Eph 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Cor 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.
34 Women[a] should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.
Tim 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[a] she must be quiet.
I think those constitute clear sexism and/or misogyny?
Note: this is a bit cherry-picking out of context, which I'll admit sometimes happens in Christian circles as well. But I think understanding the context and culture of the time can make things a bit more clear. Yes, the culture of the time had a different handling of gender roles, and some of that persists in other cultures around the world to this day. These were letters written to the Christians in the churches of the day. Likely the content would be written slightly differently if it were written to a church in the modern day USA.
For example: Ephesians 6 goes on from what you clipped:
25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body.
This seems to me to indicate that husbands should be self-sacrificing and putting their wives' needs above their own. All the submission indicated here is similar to the way that Christ (the Son) submits to God the Father. These would have been very strong and shocking words in that culture, that normally would have allowed for husbands to have complete "rule" over their wives, and instead is urging husbands to self-sacrifice for their wives. So if anything, it would have been improving the standing of women rather than "keeping them down."
If you're married, have you ever willingly given up on your own desires, instead following your spouse's needs/wants? Have they ever done the same for you? This seems to be what this passage is encouraging.
I'm not cherry picking out of context. The following lines don't make it any better to me. The text is ultimately still saying women should bow and submit to their husbands decisions in all things, as long as their husbands treat them well. Yeah, I get that this was 'progressive' for its time. I still find it absurd people follow text like this as holy.
Your interpretation is well and dandy but perhaps as a society we need to stop holding text that's so dated in such high regard, where many peoples interpretation is far less optimistic and charitable than yours.
Yeah but this subthread discussion is regarding "are those passages taken out of context by preachers?" And it is interesting to note that the quotes given are all examples of 1st century preachers attempting to apply Jesus' message out of the original context. Yes the epistles are part of the Bible, but they are a distinctly different category from the gospels or accounts of Old Testament prophets. The guys writing them are not believed to be infallibly writing from the hand of god, and even fundamentalists agree they must be interpreted within the context in which they were written and their intended audience.
Mind you I'm an atheist, albeit with an amateur interest in biblical scholarship and archaeology. I just find that period interesting. And I think there is plenty of bad things Jesus actually said or did to point to. But I do believe the most egregious moral flaws of the New Testament are in the epistles, not the the gospels.
I think you're committing a historical fallacy. What you're saying is like condemning Abraham Lincoln because he said things that today we'd find unsavory or unenlightened. Fact is, Lincoln was highly progressive in his days.
Yes, the scriptures include things that are problematic, especially in the context of today's mores. But in so many cases, understanding the norms of the times really helps understand the "why", which is important.
The historical fallacy would be saying that early Christians were reprehensible because of their views independent of the time they existed in. I never said that. What I am saying is that following the teachings of those people 2000 years later is what's foolish, as we've come quite a long way in moral development since then.
In the case of Abraham Lincoln, he deserves credit for being progressive for his time in his pursuit of abolition. Does that mean we should follow his views on the inequality of white and black people, because he was progressive then? No, we've come a long way since then.
For Lincoln, celebrate his accomplishments and how he helped us progress. For the difficult things, understand they are artifacts of his time. They are important to understanding him and can further help color who he was.
Lincoln was a person. The Bible is meant to be the actual teachings of divinity. That's a key difference.
If we're meant to update for modern morality maybe we need a Newer Testament. Until then, the ambiguity of the words of long dead shepherds leave quite a lot to be misinterpreted, as well-intentioned your interpretation may be.
However, people don't go around claiming that Lincoln was God's chosen one and that his word is sacred. That's why we're fine in understanding that Lincoln was a man of his time and many things he said should nowadays be considered garbage. This is not how religion sees the Bible and the words of Jesus and other prophets.
My problem with this perspective is that, sure, the bible had some teachings that could be considered an improvement at the time. But if it really is a divinely inspired text, the teachings wouldn't be just a slight improvement of the norms at the time, but would consistently teach equal standing of every person.
