Brandon points to a collection of posts at Feminist Philosophers on the subject of "philosophy as a blood sport". Apparently the phrase comes from this article. The latest discussion seems to have been occasioned by a post by Brian Leiter who is not particularly known for his civility, and apparently thinks this is all a big joke. In this post, I will not focus on the question of whether this has anything to do (either as cause or effect) with philosophy being male dominated. The reason for this is that that question would only be relevant in very specific circumstances, and I do not think these circumstances obtain. Specifically, the question would be relevant if the following were the case:
However, having said all that, what I really want to argue in this post is that "blood sport" is a degenerate form of the adversarial method, and the adversarial method is one of the most effective methods of pursuing philosophy. I certainly know women who have no problem whatever with the adversarial method and when it is pursued in the ideal way which I am going to describe I think that if someone couldn't learn to deal with it that would be evidence that that person was not likely to be a good philosopher. Nevertheless, I do not claim that it is the only good method, or even that it can be uniquely identified as the best method. I simply claim that it is one of the best methods, and that if it is pursued in its ideal form, rather than the degenerate "blood sport" form, it is not likely to drive away people who would otherwise become great philosophers, regardless of their gender.
When I took intro to philosophy at Washington State - and this was at Washington State, mind you, not at one of the top departments - one of the first things we were taught was how to argue. To argue is to present reasons - good, logical reasons; not personal attacks, appeals to emotion, or rhetorical tricks - for believing or not believing some claim. These irrational rhetorical techniques have to be excluded. Furthermore, you have to realize that the principle of contradiction and the principle of excluded middle hold and, therefore, if we disagree we cannot both be right. (If we turned out to both be right, then we would both be mistaken in our belief that we disagreed.) Accordingly, an attack on one's position must not be interpreted as a personal attack. Persons and positions must be kept separate by both attacker and defender. Someone who is driven by emotion rather than logic and becomes emotionally upset in such circumstances is not likely to be a philosopher because this is a person who doesn't want to find out that his or her positions are wrong. Lauren resents (and is a powerful counter-example to) the assumption, shared (strangely enough) by certain feminist philosophers and certain misogynists, that this sort of statement excludes women. The claims of certain feminist philosophers that certain philosophical fields (especially ethics) have been overly concerned with logic because they have been male-dominated may well do more damage to the perception of women in philosophy than almost any other factor today. That said, the "blood lust" - the desire to win arguments at any cost - that characterizes many philosophers (most of them male) is the very same problem as the people who take attacks on their positions personally, found in an offensive rather than defensive manifestation.
All this by way of background. I will now proceed to describe exactly what I mean by "the adversarial method" and how this sort of constraint on argument plays into it.
The adversarial method is best known from its use in law. The theory (which is at least as degenerate in law as it is in philosophy) is that if equally matched opponents argue opposite sides of a matter, the side of the truth will be at an advantage. For this reason, no matter how obvious a person's guilt seems, her trial is not judged to be valid unless she has adequate representation. She must have an attorney who has done a competent job of defending her.
We do this in philosophy. When we are trying to determine the strength of a position, one person attacks it and another defends it. This is often the best way (though not always the best way, and never the only way) to test the strengths of positions. Note, however, that it only works if the two sides are equally matched. This is why one of the most important skills that philosophers (should) learn as undergraduates is to present the strongest possible argument for a position they disagree with. It is often best for a view to be defended by someone who actually believes in it, and attacked by someone who doesn't believe in it, but sometimes we need to evaluate a position and we don't have a believer available. For this reason, even the structure of many single-author papers exhibits the adversarial method: the author first builds up the position under discussion and presents arguments for it, then attacks it. If she actually agrees with the position, she will conclude by rebutting the attacks. The adversarial method.
How do we ensure that the two sides are equally matched? Well, when your "opponent" is struggling to find a good argument for his position (or against yours), you have to help him out. I think (or at least I hope) philosophy professors do this for their undergrads all the time. We have to get the strongest form of the position, and the strongest arguments for it, in order to be able to evaluate whether our attacks against it succeed; otherwise, we are in danger of the strawman fallacy.
