It seems to me that one’s approach to reading and interpretation is a bit influence. Do we read the Bible like a law code/legal contract where every word and phrase is read and interpreted for precision? Or do we read the Bible like a story, with focus on narrative and the development of themes and trajectories throughout the story.? Each approach yields very different results, and also which is one’s primary or secondary approach. Personally, so much complementarian reading seems to take a contract approach while ignoring narrative themes and development.
In some Protestant quarters the words "preacher" and "pastor" are completely interchangeable, and I think that contributes to the confusion. If you are sure women should not be ordained clergy but the 90% of what you see clergy do publicly is preach, then of course you're going to think a woman shouldn't preach.
If you're from a highly sacramental tradition in which clergy spend as much or even far more time doing things only someone ordained can do like consecrating host, granting absolution, etc, and when worship isn't a little singing... then a long lecture... then more singing... then preaching isn't seen as clergy's main role. As you noted, "I’ve heard firsthand accounts from women saying that they have had more opportunities to teach in Catholic and Orthodox churches than in evangelical ones!" Not sure why this gets an exclamation point. The RCC recognizes four women, some quite young, as "doctors of the church" for contributing to its theology.
One small counterpoint: "Papal infallibility" does not at all pass the “catholic consensus” test. Only one really big "denomination" believes in that, and that it doesn't pass the “catholic consensus” is one of the ways the traditions closet (from a Protestant point of view) to the RCC (that have episcopal governance, apostolic succession, no sola scriptura, etc) complain about the RCC.
Of course, we need to work out how to live faithfully to the Biblical story in new situations: those who wrote the Bible did not live in a world with Facebook or IVF. But was there really a need for ‘prosecuting a trajectory’ in order to conclude that slavery was wrong? Paul instructs Philemon to take back Onesimus no longer as a slave but as a beloved brother, which rules out Philemon treating him as his property (Philem 1-17). He tells owners of slaves that their status as master counts for nothing with God and commands them to serve their slaves wholeheartedly (Eph 6:9). In Christ, he says, there is no distinction between slave and free (Gal 3:28). And he frankly deplores the buying and selling of human beings as evil (1 Tim 1:10).
In my view, there is likewise no need for prosecuting a trajectory in order to conclude from Scripture that treating women as effectively inferior to men (with authority being one way only) is wrong. When I looked into complementarian teachings for the purpose of writing on the topic (‘Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts’, IVP), I was greatly surprised to find how weak most of the arguments were, with little attention to context and to the flow of the writers’ chain of reasoning. (That is not to say that I didn’t also find some similar flaws on the other side of the discussion also.)
Like you, I commended Tom Schreiner’s good attitude to the controversy (eg, p348); I was genuinely surprised to discover the inconsistency and faulty methodology in his exposition of 1 Timothy 2 (eg, p388-389).
Nice to see you here, Mr. Bartlett. Your book may have been one of the best I've seen on the subject -- thorough (and not limited to the Pauline corpus) but concise, clear, well organized, resisting overstatement of positions.
One of my biggest complaints when discussing/debating with complementarians online is that they are quick to assume and claim that their view is THE "Scriptural" view. Any other view must of necessity involve "twisting" or "dismissing" passages, and doing so because of ideas and "feelings" we're bringing in from outside. I'm sure that happens. I've seen plenty of "feminist" Christians who just summarily dismiss misogynistic old Paul. In my own case, back when I was a complementarian for about the first twenty+ years after I was "born again" early in 1980 shortly before turning 20, the burr under the saddle was conflicts *inside* Scripture; e.g. 1 Tim. 2:11-12 vs. Priscilla and Aquila teaching Apollos, or 1 Cor. 11:5 vs. 1 Cor. 14:34-35. The "explanations" were never satisfactory. Eventually, when I was reevaluating many things several years after leaving a "Word-Faith" church in the mid-'90s, I came across some of Gordon Fee's stuff. A few years later, after reading books by Keener, the people at CBE, etc., I was pretty thoroughly persuaded.
1. Jesus did not say that only men should lead communities of believers.
2. Passages about spiritual gifts, including gifts of leadership and teaching, do not distinguish between gifts given to men and gifts given to women (Acts 2:17-18; Rom 12:3-8; 1 Cor 12; Eph 4:11; 1 Pet 4:10-11). There is no statement in the New Testament that certain gifts are reserved for men. This should be unsurprising in view of Gal 3:26-29.
