The following is a post of my friend and fellow Methodist minister James Howell of Charlotte. See what you think….

Life as a prayer – read Mark 9:38-41

St. Francis of Assisi died 786 years ago last night. He was the ultimate Bible student. Whatever he heard in the Gospels that Jesus did, he added that to his to-do list; whatever Jesus said, he took it personally as a direct command, not something requiring spin, or reinterpretation, or postponement until a more convenient time.

Like Jesus, Francis had a handful of eager but overanxious followers. One day, Jesus’ friends raised their eyebrows and duly reported that we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us (Mark 9:38). Today, some great religious leader might try to straighten the guy out, or to make sure he wasn’t infringing on his territory. But Jesus, relaxed as always in the face of good, tells them to chill: Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us. Imagine if, in the long, sordid history of Christian division, splintering, and inquisitions, we had taken a breath and remembered Jesus’ generous spirit. Why flex the slightest muscle against others who are trying to do good for Jesus, even if they do not quite suit us?

Jesus keeps it simple, and do-able: For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward (Mark 9:41). What a relief! Merely giving a cup of water is all Jesus wants! But can we even manage that? Aren’t we busy? or fearful of the thirsty one? or busy tipping the waiter at our own watering holes? Jesus admires humble acts of charity – something Francis made his daily, even hourly habit.

Dorothy Day once asked, “Does God have a set way of prayer, a way that He expects each of us to follow? I doubt it. I believe some people – lots of people – pray through the witness of their lives, through the work they do, the friendships they have, the love they offer people and receive from people. Since when are words the only acceptable form of prayer?”

Holy acts, even by those who may not have sharp faith or profound spiritual insight, are precious, and honored in God’s heart. How can I please God? Find those in need, and do something simple.

See if you can live out Mark 9:38-41: John said to him, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward.

James

[email protected]

I wrote a book on St. Francis, if you’d like to learn more: Conversations with St. Francis (and also a shorter blog on his life and significance). And I have a biographical blog on Dorothy Day if you’d like to learn about her life.

Whatever else one might want to say, Margaret Mitchell (no not the one from Atlanta who wrote Gone with the Wind) can really write. Ruminate on the following paragraph (found on p. 5 of her recent monograph):

“Though he denies his power as a wordsmith, Paul does later from a distance claim metaphorical distinction as a ‘wise master-builder’…Without the self-effacement he used earlier, in ch. 3, when comparing himself with Apollos (and perhaps Cephas), Paul is adamant that he was their founder: he was the one who, like a wise master builder, laid the foundation– the only foundation that could be laid: Jesus Christ crucified. And yet as the letter proceeds we learn that the foundation itself is set in words; it lies on a scriptural subfloor without which Jesus Christ crucified would be an unmarked grave under an undeveloped subplot. Paul was the first Christian lexicographer, crafting a language for these Gentile Jesus-spirit-infused people around the Mediterranean basin in the first century. But he worked also to move those terms into sentences and paragraphs. He was the first Christian grammarian and rhetorician, as he styled himself, the teacher who moved children to adulthood (1 Cor. 3.1-4) as master-builder he crafted exegetical arguments to support the astonishing narrative of how Jesus was crucified and raised according to the will of God. The diction gravitates between longhand and shorthand, the rhetoric between appeals of dazzling clarity and tantalizing obscurity. In uncommonly long, personal, semi-public letters to the assemblies he founded, Paul expounded and re-expounded the gospel and the story of its reception, a history being created in the very moment of its telling; at other times— indeed, near the end of the tortured interchanges with Corinth– Paul would compress the whole involved message into the smallest imaginable proportions–a three letter, monosyllabic Greek word NAI! Jesus, Paul said, as known through his logos, was God’s cosmic YES (2 Cor. 1.19-20). No more words needed. Paul says, in hermeneutical fatigue, but a divine cosmic monosyllable, to which the fit human response (as Paul’s libretto scores it) is equally concise: ‘Amen’!”

Margaret’s chief concern in this book is to demonstrate not merely that Paul was the source of later hermeneutical reflections and method in the church, but also that Paul did not set out to lay down any one particular interpretative method. She puts it this way:

“As a thinker with apocalyptic start up software, Paul was inextricably caught between the poles of clear and unclear, the revealed and the conceiled [what she calls the veil scale], the known and the unknown. His hermeneutical claims in individual arguments (always very specific) gravitated to one pole or the other, depending upon the context, depending on the audience, depending upon the stakes. But mostly they veered and hovered, like the famous veil of 2 Corinthians 3 that both reveals and conceals,and moves from one conversation partner to another, somewhere between the two, and even suspended over the text, making communication possible, but always contested, fraught and questioned, partial and subject to ongoing revision and revelation. …Paul’s letters do not and never did have a single, unambiguous meaning. Even in his own lifetime, Paul’s letters— that most dynamic of genres– were disputed, his meaning contested, and negotiated in the history of the ongoing relationship within which the letters were situated. In the process of negotiating his own meaning— of prior letters,oral statements, idiosyncratic and potentially self contradictory behaviors– Paul made recourse to rhetorical topoi that justify the movement from text to sense, from the surface to the depths, from visible to the invisible.This is why the Corinthian correspondence is in a real sense the birth of Pauline hermeneutics–because only here in the extant remains of Paul’s letters can we see the process of writing, reading, rewriting, renegotiating, words and reality unfold before our very eyes.”

As an illustration of her point, she singles out 1 Cor. 5.9 where Paul refers to a, now lost, letter he previously wrote to the Corinthians in which he wrote them ‘do not associate with sexually immoral persons’. Now that sort of dictum could readily be taken to me– ever, in any circumstances, whoever they may be’. Indeed, it is precisely that sort of reading of 2 Cor. 6.14-7.1 that led groups like the Amish to basically withdraw from the world and indeed even to shun their own members who behalf in said manner. Paul however now explains in 1 Cor. 5.10– “not at all meaning the immoral of this world…since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral….’ So, after all Paul meant shunning believers, not avoiding pagans who behalf that way.

But Margaret’s point is well taken– as a dictum, 1 Cor. 5.9 could not be universalized. Paul had to come back and say— ‘no, no, I didn’t mean that.’ A literal globalizing interpretation of specific utterances of Paul’s often leads to misinterpretation of his actual meaning, as this example shows, or say the more famous ‘I am not now permitting them to teach…’ saying about women.

Some books are rather like coal mines. There’s lots of stuff but its dirty, and yes it can be used as fuel for the fire (not to be confused with grist for the mill) and occasionally, though rarely you will find a diamond worth keeping forever…. but it’s rare.

