if we stop with the Gospels. Jesus reached out to both men and women and included women in his ministry. Not only did women support Jesus’ ministry, but they were the first witnesses to the resurrection. Maybe that’s not as direct as declaring, “Women should be treated as equal to men,” but neither does Jesus say, “Women should remain silent in church” or “A woman’s place is in the kitchen” (see Jesus’ interaction with Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42). 

But then we come to Paul’s letters. On one hand, he commends a number of women for their roles in building up the church in Romans 16. He called Phoebe a deacon in the church (Rom. 16:1), worked with both Priscilla and her husband (Rom. 16:3; Acts 18), referred to Junia as “outstanding among the apostles” (Rom. 16:7; there’s disagreement on whether the original text used Junia, the feminine form of the name, or Junias, the masculine form), and praised other women for their hard work in the church. Add to that this passage from Galatians, which makes the case that, in Jesus, the distinctions between men and women, Jew and Gentile, master and slave no longer matter:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)

On the other hand, there are these passages in Paul’s letters:

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If 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. (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. (1 Timothy 2:11-15)

But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved…. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. (1 Corinthians 11:5-9).

I won’t go into Paul’s writings on marriage (Ephesians 5:21-33; Colossians 3:18-25) here but you can find a good discussion on that in the previous post. Instead, let’s focus on the passages above.

What are we supposed to make of this? If Paul truly valued the contributions of women in his ministry, why would he write that they should not teach but remain silent and not assume authority over men? Was he trying to have it both ways? Did he change his mind over time? 

Some of the responses in Banned Questions… note that some things, such as his advice in 1 Corinthians 11, may have been focused on a particular circumstance that doesn’t lend itself to universal interpretation. Some of his advice may have been intended to keep the new church from standing out in a Roman society that was known to persecute them. 

Other responses suggest that some of the more controversial passages may have been written by someone other than Paul or may have been later additions inserted after Paul. A lot of people have studied Paul’s letters and had more than a little debate about what was authentic and what was not. I don’t pretend to be an expert on it, so I’m relying on what the responses say (and I’m sure that someone who wants to argue differently would be able to cite different experts). Several responses in Banned Questions… note that scholars believe that texts such as Galatians 3 and Romans 16 are authentic but other texts attributed to Paul may have been added later by others to tone down the message of equality. 

I tend to value actions over words, and find it hard to believe that Paul would commend so many women for their work in the early church if he didn’t want them to be in leadership roles. However, others point to the passages above to argue that it’s clear Paul meant that women have no role as leaders in the church. Why would these contradictions remain enshrined in the Bible? How do we sort this out?

Please click on “Comments” below to share your thoughts and to read what others are saying. Come back often to continue the conversation!

Why do women seem to be treated poorly in the Bible?

Read: Question #3, p. 12-15, in Banned Questions about the Bible by Christian Piatt.

Some read Genesis and blame Eve for our fall from grace. The Old Testament holds up few women as positive role models. In fact, we see far fewer women than men chronicled in the Bible. The OT laws often treat women as subordinates without a voice in a male-dominated society. Throughout its history, the Bible has often been used to justify keeping women in subservient roles in the church and in society. This particular passage from Paul is quoted often in support of keeping women out of leadership roles in the church:

“Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If 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.” 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

As I write this, a controversy is bubbling up over Rachel Held Evans’ new book A Year in Biblical Womanhood. Lifeway Christian Stores, which is operated by the Southern Baptist Convention, announced it would not carry the book, presumably because of the inclusion of a certain word used to describe a particular part of female anatomy. Matthew Paul Turner argues that it’s not as simple as that in a recent blog post. You can read that for yourself, but the Baptists are not the only denomination that limits the role of women in its churches. We Presbyterians are considered heretics by some because we have female pastors. I’ve been told by some conservative evangelical Christian friends that it’s just not “biblical.”

The Banned Questions… responses to the question all emphasized the need to read the Bible in the context of the time and that, in that context, there’s plenty in the New Testament to support an “ethic of equality.” But the dissenting opinion – the view that women cannot serve as pastors or teachers in the church and that they should be subservient in marriage – is still alive and well today in some denominations. 

We’ll tackle Paul’s writings later in the week. Since everyone who responded to the question in Banned Questions… pointed to Jesus’ examples, let’s start there. In the midst of a patriarchal society, here are some of the things Jesus did:

• He healed women as well as men, at times going counter to OT laws on ritual purity (Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:25-34) and the Sabbath (Luke 13:10-17).
• One of his longest conversations was with a woman Jews were not supposed to associate with (John 4:1-42).
• Not only that, but he didn’t turn women away when they sat to hear him teach, even if the woman’s “role” was to serve in the background as hosts (Luke 10:38-42).
• In fact, women were part of his inner circle, to the extent of helping support his ministry (Luke 8:1-3).
• In the end, women remained with Jesus to the end, even as many of the male apostles had gone into hiding (Matthew 27:50-56).
• And, of course, women were the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection (Matthew 28:1-10).

