Jay

Ok, thanks for your explanation. I guess I might differ from the view of Payne’s a bit if it is indeed as you say. I would prefer to see that the situation might have been that because of the false teaching that women are superior to men as celebrated in the cult of Cybele, that Paul is telling that he is not allowing women to teach in a way assuming that women have (strong, even violent) authority over men. If this was the situation, there was no need to emphasize that these women should not have the same “authentein” over women, because the nature of the false teaching in this example would be just that, that women should rule over men, therefore these teaching and ruling women would not be seeking to rule over other women so much as they would seek to rule over men. Actually, any idea of anybody in the church assuming authority over someone else, women or man is against the spirit of the NT writers and Christ himself.

Interesting interaction. I don’t yet have Payne’s book so I can’t read the full context. I would agree with you, that no woman needed to be “authorized” to teach. I am not sure if that is what Payne is saying. Have you thought to direct this question to him over on his blog. http://www.pbpayne.com I would be interested in his response. If the context of the problem being addressed in the letter to Timothy was related for example to a Cybelian type cult influence, it could be that instruction was made particularly in that situation about women assuming authority and acting in that assumed authority to teach men as inferiors. Also incipient gnostic teachings may be coming into the picture, where the woman was seen as the enlightened, thus the superior teacher, one in creation.

Forward to the Past 🙁

When I read Buddhist texts I see sexism.
When I read Islam texts I see sexism
When I read Jewish texts I see sexism
When I read Christian texts I see …
I read the Bible everyday and live by it, but I still must ask the question, “Can we honestly say there is no sexism in it?

This is my first time here and it looks like this website has a lot of great resources for digging into the controversial gender role texts. I’m looking forward to reading more of what’s offered.

I just wanted to put forward a thought in a spirit of humility, that as a newcomer reading some of the comments, I sensed some of the same attitude of pride in the egal camp that was being pointed out in the comp camp as well.

Although I understand that the heart of some of the comments is to be biblical faithful, some of the comments I’ve read went a little far, I think: questioning the manhood (“90 days in a concentration camp”) and the motives (“relying on dogma and fear”, “vested interest in his pocketbook”) of some in the comp camp. I have many comp friends who are incredibly loving and humble in how they live out their convictions, so I wouldn’t be so quick to paint them as being insecure or power-hungry. Like most of us here, I think the heart of many of our comp friends is to be faithful to Scripture, even if they read it in a different way.

We ought to argue our points scripturally without resorting to the same name-calling that we’re preaching against.