On the other hand there are books that are like gold mines— you have to labor hard with them, but what you extract is pure gold, always gold. Margaret Mitchell’s new book is one of the latter. Don’t let the slender size of the volume fool you (only 115 pages of text, with reams of scholia, otherwise known as detailed footnotes). Consuming this book is rather like eating marzipan— its rich, and it needs to be taken in in small doses, otherwise you go into a insight coma (not to be confused with a sugar coma). There is nothing slight about this book. You can’t judge the merit or importance of a book by it’s size. Some are doorstops, which deserve to be used as such. Some by contrast are vital visionary texts and they cry out like the words Augustine once heard ‘tolle et lege’— pick it up and read. And you are in luck…. the paperback edition has just come out, which will take less of your hard won ‘argent’ to purchase.

My basic complaint about Margaret’s books is— there are too few of them (but see her wonderful Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation and also her The Heavenly Trumpet). But then she is Dean at U. of Chicago looking after a brace of students including our Yuliya and her own two daughters, so it is what it is. We must be content with what she is able to do. What we have in this book is six lectures she gave in Oxford in Trinity term in 2008 to which she has added copious notes, which are often as insightful as the text itself.

So what is this book about? She explains on p. 106– “My first purpose has been to demonstrate that in the Corinthian correspondence we have a dynamic process of negotiated meaning between Paul and the Corinthians, through the series of letters interpreting and reinterpreting what is written, stated and visually presented. Paul inaugurated the ‘agonistic paradigm of interpretation’ strategically arguing for the meaning of his letters (and his body, his spoken word and conduct, with which they were inextricably linked) that was most essential to his wider purposes and ongoing relationship with the Corinthians. This meant operating on a ‘veil’ scale’ sometimes insisting on the utter clarity of his utterances, and at other times urging his readers to move beyond the bare letter to the deeper sense held within.”

This paragraph of course requires some unpacking. What she is intimating, among other things, is that Paul’s discourse ranges from deliberately literal at times to highly figurative at the other end of the spectrum, and importantly she wants to stress that this very Corinthian correspondence (which we know as 1 and 2 Corinthians, but in the case of the latter she thinks involves several letter fragments) was the font of many later hermeneutical moves and battles in early Christian interpretations of the Bible, especially for the Greek Fathers. She wants to insist that both the more literalist Anthiochians and the more figurative and allegorical Alexandrians were indebted to Paul’s Corinthians correspondences, because Paul, baby, could play the meaning tune all kinds of ways— ranging from rap to jazz to classical to rock.

You may not be all that keen on patristic exegesis and hermeneutics based on Paul’s letters, or at least not to the degree Margaret is, but the study of the early use of Paul is enlightening, not least because we all still have the same battles between the ‘literalist’ sorts of interpreters of the Biblical text, and those who want more flexibility or finesse. Margaret’s point is of course that Paul didn’t always play the literal interpretation card. Consider for instance the very interesting and odd exegesis of ‘don’t muzzle the ox whilst it tread out the grain’ in 1 Cor. 9.8-11, where Paul: 1) draws analogy between oxen and apostles, and suggests 2) both have a right to benefit from their own hard work, and 3) anyway what Moses wrote was not primarily for the ASPCA types in OT times but for us Christians and Christian leaders. If you want to see just how far Paul was willing to go down the road of allegorizing a non-allegorical text, then read Gal. 4.21-31. This is not your basic historical critical exegesis of the Pentateuch! In other words, Margaret has a point— Paul the hermeneut could play the literal card, and he had other cards in his deck as well, and he didn’t consider them jokers either. Especially for Evangelical Protestants who keep insisting on the ‘literal’ meaning of the text, and its general perspicuity these things should cause at least a reboot and a rethink about the range of interpretative options.

Having said all this, I have to say, that sometimes I think Margaret pushes the envelope too far, but not without patristic precedent. Take for example her exegesis of the very interesting 2 Cor. 3.4-18. Along with various patristic fathers, Margaret thinks Paul is talking about hermeneutics here— the letter of the text kills, but the spirit or deeper meaning or sensus plenior etc. gives life. Yes, this is how some patristic fathers took this passage. No, I am afraid that is not what Paul is on about here. He is not talking about the levels of the text or various ways to interpret the text. He is offering a tale of two covenants, much like what we have in Gal. 4. He is contrasting the new covenant with the old, the covenant inaugurated and applied by the Spirit as opposed to the covenant which has as its heart and soul the law, in particular the ten commandments which Paul quite specifically alludes to. As Paul says elsewhere, while the Law is good, its effect on fallen human beings is is death-dealing not life giving, whereas the effect of the Holy Spirit is life-giving. The issue here is not Biblical interpretation but rather spiritual experience. It is a tale of the effects of two covenants and two ministries (that of Moses vs. that of Paul), not two ways of reading the Biblical text. So, as for this linchpin in Margaret’s argument, I have to say— good try, no cigar. Paul didn’t mean in this text what he was taken to mean by Origen and others. Here, I am prepared to say that the patristic readers simply got Paul wrong.

We will continue this conversation with Margaret’s book in another post, but here I must say– it is the measure of an excellent book that it tests the logic of your most cherished interpretations of Scripture, and sometimes they are found wanting, and sometimes not. The fact that a book disagrees with your view does not make it a bad book. Indeed, it could be a classic, and does you a good service to come up with better reasons for your views. This is a very good book…. it should be read by all those who are serious about the interpretation of Paul’s letters, and the legacy of Paul amongst later interpreters of Paul.

Here is a sane response to the recent kerfuffle (which is much ado about not very much) about the existence of Jesus.

The “Did Jesus Exist” Controversy and Its Precedents
by larryhurtado

Well, the internet is buzzing nowadays with positive and negative responses to Bart Ehrman’s recent book: Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, written in response to the recent mini-wave of people denying that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure. I haven’t read Ehrman’s book, but to judge from the range of comments on the Amazon listing, it’s generating some heat.

I was emailed last week by someone asking why scholars don’t engage the “mythicists” (as they are called) on the issue. Were we afraid that we’d be out-gunned in an argument? Did we secretly know that the denyers had it all? Were we being elitist?

For me, it’s a matter of having a good many prior commitments to produce positive contributions to the study of early Christianity (e.g., right now, I’m trying to get on with an essay on “Who Read Early Christian Apocrypha?” for a multi-author volume). But another reason for feeling it less than necessary to spend a lot of time on the matter is that all the skeptical arguments have been made and effectively engaged many decades ago. Before posting this, I spent a bit of time perusing my copy of H. G. Wood, Did Christ Really Live?, which was published in 1938. In it, Wood cites various figures of the early 20th century who had claimed that Jesus of Nazareth was a fiction, and patiently and cordially engages the specifics of evidence and argument, showing that the attacks fail.

So in one sense I think I’m not alone in feeling that to show the ill-informed and illogical nature of the current wave of “mythicist” proponents is a bit like having to demonstrate that the earth isn’t flat, or that the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth, or that the moon-landings weren’t done on a movie lot. It’s a bit wearying to contemplate! And now, I really must get back to that essay.