What this reveals is, in part, that one of the ways in which the "blood sport" method is degenerate is that it's about winning. But philosophy isn't about winning; it's about understanding. When we want the other person's position to fall, or we don't want our own position to fall, then we are not loving wisdom or pursuing truth. Instead, we are loving and pursuing victory (or, in the defensive case, hating and fleeing defeat).
Now, there was an interesting remark from Ted Brennan in the Leiter post:
Journalists are surprised that academics can be short with them because they last met academics in the classroom, and most professors are kind and generous when dealing with students. Serious academics save their scathing put-downs for colleagues and equals--I doubt that those quotes from Fodor and Sterelny document interactions with students.Instead of feeling pained and affronted, the bloggers and journalists should take it as a compliment: 'hey, those academics are treating me like an equal!'
This is the method I try to use in most of my philosophizing, including discussions on this blog. I encourage you all to call me out when I don't live up to it.
I am no feminist (my wife will confirm my impeccable Neanderthal credentials); I have strong views on women's ordination; but I am saddened by the way Reformed church culture so often tramples its women underfoot with its mindless identification of biblical manhood with something akin to John Wayne and its assumption that all Christian women should make Mary Poppins look domestically incompetent. - Carl Trueman, Reformation21.
I'm not sure where these attitudes come from, or whether they are specifically 'Reformed' tendencies. I know that I sometimes see them in Evangelical circles at Penn, but I would estimate that over half of my Christian friends here are Presbyterian. What's strange to me is that most of the people I come across who have these kinds of ideas are unmarried women. Because I don't know very many men who have these sorts of ideas, I have to wonder where they are getting it from. Quite possibly: each other. Out in the world, I think a lot of the pressure in terms of clothes, makeup, etc., is coming not from men but from other women. It would not be surprising if the same was true of the pressure in certain Christian circles to be "super-Mom." The pressure could also be coming from some segment I don't encounter - perhaps, for instance, from parents. I don't know.
Lauren is going into physics. Not that women who stay home and take care of the kids and the house are not doing something worthwhile, but Lauren has gifts that would be left unused if she did this, and the same is true of many, many other women. The Church, including complementarians, needs to learn to really encourage this, and not criticize these women or make them feel guilty.
Over at Better Bibles Blog, Suzanne has been doing a series on Bible passages relevant to women in leadership. 1 Timothy 2:12 is of course an important verse to deal with on this subject. She hasn't actually got to it yet, but it came up in the comments to the post on 1 Corinthians 12:27-31, and I felt that I needed to say more about it than could reasonably be said in a comment, so here it is:
1 Timothy 2:12 is a very difficult verse. When taken with the following few verses it appears at first glance to make some argument like the following: Adam was created first and sinned intentionally. Eve was created later, and transgressed as a result of being deceived. Therefore, women should not teach or dominate (the exact meaning of the word autheneo is disputed, but it is stronger and more negative in connotation than "exercise authority") men. This doesn't make any sense. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Paul is drawing a generalization out of the Adam and Eve story (which is what seems most likely to me). Suppose that, either due to the way God created us initially, or inheriting our ancestors' defects, men are statistically more likely to sin willingly, and women are more likely to sin in by being deceived. It would not be too terribly surprising if this turned out to be true as a statistical generalization (nor would it be too surprising if it turned out not to be true), because many statistical generalizations about male vs. female psychology may be drawn. However, the problem with statistical generalizations is that they are subject to individual counterexamples. It is a logical fallacy to conlude from this type of generalization that some individual woman is more likely to be deceived into sinning than some individual man (or, conversely, that some individual man is more likely to sin willingly than some individual woman). Giving orders about who ought to teach or have authority over whom on the basis of this type of generalization is like deciding that because women are shorter than men, women shouldn't be asked to change light bulbs (or something). But this is just silly. To make matters worse, we've got the baffling verse about being saved through childbirth right after it! (On verse 15: I think it's got to mean either: "she will be preserved [i.e. kept safe] through childbirth" or "she will be saved by the birth of a Child [i.e. Jesus]." Both of these positions are taken by considerable numbers of commentators.)
