Women only! Why are men excluded?

I do not permit a woman to teach a man with authority (1 Timothy 2:12).

My hands are dusty-white on the palms and streaks of powder line my skirt. Chalk dust lingers in the air, but the chalkboard is wiped clean, ready for the next day’s lessons to resume across its dark slate. My grandmother gathers up books and papers from her desk, loads them into our arms and out to the car. It is a pattern she repeats for 35 years, imparting knowledge to young and old, the necessary building blocks of wisdom. It never crossed her mind to exclude men from her instruction. The notion would have been utterly inconceivable and reprehensible to her. It was a notion her granddaughter would encounter and contend with half a century later. But for the moment, that train of thought seemed to be crawling, like a baffled invalid that gained a few inches and then stopped to cough. Soon, it would gather enough steam to burst headlong into the 20th Century, creating friction all along the way. Why is a letter, written ostensibly by Paul in the first century, to Timothy in Ephesus, creating consternation in the Church today? How is it used to exclude men from women’s teaching and leading?

Context:  What did the original audience know and understand?

At one time Ephesus stood at the crossroads of six cultures and attracted such notable people as Paul, Luke, Timothy, John, Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila, not to mention King Croesus, Alexander the Great, Antony and Cleopatra. When Augustus became emperor (27 BC) he designated it as the capital of Western Asia Minor. It was a strategic move geographically, politically, and religiously, as it was a port city with access to great roads and harbors. It boasted a population of 200,000 people in the first-century and was the guardian of the temple of Artemis, a major banking center and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. For two years and three months the city served as a base for Paul (AD 50-53; Acts 19). An uprising made the apostle decide to end his time in the city earlier than planned. The problem? Serious opposition from the followers of Artemis. So, who was Artemis of Ephesus in the world of Paul and Timothy?

Artemis, also known as Diana, means sound (free of disease, healthy), was the daughter of Zeus. She highly valued virginity and was not promiscuous. She did not need a man, but she liked men and allowed herself to love Orion. After his death she never loved another man. She remained a perpetual virgin who was hailed as the lord of virginity. She wore a gold belt, drove a golden chariot, and sat on a golden throne. She was a chaste hunter with golden hair and purple knee-length tunic. With quiver and arrows, she bore her hunting arms and javelins, and her hounds followed her. City-wide processions occurred every two weeks, and a yearly festival was held in her honor. The multitude viewing her cried out with amazement. The statue thought to represent her as a fertility goddess, instead depicts her arrayed with jewelry, not body parts. She was worshipped as the goddess who protects during childbirth, granting painless delivery or painless death. Survival was a primary concern as Greek women faced more risk of early death in childbirth than even the most afflicted country in the modern world. Paul is aware of the Artemis connection, commenting on safe delivery in childbirth later in his letter to Timothy. In short, Artemis was nobody’s mother and prostitution was not practiced in her temple.

There were legendary women directly associated with Artemis. Open-air stone carvings in a temple in Ephesus feature Amazon women as integral to the city’s origins. The reliefs (138 BC) tell how these warrior women came from south of the Black Sea and founded Ephesus. Herodotus (484-425 BC), Euripides (480-406 BC), and others chronical their escapades. Their society was closed to men (amazon means “manless”) and they raised only their daughters and returned their sons to their fathers, with whom they would only socialize briefly in order to reproduce. They were legends who became myths in the stream of time. In the mid-1990s, on the plains of Kazakhstan, evidence was unearthed of these warrior women. The women were buried with their weapons. One young female, bowlegged from constant riding, lay with an iron dagger on her left side and a quiver containing 40 bronze-tipped arrows on her right. On average, the females measure 5 feet 6 inches, making them preternaturally tall for their time. No wonder the Greeks were both fascinated and appalled by such independent women and depicted them as beautiful, active, spirited, and brave. Approximately 1300 images exist of Amazons fighting. Only three of them are gesturing for mercy. Strabo (63 BC - AD 23), Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian associated these women with the Artemis cult. They were the first to establish an image of the goddess in Ephesus and perform a holy rite, dancing a war dance with shields and armor.

How might the “manless” mindset of the Amazons and the independence of Artemis have affected male-female relationships? With this question in mind, consider Paul’s statement, “I do not permit a woman to teach a man with “authentein.” Because it is singular, (a man and a woman) it is not occurring in a public space. Culturally it applies to a husband and wife in the privacy of their home where women were homeschooled by their husbands. So why is she teaching him? It isn’t difficult to image the setting: morning coffee at the kitchen table, she’s asking questions about yesterday’s sermon, he’s only half-listening while perusing the daily newspaper. Through her Artemis lenses his answers appear curt and disrespectful, not hard to imagine in a patriarchal society, so she decides to educate him with “authentein.” This word is not found elsewhere in the Bible. Its definition runs the gamut from domineer to murder. My favorite is “despotic domination.” By teaching her husband with “authentein” she is doing exactly what any independent-minded, hunter-goddess would do— let fly the arrows and “despotically dominate” her man. Chrysostom (d. AD 407) is the closest parallel passage which commands husbands not to “authentein” their wives. Here, Chrysostom in pointing directly at abuse of power, specifically “spousal abuse.”