The discussion of food offered to idols comprises one of the longer continuous discussions of Bailey (pp. 229-92), and it begins with his usual assertion that Paul starts out by citing a church tradition. This is not quite correct for it is not until 8.5-6 that we hear Paul recite the so-called Christian Shema where the term God is predicated of the Father and Lord of Jesus Christ, whereas in the OT Shema (Dt. 6.4) both the terms God and Lord refer to Yahweh. Bailey suggests at 8.6b that we follow the Arabic and Syriac rendering of ‘by whose hand are all things and we are by his hand’, but ‘through whom are all things, and we through him’ is better and earlier attested. The word ’hand’ is not attested early in this text.

Bailey’s discussion of the monotheistic affirmation is useful for those engaged in Christian-Muslim dialogue not least because as Bailey says about Sura 117 from the Koran which is the beginning of what is prayed 5 times a day by Muslims, the phrase ‘God is one’ in this Sura uses the Hebrew word for ‘one’ (ahad) rather than the Arabic word for one (wahad). This is likely because the composer of the Koran knew the Hebrew OT version of this basic monotheistic affirmation and drew on it. Bailey also suggests that Ps. 95.3-5 may stand behind the Christian Shema, since it mentions many gods, and the one true God or Lord who formed all things by his hands. This is possible, but what is more likely is the translators of the Arabic and Syriac versions of 1 Cor. 8.4-6 drew on the language of Ps. 95 and it affected the way they rendered the Corinthian text (importing the reference to God’s hand into it).

Bailey (p. 238) suggests that in 1 Cor. 8.4-6 we have Paul’s first reference to the pre-existence of Christ, Christ as the agent through whom God made creation. This is not quite correct because in 1 Cor. 1 Paul has already identified Christ as God’s Wisdom, and those who knew the figure discussed in Prov. 3, 8-9 would know that Wisdom was there with God helping in the fashioning of creation. These ideas about Wisdom, Paul predicates of Christ. This becomes even more explicit in 1 Cor. 10 when Paul makes the astounding claim— ‘and the rock was Christ’, which becomes a little less astounding when we realize that in Wisdom of Solomon it is said that Wisdom is the rock that gave water to the wilderness wandering generation. What earlier sapiential literature said about Wisdom, Paul applies to the pre-existent Christ.

Bailey rightly emphasizes that Paul wants to stress that knowledge without love puffs up and is not helpful. He quotes G.G. Findlay as saying “Knowledge operating alone makes it an engine of destruction” (p. 239). Sadly, one sees too much of this in the guild and Bailey even refers to the academic practice of children eating their parents— scholarly cannibalism, slicing and dicing and carving up the previous generation.

Bailey, like various commentators seems to think that Paul simply agrees with the strong in Corinth ‘that idols are nothing’. This however is not quite true. Paul is not arguing, ‘with better understanding one will realize that pagan deities are non-entities, they do not really exist’. No, as he will go on to say, it is ‘demons’ (daimonae) that lurk behind these conceptions and statues and religious practices, and for the Christian, they cannot partake of both the table of the Lord and the table of demons. In other words, pagan religion is not a paper tiger with no spiritual reality to conjure with. It is a false religion, involving spiritual realities that are harmful to humans.

One of the more interesting theories of Bailey is that the more evidence of care and rhetorical art in the composition of a passage in regard to the subject covered “the topic is thereby marked out by Paul as being extremely important” (p. 246). That is, the more complex the rhetorical structure, the more important the subject. It is not clear to me that this is always true. Bailey compares 1 Cor. 9.1-18 to Isaiah 44.1-5 and Jesus’ parable in Lk. 12.37-38, in terms of the structuring of things not the subject matter, in particular, what Bailey calls the sandwich technique (A B A). One has to say that this does not quite work with 1 Cor. 9.1-12. Paul does not mention his rights at the beginning of this discussion. It does not come until 9.3, and then again later at 9.12. So the discussion is not framed in this passage by mention of Paul’s rights. We have rhetorical questions about Paul’s identity in 9.1-2, not his rights as an apostle. And this also distinguishes this passage from the parable of Jesus, which does indeed refer the slaves blessing at vs. 37 and then again at 38b. Again the problem is that 1 Cor. 9 is probably too large and complex a unit for the audience to have caught the ring structure if there is one, which in this case does not appear to be quite the case. From time to time, even Bailey has to admit that the structure he proposes does not entirely work. For example, the phrase ‘in-lawed to Christ’ in 1 Cor. 9 does not suit the ring pattern Bailey thinks he discerns and so we have a footnote disclaimer “we noted extra material that was likely added after the original…was composed” (p. 254 n. 1). Alas, this could be said about almost all these ring compositions and they assume a lot of pre-composition before the composing of this letter. But the Greek of this letter does not suggest such a literary process. It suggests a document composed on the fly…. Complete with incomplete sentences at various junctures.
[‘No digging with the crown’= no using the Torah as a spade to make money—p. 248]

As Bailey rightly points out (p. 256) Paul does not actually say ‘to the Gentile I became a Gentile’ . He is says he became Jew and he says he became weak, and he says for Jews he lived under Torah and for non-Jews he lived outside Torah. Bailey’s explanation for why Paul does not say ‘to the Gentile I became a Gentile’ is because ethnically speaking, he can’t do that. He is a Jew! This is a good point, and reminds us that we need to pay strict and careful attention to the details of the Greek text, and not make assumptions based on assumed parallelisms which aren’t in the text. Of course this lesson needs to be heeded by Bailey as well.

On p. 259, Bailey says ‘the law of Christ’ is paralleled by Paul with the Torah of Moses, and suggests the former refers to the Jesus tradition.
This is at least partially correct, but this means that the phrase refers to something more than just having the mental outlook of Christ, or being loving like Christ, or being a servant like Christ etc. If it is in parallel with the Law of Moses and is called a Law, then it involves commandments. Earlier he had tried to suggest that while Paul uses imperatives, they have the force of the office who yells ‘shoot’ during target practice. If one fails to hit the target, says Bailey, there is no penalty. But in fact Paul suggests that the failure to obey Christ, and indeed even the failure to obey Paul’s imperatives does come with a price. This is clear in 1 Cor. 5-6 where he lists behavior which he has prohibited before which if persisted in can keep Christians out of the Kingdom.

On p. 263, Bailey suggests that if Paul grew up in Jerusalem, his native languages must have been Aramaic and Hebrew. While I would not want to dispute Paul knew those languages, Paul’s parents were from Tarsus, and spoke Greek, without much doubt. Greek would have been spoken in Paul’s home. If they moved to Jerusalem when Paul was young, or was a teen, perhaps for the sake of his further Jewish education in a Pharisaic mode (see Acts 22.3) then Greek was not a language Paul had to acquire. In any case, Jerusalem had long since been a mix-language milieu, including having synagogues where Greek speakers (Hellenists) could go. Paul may have been involved with them, hence his encounters with a Stephen. It is in any case a mistake to ignore the mixed language and multiple language milieu of Jerusalem in Paul’s day. It was a cosmopolitan place.

