Did the Early Church Uphold a Twofold Subjection?

A couple of months ago I participated in a long and heated debate about women and the man’s authority. As the debate was ending, I mentioned how the creation-based subjection began with the twofold subjection in the scholastic period. As proof I quoted Matthew Henry:

Genesis 2.21-25

That Adam was first formed, then Eve (1 Tim 2:13), and she was made of the man, and for the man (1 Cor 11:8-9), all which are urged there as reasons for the humility, modesty, silence, and submissiveness, of that sex in general, and particularly the subjection and reverence which wives owe to their own husbands. Yet man being made last of the creatures, as the best and most excellent of all, Eve's being made after Adam, and out of him, puts an honour upon that sex, as the glory of the man, 1 Cor 11:7. If man is the head, she is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined, one remove further from the earth.

Genesis 3.16

She is here put into a state of subjection. The whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is, for sin, made inferior, and forbidden to usurp authority, 1 Tim 2:11-12. The wife particularly is hereby put under the dominion of her husband, and is not sui juris-at her own disposal, of which see an instance in that law, Num 30:6-8, where the husband is empowered, if he please, to disannul the vows made by the wife. This sentence amounts only to that command, Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; but the entrance of sin has made that duty a punishment, which otherwise it would not have been. If man had not sinned, he would always have ruled with wisdom and love; and, if the woman had not sinned, she would always have obeyed with humility and meekness; and then the dominion would have been no grievance: but our own sin and folly make our yoke heavy. If Eve had not eaten forbidden fruit herself, and tempted her husband to eat it, she would never have complained of her subjection; therefore it ought never to be complained of, though harsh; but sin must be complained of, that made it so. Those wives who not only despise and disobey their husbands, but domineer over them, do not consider that they not only violate a divine law, but thwart a divine sentence[i]

Our opponent – a Christian school teacher – told me that the early church has always taught a twofold subjection. I didn’t think much about it until a few days ago, when during a walk I suddenly began to think about his statement: if the church has always taught a twofold subjection of Eve, why does the modern church no longer do so?

The church got rid of the twofold subjection in the 1980s when Gen 3.16 was returned to its original position as a description of a consequence of sin. Now, why did the church do so? The answer: because it was universally acknowledged that it could not be a commandment as the church had previously taught, for why would God reward the man with authority over the woman if the man was equally guilty? The patristic church had taught that the first woman was solely guilty (the man being innocent) and therefore she was punished with a servile subjection. This, however, was ruled out as un-biblical belief little over two decades ago.

But what about the early church? Did the first and second century church teach a twofold subjection? Such a belief cannot be found until in the writings of the fourth-century bishop Augustine, who had to resort to neo-Platonism and a faulty reading of the creation account to create a creation-based subjection – a task in which he ultimately failed. All Christian writes, including Augustine’s contemporaries, wrote that the first man and woman were created equal and that it was only due to sin that the man was given authority over the woman. They based this belief on the Roman concept that the first woman had ruined the man - his equal - and was therefore justly punished with servile subjection. But if we take the Roman concept out of the picture, what other reason was there for God to punish only the woman since the man was equally guilty? None can be found, wherefore the modern church now claims that the woman desires to control the man as a result of sin - a novel belief that cannot be found until the twentieth-century. 

In conclusion, the early church did not teach a twofold subjection, nor is it possible for the modern church to do so. For the modern church to teach a twofold subjection, it must first affirm with the patristic church that only the woman was guilty, a belief contradicted by Romans 5; and secondly, it must affirm with the scholastic church that the woman was subjected to the man originally because the woman lacked reason, a belief contradicted by Genesis 1, which states that both the man and the woman were created in the image of God. The modern position, which is an exact reversal of the patristic teaching and which contradicts the beliefs taught by the early church, is based on a faulty reading of 1 Timothy 2, which ultimately cannot be defended without resorting to the twofold subjection, as seen in our recent debate.

---

[i] (Gen 2:121-25, 3:16; from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

Organic People

When we add stuff that doesn’t belong we make things taste different. For example, have you ever noticed how pure spring water tastes softer than chemically treated city water? And have you noticed how organic foods taste better than processed foods? They all look the same, but as soon as you take a bite, the flavor tells a different tale.

The same is true of humans as well. When we add things that do not belong in the human heart, it becomes hard. You can’t always tell from the outside what is in the inside – some have the appearance of goodness - but as soon as you spend time in their company, the truth becomes evident. People who follow God sound softer and their thoughts are purer. Sin makes people hard, unyielding, unforgiving, and unloving. But the good news is that we don’t have to be that way. We can become “organic” people by refusing to add stuff that doesn’t belong in us, such as, “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like”(Gal 5:19-21, NKJV). Instead, “organic” people exhibit “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” (Gal 5:22-23 NKJV). Just imagine a world where everything was organic, from plants to people! That would be a world just the way God intended it to be from the beginning.

Because You Listened to Your Wife...