3. The brief description of appointing elders in Acts 14:23 does not indicate a restriction to men.
4. Peter’s description of the function of elders in 1 Pet 5:1-5 does not indicate a restriction to men.
5. If Paul meant to restrict eldership to men, why did he pass up the opportunity to say so in plain terms when he set out qualifications for eldership in 1 Tim 3:1-7 (and likewise in Titus 1:5-9)? In 1 Tim 2:15 he is referring to women, then in the next sentence uses a gender-neutral expression to refer to persons who aspire to eldership (3:1), envisaging that such persons may be women or men. Throughout the list of qualifications, he uses expressions which can apply to both men and women, and (despite English versions) he uses no male pronouns or male possessives. The only apparent exception is the idiom “one-woman man” in v2, but in Greek, a male expression used in a mixed context can refer to both men and women, as when “brothers” means “brothers and sisters”. Even prominent complementarian scholars (such as Douglas Moo and Tom Schreiner) accept that a prohibition of female elders cannot be proved from the Greek of 1 Tim 3:1-7 or Titus 1:5-9.
6. Priscilla and Aquila appear to have fulfilled the function of elders with Paul’s approval (Acts 18:18-26; 1 Cor 16:8, 19).
7. In assessing the significance of women hosting churches (such as Priscilla above, and Nympha in Col 4:15), it should be remembered that in 1st century culture the householder was regarded as responsible for what went on in their house (for an example, see Acts 17:5-7). Priscilla and Nympha would be responsible to oversee what went on in their houses.
“How important is God depicting himself as father and son in relation to this conversation?” Presumably the question is whether it carries some implication for male eldership in the local church. I would say from Scripture that it does not. In Scripture the church is variously described as the family of God, or the bride of Christ, or the siblings of Christ, but never as the family of male elders. Jesus specifically resists the idea that God’s Fatherhood stands as a model for leadership in the community of his followers (Matthew 23:8-12). It is true that Paul uses the term ‘father’ a few times to refer in a figurative sense to his spiritual relationship with others, but never in the context of church eldership.
Would love to hear more engagement on this topic that includes the work of Katharine Bushnell. There is so much to her concept of misfits and when something seems impossible to fit in, it may be our interpretation should be reevaluated. I'm surprised her scholarship isn't used more and I'm not sure why that is.
Michael, I would like to hear your critique about this: There is a growing breed of progressive Christian and atheistic/agnostic scholars who chime in with evangelical egalitarianism, but do not share the same high view of Scripture in making their arguments. They would focus on Paul, in that of the thirteen letters that bear his name in the NT, only seven of them (Romans, the Corinthian letters, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thess., and Philemon) were written by him, while the other six remain "disputed." They would treat 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as an interpolation, inserted there by someone other than Paul, and perhaps render "kephale" in 1 Corinthians 11:3 as "source," but otherwise would treat the "undisputed" Paul as truly egalitarian. For example, the mutuality of the conjugal rights shared between husband and wife in 1 Corinthians 7 would be a direct attack on the Roman pater familias, where the male head of the house had complete, absolute life and death rule over everyone in the home. In contrast, as Tom Holland suggests in _Dominion_, the Pastoral Letters (1 & 2 Tim, Titus) and Ephesians and Colossians were written by someone in the church, long after Paul's death, as an attempt to domesticate Paul, and give him a more traditionalist feel, which would align more with the Roman pater familias. In other words, for example, the husband as head of the wife, and "wives submit to their husbands" in Ephesians and Colossians, as well as 1 Timothy 2 & 3 and Titus 1, that set aside presbyterial functions of women in church leadership, would have been an early church attempt to tone down Paul's more radical message, within the patriarchal culture of the day. In other words, by rejecting the "disputed" letters of Paul as being hopelessly misogynistic, the egalitarian side of the complementarian/egalitarian debate wins by default, but it does at the cost of dismissing a good chunk of the New Testament. Any thoughts on that?