Now, I don't know what Paul means, but I trust that he means something that isn't silly. Furthermore, Evangelicals believe that this is the word of God and, therefore, where a clear command is given, we obey first and then seek to understand. And the command is, I think, at least much clearer than the reasoning given. It says, literally, "But I do not permit a woman to teach, nor to dominate a man, but to be quiet" ("in silence" is, I think, a bit too strong.) Now, this can't be interpreted to prohibit the activities of Lydia (Acts 16), or Priscilla (Acts 18), or Lois and Eunice (2 Timothy 1). It probably also shouldn't be interpreted to prohibit the activities of Deborah (Judges 4ff.). Furthermore, it can't be interpreted to prohibit a woman from praying or prophesying publicly (1 Cor. 11). It also can't be interpreted to prohibit a woman from doing anything which is required of all Christians (e.g., testifying, announcing the Gospel to non-believers, being in fellowship with other believers, etc.), or receiving anything which is promised to all believers (e.g. hearing the Word, receiving guidance from the Holy Spirit, etc.).
Beyond these limitations, it should be noted that Paul uses the present infinitive, instead of the more common aorist infinitive. The present is used to emphasize "progressive/repeated aspect," which would seem to imply that Paul is only prohibiting a woman from being in the habit or position of doing these things, and not from special instances in extenuating circumstances.
But what of teaching or having authority outside the Church? Well, Paul says "I do not permit," and he was an apostle writing to a young pastor about order in the Church. Should we really interpret him to be making broad, general prohitions? I don't think so. I think that, like most of the rest of the book, this is an instruction about Church order.
Finally, a woman is prohited specifically from "dominating a man," and presumably the prohibition on teaching refers to teaching a man as well. The word is aner. If it meant her husband, it would probably have the definite article (and, actually, in Koine one would usually expect an actual possessive pronoun), which it doesn't. However, this probably does refer specifically to adult men.
So, we have in 1 Timothy 2 a very specific, localized prohibition: within the Church, a woman is not permitted to be in the habit or position of teaching or dominating an adult man. If we don't understand the reason for the command we must not extrapolate anything broader from it. Furthermore, it can't be expanded very much in very many directions without contradicting other Scriptures. However, if we are Evangelicals, we also can't just ignore it. We may not understand the justification, but it's plain to see that the justification is not some specific situation that was going on in Ephesus, but some more general principle. If we take the Scripture to be the Word of God, then we have to obey first and hope to understand later.
Peter Kirk at Speaker of Truth (also of Better Bibles Blog fame) has recently completed a fascinating six-part series on "Scholarly and Fundamentalist Approaches to the Bible." The series begins with a discussion of Al Mohler's ("fundamentalist") claim that permitting female elders and deacons contradicts the "clear teaching" of Scripture. Taking the fundamentalist approach, Peter says, we take a few verses as our standard, without seriously inquiring into their context, call the most obvious interpretation of these few verses (in English, out of context) the "clear teaching of Scripture," and then find creative ways to explain away every verse that seems to contradict this teaching. Peter goes on to compare this with a scholarly interpretation of Titus 1:6, and argues convincingly (he convinced me, at least) that in context and with proper lexicography and hermeneutics, this verse has little or nothing to do with the gender of overseers, and doesn't necessarily preclude women from taking the position. Peter rightly points out that those he calls 'fundamentalists' often refer to various doctrines as "the clear teaching of Scripture" when they are anything but clear, and I would not charge Peter, who is a gender egalitarian, with denying the authority of Scripture or ignoring its teachings. This is a complicated issue, and there is room for some disagreement. However, I do think that the teaching of Scripture is, on the whole, clear enough for the Church to base its structure on, and I will argue here that that teaching is in favor of what I will call a moderate complentarian position.
Since I am looking here for the "whole council of Scripture," I will not be able to apply Peter's "scholarly approach" to each passage in depth, but will necessarily refer to more Scriptures than can be studied in depth in one post. However, I will try to avoid fundamentalist 'Scripture stacking' or proof-texting by including revelant facts about the context of the verses.