Bailey seems to miss the point (see pp. 270-72) of the analogy Paul draws with the experience of the wilderness wandering generation— namely that ‘their sacraments’ did not prevent their apostasy, and the Corinthians likewise would not be kept from falling just by participating in baptism or the Lord’s Supper. In other words, salvation was not guaranteed, or for that matter conveyed, through sacraments. Of course Paul knew that the crossing of the Red Sea was not really either a baptism (they didn’t get wet, or if they did, it was a sprinkling) or a sacrament. The point is to warn against the idolatry of immorality and the immorality of idolatry. Once again we find the problem of Bailey trying to squeeze a text into his Procrustean bed (made of rings instead of springs). When he gets to 10.13, since it doesn’t fit the ring pattern, he puts a parenthesis around it (p. 266) and calls it an aside or addendum or a footnote (p. 273). But an addendum or afterthought it surely is not. Indeed it is the crucial pastoral point of what he says here, to encourage the audience not to give up hope when they are tempted or tested and to remind them God is faithful.

This post is dedicated to someone who taught me a lot about love— my sweet Christy girl, now with the Lord, but born on this day in 1979. I sure do miss you honey. Here is one of the first pictures I have of her when we brought her home from the hospital in Durham England.

One of the benefits of reading the NT with the help of Greco-Roman rhetoric is that it allows you to hear the text as much of the Gentile world in NT times would have heard it. A good small example of the difference this makes can be seen with a proper translation of 1 Cor. 12.31b. Paul here is announcing to his audience a change in rhetoric, more particularly what he is about to do in the famous Chapt. 13. So what exactly does he say to introduce that chapter? “I am now displaying (my point) according to a still more hyperbolic manner/way…”

Two points stand out like a sore thumb. The verb deikvumi Is the verb used in rhetoric to refer to epideictic rhetoric, the rhetoric of praise and blame, the rhetoric of display. Secondly, there is the word huperbole from which we get hyperbolic. It is indeed the rhetoric of display that was the most hyperbolic and grandiose of the three major species of rhetoric and Paul is giving fair notice here he plans to wax eloquent here in a way not hitherto demonstrated in this discourse, which is otherwise basically a deliberative discourse both before and after 1 Cor. 13.

In a sense then 12.31b is Paul’s heads up that something different rhetorically speaking is about to happen. This conclusion reinforces the correct conclusion that 12.31a goes with what has gone before this. Paul will not be talking about love as ‘the greatest gift of all’. He will talking about how love is the correct manner in which all gifts should be exercised. Love is certainly not one gift among many, even if one was to call it the most superior or excellent gift. AGAPE is the means or manner by which all gifts must be exercised. If one cannot do something in love, in this case exercise one’s spiritual gifts, it should not be done at all.

This exposition is confirmed at the other end of the epideictic passage at 14.1. Paul makes a clear contrast ‘pursue love, BUT seek the higher gifts’. Love is not among the gifts, not even the higher ones (which Paul goes on to say prophecy is in what follows). Love must be diligently pursued, as must loving ways. Gifts however can be sought from God at any time.

In 1983 there was a Sunday in Coleridge N.C. where I was preaching away at Concord UMC, and Christy girl had somehow escaped the nursery, run outside, and come in the main back door of the sanctuary. The subject of the sermon was—- you guessed it, love. Not stopping to catch her breath, Christy sprinted down the aisle with her little four year old legs and came straight up into the pulpit and leaped into my arms. A wise preacher knows when to quit. Instead of continuing to wax eloquent, I simply held up Christy who was beaming, and said “and here’s the living proof— love.” Amen and Amen.

Think on these things.

(Here is a fine post by Larry Hurtado on an important matter).
An “Early High Christology”
by larryhurtado

A reader responding to an earlier posting of mine drew attention to a forthcoming book in which apparently the author asserts that the view of Jesus as somehow divine or partaking in divine honor arose sometime in the 40s and in places such as Antioch (where, supposedly, the influence of pagan religion with the frequency of divinized heroes would have helped to generate a divine Jesus). As I’ve invested some 25 years in the relevant questions and evidence, it’s always disappointing to find apparently senior scholars so much out of touch. So, I thought that it would be appropriate to underscore some essentials in data and approach that have led most of those who have studied the subject to judge that there was in fact a very early eruption of devotion to Jesus as in some sense sharing divine glory. (The expression “early high christology” isn’t my own and isn’t my preferred expression, but it’s used so much that I employ it here.)

However plausible it may initially seem (and however comforting to some) the sort of view reflected in the forthcoming book fails at the essential task of building on the relevant data. And we should always start with the data!

As Wilhelm Bousset noted in 1913 (in what is regarded as the key expression of the old history-of-religions school), the “Christ cult” (his term) obviously arose within the first couple of years or so after Jesus’ execution at the latest, for (crucially) this is the form of Christian devotion into which Paul was incorporated after his conversion and which he presumed thereafter. But Bousset insisted that this couldn’t have characterized the “primitive Palestinian community” (also his term), for in the Jerusalem setting of Jewish “monotheism” it simply was unthinkable. So, he proposed that it erupted in Antioch shortly after the flight of refugees from the persecution that broke out after the death of Stephen (as described in Acts 7).

So, even the old history-of-religions school granted an “early high christology”, and very early, not in the 40s or thereafter but within the first few years at most. The remaining question, however, is whether Bousset was correct to judge that this devotion to Jesus as sharing in divine honor did not erupt first in the earliest circles of Jewish believers and in an authentically Jewish setting such as Jerusalem.

Perhaps most extensively in a couple of chapters in my book, Lord Jesus Christ (2003, pp. 79-216), I’ve analyzed in detail the data relevant to this question, and have concluded that by all accounts in fact the sort of Jesus-devotion reflected and affirmed in Paul’s letters seems to have characterized also Jewish-Christian circles of the very first years. Moreover, quite a number of other scholars have reached essentially the same conclusion over recent decades. I think, therefore, there there is a certain moral ground on which to ask that those who wish to reach other conclusions should demonstrate an equivalent analysis of the data.

Of course, earliest Christian discourse did not refer to Jesus and God in the terms that later became common, such as divine “essence” and divine “persons”. We can’t read the christological/theological discourse of the 3rd-4th centuries back into the first years. Indeed, it appears that the vocabulary and the questions of “ontology” weren’t a part of the discourse that earliest believers used. Note: It isn’t that they considered such language and rejected it; instead, it simply wasn’t a part of their discourse-world. So, they referred to Jesus as sharing and reflecting the glory of God, as bearing/sharing the divine name, etc., and this is pretty heady stuff. Most significantly, I have argued, they also included Jesus in their devotional practice in ways that were without precedent in Jewish tradition and that were otherwise reserved for God. Crucially, all indications are that this was not an issue between Paul and Jerusalem.