Hi Clarke, Your characterisation of the progressive line of argument is accurate. A few thoughts in response:
1 Ancient readers, whose native language was Paul’s, knew what they were doing when they decided which letters to accept. I would suggest the current distinction in NT scholarship between accepted and disputed letters of Paul rests on faulty presuppositions, mishandling of evidence and misinterpretations of the letters themselves.
2 The complaint of inerrantist egalitarians such as Philip Payne, is that complementarians are not taking the text seriously enough and not reading it correctly. In his view the patriarchal interpretations of Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Timothy and Titus misrepresent Paul’s meaning. See his book ‘Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters’ (Zondervan, 2009). When I wrote my own book (‘Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts’), I found Paul speaking with one voice without any conflict between different letters.
3 Regarding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, I concluded, much to my surprise, that the textual critics who say it is a spurious addition were right.
Thank you, Andrew. My problem is that the "disputed/undisputed" distinction with Paul by critical scholars actually makes a lot more sense than some attempts by egalitarians to somehow "rescue" certain difficult passages, which comes across as wishful thinking, in certain cases. I still think there is a good case that Ephesians and Colossians were really written by Paul, but I just wish egalitarians had better arguments in certain places.
In my reading of Payne, he does a good job correcting how some of the more extreme complementarians handle certain passages, but I was not at all persuaded in how he handled 1 Timothy 2.
Regarding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, my problem with Fee's argument is that while this potential interpolation shows that the passage got misplaced at times in the history of textual transmission, we don't have any evidence that the passage was ever missing in any manuscript (Please correct me if I am wrong here).
A more convincing argument has been for the quotation/refutation view of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, that Paul is refuting a "women are to remain silent" saying of certain Corinthians, perhaps as from a previous letter. The clincher for me is the inclusion of "as the Law" says. Nowhere in the Torah do we have such a saying, whereas we do find such an idea in the Talmud, but more specifically in Roman law, as Beth Barr brought out very well in her _The Making of Biblical Womanhood_.
So, what does that make me? A lot of the extreme complementarian views do not persuade me, but neither does all of the egalitarian exegesis. I am mostly drawn to the vision of a "gentle complementarianism" articulated by Gavin Ortlund, in his marvelous _Finding the Right Hills to Die On_. But that kind of places me outside of the "women are more easily deceived" school of complementarians, as well as the fast and loose treatments some egalitarians seem to embrace. Just being honest here.
Regarding 1 Timothy 2, I was not persuaded either by complementarian interpretations (because they ignored the context and the flow of Paul’s reasoning) or by Phil Payne’s. I also rejected what you call “fast and loose treatments”. I ended up with a new reading which I had not anticipated. Maybe I could gently urge you to read my book and see what you think? Reasoned critique most welcome.
Regarding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 the basic text-critical issue is to explain the misplacement of a substantial chunk of text (36 words). No one argues it happened accidentally. So, anyone who claims that the chunk is original has to provide an historically plausible double explanation: (1) why someone decided that there was such a big problem with the existing position of that chunk that the position had to be incorrect, and (2) how moving it to the other position resolved the problem. Such an explanation is still awaited, especially regarding (2). But a comment written in the margin could easily get added in at different positions, and the comment is easily explained historically. Moreover, it appears that in AD 546-547 Bishop Victor of Capua concluded from the manuscripts then available to him that what we call vv34-35 should be omitted. In Codex Fuldensis section 64 is what we call 14:34-40. In the bottom margin Victor provided a corrected version of section 64. His corrected version corrects the grammatical ending of a word in v40 and omits what we call vv34-35. (See chapter 10 of my book.)
Hi, Andrew. I appreciate your willingness to take a critical eye to both the complementarian and egalitarian views. I am not sure when I'd be able to get to your book, but I am curious now. However, I am also curious to know if you can point me to a review of your book that you believe fairly represents your argument, while still disagreeing with whatever conclusions you make. Do you know of any?
Regarding the 1 Cor 14:34-35 interpolation thesis, you clearly know the historical data behind this more than I do. My concern is that I have heard some egalitarians repeat the argument that these two verses are missing in some ancient texts. However, this is factually incorrect. It is one thing, as you probably suggest, that perhaps it can be *inferred* that 34-35 was an interpolation, based upon certain patterns, etc. Analyzing the probability factor of that thesis is one thing. Misrepresenting data is something else, which makes me leery of certain claims made by certain egalitarians.