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."  (Gen 3:17-19 NIV)

This text is usually interpreted to mean that men should not listen to women, for look what happened to the first man when he listened to a woman! But the interpretation misses the point. The point is that Adam had earlier blamed God for giving the woman to be with him - had the woman never existed, he wouldn’t have taken the fruit and everything would have been just fine! To this God responds, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree, the ground will be cursed because of you.” There would be no passing of blame; everyone, including the first man, would have to accept and live with the consequences of the entrance of sin in to the world. And so we have.

The entrance of sin has complicated more than one thing in the world. Because what we see is a distortion of the world as God created it, a lot of things that are evil are called good. Rob Bell writes in Love Wins, A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate or Every Person Who Ever Lived:

Do you know any individuals who grew up in a Christian church and then walked away when they got older? Often pastors and parents and brothers and sisters are concerned about them and their spirituality – and often they should be. But sometimes those individuals’ rejection of church and the Christian faith they were presented with as the only possible interpretation of what it means to follow Jesus may in fact be a sign of spiritual health. They may be resisting behaviors, interpretations, and attitudes that should be rejected. Perhaps they simply came to a point where they refused to accept the very sorts of things that Jesus would refuse to accept. [i]

Could it be that the church has mingled truth with error to such a degree that people must leave to find the truth? Consider for example one of the many interpretations of the effects of the first disobedience: Should women confine themselves to their homes while the men go out to the world as breadwinners in order to re-create the blissful garden? First of all, there was no bread to be won in the garden; there were a lot of trees – the first man and woman had to only reach out and take the first fruit they saw. Secondly, there was no home to be made. The woman roamed the garden as freely as the man for there was no housework. What we today call “God’s design” appeared with sin as the eviction of our first parents from the garden made us responsible for the things once given to us freely by God.

... which brings us to the thorns and thistles. The once fertile soil began to produce weeds; wheat would appear only if the soil was cultivated carefully. The garden that had been a place of leisure and pleasure, not work, was lost and exchanged with a world filled with hard labor and grief. Ever since, humankind, that once enjoyed the blissful existence of plenty, has had to daily walk the tightrope between enough and not-enough. Starvation, disease, death; we know them all too well. And if we happen to belong to the Bottom Billion, they are our constant companions. But what has the church to say about all of this? Do we hear the ceaseless call to feed the poor and the hungry? Not really. Instead we are like the old Romans – we outdo each other building larger, ever grander mansions in which God does not dwell. And out the backdoor leaves yet another faithful who couldn’t find in her Bible the call to build yet another house for God, but who heard the gentle whisper of finding God in the least - impacting instead of impressing.

Now, that’s a thing Jesus would accept, just as he has always accepted all women and men who have challenged the dogmas of their times in order to remain faithful to God - not the church. 

---

[i] Bell, Rob, Love Wins, [NY, Harper Collins, 2011], 8.

Created in the Image of Theologians

Humans really like conformity, uniformity, and similarity. When everything is the same, the world seems a friendlier place, a comforting place, where nothing surprises or threatens.  Anything strange or different is deemed a threat to that peace, wherefore humans have always tried to destroy everything that breaks the artificial harmony through laws, customs, segregation or annihilation.

This tendency to create uniformity spills over to the realm of theology as well. God is so vastly different from us that we humans have a hard time understanding who God is. For examples, God is a spirit, not a corporeal creature - how can we relate to such a being? One answer has been to re-create God in our own image. Theologians, exasperated with the challenge to explain God, have made God sound and look awfully like themselves: white males whose job is the rule everyone else; thus the heavy emphasis on authority and subjection, the supposed “maleness” of God (although God does not have reproductive organs) and the imperial elevation of the white skin over the darker shades. But this is not who God is.

God is not like humans; humans were created in the likeness of God. Sin has corrupted that image wherefore we no longer see God when we see a human. In the new creation, which we become when the corrupted nature is put off and the new nature is put on, our inner person is transformed until it once more resembles who God is. This transformation is through the Spirit and knowledge: the Spirit teaches us to know Christ until we have become just like him. But this transformation does not take place without our co-operation. We must put off the corrupted nature and be willing to learn. For this reason God gave us teachers so we would no longer be like small children, always wavering from one belief to another, but that speaking truth to each other we would grow in all things into Christ, the head (Eph 4.11-16). When we have grasped the love of Christ, and we are rooted and established in it, we will be filled with fullness of God – we will be like God and do the things God does (Eph 3.14-19). As a contrast, those who do not think it worthwhile to know God are filled with envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice (Rom 1.28-29, NIV).

If we must be like God and do the things God does, what is God like?

God is incorruptible (aphthartos, lit. undecaying, Rom 1:18-25)
God is light (phos, lit. to shine or make manifest, 1 John 1:5-7)
God is righteous/just (dikaios, i.e. that which is fair to all, just, 1 John 2:25-29)

God is pure (1 John 3:1-10)
God is love (1 John 4.7-18)
God is true (alethes, lit. not concealed, John 3:31-36)
God is spirit (pneuma, John 4:21-24)

Allowing God’s Spirit to re-create these traits in us is what the new creation is all about, for what matters is that our trust in God is manifested through love – love for God and love for our neighbors (Gal 5.6). When we love, we are like God, who is love.

