Timothy - Woman to remain silent

login1

Hi all, athiests often quote this line from timothy,

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

What is the correct non misogynistic reading of this ?

Sam Vimes

First you should know I am one of those evil atheists who quotes these passages at people but anyway, the response I usually get is something along the lines of "equal but different", as it is on http://www.equalbutdifferent.org/about.html

Equal But Different accepts and affirms:

1. the goodness and wisdom of God in creating people in His image as male and female;

2. the authority of the Bible in defining God’s purposes for men and women, and how they are to live and relate in His world;

3. the absolute equality of men and women in His purposes with respect to status, honour and dignity;

4. that both men and women are equally fallen before our Creator and Judge, and that both are equally loved and able to be rescued from God’s deserved wrath through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ;

5. the generosity of God who, through His Spirit, gives gifts of ministry, including leadership, teaching and pastoring to both men and women;

6. that God calls everyone, female and male, to a life of whole-hearted service to Him, and of self-sacrificial ministry to His people and to the world in whatever context He places them;

7. that both men and women are to use their gifts and exercise ministry in a joyful and committed way;

8. that God’s purposes for humanity include complementary relationships between the genders;

9. that men are called to loving, self-denying, humble leadership, and women to intelligent, willing submission within marriage;

10. that within the church, this complementarity is expressed through suitably gifted and appointed men assuming responsibility for authoritative teaching and pastoral oversight; and

11. that we unconditionally reject the use of God’s purposes for marriage as an excuse for violence against women, whether physical, emotional or spiritual.

We thank God for His kindness to us and for the goodness of His life-giving Word in this as in all things.

As I'm sure you can imagine, I find this answer unsatisfying.

ColmDawson

login1 wrote: »

Hi all, athiests often quote this line from timothy,

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

What is the correct non misogynistic reading of this ?

I'll let the Christians explain it to you, but it's interesting that you assume the correct reading to be non-misogynistic.

Einhard

login1 wrote: »

What is the correct non misogynistic reading of this ?

pssst: I don't think there is one.




What you're really asking is for a way to read this line, and twist it and parse it and contextualise it, so that you can say to atheists, "Look you silly atheist, it's not really misogynistic...if you read it like this".

Fanny Cradock

An in-depth discussion can be found here. The same blog also has a whole series of blog entries on what the Bible has to say about women in leadership. I've not read them yet but it could be very interesting to read the conclusions this group of female bloggers reached with regards to their role in the church.

Slightly less specific, N.T. Wright gives an off the cuff response to the role of women in ministry below.

A digital copy of the book Wright mentions at the end can be found here (pp. 21 - 27). It would, of course, be nice to see some of the scholarly work behind it but bear in mind that this is aimed at a particular market.

hivizman

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

A digital copy of the book [Tom] Wright mentions at the end can be found here (pp. 21 - 27). It would, of course, be nice to see some of the scholarly work behind it but bear in mind that this is aimed at a particular market.

I was actually reading Tom Wright's book yesterday evening around the time you were posting this.

The NRSV (Anglicized edition) translates 1 Timothy 2:11-12 as: "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to remain silent." Tom Wright translates these verses as: "They [i.e., women] must be allowed to study undisturbed, in full submission to God. I'm not saying that women should teach men, or try to dictate to them; rather, that they should be left undisturbed." I think that the NRSV is closer to the literal Greek text, but Wright's version (and he is very clear that he is trying to communicate what he considers to be the sense of the original Greek rather than providing a literal translation) cannot in my view simply be dismissed as a false translation.

I also looked at what the Roman Catholic scholar Raymond E. Brown had to say about this passage. In his book An Introduction to the New Testament (Doubleday, 1997), he suggests that around 80-90% of modern critical scholars question whether Paul actually wrote 1 Timothy, with the consensus being that it dates from the last few years of the 1st or first few years of the 2nd century. Brown notes (pages 660-661):

There has been support recently for another way of interpreting this passage against the background of the letter's attack on false teaching [Brown gives eight references]. That these were wealthy women is suggested by the warning against gold, pearls, and costly attire (2:9); and this may be connected to the castigation of self-indulgent widows having the leisure to flit about from house to house (5:6, 13); see also the attacks on wealth in 6:9, 17. If the false teachers were making such women the target of their message, that would explain the charge that the teachers were seeking monetary gain (6:5 - see also 2 Tim. 3:2, 6-7). Thus not women in general but women who became the spokespersons of the error to which they had been enticed would have been the object of the prohibition of teaching and holding authority (2:12). . . . Such a scenario is not impossible in the context of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries.

So both Brown, a catholic, and Wright, an evangelical anglican, provide alternative readings to the more conventional and arguably misogynistic interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11-12.

By the way, I see that Tom Wright is going to leave his current post as Bishop of Durham at the end of August to take up a Research Chair at the University of St Andrews. Will this mean even more books?

Fanny Cradock

hivizman wrote: »

By the way, I see that Tom Wright is going to leave his current post as Bishop of Durham at the end of August to take up a Research Chair at the University of St Andrews. Will this mean even more books?

I suspect so :eek:

Slav

hivizman wrote: »

The NRSV (Anglicized edition) translates 1 Timothy 2:11-12 as: "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to remain silent." Tom Wright translates these verses as: "They [i.e., women] must be allowed to study undisturbed, in full submission to God. I'm not saying that women should teach men, or try to dictate to them; rather, that they should be left undisturbed." I think that the NRSV is closer to the literal Greek text, but Wright's version (and he is very clear that he is trying to communicate what he considers to be the sense of the original Greek rather than providing a literal translation) cannot in my view simply be dismissed as a false translation.

