Bible Books

033

What Paul really said about Women

John Temple Bristow
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988) 139 pp., $12.95

“Paul was … the first great champion of sexual equality” (p. xi). Demonstrating this proposition is the task taken on by John Temple Bristow, a Disciples of Christ pastor in Seattle. His task is all the more difficult since Bristow accepts the questionable Pauline authorship of Ephesians¹ and of 1 Corinthians 14:33b–36, ² as well as the dubious Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy, key texts that underpin Paul’s reputation as a misogynist.

Bristow claims that Paul’s letters have been mistranslated. He asserts that “the words of Paul … had their meanings molded to conform to the thoughts of Aristotle” (p. xii), who viewed women as being submissive, thus leading to the traditional misunderstanding of what Paul really said about women.

The first text that Bristow analyzes is Ephesians 5, where he maintains that “key words” have been misunderstood. Ephesians 5:22 states, “Wives, be subject [hupotassomai] to your husbands” (RSV), but Bristow argues that this form (the middle voice) of hupotasso means that Paul “was requesting that wives voluntarily, willingly, actively be subject to their husbands” (p. 40). Ephesians 5:25 states, “Husbands, love [agapao] your wives,” but Bristow argues that agapao means to give up one’s self interest and this “is almost identical with hupotassomai” (p. 42). Thus, as he reads it, husband and wife are equal in voluntary subjection to each other. But Bristow neglects to mention Titus 2:9, where “Paul” uses hupotassomai in exhorting, “Bid slaves to be submissive to their masters [despotai].” Can it be said here that slaves are equal to their “despots”? Although Ephesians 5:23 describes the husband as the head (kephale) of the wife, Bristow asserts that kephale “was never used to mean ‘leader’ or ‘boss’ or ‘chief’ or ‘ruler’ ” (p. 36). However, this sweeping statement is incorrect. For example, in the Greek translation of 2 Samuel 22:44–45, King David sings that Yahweh kept him as the kephale of the people who served (douloo) and obeyed (akouo) him.

Bristow, in explaining 1 Timothy 2:9–15, argues that it was radical to suggest that women learn and that women were “not used to listening to lectures or thinking about theological concepts, or studying at all,”³ which is why Paul insisted that they learn “in silence with all subjection” (p. 71). Bristow claims, “Teachers, at first, had to be men, for only men were educated in the faith,” but this assertion is contradicted by Bristow’s prior discussion of “women leaders” in Paul’s churches, such as Euodia, Syntyche, Prisca, Phoebe and Junia (pp. 56 and 57).

Bristow’s argument turns not only on the question of the meaning of Greek words, but also on his understanding of the society in which Paul lived and worked. Unfortunately, his understanding leaves much to be desired. One example will suffice. In discussing “Is Celibacy Holy?” (chapter 6), Bristow plays off Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 7 against the Stoics “who spurned marriage as evil” (p. 106). This view of the Stoics in Paul’s day is wrong. The Stoics were champions of marriage. The only reference that Bristow gives to the Stoic Musonius Rufus was taken from a secondary source (as are many of his quotations from ancient authors). Had Bristow read the actual text of Musonius, he would know that Musonius argued that “Whoever destroys human marriage destroys the home, the city and the whole human race.”⁴

It has become popular, even among conservatives, to pronounce that “sexual equality” is right. Bristow poses a telling question: “If Paul is wrong, how can we trust any part of the Bible?” (p. x). Bristow has labored to show that Paul was not wrong on the subject of sexual equality, but overall his argument is unconvincing. The case can be made that there is evidence of sexual equality in the letters for which there is no doubt about Pauline authorship, as, for example, in Paul’s discussion of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7. But whoever wrote Ephesians, 1 Corinthians 14:33b–36 and 1 Timothy expected women to be silently submissive to men.⁵