Does a "Man" mean a "Man" in the Bible?

Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., who resorts to a paradox to explain the contradiction between Genesis 1 and 2, must explain the absence of an explicit reference to the man’s headship in Genesis 1-3.[1]

Moses does not explicitly teach male headship in chapter 1; but for that matter, neither does he explicitly teach male-female equality. We see neither the words “male-female equality” nor “male headship” here or anywhere in Genesis 1-3. What Moses does provide is a series of more or less obvious hints as to his doctrine of manhood and womanhood. The burden of Genesis 1:26-28 is male-female equality. That seems obvious – wonderfully obvious![2]

One of these “hints” is the word ‘adam, which Ortlund gives the meaning “man.”

But God’s naming of the race “man” whispers male headship, which Moses will bring forward boldly in chapter two. God did not name the human race “woman.” If “woman” had been the more appropriate and illuminating designation, no doubt God would have used it. He does not even devise a neutral term like “persons.” He called us “man,” which anticipates the male headship brought out clearly in chapter two, just as “male and female” in verse 27 foreshadows marriage in chapter two.[3]

Ortlund confuses the Hebrew words ‘yish and ‘adam for the equivalent of the English word ‘man’ is the Hebrew word ‘yish, not ‘adam, which means “human” (as does the Greek equivalent anthropos). ‘Yish becomes aner in Greek, and both are used to distinguish male humans from females in addition to functioning as generic terms for humans in general (e.g., Ps. 122:1; James 1:12).

     Hebrew uses a grammatical masculine, not an anatomical masculine, in Genesis 1.27. Languages which do not have grammatically masculine and feminine words do not use the word man generically, nor do they have words such as male and female in their vocabulary. Only androcentric languages, which assimilate women into the word man, need such defining words to avoid confusion. Thus we find that Greek uses arsen (“male”) and thelus (“female”) when a clear distinction is needed, which is also true of Hebrew’s zaakaar (“male”), neqebah (“female”), as seen in Genesis 17:23:

“On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household or bought with his money, every male [zakaar] in his household [‘yish], and circumcised them, as God told him.“ (NIV)

Robert Alter, provides another compelling reason why ‘adam cannot refer to a male man.

The term ‘adam, afterward consistently with a definite article, which is used both here [Genesis 1:27] and in the second account of the origins of humankind, is a generic term for human beings, not a proper noun. It also does not automatically suggest maleness, especially not without the prefix ben, “son of,” and so the traditional rendering “man” is misleading, an exclusively male ‘adam would make nonsense of the last clause of verse 27.[4]   

What Alter means by “nonsense” becomes clear when the words in verse 27 are changed into colors: “God created blue … blue and red created he them.” Blue cannot contain red and remain a distinct color. Similarly, a man cannot be both male and female and remain distinctly male. But humanity can include both male and female and remain a distinct entity of its own, just as the color purple includes both read and blue. Hence the correct English translation is, “God created humanity…male and female created he them.”[5]

 In the following comparison of 21 languages and 42 translations, ‘adam is translated either “man” or “human.”

Man – man and woman (3 translations, 2 languages)

French  (La Bible du Semeur, Louis Segond), Portuguese (O Livro)     

Man – male and female (17 translation, 4 languages)

Spanish (Reina-Valera 1960, 1995, 1569, Dios Habla Hoy), Italian (La Nuova Diodati, Conferenza Episcopale Italiana), Hungarian, English (NJKV, ASV, Amplified, Darby, Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition; English Standard Version, Holman Christian Standar, KJV; NASB, NIV, New Life Version, Young’s Literal Translation)

Human – man and woman (14 translations, 13 languages)

German (Luther Bible 1545, Elberfelder), Spanish (Nueva Versión Internacional), Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Haitian Creole Version, Maori, Dutch, Swedish, English (ESV), Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic

Human – male and female (8 translations, 5 languages)

Arabic, Albanian, Polish, Russian Synodal version (/man and woman), English (New Century Version, New Living Translation, The message, Today’s NIV)

An overwhelming majority of languages – seventeen of the twenty-one considered – favor the translation “human” instead of “man.” Androcentric languages tend to choose “man” while the more gender-neutral languages use the word “human.” An English translation is found in all except the first category (“man – man and woman”). Thus it is ascertained that the writer of Genesis 1:27 did not use ‘adam in a gender-defining manner but as a reference to the origin of the first human, and consequently all humanity: the first human was called ‘adam because he was made of ‘adamah, the ground, just as the first woman was called ‘ishshah because she was made from ‘yish.[6]

Ortlund needs ‘adam to have the meaning “a man” because of his belief that God called only Adam in Genesis 3:9 and therefore held only him responsible for the Fall of humanity as the leader of the two.[7] However, if ‘adam refers only to the man in 3:9, it should also be true of Genesis 3:21-24.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" (Gen. 3:8-9, NIV)

The LORD God made garments of skin for the man and his wife and clothed them. And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen. 3:21-24, NIV)

Both passages employ the same grammatical construction and concern the same persons, therefore, either only the man was banned from the garden, or the word ‘adam includes both the man and the woman in Genesis 3:9 and 22, as it does in Genesis 1:27. (The male human is called ‘yish in Gen 2:23-24, 3:6 and 3:16, when a clear distinction is needed). Since God called humanity, both the man and the woman, in Gen 3:9, He did not hold only the man responsible for the transgression, but both of them.