Historical Progression: No view comes from nowhere. The disordered relationships between men and women have existed since the fall. God forecast the furture: the woman’s desire will be for her husband, and he will rule over her (Genesis 3:16). Any honest contextual study of the Bible inevitably runs headlong into this disordered reality. As a researcher, it’s exhausting, like a splinter in my mind slowly driving me mad. The broken paradigm is vividly vulgar when it is practiced in the Church, the bride of Christ, for whom he made the ultimate sacrifice. Trigger warning: battle of the sexes ahead.

Within the first few centuries of its existence, the Church, influenced by Aristotelian misogyny, came to read 1Timothy 2:12 as a blanket prohibition against women ever leading men within the church, regardless of a woman’s training, skills, or spiritual gifts. This interpretation has created friction ever since. Because most English Bibles obscure the meaning of “authentein” by translating it “authority,” many believe it to be the technical term for “being a pastor.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. In every use of the word throughout antiquity, it never refers to any kind of benevolent pastoral care of an individual or group by a pastor or church official. Hitching “pastor” to “authentein“ is as stable as a sheepshank knot. Even Jerome, in his fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible, knew better. He used dominamur (“authentein”) to translate Jesus’ and Peter’s warning to Christian leaders to not “lord it over” others (Mark 10:42-43; 1Peter 5:3). There were respites from this prohibition, such as in monastic communities in France and England (7- 10th centuries), when women were overseers for monks and nuns, charged with providing spiritual leadership to both men and women. The middle of the 20th century granted another lull when my grandmother taught male/female Sunday School classes. Sadly, the Church didn’t pay attention when George Orwell warned us to beware of 1984. That year the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) resolved that women are to be excluded from pastoral leadership. Three years later the Danvers Statement was published, advancing a patriarchal version of Christianity. In effect, the SBC and the Danvers Statement mandate women may lead a teaching banquet, but men are excluded from partaking in the sumptuous feast because of “authentein.” Scripture is inspired by God but interpretations are not. The confusion surrounding “authentein” makes this self-evident. The SBC (est. 1845) is no stranger to botched Biblical interpretations. It separated from the Northern Baptist Church over chattel slavery, which it declared to be a God-ordained institution based on its interpretation of scripture. Instead of elevating women and slaves the SBC subverted them, two of the most marginalized groups throughout human history.

Unlike Aristotle, Jesus never promotes hierarchy or male authority over female in the Gospels. Following Jesus’ example, throughout his letters Paul commends women who teach and lead in the church. “If Paul doesn’t want women to teach in some sense, it is not because they are women, but because they are unlearned. His principle is that those who do not understand the Scriptures and are not able to teach them accurately should not be permitted to teach others. This is unfortunately quite applicable today; there are all too many people teaching unhealthy interpretations of the Bible, and most of them are men” (Craig Keener). “A woman can write a commentary on Hebrews to be read by men but she cannot preach or teach men on Hebrews. Today a woman can be president, a prime minister, a CEO, a general, or a police officer, but she cannot serve as a pastor. A woman can teach men French or piano but not the Bible or theology. It’s like saying it’s okay for someone to commit adultery as long as you don’t do it on Sunday or in the church. Many churches have forgotten that God is sovereign over all institutions, and all of life is lived before God and under God” (Michael Bird). “The church has reached its age of accountability; it is time to assume responsibility (or liability) for excluding women from church leadership positions based on “authentein” (Cynthia Long Westfall).

Conclusion: I taught Biblical studies for 15 years. Each session approximately 60 people would register and attend, many of them men. I never excluded anyone. I never taught anyone with despotic domination. For many years a retired Hebrew professor attended the class; I benefited greatly from his insights and he kindly thanked me for mine. Incidentally, it was a Baptist church that facilitated the class, for which I am ever grateful. Common sense suggests, when in doubt, the Church should extend the benefit of the doubt to women.

Sources: The Looking Glass: Stories for Reflection, Marla K Tokatly; Nobody’s Mother, Sandra L Glahn; Paul and Gender, Cynthia Long Westfall; How God Sees Women, Terran Williams; Paul, Women & Wives, Craig S Keener; Becoming the Pastor’s Wife, Beth Allison Barr; Two Views on Women in Ministry; James R Beck; Strange Religion, Nijay K Gupta