Now there are differing approaches to accounting for this. Traditionally, scholars have sought to invoke circumstantial factors: e.g., Bousset’s reference to divinized heroes in pagan settings such as Antioch. To be sure, circumstances and settings are important. But sometimes (actually, surprisingly often) significant religious innovations are also the result of internal factors in the group in which the innovation appears. I’ve referred to examples of this in the history of religion in my essay, “Religious Experience and Religious Innovation in the New Testament,” which is included in my book, How on Earth did Jesus Become a God? (2005, pp. 179-204), originally published in the Journal of Religion 80 (2000), 183-205.

So, in addition to attending adequately to the historical data, we also should develop models of religious developments that are built up inductively from examples across time. Often, religious developments aren’t simply one group aping another, or blindly reflecting their cultural setting. History is more complicated than that!

Bruce Metzger, in what seems like a lifetime ago, was once the head of the RSV translation committee. He told the tale of how, when it came out, a certain fundamentalist Baptist Church in my home state of N.C. saw fit to blow torch a whole pile of them, as somehow a translation that polluted and subverted the holy KJV. After reporting this incident, which transpired in the 1950s, he quipped: “Well at least we are making progress. We use to burn the translators themselves (e.g. Tyndale), now we just burn the books.” Burning books is a subject that makes some of us burning mad, and it is an appropriate subject to discuss in light of the fact that everybody and his brother has a theory, involving fire, about what happened to the ancient world famous library at Alexandria.

For some time now there has been a fine book by an Italian classics scholar named Luciano Canfora entitled The Vanishing Library. A Wonder of the Ancient World (U. of California Press, 1990). It is well worth the read, even though its arcane and scholarly diction may prove somewhat impenetrable to the casual reader. It is, for example loaded with parenthetical references and scholia along the way, the very stuff of which dissertations are made, and by which sleep is induced amongst those not inclined in scholarly directions. But I digress.

(N.B. the book is not cheap, but then ignorance is more expensive than this book).

It is the thesis of Luciano that the fire caused by Julius Caesar in the first century B.C. in Alexandria had to do with scrolls kept in warehouses near the docks, and had nothing to do with the loss of the vast and famous library at Alexandria. Indeed, as Luciano does his detective work, he shows how the aforementioned library continued to exist right up into the 7th century when the Caliph in Constantinople finally ordered the burning of all books in Alexandria that did not honor Allah. This alas, would include both pagan and Christian ones alike. In other words, the bulk of the library out lived Caesar by some eight centuries.

As Canfora also demonstrates, one of the problems with the whole discussion is what counts as a library, and where was it housed in Alexandria? First of all he painstakingly takes time to demonstrate that the Greek word bibliotheke does not literally mean a library. It literally refers to a shelf on which books are placed. He stresses this because too often scholars have simply assumed that the word referred to a purpose built building which houses scrolls, then codexes, and finally books in the modern sense of the word. No, says Canfora, this is anachronistic thinking. In antiquity there were: 1) basically no public libraries; 2) definitely no lending libraries; and 3) all actual libraries were either associated with a palace (and so the ruler’s library), or a temple (and so the priests and scribes and scholars library), or with a wealthy individual, and so a private library. To this I would add the holdings that schools of rhetoric and philosophy held as well.

Much of the book is taken up with demonstrating, by means of exploring ancient buildings, why no archaeologist can really find separate buildings called libraries. It is because they were simply parts of temples or palaces or even in some cases tomb complexes. He shows how in the case of Egypt what is referred to by the word bibliotheke is the shelves in niches in rooms in a Serapeum or a palace where the scrolls would be laid.

What happened to ancient scrolls, besides loss due to fire, was loss due to deterioration. One of the reasons scrolls from antiquity have basically only been found in places like the Dead Sea or the deserts of Egypt is because of course papyrus is vegetable matter. In the damper climes of a Galilee or various places in Turkey, Greece, or Italy, they would deteriorate, sadly. Canfora shows how this happened to precious collections of Aristotle’s works originally in the Academy in Athens, then in the possession of one of Aristotle’s students, then buried (!!!) in wet ground), then dug up in pathetic shape, then taken to Rome and sold to the wealthy. As it turns out in the first century A.D. many well to do Romans with too much money and too much time on their hands were bookaholics.

Also along the way in this fascinating study, Canfora shows how badly mistaken Edward Gibbon was in railing against ancient Christians for being mainly responsible for destroying Latin and Greek classics right, left, and center. Yes, there was one benighted Bishop named Theophilus who went to burning scrolls in Egypt he deemed beyond the pale, but this was entirely atypical. In fact we may thank the monks and monasteries for preserving the classics, and Jewish lore such as Josephus, not to mention even Gnostic literature until it was banned by Athanasius in the 4th century. Christians do not deserve the reputation as book burners in general though there are notable and notorious exceptions to this rule ( see Acts 19.19– they are not burning Cicero or Virgil, they are burning incantation or magical papyri).

And as for the astronomical figures predicated of the number of ‘books’ in the Alexandrian palace library, Canfora rightly reminds us that that a scroll does not constitute a whole book in many cases. We should not think the famous Isaiah scroll from the Dead Sea was at all typical. Many works were on multiple papyrus rolls, necessarily so. A guesstimation would be that if there were say 100,000 scrolls in the Alexandrian library, we might be talking about 40-50,000 individual works. Alas, what is true is that much has been lost from antiquity, both of Christian works, and of the classics. This is what makes it exciting when new finds are uncovered by archaeologists.

In regard to Canfora’s book I would urge you to heed the exhortation Augustine once heard over his back fence— ‘pick it up and read it’.

Paul and Thecla the earliest image of Paul in the cave of worship above Ephesus.

(Here is a nice piece by Todd Still my colleague and friend on women, Jesus and Paul. See what you think—- BW3)

Jesus and Paul on Women: Incomparable or Compatible?