In conclusion, a "man" is not always a "man" in the Bible - sometimes it includes the woman too. 

---

[1] Grudem writes, “It is surprising that evangelical feminists can find this requirement [mutual submission] in the New Testament when it is nowhere explicitly stated” (Piper and Grudem, 199). Grudem rejects Ephesians 5:21 due to faulty exegetics, but his words are an apt description of Ortlund’s claim that we can find male headship in Genesis 1-3, although it is never explicitly stated.

[2] Piper and Grduem, 98.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Alter, 19.

[5] Hurley disagrees with Ortlund, “Man in 1:26 and 27 is a collective noun (adam = ”mankind”). The plural membership of the collectivity is indicated by the phrase “male and female” in verse 27, and then both male and female are given the task appropriate to those created in the image of God (verse 28)” (Piper and Grudem, 227). Also Gregory of Nyssa (A.D. 380) wrote, “What is it then which we understand concerning these matters? In saying that “God created man” the text indicates, by the indefinite character of the term, all mankind; for was not Adam here named together with the creation, as the history tells us in what follows? Yet the name given to the man created is not the particular, but the general name: thus we are led by the employment of the general name of our nature to some such view as this—that in the Divine foreknowledge and power all humanity is included in the first creation. (Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, XVI, 16).

[6] Everything in the new creation was given a name which revealed the characteristic of the object: God called the day yowm (“hot, the warm hours”) and night layil (from luwl, “to fold back”). The earth he called ‘erets (“to be firm”); the sea, yam (“to roar”); herb, ‘eseb (“to glisten or to be green”); fruit, periy (“to be fruitful, grow”); morning, boqer (from baqar, “to break forth”), evening, ‘ereb (from ‘arab, “to darken”), creature, nephesh (from naphash, “to breath”); the bird ‘owph (from ‘uwph, “to fly”); animal, behemah (“to be mute”).

[7] Piper and Grudem, 108.

1 Corinthians 14.34-35

1 Cor 14:34-35

It is better for a man to be silent and be [a Christian],

Than to talk and not to be one. It is good to teach, if he who speaks also acts.

There is then one Teacher, who spoke and it was done;

While even those things which He did in silence are worthy of the Father.

He who possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to hear even His very silence,

That he may be perfect, and may both act as he speaks,

And be recognized by his silence.

- Ignatius[1]

***

William Weinrich [In Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood] observes correctly that it was during the patristic and medieval periods that “patterns of conduct and ecclesial behavior were developed and solidified,” and that the fathers of the Reformation adopted the medieval practice of excluding women from the clergy “without question.”[2]

Martin Luther (d.1547) consistently maintained a priesthood of all believers (especially on the basis of 1 Peter 2:9). This common priesthood possesses the right and power to exercise all “priestly offices” (teach, preach, baptize, administer the Eucharist, bind and loose sin, pray for others, sacrifice, judge doctrine and spirits). Yet, Luther habitually combines 1 Corinthians 14:34 with Genesis 3:16 to assert that women are excluded from the public exercise of the common priesthood. In view of the “ordinance and creation of God” that women are subject to their husbands, Paul forbade women “to preach in the congregation where men are present who are skilled in speaking, so that respect and discipline may be maintained.” However, if no man is present to preach, then “it would be necessary for the woman to preach.” For Luther, the apostolic prohibition of 1 Corinthians 14:34 was determinative.[3]

But if Genesis 3:16 does not describe what should be, why did Luther connect the verse with 1 Corinthians 14:34 to affirm that women were excluded from the common priesthood?  Because he followed tradition and not all traditions follow the Bible.

Luther’s exclusion of women has it’s origin in a tradition begun by Tertullian (145-220). Karen Jo Torjesen describes Tertullian’s vision of the church as an essentially Roman institution.

Tertullian’s description of the Christian community dramatically marks the transition of the model of the church from the household or private association to the body politic. With him the church became a legal body (corpus or societas, the term the Romans used for the body politic) unified by a common law (lex fidei, “the law of faith”) and a common discipline (disciplina, Christian morality). For Tertullian the church, like Roman society, united a diversity of ethic groups into one body under the rule of one law… Tertullian conceived the society of the church as analogous to Roman society, divided into distinct classes or ranks, which were distinguished from one another in terms of honor and authority.[4]

Only those who were full members of the political body could possess ius docendi (the legal right to teach) and ius baptizandi (legal right to baptize). Women could not be full members and therefore they were excluded from the clergy. But Tertullian excluded women also from the laity, for although the laity could perform the legal functions in the absence of the clergy, women could not.

