Mark

gengwell,

i suggest you do read Hosea. Througout all of biblical literature the marriage metaphor is common. Not only is it common, there are may places in which God’s authority over his bride is in view. This is simply common sense. God is God. God is in authority over us.

So although you argue that the marriage metaphor never has God in authority over his bride, i hope you see that that is simply not true. You may wish to further narrow your scope to Paul’s marriage metaphor, that’s up to you, but looking at the Bible as a whole (especially in light of Paul being a Pharisee and being well versed in the Old Testament literature) i’ll stick with my conviction at the moment. It seems like your argument will have to extend to saying that Paul is ‘re-inventing’ the marriage metaphor to exclude authority, especially in regard to Church/Christ.

I’d love your thoughts as this seems to be the crux of your thesis!