I remember the first time I read the verses. I was at home, I think I was a senior in high school, and I was in my basement hangout spot, just reading the Bible. I got to the passage and I had that instant, ‘What?’ reaction and so I reread it. And I was so offended I literally threw the Bible across the room. (Now, understand, I was the child who wouldn’t set anything on top of my Bible because it seemed rude to God’s word to just treat it like any old book.)
Wrestling with this passage has led me from feminism to complementarianism to egalitarianism (if you don’t know what I’m talking about then be glad-- there is a rather heated debate about the ‘Biblical’ understanding of women’s roles and relations between the genders). But, through it all, my desire was to be faithful to God, hear the truth and generally do what was right. So I spent time considering the texts, the contexts and the arguments.
Ultimately my study led to a translation of vs. 12 and an understanding of the passage around it that is fair to the Greek, makes sense in the context of both the letter and the Bible, and has the added bonus of NOT NECESSITATING any particular view about men and women.
Ultimately my study led to a translation of vs. 12 and an understanding of the passage around it that is fair to the Greek, makes sense in the context of both the letter and the Bible, and has the added bonus of NOT NECESSITATING any particular view about men and women.
Vs. 12 is normally translated something like this: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent” which is the NIV rendering. As I studied, I found that the Greek is rather unusual in this verse. Most literally it reads: “Women * teaching neither to permit (give leave) nor to usurp (domineer) men but to be in quietness (silence, tranquility, composure).” Now, several points of note: 1) the * represents a connecting word that ties together women and teaching 2) the ‘neither, nor, but’ construction in Greek is quite stable, meaning I can’t mix and match parts of the phrase 3) the verb tenses are relevant-- all the verbs except teaching are in the infinitive. The traditional rendering pulls apart the sentence structure, ignoring these points. The words themselves are sometimes debated or have several uses, so I listed several options. If I had no preconceived notions about the meaning and just looked at the text, I would take it to be a comment on either the demeanor of women when they teach or the content of their teaching. Then the problem word would be the verb ‘to permit’. When I looked it up, I found it has been translated ‘give leave to do as one wishes’ which here would make some sense, implying that either chaos or permissiveness is the problem. So it would be rendered either A) Women should not teach a permissive wildness nor should women teach rebellion against men but women should teach tranquility and composure or B) When women teach they shouldn’t just give leave to let the students do whatever, nor should they use their teaching time to domineer and disrespect men but when women are teaching they should be tranquil and composed. Given that there is a lot of talk in this letter and the next about false teaching and the immediate context is inappropriate behavior during religious practice, both renderings fit.
Someone who favors a traditional male hierarchy can take translation A and buffer it together with the Titus admonition that older women teach the younger ones to care for their families and be respectful. Those who think that teaching roles should be open to women will see that women are not allowed to use their teaching to encourage chaos or rebellion but should present, persuade and make their points respectfully.
Verse 11 is often used to bolster the hierarchal view but it really says that women should be appropriately composed as students. The word submission there comes from a military term that means ‘one of the troop’-- Paul is telling the women to behave as students, no more, no less. The three verses that follow, 13-16, are obviously, grammatically, meant to connect to his comment in what we see as vs. 12. Some readers try to take them as an appeal to a universal, timeless understanding of men’s hierarchical superiority and women’s incompetence and then they generally ignore verse 15 or take it as a random comment. But that leads to a lot of theological problems, like if women can’t teach because they’re gullible and the first man wasn’t deceived then how do we trust a teacher who knew full well that eating of the tree was sin but did it anyway? Rom. 5 explains the consequence of Adam’s choice for all of humanity, understanding both there and in Gen. that the man ‘was with’ his wife and thus he made his choice for whatever reason.
However, there is a much more natural understanding for the passage if we consider the context. We know the Ephesians worshiped their own version of Artemis. The classic character was convinced that men were the source of evil and to be seduced by a man was to be tainted by him. But in Ephesus, it appears that they had altered and adapted her since most scholars agree that Artemis of the Ephesians was looked to for fertility and for help with childbirth. Those things are known/generally undisputed. I suggest that an obvious choice for the Ephesians to keep some of their earlier beliefs would be to slightly re-render Gen. 1 to make the man the one who caused all of the trouble and to make women the innocent bystanders who then turned back to their beloved Artemis in the time of pregnancy. While I am speculating, this fits with everything known, who people are, and makes sense of the passage here. Paul would be correcting their attempts to synchronistically adapt their Artemis and some specific points of false teaching-- 1) man was there first, it wasn’t his introduction that messed things up 2) Eve made her own choice, no one forced anything on her, she is reaping the consequences of her own decision 3) don’t turn to Artemis again when you’re worried about childbearing, Christ can be relied upon to bring you through it.
From this, I can be reminded by this passage to be appropriate and reverent in all my worship activities, as suggested from vs. 8 through 15, and to not use worship activities to further an agenda either by inappropriate prayers, dress or behavior during teachings. I am reminded that sin is the problem of both men and women, no blame-shifting will do. And that I should ultimately depend on God, not get caught up in power plays, in attempts to gain attention to myself or turn to some other ‘deity.’ As mothers, aunts, and the like, women will be teaching someone and instruction to teach appropriately is useful regardless of what roles one believes should be open to women in the church and the larger society.