I admit my knowledge of Greek is nothing compared to the one of N.T. Wright but TBH I cannot see how 1 Tim 2:11-12 can possibly be translated this way.

When I see a suspicious translation I use a simple test for it: how did native Greek speakers of the Early Church understand it? Again I believe that my intellectual and analytical abilities are nothing compared to the ones of N.T. Wright but I don't understand why he ignored what, for instance, John Chrysostom or Theophylact of Ohrid considered to be the sense of the original Greek. Ignoring them only because their commentaries have nothing in common with his own interpretation and can look a bit misogynistic today? In any case, choosing between a 4th century Greek author and a 20th century English author I'd personally stick with Chrysostom.

So both Brown, a catholic, and Wright, an evangelical anglican, provide alternative readings to the more conventional and arguably misogynistic interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11-12.

Brown's version looks even more bizarre I think.

JimiTime

Slav wrote: »

I admit my knowledge of Greek is nothing compared to the one of N.T. Wright but TBH I cannot see how 1 Tim 2:11-12 can possibly be translated this way.

When I see a suspicious translation I use a simple test for it: how did native Greek speakers of the Early Church understand it? Again I believe that my intellectual and analytical abilities are nothing compared to the ones of N.T. Wright but I don't understand why he ignored what, for instance, John Chrysostom or Theophylact of Ohrid considered to be the sense of the original Greek. Ignoring them only because their commentaries have nothing in common with his own interpretation and can look a bit misogynistic today? In any case, choosing between a 4th century Greek author and a 20th century English author I'd personally stick with Chrysostom.




Brown's version looks even more bizarre I think.

I have to agree. I think that rather than reading our meaning into the text, we should be asking why it was said. We shouldn't care about ignorant accusations of misogyny, just the same as we shouldn't care about accusations of homophobia. It is indicated elsewhere in scripture that the head of woman is man, so this is not a scripture in isolation. Rather than trying to appeal to a modern world and reinterpret things, we should be looking at why these things were said.

hivizman

Slav wrote: »

I admit my knowledge of Greek is nothing compared to the one of N.T. Wright but TBH I cannot see how 1 Tim 2:11-12 can possibly be translated this way.

When I see a suspicious translation I use a simple test for it: how did native Greek speakers of the Early Church understand it?

Despite Wright's statement at the beginning of his commentary on the Pastoral Letters "I have tried, naturally, to keep as close to the original as I can", I think that he has done at least three questionable things in his translation of 1 Timothy 2:11-12.

First, he has added the words "to God" at the end of verse 11 - these are simply not there in the Greek text, nor do I think that they are implied. Although verse 11 does not state explicitly that women should be in full submission to men, this is certainly a possible implication in the context of verse 12 and the reference to Adam and Eve later in the chapter.

Secondly, he has changed the grammatical structure of verse 12, from "I say neither A nor B" to "I am not saying either A or B" - the structure of the Greek is much closer to prohibition, while the Wright's structure is more permissive. If verse 12 were being interpreted in the same way Muslim scholars interpret the Qur'an and hadiths, the Muslim scholars would say that the Greek words were stating definite prohibitions (haram), whereas Wright's words simply say that women teaching and having authority over men were not obligatory (fard).

Thirdly, he has interpreted the words ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ (which appear in both verses) with a subtly different nuance. Most translators express these words as "in silence" or "silently", with the NRSV saying "in silence" in verse 11 and "keep silent" in verse 12. These translations imply that "silence" is an attribute of women - something they should be doing or exhibiting. Wright, however, translates the words as "undisturbed", which suggests the environment in which women should be studying or behaving more generally - something they should be experiencing.

Whether Wright's version is truer to the original context, with subsequent Church Fathers latching onto these verses and twisting their meanings to reinforce a patriarchal society within the Church, is of course open to debate. But in the video that Fanny Cradock linked to, Wright emphasised other passages as providing a view of the early Church as less patriarchal than the verses in 1 Timothy might suggest, and was rather dismissive of 1 Timothy as definitive of Church practice.

wolfsbane

Slav wrote: »

I admit my knowledge of Greek is nothing compared to the one of N.T. Wright but TBH I cannot see how 1 Tim 2:11-12 can possibly be translated this way.

When I see a suspicious translation I use a simple test for it: how did native Greek speakers of the Early Church understand it? Again I believe that my intellectual and analytical abilities are nothing compared to the ones of N.T. Wright but I don't understand why he ignored what, for instance, John Chrysostom or Theophylact of Ohrid considered to be the sense of the original Greek. Ignoring them only because their commentaries have nothing in common with his own interpretation and can look a bit misogynistic today? In any case, choosing between a 4th century Greek author and a 20th century English author I'd personally stick with Chrysostom.




Brown's version looks even more bizarre I think.

Wright is far from the Evangelical faith he is associated with, just as Brown is with his faith. Twisting the Scripture to get the result one wants does not count as true Christian scholarship, no matter how sophisticatedly one goes about it. It's the same approach used to justify homosexuality as acceptable Christian practice.
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Titus 2:1 But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: 2 that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; 3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.