And considering we have the old testament which was full of, let's be honest here, barbaric teachings but apparently were appropriate for the time. You would think by now we would have the New Testament V.96 that would contain teachings that are relevant today, not forcing you to pick and choose just the good parts.
There are many different ways to read the bible. Mainly, the bible is not a literal instructional manual unless you are a fundamentalist. And fundamentalists suck. For others, it's a written record of humanity's relationship with God. It's also a collection of writings from a number of different authors and genres - it has history, poetry, letters, and so on. The old testament was written by people thousands of years ago who had an imperfect understanding of God, nature, humans, society, etc.
In large part, the story of Jesus demonstrates how we should reject those archaic rules of our ancestors and act according to very simple principles; nonviolence, love for God, and love for all humans.
Paul claims to have met Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-6) [1] and claims apostolic authority because of it (Acts 15:3-8) [2]. Furthermore, other apostles agreed that he had, or at least that he had the correct message (Gal 2:6-10) [3] and that his writings had the force of scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16) [4]. It is a letter from Peter, the head of the church in Jerusalem, claiming equating Paul's writing with "the other Scriptures", so you can't take out Paul's writing by claiming that that the original apostles did not believe what Paul wrote.
I can't remember ever being in a church where women were required to stay silent. So not quite dropped but at least not enforced by most. Ask me again once everyone dropped miles for metric.
Ah yes, the old 'ephesians is mysogyny' out-of-context quote, which always manages to completely omit the lines which follow:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.1 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 o“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
won't get into the others, i'm quite sure there are cohesive rebukes / contextualization elsewhere
How does saying a husband should respect and love his wife mean that wives having to submit to their husbands isn't misogynistic? Yes, treat them well, but women must bow to their husbands in all decisions. It's a clear reinforcement of a power dynamic that ultimately means men control all the power in society.
The husband is to love his wife as he would himself; moreso, actually, he is to love his wife in the way Christ loved the church--who sacrificed his life for the well-being of the church (namely so that we could have an intimate relationship with God). It is with this understand of what a husband is that the wife submits to the husband. Submission is not unquestioning obedience, unless you insist on taking the most fundamentalist interpretation. And a husband that insists on unquestioning obedience is failing to even love his wife as himself, and certainly not with Christ's self-sacrificing love.
Your interpretation is certainly kind and would probably lead to a great way of life - my issue is still this text can easily be interpreted to be far less charitable and imply that the power of household decisionmaking lies with the husband, so long as he respects and loves his wife. Respecting and loving your wife is really, really up to interpretation. There are plenty of people now and throughout history who would not interpret this text the same way you have.
The text unequivocally gives different instructions for men and women, and the instructions given to men imply having the power in a relationship. Your interpretation doesn't sway my reading of the text as it is.
It's hard for me to see how you're reading Ephesians 5 in good faith. Wives submit to your husbands, husbands sacrifice your lives for your wives (like how Jesus ya know, was crucified for his Church). And you read this as misogynistic?
This is not by far the most problematic Pauline passage in terms of male/female roles. Taken at face value this is some pretty deep advice for how to have a functioning marriage where two people need to make decisions for their family and don't necessarily see eye-to-eye on everything.
Your explanation doesn't make sense because the roles are unequal. The text requires sacrifice from men but subservience from women, creating a hierarchy of powers inside the family. Your interpretation would be acceptable if the text said that both women and men had to sacrifice and submit to each other.
Yes, the husband in a family making all the decisions as long as they respect their wife is for sure misogynistic.
Your interpretation of this being advice for a family to function even when they don't see eye to eye everything makes no sense to me. So if a man and woman in a marriage don't see eye to eye on an issue, the man makes the decision as long as he's kind to his wife? A wife may have her opinion, but really she has to submit in all things to their husband?
I'm all for husbands loving their wives, but maybe text that clearly says that men have the power of decision making in a household could be interpreted as meaning...men have the power in a relationship.