Nevertheless, I am quite happy with the quotation/refutation thesis. It gets us both at the same place in the end. If I had to weigh it, looking at it from a somewhat egalitarian perspective, more traditional views of 1 Cor 14:34-35 are far more damaging than anything I've seen regarding traditional views of 1 Tim 2:12. I have interacted with liberal critical scholars who would agree with me that much. The Corinthians material is far easier to put to bed than the Pastorals material.
Full disclosure: I have pretty much landed where Andrew Wilson, of Kings Church London is: not-egalitarian, but not complementarian enough for many complementarians. I get shot at from both sides :-)
“curious to know if you can point me to a review of your book that you believe fairly represents your argument, while still disagreeing with whatever conclusions you make. Do you know of any?”
Regrettably, where published reviews have disagreed with my conclusions, the ones that I have seen have been along the lines of “This book and its author are bad because he says A and B”, where A and B are misrepresentations of what I wrote, and sometimes the exact opposite of what I wrote. However, there is a useful and informative review in the Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 38/1 (Spring 2020) p94. And there are plenty more reviews, some short and some long, on Goodreads and on Amazon.
As someone who will be finishing seminary within the next year and hopefully going on to doctoral studies, I find myself becoming increasingly troubled by the discourse surrounding this issue, especially among professors, theologians, and people who otherwise have extensive training in biblical languages, methodology, background, etc. As I have become proficient in these matters myself, I have become aware of what I will never be able to fully understand— and so it is with many of the NT data used to support complementarian theology. Sure, our English Bibles (which are great translations overall!) *seem* to support the complementarian position at times, but those texts (e.g. 1 Cor 11, 14; 1 Tim 2, etc.) are some of the most difficult to understand on their own terms, linguistically, syntactically, and culturally. The truth is that we can only come to a very well-educated guess about many of the disputed textual data, for we are not native Koine Greek speakers and we do not, therefore, have the native intuition that someone like Paul had. How can Christians (especially those who know this!) construct litmus tests for orthodoxy on the foundation of highly disputed interpretations that could very well be wrong? It's baffling to me. As you pointed out Dr. Bird, the trajectory of scripture — and its overall posture toward women — seems mind-numbingly clear. It seems to me that we do not understand the background of these texts well enough, and many are blinded by their own presuppositions. For example, Lucy Peppiatt wonderfully points out in her book on women in Corinth that so many begin interpretation of 1 Cor 11:2-16 and 1 Cor 14:33b-36 by assuming women are doing something wrong...but what if men are actually the problem that Paul is seeking to address in those passages? (p. 10) Anyway, why should we use highly disputed texts to construct our theology? It makes sense to me we should let the trajectory of scripture speak for itself.
Hi, Chris. There is a lot to be said for the "trajectory of scripture" argument. The problem is that the "trajectory of scripture" argument has methodological concerns of its own. Slippery slope, or not, there is a growing body of "trajectory" arguments being made to say that Paul's "there is no male or female" in Genesis 3:28 is grounds for saying that Paul would approve of same-sex marriage and/or transgender ideology, since gender is merely a social construct. I doubt if many conservative evangelical Christians would be willing accept such arguments.
Excellent post, Michael. Thank you. RE: ad fontes apostolorum and the alignment between you and Tom that "Scripture stands over culture and tradition," isn't this topic really an exegetical matter that is grounded in and colored by a presupposed hermetical grid? It's not so much about what is the source of one's convictions, but whether one's interpretation can withstand the scrutiny of those hermeneutical rules on which every party agrees. In other words, unless and until the playing field is leveled by all voices agreeing on the rules of engagement, then little progress can be made in the discussion. Sadly, both sides are using the same ammunition to destroy one another but neither is checking their weapons on whether they're faulty.
It seems to me that one’s approach to reading and interpretation is a bit influence. Do we read the Bible like a law code/legal contract where every word and phrase is read and interpreted for precision? Or do we read the Bible like a story, with focus on narrative and the development of themes and trajectories throughout the story.? Each approach yields very different results, and also which is one’s primary or secondary approach. Personally, so much complementarian reading seems to take a contract approach while ignoring narrative themes and development.