There are other examples in which Jesus treated women “as valuable human beings, every bit as worthwhile as men” [Marcia Ford, p. 14 in Banned Questions…). Sometimes we read the gospel accounts and forget how much of what Jesus taught and did ran counter to religious and cultural norms of his day. Perhaps it doesn’t jump out as bold and revolutionary as we expect to see it today, but Jesus upset a lot of people who supported the status quo. Yet today, while some churches believe the New Testament supports women in ministry, others use the same Bible to deny women pastoral and leadership positions in the church and to contend that women are supposed to be subservient to their husbands in marriage.

What do you think?  Do you think the gospel accounts of Jesus provide clear support for treating women as equals or does the Bible as a whole still provide support for a male-dominated society? Why can some Christians read the Bible and find support for treating women as equals in church and society while others find support for keeping women out of leadership roles in the church? If God intended all people to be treated as equals, why isn’t the message in the Bible clearer?

Please click on “Comments” below to share your thoughts and to read what others are saying. Come back often to continue the conversation!

Coming Attractions and a Thursday Treat

Starting Saturday (10/20), we’ll examine the question “Aren’t women treated poorly in the Bible?” On Saturday, we’ll look at the patriarchal culture that dominated Biblical times and how Jesus treated women in the Gospels. Later in the week, we’ll take a look at Paul – did he support women in leadership in the church or did he really mean that women should remain silent?

In the meantime, I want to share a recent blog post from Rachel Held Evans. I started following her blog after coming across her book Evolving in Monkey Town, which looks at faith, doubt, and the challenge of asking tough questions about Christianity. Her newest book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, which is due out soon, chronicles her attempt to follow the biblical instructions for women as closely as possible. 

This particular post is called I love the Bible. She talks about wrestling with the Bible and with differences in interpretation. Here’s a brief excerpt (actually, the entire post is not that long):

"Differences in interpretation should not lead us to question one another's passion or commitment to Scripture, but rather invite us into conversation with the shared assumption that we are all struggling toward truth, all trying to figure it out. 

"Those of us who have wrestled know that no one's interpretation is inerrant.  Those of us who have wrestled know we can be wrong.

"I love the Bible more now than ever before because I have finally surrendered to God’s stories."

In the meantime, we've had some interesting discussion on the post Is Church Still Relevant Today? so I hope you'll check that out if you haven't done so already.

Is Church Still Relevant Today?

Before you scream at me, I believe the church has a calling to be God's light for the world and I am part of a church because I believe it is relevant. But I don't think we always do it the way God intends. We had a discussion on this blog about whether people see hope for the world in the churches. I still wonder: If so, then why is attendance and church affiliation declining? Is it because the old paradigm of church membership is fading? Are more people finding fewer reasons to believe? Are more children growing up in families with no church affiliation? Or has the church itself strayed from being the light of the gospel for the world? 

This is not one of the questions in Banned Questions about the Bible. Nor is it what I planned for discussion this week. However, it is a question that I ask more and more. Call it “Banned Questions about Church,” if you will. I don’t want to dwell on “Why is it this way?” but on “What do we do about it?” We probably won’t fully answer that question here, but this isn't the last time we’ll visit it either. 

In his sermon on Sunday (10/4), Jay mentioned a recent survey in which one in five Americans reported no religious affiliation. You can read the report from The Pew Forum by clicking here. Some who chose “none” for their religious affiliation still believe in God (68% with varying degrees of certainty), consider themselves spiritual (55% described themselves as religious or spiritual but not religious), and pray (41% said they prayed daily, weekly, or monthly). Jay asked whether believing, praying, and practicing spiritual discipline away from a church community was enough, contrasting that with what Jesus considered true discipleship (Mark 8:34-37).It was a good sermon, but I want to look at the question from another perspective.

Two-thirds of the unaffiliated identified in the Pew poll said that religion was not important in their lives. And most said they were not searching for a spiritual home. Why? Here’s what the Pew report said:

“The unaffiliated also are not uniformly hostile toward religious institutions. They are much more likely than the public overall to say that churches and other religious organizations are too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules, and too involved in politics. But at the same time, a majority of the religiously unaffiliated clearly think that religion can be a force for good in society, with three-quarters saying religious organizations bring people together and help strengthen community bonds (78%) and a similar number saying religious organizations play an important role in helping the poor and needy (77%).”

