What Paul Really Said About Women PDF
Preview What Paul Really Said About Women
Es propiedad de la A ! \ !< 5* if 220.92 I B.861 | 1988 | I 64.740 | Accesion ‘'■'''"ffgrtbTumTfp. WHAT PAUL REALLY SAID ABOUT WOMEN WHAT PAUL REALLY SAID ABOUT WOMEN An Apostle's Liberating Views on Equality in Marriage, Leadership, and Love with study questions John Temple Bristow tm HarperSanFrancisco A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers what paul really said about women. Copyright © 1988 by John Temple Bristow. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For infor mation address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. first HarperCollins paperback edition published in 1991. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bristow, John Temple. What Paul really said about women : an Apostle's liberating views on equality in marriage, leadership, and love : with study questions / John Temple Bristow.—1st HarperSanFrancisco pbk. ed. p. cm. Reprint. Originally published: San Francisco : Harper & Row, 1988. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0-06-061063-8 (alk. paper) 1. Paul, the Apostle, Saint—Views on women. 2. Woman (Christian theology)—Biblical teaching. 3. Bible, N.T. Epistles of Paul—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. [BS2655.W5B73 1991] 227'.083054—dc20 90-41962 CIP 00 01 RRD(H) 20 19 To my wife, Christy, and to the members of the Lake City Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Seattle, of whom Saint Paul might have written that there is “neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus," and added as well "neither black nor white, neither young nor old, neither rich nor poor." CONTENTS Preface: Surprises That Led to the Writing of This Book ix 1. Where the Idea That Women Are Inferior to Men Really Began 1 2. New Roles for Husbands and Wives 31 3. Women as Leaders in the Church 49 4. Educating Women 67 5. The Question of Dress and Hairstyles 79 6. Is Celibacy Holy? 92 7. The Slandered Apostle 110 Notes 120 Suggested Readings 126 General Index 127 Scripture Index 130 Preface: Surprises That Led to the Writing of This Book In many ways we humans are too complex for our own under standing, especially in the area of the relationship between the sexes. That's a mystery as old as Eden—and the experience in Eden did not help solve the mystery, either. As a youth, I, along with most of my generation, fell heir to the traditional interpretation of what the apostle Paul declared to be true about women. We also fell heir to the traditional double standard for the sexes. Neither of these ways of think ing, taken alone, made much sense. Taken together, they made even less sense. For example, we were taught that women, according to the good apostle Paul, are more prone to fall when tempted than are men. After all, just look at the example of Eve. On the other hand, we were taught that women, according to the double standard, are responsible for upholding sexual virtues. After all, boys will be boys, but girls must be ladies and must tell the boys when to behave. Now, one may wonder, if females are less resistent to temptation, why it is they who must tell males when enough is enough? We were also taught that women, according to Paul, are to obey their husbands and to be subject to male leadership. On the other hand, we were taught that women, according to the double standard, have the ultimate position of leadership. After all, "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." One may wonder, if women are less fit leaders than men, how mothers can teach their sons to be good leaders? Since that time, modern psychology has gathered more and more data and has discovered that previous data were in error about women. These new data confirm what ordinary obser-
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