First, let's have some definitions. I take gender egalitarianism as the claim that any differences of position or role which exist between men and women (excluding, I suppose, those directly related to reproduction) are merely artifacts of culture and not part of a normative order which God has commanded for this world. In particular, women may hold any position within the Church. Complementarianism is the converse claim. Complementarians hold that at least some of the differences in position between men and women on earth are part of a divinely ordained order of creation, and are to be taken as normative and binding upon Christians. In particular, virtually all complementarians claim that (1) men must function in some sense as 'heads of household' and (2) women may not serve as pastors. The moderate complementarian position which is my current best understanding of the teaching of Scripture claims in particular that:
Those who have a lot of experience in this debate will recognize why I am calling my position 'moderate:' many complementarians deny (4), (5), and (6) and wouldn't like my wording of (3), since they don't think that women can ever teach or exercise authority over men, even in extreme situations. I won't necessarily try to defend all six of these points individually in what follows, but I will try to show that the total Biblical position lies in between the egalitarian position and the more extreme complementarian position. (Some complementarians, based on 1 Corinthians 11, like to talk about gender roles in connection with trinitarian theology and 'headship', but I don't understand that very well so I'm going to ignore it for now.)
Let's begin from the passage Peter discussed, in Titus 1, and the parallel passage in 1 Timothy 3. Peter has argued (and, as I said before, I am at least for the moment, convinced) that the phrase "husband of one wife" refers to marital fidelity in general, regardless of gender (the argument has to do with the use of this phrase on Greek headstones belonging to women). He has also pointed out, and I am strongly in agreement with this, that a little three word phrase cannot be a basis for so far-reaching a doctrine as complementarianism. However, there are other items of note in these two passages.
Both seem to have essentially the same context: Paul has left both Timothy and Titus in charge of infant congregations which Paul founded. Timothy and Titus seem to be serving as sole overseer in both cases, and Paul thinks that this ought to be remedied. The churches have become mature enough that members of the congregation can be brought into these positions, and Paul sends Timothy and Titus directions on whom to ordain. The instructions are very similar to each other. So, are there any lines besides "the husband of one wife" in either passage that are relevant to gender roles? Maybe.
The whole of Titus 1:6 reads, "[and elder must be] someone who is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of wildness or rebellion." The first requirement Paul gives for an elder has to do with his family. It seems rather strange (to me) that the disposition of the elder's children should be a qualification. Fortunately, the next verse begins with the partical gar (usually translated "for"), which signals that verse 7 is going to explain 6. In the HCSB (which I have been quoting so far), 7 begins "For an overseer, as God's manager, must be..." and proceed to list characteristics. (Note that this passage is high on my list of reasons for supposing that elder and overseer are interchangeable terms in Scripture.) Alternately (and perhaps better) the beginning of the verse could be translated, "For an overseer must be like a manager of God's house." (the Greek for 'manager,' oikonomos implies that the thing managed is a household - it comes from oikos, 'house,' and nomos, 'law' or 'rule.') Similarly in 1 Timothy 3:4-5, Paul says, "[an overseer must be] one who manages his own household completely, having his children under control with all dignity. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God's church?)" The idea, it seems, has to do with God's entrusting to a person a smaller thing first, then a larger thing: the person who has been faithful in the management of the household God has given him can be entrusted with the management of the church.
Does this require that an elder/overseer have a family? Actually, I think it might (though certainly it needn't be a large family). This is, however, most certainly open to question.