Todd D. Still, Ph.D. • William M. Hinson Professor of Christian Scriptures

George W. Truett Theological Seminary • Baylor University • Waco, Texas

1. Introduction

Five years ago, a book that I edited appeared in print under the title Jesus and Paul Reconnected: Fresh Pathways into an Old Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007). In that volume, six noted New Testament scholars (namely, John M. G. Barclay, Markus Bockmuehl, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Bruce Longenecker, Francis Watson, and Stephen Westerholm) compared various aspects of Jesus’ thought and practice to that of Paul’s. One comparison not explored there that I would like to address here pertains to the views of Jesus and Paul with respect to the role of women in ministry and mission.1

If skeptical curiosity or even unbridled incredulity best describe your initial reaction to the announced topic of this essay, you would by no means be alone. George Bernard Shaw, for example, would have thought a comparison along such lines to be a royal waste of time, thinking that there is no need to compare the incomparable. As it

1 This essay had its beginnings as a plenary lecture for a Christians for Biblical Equality conference held in Houston, Texas in April 2012. I would like to thank CBE Houston for the invitation to speak at the event and for their enthusiastic reception of my address. This article is dedicated to that organization and its President, Dr. Mimi Haddad.

happens, on one occasion the Irish playwright depicted Paul as the eternal enemy of Woman’.2 Furthermore, Shaw asserted,

[Paul] is no more a Christian than Jesus was a Baptist; he is a disciple of Jesus only as Jesus was a disciple of John. He does nothing that Jesus would have done, and says nothing that Jesus would have said…. He was more Jewish than the Jews, more Roman than the Romans, proud both ways, full of starling confessions and self-revelations that would not surprise us if they were slipped into the pages of Nietzche.3

Shaw’s presumed misgivings notwithstanding, in what follows I will seek to compare the role of women in the work and witness of Jesus and Paul. In doing so, I will likely confirm one view that most readers of this journal already hold—women in general and women in ministry in particular have a friend in Jesus. I will also attempt to challenge herein what I regard to be a common, albeit mistaken, notion—that Paul is the ‘eternal enemy of Woman’. Indeed, I will contend women have a friend in Paul as well.4

2 See Shaw’s ‘The Monstrous Imposition upon Jesus’, in The Writings of St. Paul (ed. Wayne A. Meeks and John T. Fitzgerald; New York/London: Norton, 2007), 415-19 (on 417).

3 Shaw, ‘Monstrous Imposition’, 419.

4 Even if a given person already regards Paul as more friend than foe, more hero than heel, more saint than scallywag, there are any number of others—not a few of whom are thoughtful, faithful Christian women—who would prefer to ‘throw the apostle out with the bathwater’. Perhaps this piece will give the latter cause for pause.

In what follows my aim is straightforward, though not simple. My goal is to demonstrate that women played a pivotal role in both Jesus’ earthly ministry and in Paul’s Gentile mission. Having done so, by way of conclusion I will ask a question whose answer will, I hope, be obvious enough by then. The ‘sixty-four dollar question’, as it were, is this: ‘If it was the practice of Jesus and Paul to join hands with women in mission and ministry, should not this be our contemporary practice as well?’

2. Women in the Time and Ministry of Jesus

To the extent that our extant literary sources are at all indicative of lived-experience, first-century A.D. women were seldom afforded the dignity due them and typically lacked the opportunity to affect (much) socio-religious change. Taken together, it was usually thought that women were meant to be subservient daughters and wives and that they were ill-suited for public life.5 The negativity with which women were all too frequently regarded is disturbingly, even chillingly, captured in the second-century B.C. writing known as Ecclesiasticus or Sirach. Sirach 42.14 states, ‘Better is the wickedness of a man than a woman who does good; it is woman who brings shame and disgrace.’

That being said, early Christian authors were not necessarily more affirming of women. For example, Tertullian, the late second and early third century A.D. Christian theologian from Carthage in North Africa, could depict women as ‘the devil’s gateway’

5 See further, e.g., Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken, 1975), and Eva Cantarella, Pandora’s Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).

(De cul. fem. 1.1.2-3) and as ‘vipers’ (De bapt. 1.2).6 Such chauvinistic, if not misogynistic, statements cause even some of the most controverted and disparaging Pauline comments regarding women and wives to pale in comparison.7 We will have more to say about Paul and his perception of and instruction regarding women/wives below, but first let’s consider Jesus’ treatment and inclusion of women in his earthly ministry.

As we begin, allow me to anticipate our conclusions with respect to Jesus’ regard for women and their involvement in his life and ministry by quoting David M. Scholer.

[A]s a Jewish male in an androcentric, patriarchal society, Jesus’ respect for women as persons of dignity and worth and his inclusion of them as disciples and proclaimers in his life and ministry was very significant in its own first-century context for women and their place and activity in ministry in the earliest churches [indeed, I would add, Pauline churches] and is important as a heritage for both Jewish and Christian people today.8

6 On Tertullian’s (mis)appropriation of Paul, see Todd D. Still and David E. Wilhite, eds., Tertullian and Paul (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2012).

7 E.g., ‘Woman is the reflection of man’ (1 Cor. 11.7); ‘Women/wives are not to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says’ (1 Cor. 14.34); ‘Let a woman/wife learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman/wife to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent…. She [i.e., woman] will be saved through childbearing…’ (1 Tim. 2.11-12, 15a).

8 David M. Scholer, ‘Women’, in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (ed. Joel B. Green and Scot McKnight; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1992), 880-87 (on 881).

In his serviceable article, Scholer supports his claim that Jesus treated women with dignity and afforded them worth by noting that, for one thing, he healed women. Undaunted by contact with women, even those regarded as ceremonially unclean, Scholer notes that Jesus healed, frequently with touch involved, Peter’s mother-in-law (Matt. 8.14-15; Mark 1.29-31; Luke 4.38-39); Jairus’s daughter and an unnamed woman with the twelve-year flow of blood (Matt. 9.18-26; Mark 5.21-43; Luke 8.40-56; cf. Lev. 18); and a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years (Luke 13.11-17). No less touching is the way Jesus addressed these females. ‘Talitha cum (“Little girl, get up!”)’, he said to Jairus’s once-dead daughter. ‘Daughter’, he calls the ritually unclean woman who had suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years and from doctors who took her money and her hope but affected no cure. She was sneaky, and Jesus was busy, but she was a faith-filled daughter wanting and waiting to be made whole. Jesus was able and willing to bring her peace. Additionally, Jesus sought to teach a synagogue leader that a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years whom he had healed on the Sabbath was far more valuable than a beast of burden. She was not dispensable animal, but an invaluable ‘daughter of Abraham’ (Luke 13.15-16).

Jesus also came to the defense of women with whose sexual reputations were called into question (e.g., Luke 7.36-50). While not condoning promiscuity, he did not condemn women who were (thought to be) promiscuous nor turn a blind eye toward the adulterous thoughts and acts of men (note, e.g., Matt. 5.27-30; cf. Mark 9.42-48).

Far from being inconsequential or token, Jesus viewed women as full participants in his mission and in the kingdom of God. Fortunately, Luke, the Gospel ‘which shows

the greatest interest in women in the life and ministry of Jesus’,9 names a number of Jesus’ women followers/disciples, including, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna, ‘who provided for [Jesus and the Twelve] out of their resources’ (8.3). Luke also tells Theophilus and those privileged to read over his shoulder about Mary and Martha of Bethany (10.38-42), the former of whom is said to have chosen ‘the better part’ by sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to what he was saying. Not a few women were also present at the cross, burial, and empty tomb of Jesus. Taken together, the canonical Gospels indicate that the female witnesses of Good Friday and/or Easter Sunday included: Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mother named Mary, as few as one and as many as three other Mary’s, Salome, Joanna, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. As it happens, these ‘gospel women’ were the first to learn about and to tell of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.10 So pivotal and central a role is Mary Magdalene thought to have played in bearing witness to the Twelve regarding the Risen Jesus that she would latterly be depicted as the apostola apostolorum (‘apostle to the apostles’).