“It is not permitted to a woman to speak in the church; but neither (is it permitted her) to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer, nor to claim to herself a lot in any manly function, not to say (in any) sacerdotal office.”[5]

Weinrich considers Tertullian “a representative voice” of the universal church of the second century,[6] but he cannot do so without excluding women from the church altogether.

Thomas Aquinas continued to connect 1 Corinthians 14:34 to Genesis 3:16 in the Medieval Church.

The apostle says: “Let women keep silence in the churches,” and “I suffer not a woman to teach.” Now this pertains especially to the grace of the word. Therefore the grace of the word is not becoming to women. … First and chiefly, on account of the condition attaching to the female sex, whereby women should be subject to man, as appears from Genesis 3:16. Now teaching and persuading publicly in the church belong not to subjects but to prelates (although men who are subjects may do these things if they be so commissioned, because their subjection is not a result of their natural sex, as it is with women, but of some thing supervening by accident). Secondly, lest men’s minds be enticed to lust, for it is written (Sirach 9.11): “Her conversation burneth as fire.” Thirdly, because as a rule women are not perfected in wisdom, so as to be fit to be intrusted [sic] with public teaching.”[7]

Luther inherited Thomas’s theology, and the Protestant churches have continued Luther’s habit of connecting Genesis 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, as seen in William MacDonald’s Believer’s Bible Commentary.[8]

We believe that the expression ‘as the law also says’ has reference to the woman’s being submissive to the man. This is clearly taught in the law, which here probably means the Pentateuch primarily. Genesis 3:16, for instance says “your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”[9]

But MacDonald cannot remain consistent in his theology, for Christian freedom from the law is one of the central themes of the New Testament.

The Christian has died to the law; he has nothing more to do with it. … Christians who desire to be under the law as a pattern of behavior do not realize that this places them under its curse. Moreover, they cannot touch the law in one point without being responsible to keep it completely. The only way we can live to God is by being dead to the law.[10] 

***

Although Tertullian believed women ought to be silenced in the church, he did not know what to make of the reference to the Law.

When enjoining on women silence in the church, that they speak not for the mere sake of learning (although that even they have the right of prophesying, he has already shown when he covers the woman that prophesies with a veil), he goes to the law for his sanction that woman should be under obedience. Now this law, let me say once for all, he ought to have made no other acquaintance with, than to destroy it.[11]  

By the fourth century, the Law no longer posed a problem, for the inferiority of the woman and the sole guilt of Eve had changed the meaning of Genesis 3:16 from a consequence of sin to a commandment of God. Chrysostom combined 1 Corinthians 14:34 with Genesis 3:16 without discussion and maintained that women should be silent in the Church because “the woman is in some sort a weaker being and easily carried away and light minded.”[12]

In the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theology the inferiority of the woman was the reason for her silence. Matthew Henry concluded that women ought to be silent and refrain from teaching in the Church because, “it is the woman's duty to learn in subjection, it is the man's duty to keep up his superiority, by being able to instruct her.”[13] Adam Clarke believed women prophesied in the Early Church because of 1 Cor 11:5, but because of the apparent contradiction with 1 Cor 14:34, he concluded that the latter forbade only asking questions, not all speech.[14] Clarke thought “the law” had reference to Genesis 3:16, as did Barnes and Tertullian, but although Tertullian allowed women to pray and prophesy, Barnes concluded that the silencing of women in the Church could not be disputed because the rule was “positive, explicit, and universal.”[15] He equated foreign languages and prophesy with public speaking and therefore they were only for “the male portion of the congregation.” And as to the contradiction between chapters 11 and 14, for Barnes there was none, for he thought Paul was forbidding women from speaking “on every ground.”[16]

D.A. Carson disagrees with Weinrich’s approval of Luther’s habit of connecting Genesis 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 14:34 in his essay Silent in the Churches.

By this clause [the law says], Paul is probably not referring to Genesis 3:16, as many suggest, but to the creation order in Genesis 2:20b-24, for it is to that Scripture that Paul explicitly turns to on two others occasions when he discusses female roles (1 Corinthians 11.8, 9; 1 Timothy 2:13).[17]

But the new connection is not without problems. The phrase “the law says” is found three times in the New Testament: Rom 3:19, 1 Cor 9:8, and 1 Cor 14:34. Carson concedes that Paul usually provides the actual verse from the Old Testament, which is true of the first two examples, but he believes Paul has already provided the verse (Genesis 2:20-4) in 1 Corinthians 11. Carson believes also that the reference to the Law should be understood as Scripture, which includes the Creation account.[18] However, Genesis 1-3 is not called “the Law” or “Scripture” in the Bible; it is always called “the beginning.”[19] Hence “the law” cannot refer to Genesis 2:20-24.