Does this actually have to do with gender roles? Well, an egalitarian would most likely say no, since they don't see any problem with female heads of household. Let's look briefly at what the Scripture has to say:
The key passages on marriage are, I believe, Ephesians 5:21-33 and 1 Peter 3:1-8. I take Ephesians 5:21 ("submitting to one another in the fear of Christ") to be a topic statement, and 5:22-6:9 to be an account of precisely how this submission plays out in the everyday relationships. This passage commands wives to submit to their husbands "as to the Lord", for the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the Church." (22-23) Husbands are commanded to "love [their] wives, just as also Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for her, to make her holy, cleansing her in the washing of water by the word." (25-26) In other words, the wife's submission seems to be in some degree of obedience (though certainly not absolute, unquestioning obedience), and the husband's submission is in his willingness to sacrifice for his wife, putting her needs ahead of his own. Later, Paul summarizes the passage by says "each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband." The word for respect is fobeo, literally "fear." Again, this speaks to some kind of obedience and respect (clearly, though, the context makes it "fear" as in "the fear of God" and not as in "the fear of spiders" or some such).
The passage in 1 Peter also comes in a general discussion of submission. The section begins at 2:13 with the command to "submit to every human institution because of the Lord." Peter actually seems in this case to be discussing not the ideal, but the behavior of a Christian when someone in authority is misbehaving. After talking about unjust suffering at the hands of political authorities and slavemasters, Peter writes, "Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your husbands so that, even if some disobey the Christian message, they may be won over without a message by the way their wives live, when they observe your pure and reverent lives ... For in the past, the holy women who hoped in God also ... [submitted] to their husbands, just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord." (3:1-2, 5-6) Again this command (disturbing to our modern ears) for obedience, first to bad husbands (those who "disobey the Christian message"), and then to good husbands (Abraham). Finally, Peter addresses the husbands: "husbands, in the same way, live with your wives with understanding of their weaker nature yet showing them honor as co-heirs of the grace of life" (3:7). (The HCSB footnotes on the phrase "understanding of their weaker nature," "Lit understanding as the weaker vessel" - I think the term 'vessel' to refer primarily, and perhaps exclusively, to the physical body.)
Might these passages be culturally dependent? The 1 Peter passage certainly could be, as it begins by talking about submissiong to human institutions. However, marriage is a divine institution (Gen. 2:24), so interpreting the section on marriage to be included under that heading would be somewhat problematic. Additionally, Peter applies this to Sarah and then also to women of his own day, some 2000 years later. Why should it cease to apply today, 2000 years from Peter? The Ephesians passage is more directly applicable, because Paul explains (5:23) why this is, and his reasoning has to do with eternal theological truths, and not temporal cultural ideas.
Thus it does seem that there is some concept of male servant-leadership in marriage. Persumably this applies by extension to the household as a whole, especially since Paul implies in Ephesians 3:14-15 Paul, playing on the etymological derivation of Greek patria, 'family,' from pater, 'father,' seems to assert that families are so-called because the relationship of the father to the family is analogous to the relationship of God the Father to the creation. When God is pictured with feminine metaphors in Scirpture (and He IS pictured with feminine metaphors) the picture is never of his authority (but feel free to offer counter-examples to that claim if anyone has any).
Does it follow from this discussion that only men can be the oikonomoi of their households? Maybe. According to LSJ, Aeschines uses the feminine form oikonoma (and Greek masculine plurals are used for mixed gender groups) for housewives or housekeepers. Titus 2:5, however, uses a different word, oikouros which doesn't necessarily mean "homemaker" as HCSB and NKJV have it, but simply "mistress of the house" (LSJ). The word etymologically means "house-watcher," and needn't imply any particular idea of what the "mistress of the house's" duties are (though any Biblical conception of this must allow for the activities mentioned in Proverbs 31, which go a lot further than simply cooking, cleaning, and watching the kids). Oikonomos is never used in the feminine in the New Testament.
There is, however, also 1 Timothy 5:14 where Paul says that women should "manage their households." The word here is oikodespoteo, which is very interesting. The oikodespotes is actually literally the "master of the house," whereas the oikonomos is the steward. Since the oikodespotes was actually higher than the oikonomos (the latter often being a slave) in the traditional Greek household, there is something funny going on here, which is a legitimate difficulty for the position I am arguing for.
Based on these considerations, I conclude that it is likely, though not certain, that these passages require that an elder/overseer be a male head of household.