I can't speak for everyone in the poll, but here are some things I hear from non-Christian friends:

• They hear way too much from the church about how they should be living their lives. The church isn't the only place that offers advice on how to live a good life. Besides, there are enough examples of Christians gone astray to suggest that the church's advice is no better than what anybody else is saying.
• They wonder why many Christians don't show the same level of outrage for greed and inequalities in the world as they do for things of a sexual nature. 
• Christians aren't the only ones trying to make the world a better place. In fact, many organizations are reaching out in areas that Christians have ignored. 
• Christians seem too obsessed with hell and Jesus seems little more than something they cling onto to save their own selves.
• Some friends think that being affiliated with the Democratic party or liberal causes or being a scientist precludes them from being a Christian.

These observations don't apply to all Christians (or even many Christians), but there is truth in them. And, in all that noise, the gospel message is missing. We can blame the media (a good villain for so many things), the actions of a few rogues, or the distractions of society. Or we can ask: What can we, as the body of Christ, do to change that perception? More importantly, how do we share the same good news that draws us to Jesus? 

Here are a few more questions to consider: If the church is losing its relevance in society, how do we adjust? How much of it is of our own making, of weighing the Gospel down with our own trappings? What is the good news of Jesus at its very essence? Is that a message that still offers hope in the world? If so, how does that message get heard?

You may not agree with me on this, and that's fine. Or you may have some ideas of your own. Either way, I look forward to hearing from you. Please click on “Comments” below to share your thoughts and to read what others are saying. Come back often to continue the conversation!

Wait, what?!? Was Jesus married?

I never seriously considered that Jesus may have been married because it’s not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. But some people argue that’s only because I’ve accepted the interpretations at face value. Besides, the Bible doesn’t explicitly say that Jesus was single. Could I be wrong?

A small scrap of papyrus that contained the phrase: "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …'" briefly caused a stir because it counters the prevailing view that Jesus was single and celibate. There have been alternate theories, popularized by Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, that Jesus was married but gospel writers hid it for any number of reasons. Those theories haven’t gained much traction because there’s not much evidence to support them. 

Could this papyrus be that supporting evidence?  First, the scrap only holds eight incomplete sentence fragments. Jesus may go on to introduce his wife or launch into a parable, but we have no way of knowing the context without the rest of the writing. Additionally, the historian who analyzed the papyrus dates it at 300 years after Jesus was alive. The person who wrote it would be many generations removed from any eye witnesses to Jesus. As we noted in the previous post on what books were included in the Bible and why, direct connection to an apostle who was an eye witness to Jesus was an important factor in determining what books were considered reliable and authoritative. 

That doesn’t completely preclude the possibility that Jesus may have been married. For instance, the author of the papyrus may have been copying from an older document.  Is there any other evidence that Jesus may have been married? 

Zach Hunt goes into more depth about whether the authoritativeness of the scrap of papyrus and whether it was likely that Jesus was married in his post Jesus Had a Wife? at The American Jesus. He cites two reasons why it’s likely that Jesus was not married:

1. The lack of mention of Jesus’ wife in the gospel accounts: If Jesus had been married, they likely would have been mentioned it in the gospels and, if they had omitted such an important detail, we would have heard about it from others who knew Jesus or knew someone who knew Jesus. After all, the gospels don’t hide Peter’s mother-in-law or marriage.
2. Paul’s advice on remaining single: According to Hunt, it’s likely that Paul’s choice to be single and his advice to others to remain unmarried reflected his desire “to live a life as closely resembling Jesus’ life as possible,” including marital status.

Christian Piatt asked “Did Jesus get married and have children?” in a second book in his Banned Questions series – Banned Questions About Jesus. He reprinted the responses on his blog shortly after news of the papyrus fragment came out. You can read them by clicking here. The consensus is that, while it’s hard to make absolute statements about someone who lived 2,000 years ago, there’s little evidence that Jesus ever married or had children. Not only that, but the gospel writers would almost assuredly have included something as important as that in their writings. 

Pastor and author John Ortberg, writing last week in the Huffington Post, said that, despite popular conspiracy theories and contentions that the gospel writers tried to cover up Jesus’ marriage to make him appear more divine than human, “the New Testament doesn't present Jesus as a single man to cover up his humanity. It presents him as a single man because ... he was a single man.”

Is this is enough to change the mind of someone who wants to believe Jesus was married and the church is only trying to cover it up? I guess I’ve bought into it. Maybe the bigger question is: Does it really matter whether Jesus was married? 

It may have mattered to Paul, who chose a single life and encouraged others to do the same. It may matter to Catholic priests and others who similarly choose a single life to be more like Jesus. But, would it change the foundation of our faith if Jesus was married? 