Looking forward to your next installment.
In some Protestant quarters the words "preacher" and "pastor" are completely interchangeable, and I think that contributes to the confusion. If you are sure women should not be ordained clergy but the 90% of what you see clergy do publicly is preach, then of course you're going to think a woman shouldn't preach.
If you're from a highly sacramental tradition in which clergy spend as much or even far more time doing things only someone ordained can do like consecrating host, granting absolution, etc, and when worship isn't a little singing... then a long lecture... then more singing... then preaching isn't seen as clergy's main role. As you noted, "I’ve heard firsthand accounts from women saying that they have had more opportunities to teach in Catholic and Orthodox churches than in evangelical ones!" Not sure why this gets an exclamation point. The RCC recognizes four women, some quite young, as "doctors of the church" for contributing to its theology.
One small counterpoint: "Papal infallibility" does not at all pass the “catholic consensus” test. Only one really big "denomination" believes in that, and that it doesn't pass the “catholic consensus” is one of the ways the traditions closet (from a Protestant point of view) to the RCC (that have episcopal governance, apostolic succession, no sola scriptura, etc) complain about the RCC.
Of course, we need to work out how to live faithfully to the Biblical story in new situations: those who wrote the Bible did not live in a world with Facebook or IVF. But was there really a need for ‘prosecuting a trajectory’ in order to conclude that slavery was wrong? Paul instructs Philemon to take back Onesimus no longer as a slave but as a beloved brother, which rules out Philemon treating him as his property (Philem 1-17). He tells owners of slaves that their status as master counts for nothing with God and commands them to serve their slaves wholeheartedly (Eph 6:9). In Christ, he says, there is no distinction between slave and free (Gal 3:28). And he frankly deplores the buying and selling of human beings as evil (1 Tim 1:10).
In my view, there is likewise no need for prosecuting a trajectory in order to conclude from Scripture that treating women as effectively inferior to men (with authority being one way only) is wrong. When I looked into complementarian teachings for the purpose of writing on the topic (‘Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts’, IVP), I was greatly surprised to find how weak most of the arguments were, with little attention to context and to the flow of the writers’ chain of reasoning. (That is not to say that I didn’t also find some similar flaws on the other side of the discussion also.)
Like you, I commended Tom Schreiner’s good attitude to the controversy (eg, p348); I was genuinely surprised to discover the inconsistency and faulty methodology in his exposition of 1 Timothy 2 (eg, p388-389).
Nice to see you here, Mr. Bartlett. Your book may have been one of the best I've seen on the subject -- thorough (and not limited to the Pauline corpus) but concise, clear, well organized, resisting overstatement of positions.
Thank you for your kind words.
"he argued that complementarians and egalitarians are both influenced by culture"
As demonstrated by the stock photo of the idealized Bible-reading woman: skinny, white, blonde, rich, and unencumbered by children. How sweet!
One of my biggest complaints when discussing/debating with complementarians online is that they are quick to assume and claim that their view is THE "Scriptural" view. Any other view must of necessity involve "twisting" or "dismissing" passages, and doing so because of ideas and "feelings" we're bringing in from outside. I'm sure that happens. I've seen plenty of "feminist" Christians who just summarily dismiss misogynistic old Paul. In my own case, back when I was a complementarian for about the first twenty+ years after I was "born again" early in 1980 shortly before turning 20, the burr under the saddle was conflicts *inside* Scripture; e.g. 1 Tim. 2:11-12 vs. Priscilla and Aquila teaching Apollos, or 1 Cor. 11:5 vs. 1 Cor. 14:34-35. The "explanations" were never satisfactory. Eventually, when I was reevaluating many things several years after leaving a "Word-Faith" church in the mid-'90s, I came across some of Gordon Fee's stuff. A few years later, after reading books by Keener, the people at CBE, etc., I was pretty thoroughly persuaded.
Hi Dr Bird. After meditating on 1 Timothy 2:12 what did you conclude about the meaning of that verse and those following in 1 Tim 2:13-15? Thanks
While we await his personal reply, I'll note that he hosted this guest post by Marg Mowczko: https://michaelfbird.substack.com/p/1-tim-212-and-authentein
What are the best arguments you've seen for female elders?