However, there is a problem here: very similar language is used regarding deacons in 1 Timothy 3:12, but we have a clear counter-example in the form of Phoebe, the female deacon Paul mentions favorably at Romans 16:1. Fortunately, this problem has a solution, and this solution lies in a second difficulty with 1 Timothy 3: the ambiguous use of gunaikos in 3:11. The solution is to regard 3:11 as not referring to the wives of deacons, but as a separate list of requirements for female deacons.
Unlike the egalitarian reading of these passages, this reading allows a simple and straightforward interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11-15. 2:12 uses present infinitives, rather than the more common aorist infinitive, and therefore has progressive/repeated aspect, whence my assertion that it prohibits not all teaching by women, but simply placing women in the habit or position of teaching. Also, the HCSB's "have authority" is a very weak translation of authenteo which really means something like "tyrannically dominate." Thus the prohibition of 1 Timothy 2 cannot be regarded as doing much more than supporting the requirement that elders/overseers be male. It doesn't place extensive additional restrictions on women.
Could this be culturally dependent? Again, I think we must say no, since Paul clearly attributes it (albeit rather confusingly) to the order of creation.
Finally, let us consider some considerations which ought to further moderate our complementarian position. First, from 1 Corinthians 11:5 we know that women are permitted to pray aloud and to prophesy in church meetings (even if we don't understand anything else 1 Corinthians 11 is saying). It should be noted that to 'prophesy' in the New Testament sense means simply to speak forth the mind of God. When someone says "let me share with you what God has been teaching me lately" this is prophecy in the New Testament sense. Furthermore, to 'preach' (kerusso) in the strict sense, meaning to proclaim the gospel to non-believers, is a duty of every Christian, regardless of gender. To 'testify' (marturomai) to God is likewise a universal duty. Much of what pastors do when they preach in our sense of the word is prophesying, preaching, and testifying in the NT senses of those words, and women are nowhere prohibited from doing these things. They are simply prohibited from being elders/overseers and from being in the habit or position of teaching or tyrannically dominating adult men in the Church.
Finally, we must leave room for Deborah (see esp. Judges 4) - that is, the case where, due to extenuating circumstances (in this case, Barak's refusal to follow God's command without Deborah) lead God to call a woman to a task he ordinarily wouldn't (in this case, lead the army). Thus there may be situations that permit the relaxing of even these principles. For instance, the modern American Church is overwhelmingly female. Might there be a case in which no male who met all of the requirements of a pastor/elder/overseer could be found, and might a woman who met the other, more important requirements be rightly permitted to take the position? I think the answer here is yes, but that the woman's position here ought to be seen as temporary or transitional in nature. Likewise, there are cases where a woman's perspective on a subject will be very helpful to the body as a whole and a man simply doesn't have this perspective. In this case also it may be permissible for a woman to teach men (occasionally, not regularly).
Thus, as I have said, I believe that the Biblical position falls between the gender egalitarian position and the more extreme forms of the complementarian position, in what I have called a moderate complementarianism. I have not addressed every passage of Scripture, nor have I answered every objection. I think it would be very helpful and interesting to have some civil, intelligent, biblical debate on this subject, and would welcome criticism of the position I have outlined, whether from egalitarians or more radical complementarians.
Today's New York Times features an Op-Ed by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University arguing that, when viewed on the level of broad statistical tendencies across the whole of the human race, males and females exhibit marked neuro-psychological differences, in some ways similar to those suggested by Harvard president Lawrence Summers (you all remember the uproar that ensued). Eager to avoid the mistake made by Dr. Summers, Professor Baron-Cohen is very careful to emphasize the "on the level of broad statistical tendencies" part, and for this I applaud him. As he says in the article, "the differences that show up in brain research reflect averages, meaning that they emerge only when you study groups ... The evidence to date tells us nothing about individuals."
Professor Baron-Cohen's study divides people into Type E, Type S, and Type B brains based on answers to survey questions (neuro-physiology was also studied, but we're getting to that part). Type E brains are those who have a predisposition for emotional empathy over systematic thought, Type S brains are more disposed to systematize the world than to empathize with the emotions of others, and Type E brains perform each function approximately equally. According to the study, 44% of women are Type E, and 17% are Type S. The numbers are almost exactly reversed for men, with 54% Type S and 17% Type E.