Carson recognizes the problem of reconciling 1 Cor 11:3-16 with 14:34-35, wherefore he suggests that the former allows women to prophesy, but that the latter forbids them from evaluating prophecies. Because Carson acknowledges that the whole church should participate in the evaluation of teaching (Acts 17:11; Rev 2:2-3) he creates a distinction in which women are (1) allowed to prophesy, but not allowed to evaluate prophecy; and (2) disallowed to teach, but allowed to evaluate teaching. If "the careful weighing of prophecies falls under the magisterial function" of the teaching authority, why does not the evaluation of teaching considering Carson’s belief that teaching is superior to prophesying?[20]

Also George W. Knight III recognizes that 1 Cor 11:3-16 allows women to pray and to prophesy in his essay The Family and the Church, but he views 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as a prohibition for women to teach in a church setting.

This is seen in Paul's treatment of the gifts in 1 Corinthians 11-14, where women are excluded only from speaking in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-5) where congregational "teaching" is involved (1 Corinthians 14:26; notice that the items listed in verse 26 correspond with the subjects dealt with in verses 27 and 35 [with only the first item, "a psalm," not dealt with in these verses] and in particular notice that "teaching" [NASB] in verse 26 is the one-word description for the "speaking" Paul will deal with when it comes to women in verses 34-35). These women are recognized as properly participating in praying and prophesying, for example, but are only asked not to throw off the cultural sign of their submission when they do so (1 Corinthians 11:1-6).[21]

Knight does not explain how the "one-word description" of "teaching" can be "speaking" (laleo) in 1 Corinthians 14:34, considering the word is connected to both tongues and prophecy three times in verses 27-29. Neither does he have a reason why women should learn (manthano) at home when the purpose of prophecy is that all may learn (manthano) at church (v. 31).

The context of 1 Corinthians 14 is speech. (Laleo is used twenty-four times in chapter 14.) In verses 1-25 Paul explains why the Corinthians should desire to prophesy rather than to speak in tongues; in verses 26-40 he explains the proper way of prophesying and speaking in tongues. Moreover, Paul considered prophesying, which both men and women participated in, equivalent to teaching, for he wrote, “But one who prophesies speaks [laleo] to men for edification [oikodome] and exhortation [paraklesis] and consolation… For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted [parakaleo]” (Cor 14:3, 31, NAS). The purpose of their gathering together - the psalms, teachings, tongues, revelations and interpretations - was edification (oikodome, v. 26). Therefore prophesy was not distinguished from teaching as to its purpose. In addition, exhortation (paraklesis) is equivalent to declaring divine truths - such as the gospel, as seen in Acts 13:15-52, Hebrews 13:22, and 1 Thessalonians 2:2-3 - and people are expected to learn as a result. Since prophesying is a form of teaching, it is impossible that Paul excluded women from teaching, and consequently, the evaluation of prophesy.

***

Because of the difficulties associated with the former connection to Genesis 3:16, the meaning of “the law” and the impossibility to reconcile the two verses with chapter 11, it has been suggested that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is an interpolation (a later addition). Carson rejects the possibility on the grounds that “it is hard to believe that none of the earliest copies had any influence on the second-and third century textual traditions to which we have access.”[22] But because all of the Western witnesses place 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 after verse 40, Carson concludes that it would take only one copyist to introduce a transposition of a verse “presumably early enough to capture the Western tradition.”[23] If one copyist could create a uniform tradition by changing the position of a verse without the earlier copies having an influence on the later textual tradition, why cannot the same be true of an interpolation?  

         It is likely that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 was instrumental in changing the interpretation of Genesis 3:16, for it is connected to Genesis 3:16 only when the verse is viewed as a commandment. Because the interpretation of Genesis 3:16 was changed before the end of the second century, the interpolation must have been created in the early second century – early enough to change the textual traditions of the second and third centuries.

         Carson is aware that the Western tradition knew of a variant position, but he is mistaken of the variant itself.

The relevant textual evidence is quickly stated. Verses 34-35 appear in all known manuscripts, either in their present position, or in the case of all Western witnesses, after verse 40 (D F G 88* a b d f g Ambrosiaster Sedulius-Scotus). In addition, Codex Fuldensis (a Latin manuscript written between A.D. 541, and A.D. 546 by order of Bishop Victor of Capua) places the verses after verse 40, but also inserts them in the margin after verse 33. It appears that, despite the uniformity of the Western tradition, Victor, or those who worked at his bidding, became aware of the placement of the verses outside their own tradition and signaled their hesitation in this way. [24]

Carson believes the variant concerns the location of the two verses, but B.M. Metzger, whose error Carson perpetuates, admitted to Philip B. Payne that he had never seen the actual text. After viewing a photocopy of the manuscript, which shows that Bishop Victor ordered a rewriting of verses 36-40 in the bottom margin and not next to verse 33 and after verse 40, he admitted that “his statement in the Textual Commentary on the NT is in error.”[25]  As Payne explains, the scribe placed a symbol next to verse 33 to signal where to begin to read the text found in the bottom margin,