9 So Scholer, ‘Women’, 885.

10 See Richard Bauckham, Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). Note also Ben Witherington III, Women in the Ministry of Jesus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Cf., too, the lesser known volume by Evelyn and Frank Stagg, Woman in the World of Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978).

3. ‘Paul and the Eschatological Woman’11

Although Mary was among the first to see the risen Jesus, before too long there would be a number of other eyewitnesses. In addition to the eleven (see, e.g., Matt. 28.16), the seven (note John 21.2), and the two disciples traveling to Emmaus (so Luke 24.13-35), Paul reports in 1 Cor. 15.5-6 that after having appeared to Cephas and the Twelve, Jesus subsequently ‘appeared to more than five hundred adelphoi (lit., “brothers”) at one time, most of whom [were then] still alive, though some [had] died’. It strains against credulity to think that there were no adelphai (‘sisters’) among these five hundred adelphoi. (In fact, in that day adelphoi typically included adelphai.) Thereafter, Paul tells the Corinthians who were contending that the dead are not raised, that the Lord appeared to James (i.e., James the ‘Just’, the ‘brother’ of Jesus), then to all of the ‘apostles’, the precise identity of whom remains a mystery. Then, Christ appeared to the last and least of the apostles; he appeared to Paul (15:7-9).

Paul’s apocalyptic encounter with the risen Christ would prove to be a ‘game-changer’, not only for him but also (and I exaggerate not) for human history (Gal. 1.12, 16). The zealous Pharisee, who regarded Jesus accursed of God and who was ‘hell-bent’ on eradicating the Christian cancer growing on the body Jewish, would change his mind and his ways. Indeed, he began to preach ‘the faith he once tried to destroy’ (Gal. 1.23). If in the years immediately following his conversion/call, Paul spent time processing this encounter and preaching Christ in Arabia, Syria, Cilicia, and Cyprus, the time would

11 For the wording of this subheading, see E. Earle Ellis, Pauline Theology: Ministry and Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 53-86.

come when the apostle would take his ministry and message further afield—to Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, Achaia, and even Italy.

The Apostle Paul’s missional and ministerial modus operandi, at least in retrospect as we put various bits of evidence together, appears to have looked something like this. To begin, Paul, who regarded himself grasped of God to take the gospel primarily to previously un-evangelized Gentiles (‘unreached people groups’ as missiologists might now call them), would travel to a given location, typically a population center accessible by land and by sea—the likes of Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus. (As a Christ-follower and minister, Paul would also spend stretches of time in Antioch, Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Rome, all of which were ‘urban locations’. If Jesus was agrarian, Paul, we might say, was cosmopolitan.)

Upon arrival in a new location, Paul would have had to begin at the beginning (see Rom 15.17-21; 2 Cor. 10:13-16). Perhaps he, like Jesus, would win converts ‘along the way’. Be that as it may, once on the ground in a given locale, the apostle, it appears, would begin to preach the gospel and to ply his trade as a leather-worker.12 When a handful of folks in a particular place came to faith—whether through contact with a local synagogue (if there was one), where Paul as a traveling Jewish teacher would have been able to proclaim the gospel, or through conversations with an individual or a small group of people in the agora, the baths, or theaters (if Paul frequented such places), or his

12 See Ronald F. Hock, The Social Context of Paul’s Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980). Cf. Todd D. Still, ‘Did Paul Loathe Manual Labor? Revisiting the Work of Ronald F. Hock on the Apostle’s Tentmaking and Social Class’, Journal of Biblical Literature 125 (2006): 781-95.

workshop—an ekklēsia would be formed.13 Such fledgling fellowships (typically) met in homes, be they tenements or villas. There, it appears, believers would worship. Worship gatherings would likely have included singing, praying, prophesying, listening to sacred texts (or, on occasion, a letter from a fellow believer), baptizing, and sharing meals, not least the Lord’s Supper. When Paul was no longer able to stay in a certain location, usually due to external opposition from forces outside of the congregation, he would, as it were, “rinse and repeat” elsewhere, even though things were never exactly the same in any two places.

Popular perceptions notwithstanding, Paul was not a helter-skelter, missionary tentmaker in a holy hurry looking to drop his ‘apostolic load’ and leave. Even after spending considerable stretches of time in a place (e.g., eighteen months in Corinth [Acts 18.11]; three years in Ephesus [Acts 20.31]), he would strive to stay in touch with assemblies he started, either by visiting, networking, or writing. Paul’s converts and churches may have been out of his sight, but they were never completely out of his mind (note 2 Cor. 11.28).

A number of Paul’s letters have been preserved. In these letters there are, in the words of 2 Pet. 3.16, ‘some things…hard to understand’. Among these hard-to-understand things are certain statements that Paul makes regarding women and wives. Puzzling Pauline comments regarding gynai for which the apostle is widely, if not infamously known, include the following seven subjects: veiling heads/keeping hairdos

13 See further Stanley Kent Stowers, ‘Social Status, Public Speaking and Private Teaching: The Circumstances of Paul’s Preaching Activity’, Novum Testamentum 26 (1984): 59-82.

up while prophesying, being man’s glory, keeping silent in the churches, submitting to husbands, not exercising authority over an andros (= man/husband), being deceived like Eve, and being saved through childbirth.

This is not the place to enter into a thoroughgoing interpretation and application of the Pauline passages in which such remarks are made.14 A few brief remarks are in order, however, on 1 Tim. 2.8-15 and 1 Cor. 11.2-16 respectively, as these are the two passages where the aforementioned seven items are concentrated. Let us first consider 1 Tim. 2.8-15.15 In this text, women (or perhaps wives) are instructed to ‘learn in silence with full submission’. (Similar Pauline calls to wifely submission are found in Eph. 5.22 [note, however, Eph. 5.21!]; Col. 3.18; Titus 2.5. Cf. 1 Pet. 3.1.) Moreover, women (or wives) are prohibited from teaching and from having authority over a man (or husband). They are meant to ‘keep silent’ (cf. 1 Cor. 14.33b-36). An appeal is made to Eve as a prototype (cf. 2 Cor. 11.3). She is described as the one deceived and as a transgressor.

14 See, however, Craig S. Keener, Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1992), and Philip B. Payne, Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009).

15 Even though the preponderance of New Testament scholars regard 1 Timothy (and the other Pastorals [i.e., Titus and 2 Timothy]), not to mention Colossians and Ephesians, to be pseudonymous (= written in the name of Paul by one other than Paul), many ministers and most laypeople do not. On a practical, pastoral level, these texts are canonical and require interpretation regardless of origin. The cursory, interpretive comments offered herein should be read in such a vein.