Interpreted as purely statistical data, rather than as "law" regarding the innate aptitudes of persons of different gender, these statistics are more or less common knowledge; they line up with experience. But what is the cause of this difference? Professor Baron-Cohen's group argues that at least some of this has to do with biology rather than environment, noting, for instance, that "on average, at 24 hours old, more male infants will look at a mechanical mobile suspended above them, whereas more female infants will look at a human face." No statistics are provided on this, but it sounds pretty convincing to me, and it doesn't particularly surprise me. The explanation provided by the study is that an individuals "brain type" in the classification system is determined by pre-natal testosterone levels. These findings also correlate to statistics about the size of various portions of the brain, etc., which again suggest heredity rather than environment.
The real clencher is that the article goes on to argue that autism is caused by excessive pre-natal testosterone levels, so that, in essence, autistics are "extermely male" in brain-function. He supports this by the two observations that (a) it is very common for autistic children to have parents who are both extreme Type S brains, and (b) autistics generally have an extremely pronounced disposition to systematize the world around them. Most interesting...
Better Bibles Blog now has more excerpts from The Source New Testament, this time on the contentious subject of gender roles. Dr. Nyland's last book was subtitled "The Campaign to Control Gender Translation in Bibles," and in her BBB interview she asserted that "most people do not want to know what the Greek .... really says" in "the women passages." These comments, combined with her background as a lexicographer, and the new archaeological research she has access to, made me very interested in what she had to say here.
Before I dive into an examination of these passages, a word about my (lack of) qualifications: I am entering my third year of undergraduate education at Penn. I am majoring in computer science, philosophy, and classical studies, the latter with emphasis in Greek language and literature. As such, I have had three semesters of Attic prose (the Greek of classical Athens - Koine, the Greek of the New Testament, is generally seen as a much simplified form of this dialect), one semester of Homer, and one semester of formal linguistics (syntax). I've also been reading the NT in the Greek on my own time (when I have any) for the last two years. I've covered most of Matthew, all of Ephesians, and most of 1 Timothy so far (I expect to finish Matthew and 1 Timothy and get through 2 Timothy by the end of the summer). Other relevant areas of study include Roman history (I'll be taking Greek history this semester) and ancient philosophy. The reason I bring this up is that I think it is relevant to how the things I am going to say should be interpreted: I do read Greek, and I hope I have something to contribute to this discussion, but I am at least ten years of study away from being anything like an authority in the field. I have spent a few minutes comparing Dr. Nyland's translations to the Greek; she, in addition to having a Ph.D. in this area, spent six years, and most other modern translations involve teams of Ph.Ds, DDs and Th.Ds and periods of study that long or longer. That's my disclaimer. If you are still interested in my analysis, read on.
One of the general trends of Dr. Nyland's translation of these passages is her use of the term "be supportive" for hupotasso, traditionally translated "submit." This word is from the prefix hupo (which often means under - this is where we get the English prefix hypo, as in hypothermia, being "under" healthy body temperature) and the verb tasso, "to array troops for battle." Accordingly, the original meaning of this word, according to LSJ, the standard Greek lexicon in classical studies departments, "to place, or arrange, under." This is used in the Greek historians in a military sense, as the root word suggests: "to arrange troops under [a commander]." In the interview Dr. Nyland commented that interpreting word based on their etymology is "a big mistake in Greek." While many Greek words have meanings which are not obvious from their etymology (for instance, virtually ever Greek prefix can in some cases be used to make a word emphatic, rather than to actually change its meaning, and sometimes the totality of a compound word has a meaning which is completely unrelated to the meaning of its parts), I have to disagree with her. Here it is clear that the early usage of the word was related directly to its etymological components, and Plutarch, who was contemporary with the NT (he lived from 46 to 120AD) continued to use the word in its military sense (I don't have access to the Greek text of Plutarch, but LSJ cites Life of Pompey 64, and I assume they mean the phrase which my English translation renders "[Brutus] put himself under [Pompey's] command"), so this usage was