I conclude that Bishop Victor ordered the rewriting of 1 Cor 14:34-40 in the margin of Codex Fuldensis with vv. 34-[3]5 omitted and that there is a text-critical siglum that indicates the scribe’s awareness of a textual variant at the beginning of 1 Cor 14:34 in codex Vaticanus. This text-critical evidence, plus the evidence from the non-Western ms 88* and Vulgate ms Reginensis with vv. 34-[3]5 transposed after v. 40, makes an already strong case for interpolation even stronger.[26]  

Professor Metzger agreed that “the most natural explanation is that Victor ordered the rewriting of the text of 1 Cor 14.36-40 to replace all of vv. 34-40 in the text above and that this implies that Victor believed that 34-[3]5 was an interpolation.”[27]

The Codex Fuldensis (A.D. 546) is the earliest dated manuscript of the New Testament and the only manuscript edited by “one of the eminent scholars of the early church,” Bishop Victor, who combined Tatia’s Diatessaron (the four Gospels) and Jerome’s Vulgate, which he substituted for the Old Latin.[28]  Payne concludes that “we must assume that Victor had sufficient evidence to convince him that the Vulgate text was wrong at 1 Cor 14:34-[3]5.”[29]  The Vulgate included also 1 John 5:7-8 with a preface claiming to be written by St. Jerome which “accuses the Latin translators of omitting this testimonium.”[30] Bishop Victor omitted these verses, which supports the existence of interpolations in the Vulgate.

As noted before, Carson believes the second and third century textual traditions should have been affected by the first wherefore an early interpolation would have been impossible. But the incorrect rendering of Genesis 3:16 in the Vulgate was not challenged in the fifth century although Hebrew Bibles and the Septuagint were widely available. It is therefore not surprising that an interpolation of the same nature had been readily accepted and that the dissenting voices were few and far apart.

That a text bearing a striking similarity to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is found in the writings of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, strengthens the likelihood of an early interpolation.[31]

The woman, says the law, is in all things inferior to the man. Let her accordingly be submissive, not for her humiliation, but that she may be directed, for the authority has been given by God to the man.[32]

Josephus (born in A.D. 37) wrote Against Apion around A.D. 100, which makes Paul’s letter to the Corinthians an earlier work. The context of the chapter in which the quote is found is marriage in Jewish Law. Because the husband’s authority and the woman’s inferiority are not found in the Old Testament, Josephus was most likely referring to the Jewish oral law, which he calls “our law.” Josephus does not demand that the women be silent, for he affirms that all Jews knew the Law well and that anyone, women and servants included, could answer inquires.[33]

The silencing of women is found in a speech by Cato the Censor, the second century B.C. moral guardian of the Republican Rome.

According to Livy, recorded in The Early History of Rome… Cato [the Censor] declared if every man had been concerned to ensure that his own wife looked up to him and respected his rightful position as her husband, we should not have become so powerful that our independence has been lost in our own homes and is now being trampled and stamped underfoot in public. We have failed to restrain them as individuals, and now they have combined to reduce us to our present panic… It made me blush to push through a positive regiment of women a few minutes ago in order to get here. My respect for the position and modesty of them as individuals – a respect which I do not feel for them as a mob – prevented me from doing anything as consul which would suggest the use of force. Otherwise I should have said to them, “What do you mean by rushing out in public in this unprecedented fashion, blocking the streets and shouting out to men who are not husbands? Could you not have asked your questions at home, and have asked them of your husbands?”[34]

The speech was given as a response to the upper-class women who had come to inquire of the Senate when the Oppian Laws, which had restricted the display of luxury during the war against Hannibal, were going to be abolished. Although Cato failed to retain the Oppian Laws, he became the icon of austere, moral living for all Romans. Tertullian, when defending the faith, asked the Romans, “Which of these gods of yours is more remarkable for gravity and wisdom than Cato.”[35] And, Lactantius called Cato “the Chief of Roman wisdom.”[36]

Cato’s belief that women would not be content with equality makes him a likely source of an interpolation which mandates the subjection of women.

Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is not good giving her the reins and expecting her not to kick over the traces. No, you have got to keep the reins firmly in your own hands… Suppose you allow them to acquire or to restore one right after another, and in the end to achieve complete equality with men, do you think that you will find them bearable? Nonsense. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters…[37]

A religion which made women equal with men would have not been welcomed by a patriarchal system which recognized only authority and subjection, for those who live in a hierarchical society seem woefully unable to trust that their subjects would not wish to rule them in turn if given a chance. Even today, equality between men and women is as abstract of a concept as eating grass is for the lion for those who fear the emerging of a matriarchy that has never existed in the past.

---

[1] Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, Ch. XV.

[2] Piper and Grudem, 279.

[3] Ibid., 278.

[4] Torjesen, 162-3.

[5]  Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins, Ch. IX.

[6] Piper and Grudem, 273.

[7] Summa Theologica, Second Part of Second Part, Question 177, Article 2.

[8] MacDonald proposes laleo means “to speak authoritatively,” which creates the absurd position of allowing children, but not women, to speak with authority: “When I was a child, I spake [laleo] as a child.” (1 Cor. 13:11, KJV; William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, [Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc, 1980]).