How important is God depicting himself as father and son in relation to this conversation?
Good questions. Some brief thoughts:
1. Jesus did not say that only men should lead communities of believers.
2. Passages about spiritual gifts, including gifts of leadership and teaching, do not distinguish between gifts given to men and gifts given to women (Acts 2:17-18; Rom 12:3-8; 1 Cor 12; Eph 4:11; 1 Pet 4:10-11). There is no statement in the New Testament that certain gifts are reserved for men. This should be unsurprising in view of Gal 3:26-29.
3. The brief description of appointing elders in Acts 14:23 does not indicate a restriction to men.
4. Peter’s description of the function of elders in 1 Pet 5:1-5 does not indicate a restriction to men.
5. If Paul meant to restrict eldership to men, why did he pass up the opportunity to say so in plain terms when he set out qualifications for eldership in 1 Tim 3:1-7 (and likewise in Titus 1:5-9)? In 1 Tim 2:15 he is referring to women, then in the next sentence uses a gender-neutral expression to refer to persons who aspire to eldership (3:1), envisaging that such persons may be women or men. Throughout the list of qualifications, he uses expressions which can apply to both men and women, and (despite English versions) he uses no male pronouns or male possessives. The only apparent exception is the idiom “one-woman man” in v2, but in Greek, a male expression used in a mixed context can refer to both men and women, as when “brothers” means “brothers and sisters”. Even prominent complementarian scholars (such as Douglas Moo and Tom Schreiner) accept that a prohibition of female elders cannot be proved from the Greek of 1 Tim 3:1-7 or Titus 1:5-9.
6. Priscilla and Aquila appear to have fulfilled the function of elders with Paul’s approval (Acts 18:18-26; 1 Cor 16:8, 19).
7. In assessing the significance of women hosting churches (such as Priscilla above, and Nympha in Col 4:15), it should be remembered that in 1st century culture the householder was regarded as responsible for what went on in their house (for an example, see Acts 17:5-7). Priscilla and Nympha would be responsible to oversee what went on in their houses.
“How important is God depicting himself as father and son in relation to this conversation?” Presumably the question is whether it carries some implication for male eldership in the local church. I would say from Scripture that it does not. In Scripture the church is variously described as the family of God, or the bride of Christ, or the siblings of Christ, but never as the family of male elders. Jesus specifically resists the idea that God’s Fatherhood stands as a model for leadership in the community of his followers (Matthew 23:8-12). It is true that Paul uses the term ‘father’ a few times to refer in a figurative sense to his spiritual relationship with others, but never in the context of church eldership.
Would love to hear more engagement on this topic that includes the work of Katharine Bushnell. There is so much to her concept of misfits and when something seems impossible to fit in, it may be our interpretation should be reevaluated. I'm surprised her scholarship isn't used more and I'm not sure why that is.
Michael, I would like to hear your critique about this: There is a growing breed of progressive Christian and atheistic/agnostic scholars who chime in with evangelical egalitarianism, but do not share the same high view of Scripture in making their arguments. They would focus on Paul, in that of the thirteen letters that bear his name in the NT, only seven of them (Romans, the Corinthian letters, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thess., and Philemon) were written by him, while the other six remain "disputed." They would treat 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as an interpolation, inserted there by someone other than Paul, and perhaps render "kephale" in 1 Corinthians 11:3 as "source," but otherwise would treat the "undisputed" Paul as truly egalitarian. For example, the mutuality of the conjugal rights shared between husband and wife in 1 Corinthians 7 would be a direct attack on the Roman pater familias, where the male head of the house had complete, absolute life and death rule over everyone in the home. In contrast, as Tom Holland suggests in _Dominion_, the Pastoral Letters (1 & 2 Tim, Titus) and Ephesians and Colossians were written by someone in the church, long after Paul's death, as an attempt to domesticate Paul, and give him a more traditionalist feel, which would align more with the Roman pater familias. In other words, for example, the husband as head of the wife, and "wives submit to their husbands" in Ephesians and Colossians, as well as 1 Timothy 2 & 3 and Titus 1, that set aside presbyterial functions of women in church leadership, would have been an early church attempt to tone down Paul's more radical message, within the patriarchal culture of the day. In other words, by rejecting the "disputed" letters of Paul as being hopelessly misogynistic, the egalitarian side of the complementarian/egalitarian debate wins by default, but it does at the cost of dismissing a good chunk of the New Testament. Any thoughts on that?