Zach Hunt believes it probably matters little. Indeed, if Jesus had been married, it might have provided an ideal example of marriage. John Ortberg writes “perhaps what matters most in this discussion is the impact Jesus had -- not on one woman -- but on the status of women as a whole.” And that’s the subject of our next post, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, what do you think? Was Jesus married? Does it matter to you? Why or why not? Please click on “Comments” below to share your thoughts and to read what others are saying. Come back often to continue the conversation!

Gospel of Jesus’ Wife? Who decided what books made up the Bible and how did they decide?

Background: Questions # 7 (p. 29-31), 10 (p. 40-45), and 28 (p. 113-117) in Banned Questions about the Bible by Christian Piatt.

Scripture: John 21:24-25

A recently discovered scrap of papyrus believed to have been written some 300 years after Jesus was alive includes the phrase: "Jesus said to them, 'My wife …'" Although it’s not a complete sentence and there’s no way of knowing the full context of the eight fragments of text on that papyrus, the historian who translated the writing has called it “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.” 

Was Jesus married and, if he was, why would the Bible hide it and what does it mean for us? We’ll explore that later this week. First let's look at another set of questions that come out of this: If this was part of a larger gospel account of Jesus (it’s hard to tell from a small scrap), why wasn't it included in the Bible? In the last century, a number of documents dating back to the early church have been found, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and a collection of Gnostic gospels. Why weren't they included in the Bible we have today?  Who decided what would be included and why? Why haven’t we added any of these later documents to the Bible?

Banned Questions About the Bible includes three questions related to this subject: 

• Why are the Apocrypha, Gnostic Gospels, and Dead Sea Scrolls considered sacred to some but not to others? (p. 29-32)
• Who got to decide which books would be included in the Bible, and what rules did they use to decide? (p. 113-117)
• Is there a chance any new books will ever be added to the Bible? (p. 40-45)

How some books were included in the Bible while others were excluded has been fertile ground for discussion, debate, conspiracy theories and fiction (see The Da Vinci Code). The responses to the questions above give a brief overview of the creation of the New Testament canon (the standard on which our faith is based). While the New Testament was not finalized until the late fourth century, that doesn't mean it was created from scratch some 400 years after Jesus was on earth. The texts in our Bible today had been in common use since the first century. 

Marcia Ford described the process as a “grassroots effort” rising up from the individual churches that had pretty much settled on a collection of books they considered to be authentic (p. 114). The early church leaders who established the canon used several guidelines to determine whether a book was authentic. The book had to be:

• written by one of Jesus’ apostles or by someone associated with an apostle
• accepted, used, and relevant by the larger Christian community
• reflective of “a view consistent with accepted doctrine and moral value” of the larger Christian community [p. 114]

But if there was universal acceptance of these books as central to Christian faith, why formalize a canon? Unless you believe the Bible was handed down by God dictated, bound, and translated for all to understand unambiguously, then the possibility of conflicting interpretation and viewpoints exist. The more time that passed, the more removed people were from the perspectives of those who were alive with Jesus. We certainly don’t have the same perspectives as those of the early church. 

Gnostics held to a viewpoint that ran counter to accepted doctrine. I’m not an expert, so I’m deferring to responses in Banned Questions… Gnostics “tend to question Jesus’ humanity, suggesting that he was a divine or spiritual being who only seemed to be human” (Marcia Ford, p. 29). That conflicts with our belief that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. The Gnostics also believed we could reach a more fulfilling existence “through the attainment of secret knowledge (gnosis)” (Brandon Gilvin, p. 30). Contrast that with our understanding that grace is a gift given to us by God through Jesus and not some secret we have to discover.

However, some argue that the male leaders of the early churches also rejected the gnostic gospels' “more powerful portrayal of women” (Marcia Ford, p. 29) and that the net effect of focusing on what the “mainstream” church considered correct doctrine was to marginalize “sincere Christians (e.g., the Gnostics) who disagreed with them” (Jose Morales, Jr, p. 115). 

Do you believe that, in the existing Bible, “God has provided all that we need to know to believe in God and to guide our lives” [p. 43]? Or do you believe that, in excluding books that ran counter to the mainstream church’s view of correct doctrine, the early church leaders have left us with an incomplete picture of God?

Do you believe there’s something to be learned in the Gnostic gospels that have not been included in the Bible? Have you read any of them? Examples include the gospels of Thomas, Mary, and Judas. 

Today we have some denominations claiming that anything that deviates from their church doctrine or understanding of the Bible is heresy. How do we know that something is “heretical” to our understanding of God? Do we (or should we) accept that a book or a thought is heresy because a church leader says so or should we decide for ourselves? How do we keep this from turning into a chaos in which anything goes depending on our perspective? 

On Wednesday, we’ll explore the second part of the question: Was Jesus married? In the meantime, please click on “Comments” below to share your thoughts and to read what others are saying. Come back often to continue the conversation!