[9] MacDonald, “1 Cor 14:34-35,” 1802.

[10] Ibid., “Gal 2:19,” 1880.

[11] Tertullian, Five Books Against Marcion, Book V, VIII.

[12] Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily, XXXVII.

[13] “1 Cor 14.34-35,” Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition.

[14] “1 Cor 14.34-35,” Adam Clarke's Commentary on the whole Bible.

[15] But if women are not allowed to speak in the church, why did Peter write if “anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Pet. 4:11)? A similar prohibition against female speech is not found in his letters.

[16] Barnes' Notes on the New Testament.

[17] Piper and Grudem, 152.

[18] Ibid., 148.

[19] See Isaiah 40:2; 41:26; 46:10; Matthew 19:4-9; 24:19-21; Ecclesiastical 3:10-12; Mark 10:3-9; 13:18-19; Luke 11:49-51; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 1:9; Hebrews 1:10-12; 2 Peter 3:3-4; 1 John 3:8.

[20] Piper and Grudem, 153.

[21] Ibid., 351.                                       

[22] Ibid., 142.

[23] Ibid., 142-143.

[24] Ibid.,141.

[25] Philip B Payne, New Testament Study (Edmonds, WA: Edmonds Publishing Group, 1995), 241-2.

[26] Ibid., 240.

[27] Ibid., 245.

[28] Tatian, a disciple of Justin Martyr, wrote the Harmony of the Gospel (Diatessaron) about A.D. 170. Tatian was an Assyrian and his work was used widely in Syria. “Scholars are inclined to make Tatian’s to be the earliest Syriac translation of the Gospel” (www.newadvent.com).

[29] Payne, 245.

[30] Ibid., 241.

[31] An alternative translation by William Whiston reads, “But then, what are our laws about marriage? … For saith the Scripture, “A woman is inferior to her husband in all things.” Let her, therefore, be obedient to him; not so, that he should abuse her, but that she may acknowledge her duty to her husband; for God hath given the authority to the husband.” (Flavius Josephus Against Apion, in Josephus, The Complete Works, trans. by William Whiston [Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998], 2.24).

[32] Thomas Cahill, Desire of the everlasting Hills (New York: Random House, 2001), 233.

[33] Josephus, 2.19.

[34] Jack Holland, Misogyny (New York City: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2006), 43-44.

[35] Tertullian, The Apology, Ch. XI.

[36] Lactantius, Of the False Wisdom of Philosophers, Book III, Ch. XVIII.

[37] Holland, 43-44.

Essential Inequality

In the nineteenth-century it was heresy to say that men and women are by creation equal. The woman was considered inferior by God’s creation and punished by God with an additional subjection because of her sin. There was no place for equality in the equation.
           

Then something happened. The inferior woman disappeared in the early decades of the twentieth century and the newly found “true woman” was declared the man’s rational equal. The church added equality to its theology, but not without causing a ripple effect that we can still feel today. Somehow the church had to explain how it was possible for the equal woman to be also the man’s subject; and why God punished the woman with subjection because of her sin. Theologians created more or less plausible answers, but at the end the task proved impossible, and by common consent subjection as a punishment was dropped in the 1980s. But the problem didn’t go away. Theologians had to still answer how it was possible for the woman to be by creation equal and by creation unequal. Every possibility has been explored: the image of God is said to be transmitted only by the man, the woman’s creation from the man coupled with the word “help” has been proposed as the reason for her subjection, the naming of the animals and the woman by the man is seen as giving the man authority, the Hebrew word ‘adam (humankind) is given the meaning “male human,” God is seen as calling only Adam after the two had sinned, that the death penalty was given to the man instead of the woman is seen as giving the man the ultimate leadership, the woman was deceived but the man is said to have eaten the fruit out of love,  only the man is said to have been given the commandment not to eat of the tree, the man and woman are seen reversing their roles when the woman takes the fruit instead of the man, the original blessing is divided making the man the ruler of the creation (and the woman) and the woman responsible for the multiplying.

Not one word or concept is left untouched in the creation and fall accounts by hierarchical theologians in their effort to give the man authority over the equal woman. If they had left at least one word untouched, it would have given them more credibility, but their sheer desperation is seen in that they haven't. They must find a reason for the woman’s subjection, for permanent equality cannot co-exist with permanent inequality. It is true that in life we find ourselves often unequal to those around us, but this inequality is based on our talents, strengths, weaknesses and gifts; they do not make us permanently unequal to other humans for we are all superior in some areas while inferior in others. This kind of inequality is essential in order to create a vast array of abilities that enrich life instead of a mathematical equality which allows for no variation between individuals.

          That God made us male and female does not mean that the male is always this way and the female always that way. Instead, the male and female blend until there is only one humankind, created in the image of God. This was what the nineteenth-century church could not see for the society separated the man and the woman artificially, and lowered the woman to an inferior status. The church of that era never saw the beauty that is created when male and female come together as equals for the glory of God.  We do – well... almost.