Hi Clarke, Your characterisation of the progressive line of argument is accurate. A few thoughts in response:
1 Ancient readers, whose native language was Paul’s, knew what they were doing when they decided which letters to accept. I would suggest the current distinction in NT scholarship between accepted and disputed letters of Paul rests on faulty presuppositions, mishandling of evidence and misinterpretations of the letters themselves.
2 The complaint of inerrantist egalitarians such as Philip Payne, is that complementarians are not taking the text seriously enough and not reading it correctly. In his view the patriarchal interpretations of Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Timothy and Titus misrepresent Paul’s meaning. See his book ‘Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters’ (Zondervan, 2009). When I wrote my own book (‘Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts’), I found Paul speaking with one voice without any conflict between different letters.
3 Regarding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, I concluded, much to my surprise, that the textual critics who say it is a spurious addition were right.
Thank you, Andrew. My problem is that the "disputed/undisputed" distinction with Paul by critical scholars actually makes a lot more sense than some attempts by egalitarians to somehow "rescue" certain difficult passages, which comes across as wishful thinking, in certain cases. I still think there is a good case that Ephesians and Colossians were really written by Paul, but I just wish egalitarians had better arguments in certain places.
In my reading of Payne, he does a good job correcting how some of the more extreme complementarians handle certain passages, but I was not at all persuaded in how he handled 1 Timothy 2.
Regarding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, my problem with Fee's argument is that while this potential interpolation shows that the passage got misplaced at times in the history of textual transmission, we don't have any evidence that the passage was ever missing in any manuscript (Please correct me if I am wrong here).
A more convincing argument has been for the quotation/refutation view of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, that Paul is refuting a "women are to remain silent" saying of certain Corinthians, perhaps as from a previous letter. The clincher for me is the inclusion of "as the Law" says. Nowhere in the Torah do we have such a saying, whereas we do find such an idea in the Talmud, but more specifically in Roman law, as Beth Barr brought out very well in her _The Making of Biblical Womanhood_.
So, what does that make me? A lot of the extreme complementarian views do not persuade me, but neither does all of the egalitarian exegesis. I am mostly drawn to the vision of a "gentle complementarianism" articulated by Gavin Ortlund, in his marvelous _Finding the Right Hills to Die On_. But that kind of places me outside of the "women are more easily deceived" school of complementarians, as well as the fast and loose treatments some egalitarians seem to embrace. Just being honest here.
Regarding 1 Timothy 2, I was not persuaded either by complementarian interpretations (because they ignored the context and the flow of Paul’s reasoning) or by Phil Payne’s. I also rejected what you call “fast and loose treatments”. I ended up with a new reading which I had not anticipated. Maybe I could gently urge you to read my book and see what you think? Reasoned critique most welcome.
Regarding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 the basic text-critical issue is to explain the misplacement of a substantial chunk of text (36 words). No one argues it happened accidentally. So, anyone who claims that the chunk is original has to provide an historically plausible double explanation: (1) why someone decided that there was such a big problem with the existing position of that chunk that the position had to be incorrect, and (2) how moving it to the other position resolved the problem. Such an explanation is still awaited, especially regarding (2). But a comment written in the margin could easily get added in at different positions, and the comment is easily explained historically. Moreover, it appears that in AD 546-547 Bishop Victor of Capua concluded from the manuscripts then available to him that what we call vv34-35 should be omitted. In Codex Fuldensis section 64 is what we call 14:34-40. In the bottom margin Victor provided a corrected version of section 64. His corrected version corrects the grammatical ending of a word in v40 and omits what we call vv34-35. (See chapter 10 of my book.)
Hi, Andrew. I appreciate your willingness to take a critical eye to both the complementarian and egalitarian views. I am not sure when I'd be able to get to your book, but I am curious now. However, I am also curious to know if you can point me to a review of your book that you believe fairly represents your argument, while still disagreeing with whatever conclusions you make. Do you know of any?