Women/wives, then, are directed toward bearing children and managing their households (cf. 1 Tim. 5.14). It is worth noting the aberrant teaching opposed in the letter (4.1-5). One might also observe that the Pastorals Epistles assume that a bishop/overseer (1 Tim. 3.2; cf. Titus 1.7-9) and elders (Titus 1.5-6) will be men/ husbands.

The other Pauline passage to which appeal is most frequently made to subjugate and suppress women/wives in general and women ministers in particular is 1 Cor. 11.2-16. There, Paul forwards theological and ‘natural’ arguments in an effort to get Corinthian women/wives to cover their heads or to keep their hairdos up in worship gatherings. It appears that Paul is operating, at least for the sake of his present argument, with a hierarchal pattern that, at least to some extent, subordinates Christ to God, man to Christ, and woman to man. It is both interesting and instructive to note, however, that Paul does not prohibit Corinthian women/wives from praying and prophesying in the gathered assembly (note 1 Cor. 12.10; 14.1-5; cf. Acts 21.9) Indeed, Paul presumes and makes space for them to do so! Furthermore, the apostle goes so far as to posit interdependence between men and women ‘in the Lord’ (cf. Gal. 3.28). The same is true in 1 Cor. 7.2-5 with respect to husbands and wives and ‘conjugal rights’ (cf. Eph. 5.21).

Taken together these two texts (i.e., 1 Tim. 2.8-15 and 1 Cor. 11.2-16) offer a rather ‘mixed epistolary bag’, although, it must be acknowledged, that the preponderance of evidence falls on the side of restricting, if not prohibiting, the verbal contribution, not to mention leadership, of women/wives to these given congregations.

It appears, however, that no such limitations were in place, for example, in Philippi. Turning to Phil. 4.2-3, we discover that Paul enjoins Euodia (‘good journey’) and Syntyche (‘good luck’) ‘to think the same thing in the Lord’, that is, to set aside their

disagreements for the good of the congregation and for the growth of the gospel. The apostle does not enjoin these women to submission; rather, he affirms their participation as fellow strugglers and coworkers in the gospel. It is possible, though not verifiable, that these two women were among the ‘bishops and overseers’ Paul addresses at the outset of the letter (1.1).16 As I write in my commentary on Philippians, ‘[The] gender [of Euodia and Syntyche] did not exclude them from [the “work of the gospel”] any more than Clement’s qualified him for it.’17 One might note in passing that Acts highlights the ministry of Lydia to Paul, Silas, and the church in Philippi (16.14-15, 40).

Lest it seem far-fetched or as special pleading to suggest that Euodia and Syntyche held leadership positions in the Philippian church, we should be mindful of other women who served in such capacities whom Paul mentions in his letters. For example, in Rom. 16.1-2, Paul commends to the Roman churches ‘our sister Phoebe, a deacon (diakonos) of the church at Cenchreae’, a port for the city of Corinth on the Saronic Gulf. Not only was Phoebe a minister and servant-leader in her local congregation, she was also a benefactor of Christ-followers (including Paul). Additionally, it is likely that Phoebe was the courier of the apostle’s magisterial epistle to the Romans as well as its earliest public interpreter.18

Paul then turns in Rom. 16 to extend his greetings to ‘Prisca [Priscilla in Acts] and Aquila’ (v. 3). It is frequently noted that her name precedes his here (so also Acts

16 See, e.g., Carolyn Osiek, Philippians, Philemon (Nashville: Abingdon, 2000), 111-12.

17 Todd D. Still, Philippians & Philemon (Macon, Ga.: Smyth & Helwys, 2011), 131.

18 On Phoebe and her role in the Pauline mission, see esp. Robert Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 89-91.

18.18; 2 Tim. 4.19; cf. 1 Cor. 16.19; Acts 18.2). Might it be that she was the more able or vocal of this ministerial couple? Regardless, they had connections with Paul and his mission in Corinth (Acts 18.1-3) and Ephesus (1 Cor. 16.19). Having returned to their home in Rome (note again Acts 18.1-3), Paul greets them and describes them as his coworkers in Christ ‘who risked their necks for [his] life’. He ‘and all the churches of the Gentiles’ offer them their thanks.

Romans 16 is also where Paul greets Junia, ostensibly the wife of Andronicus (v. 7). He describes them as his ‘compatriots’, ‘prominent among the apostles’, and ‘in Christ before [he] was’. Of special interest to us is Paul’s claim that this couple was ‘outstanding among the apostles’. Were they themselves apostles? It does, in fact, appear they were (cf. 1 Cor. 15.6).19 In Rom. 16, Paul also mentions the ministerial labors of Mary (v. 6), (the sisters?) ‘Tryphaena and Tryphosa’, as well as Persis (v. 12). Lastly, in this chapter, he greets Julia, who may have been married to Philologus (v. 15).

Yet, this is not all. In 1 Cor. 1:11, Paul refers to ‘Chloe’s people’. Chloe was seemingly a female Christian leader/benefactor who lived in Ephesus (or perhaps Corinth).20 In Col. 4.15, the apostle also extends his greetings to Nympha and to the Laodicean assembly that gathers in her home. Additionally, in Phlm. 2, Paul addresses

19 See Eldon Jay Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005). Bauckham (Gospel Women, 109-222) makes a strong case that the Joanna of Luke is the Junia of Romans!

20 Gordon D. Fee (The First Epistle to the Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], 54) surmises that ‘Chloe was a wealthy Asian…whose business interests caused her agents to travel between Ephesus and Corinth.’

Apphia as a ‘sister’. She may have been Philemon’s wife as well as a Christian coworker in her own right. Lastly, we recall Lois and Eunice, the believing mother and grandmother respectively, of Timothy (2 Tim. 1:5).

4. Conclusion

Where does this comparative study leave us? In a pleasant, if unexpected, place. It likely comes as little to no surprise that Jesus affirmed the dignity of women, treating them as those created in the divine image, and that women played a pivotal role both in Jesus’ earthly and post-resurrection ministry. It may, however, come as a surprise to some that Paul’s calling of women/wives to silence and submission is tempered, if not trumped, by his affirmation of mutuality, if not equality, of women and wives in marriage and ministry.

Both Jesus and Paul, then, affirmed women in principle and practice. Pauline prohibitions and restrictions, I would contend, are occasional exceptions to this general rule. As such, they are contextual, not continual; time-bound troubleshooting, not timeless guidelines; a chapter in a book, but not the entire story. More often than not there is inclusion and embrace, and it is this trajectory that we trace.21 ‘Therefore, if any one is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old has passed away, behold, the new has come’ (2 Cor. 5.17). ‘For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

21 So rightly, Ellis, Pauline Theology, 78: “Of course, there may be practical reasons that restrict the public ministry of a woman in a particular time and place. But it appears to be clear that in principle and practice Paul affirms their ministry. Should the church today do less?”

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3.27-28).