not wholly obsolete. This fits perfectly with Paul's ongoing military metaphor, to form a picture of the family as a "platoon" in God's army, in which the husband is the commanding officer. In the middle voice (the middle voice is a quirk of Greek - different words mean different things in the middle which are not necessarily related to their meanings in the active and passive voices in the same way in all cases. Every use of hupotasso in the passages cited is in the present, and in the present tense the middle and passive forms are homonymous, so we have no way of knowing which is which), tasso, the root, can mean "to fall in order of battle." So if the military metaphor were to be preserved, and the word was interpreted as being in the middle voice, the passages could be rendered "wives, organize yourselves for battle under your husbands;" or, if passive, "wives be commanded by your husbands." These translations are probably too strong and may overemphasize a metaphor that Paul may not intend here (though I think he does, since he uses it repeatedly, and this section of Ephesians feeds into the "whole armor of God" section). In light of Ephesians 5:21, which instructs believers to "submit to one another in the fear of the Lord" (the next section of the book is, I think, intended to address the obvious questions, "how does that work? What kind of army has every soldier commanded by every other soldier?), and based on the types of relationships this word is applied to, translators decided on the weaker "submit." One virtue of Dr. Nyland's translation is that it emphasizes the purpose of the submission: the husband does not dominate the wife as though this, domination, were the objective. Rather, the wife (and the rest of the family; see Eph. 6:1, etc.) submits to the husband in order that the whole family might have clear leadership as it goes through the "battle" of life, and in order that the husband might have support from his "soldiers" in the "military operations" he chooses to undertake. I kind of like the differing perspective, and I think she makes a good point but, to someone who was not familiar with the more traditional translations, I think Dr. Nyland's rendering could be misleading.
I think her rendering of Colossians 3:18 is interesting. LSJ does give the traditional meaning of "to be fit or proper", but cites ONLY THE NEW TESTAMENT as authority on this. The Septuagint uses the word to mean "to belong, appertain." However, Dr. Nyland's translation, "to be connected" is by far a more common usage of the word in the classical Greek corpus. Very interesting.
Her translation of 1 Timothy 2:11-14 is a paraphrase. The meaning she gives may very well be correct. However, she is giving the MEANING. It is my belief that wherever it is possible a translation should have exactly the same degree of ambiguity and confusion as the original text would have had to the original readers. Here, context was necessary in order to get a precise understanding of the meaning. This context, where it comes from outside Scripture and is not part of our modern cultural context, could be included in a footnote. The phrase "I most certainly do not grant a woman to teach that she is the originator of man" is very interesting, but I can't see it in the text. The text says "I do not permit a woman to teach, nor to tyrannically dominate a man" (yes, the word traditionally translated "usurp authority" literally means "to be a tyrant"), and unless there is some funny grammar going on here that I don't understand, it just can't be read her way. The NT typically uses very simple grammar, and the simplest, most obvious reading of the grammar is the one above. Paul does not specify the content of what the woman in question is teaching.
I strongly agree with her rendering the text in 1 Timothy 3:11 as "the female deacons." There is no possessive pronoun there, nor even an article, so an interpretation as "likewise the women also," meaning the women who are deacons, is much more likely than "likewise the wives also," meaning the wives who are deacons. Plus, Romans 16:1 uses the female form of the word deacon (Greek masc. diakonos, fem. diakona) in reference to a woman named Phoebe. The NT appears in many places, particularly in the earlier writings, to use the word loosely, refering to all who serve in the church and not just those who fulfill some specific office for which there are requirements, but I nevertheless strongly favor the position that, in light of these considerations, 1 Timothy 3:11 is a reference to female deacons.
1 Corinthians 11:4-12 is translated very similar to traditional versions.
I really want to get my hands on a copy of this book, but it's pretty expensive and there are other things higher on my list of desired Bible study tools. I may break down and buy it soon, but for now I put in a request to the Penn library to buy it. If anyone reading this is affiliated with Penn, do me a favor and put in a request for this book here. The information you need for the request is available at the publisher's web-site here.