Regarding the 1 Cor 14:34-35 interpolation thesis, you clearly know the historical data behind this more than I do. My concern is that I have heard some egalitarians repeat the argument that these two verses are missing in some ancient texts. However, this is factually incorrect. It is one thing, as you probably suggest, that perhaps it can be *inferred* that 34-35 was an interpolation, based upon certain patterns, etc. Analyzing the probability factor of that thesis is one thing. Misrepresenting data is something else, which makes me leery of certain claims made by certain egalitarians.
Nevertheless, I am quite happy with the quotation/refutation thesis. It gets us both at the same place in the end. If I had to weigh it, looking at it from a somewhat egalitarian perspective, more traditional views of 1 Cor 14:34-35 are far more damaging than anything I've seen regarding traditional views of 1 Tim 2:12. I have interacted with liberal critical scholars who would agree with me that much. The Corinthians material is far easier to put to bed than the Pastorals material.
Full disclosure: I have pretty much landed where Andrew Wilson, of Kings Church London is: not-egalitarian, but not complementarian enough for many complementarians. I get shot at from both sides :-)
“curious to know if you can point me to a review of your book that you believe fairly represents your argument, while still disagreeing with whatever conclusions you make. Do you know of any?”
Regrettably, where published reviews have disagreed with my conclusions, the ones that I have seen have been along the lines of “This book and its author are bad because he says A and B”, where A and B are misrepresentations of what I wrote, and sometimes the exact opposite of what I wrote. However, there is a useful and informative review in the Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 38/1 (Spring 2020) p94. And there are plenty more reviews, some short and some long, on Goodreads and on Amazon.
As someone who will be finishing seminary within the next year and hopefully going on to doctoral studies, I find myself becoming increasingly troubled by the discourse surrounding this issue, especially among professors, theologians, and people who otherwise have extensive training in biblical languages, methodology, background, etc. As I have become proficient in these matters myself, I have become aware of what I will never be able to fully understand— and so it is with many of the NT data used to support complementarian theology. Sure, our English Bibles (which are great translations overall!) *seem* to support the complementarian position at times, but those texts (e.g. 1 Cor 11, 14; 1 Tim 2, etc.) are some of the most difficult to understand on their own terms, linguistically, syntactically, and culturally. The truth is that we can only come to a very well-educated guess about many of the disputed textual data, for we are not native Koine Greek speakers and we do not, therefore, have the native intuition that someone like Paul had. How can Christians (especially those who know this!) construct litmus tests for orthodoxy on the foundation of highly disputed interpretations that could very well be wrong? It's baffling to me. As you pointed out Dr. Bird, the trajectory of scripture — and its overall posture toward women — seems mind-numbingly clear. It seems to me that we do not understand the background of these texts well enough, and many are blinded by their own presuppositions. For example, Lucy Peppiatt wonderfully points out in her book on women in Corinth that so many begin interpretation of 1 Cor 11:2-16 and 1 Cor 14:33b-36 by assuming women are doing something wrong...but what if men are actually the problem that Paul is seeking to address in those passages? (p. 10) Anyway, why should we use highly disputed texts to construct our theology? It makes sense to me we should let the trajectory of scripture speak for itself.
Hi, Chris. There is a lot to be said for the "trajectory of scripture" argument. The problem is that the "trajectory of scripture" argument has methodological concerns of its own. Slippery slope, or not, there is a growing body of "trajectory" arguments being made to say that Paul's "there is no male or female" in Genesis 3:28 is grounds for saying that Paul would approve of same-sex marriage and/or transgender ideology, since gender is merely a social construct. I doubt if many conservative evangelical Christians would be willing accept such arguments.
Excellent post, Michael. Thank you. RE: ad fontes apostolorum and the alignment between you and Tom that "Scripture stands over culture and tradition," isn't this topic really an exegetical matter that is grounded in and colored by a presupposed hermetical grid? It's not so much about what is the source of one's convictions, but whether one's interpretation can withstand the scrutiny of those hermeneutical rules on which every party agrees. In other words, unless and until the playing field is leveled by all voices agreeing on the rules of engagement, then little progress can be made in the discussion. Sadly, both sides are using the same ammunition to destroy one another but neither is checking their weapons on whether they're faulty.