'Power' in the Christian context is quite a lot different from your impression I think:
> And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:42-45
To read Ephesians 5 without this in the background is totally misconstruing the text.
I'm one of the fundamentalists everyone here seems to hate. My wife is a very strong willed person and she does submit to my decisions (never because I ask or demand it) but because we see Christ submit to the will of the father. Just as I submit to Christ.
For clarity, I in no way rule over my wife, and am in no way of more value than her. The Bible makes it clear that all people are of the utmost value because they are made in the image of God.
For additional context, yes my wife submits to me, but I make no decisions without her consent. I don't even buy a $5 item off Amazon without talking to her. My Biblical role is to serve my wife and family which I'm thrilled to do each day, just as we see Jesus serve his disciples when he washes their feet.
What I'm trying to get to is that please do not mistake a fundamental view of the Bible as misogyny. Any teaching or text can be cherry picked without context to make any view look evil and cruel.
Your description of the dynamic between you and your wife is incoherent. You assert that she submits to you, but then you say that you make no decisions without her consent. So when she does not give her consent, she doesn't submit to you? Or does she simply always gives her consent, because the submission to you is a predicate. But then asking for her consent is a complete sham, a pretense to give her some agency in your mind.
Irrespective of those contradictions however, a social dynamic in which the woman must axiomatically submit to the man is always inherently misogynistic no matter the justifications, be they religious or not.
Sorry, rereading my post doesn't really make the dynamic clear and I'm not sure I could do it justice without having a dialog, but I'll attempt it.
First, neither of us make purchasing nor time commitment decisions without checking with each other, my last comment made it appear there's a large imbalance in the relationship with her making all decisions.
Our natural dynamics are that I operate on a system of respect, and she operates on a system of love. Yet the Bible calls us to do the opposite, I am to act in love, and she in respect (basically showing each other care in the way we best receive it).
Earlier in our marriage, I was really bad at showing her love as she received it (acts of service and giving her verbal feedback to her opinions and thoughts --- sometimes I still fail, but I get better as we grow). She was bad at showing respect (when she didn't feel loved/heard she would yell).
Regarding her choosing to submit, it's a motivation/outlook more than anything. When we are discussing a decision, she most always asks what I think we should do first. She will then give her thoughts on the topic and then leaves the decision up to me. There have of course been times where I end up making decisions that don't end up being the best in hindsight, but she never comes back and throws it in my face, because she chose to submit to my decision.
Since it's easy to say something that is misconstrued in text, I do want to be clear I never lord over my wife. I never demand that she submit to me, she chooses to do that on her own.
Hopefully that helps a little, I'm sure it's still probably unclear, my mom (who is quite left leaning and a feminist) doesn't grasp the Biblical concept of submission (thinking it means being weak and timid) and doesn't feel women should submit. Although she admires my wife's and my relationship, even though it differs from her views and has zero concern that both my daughters are raised in a household where the wife submits because the leadership is carried out with love and patience.
The verses you mention don't negate the previous ones. Yes, they said the husbands should love their wives, as long as the wives are subservient to their husbands, i.e., both things are considered necessary.
Taking the scriptures literally and limiting yourself only to direct recommendations from New Testament (i.e. no backlinking to Old Testament), at the very least, treatment of women in New Testament is pretty old-school patriarchal[0].
It's interesting to observe the ways various Christian groups try to navigate their way around gender roles in their communities. You have a full spectrum here. From some fundamentalist US churches that will take everything super-literally, through groups like Jehovah's Witnesses[1] who sort-of take this literally, but make reasonable exceptions[2], through Catholics in Western countries, where most believers probably haven't even heard or thought about these passages, and any semblance of adhering to them is likely seen as more traditional than religious - all the way to lenient Christian groups that allow women priests.
In my experience, all Christianity is like this. Every group in every location[3] has their own specific understanding of which words are to be taken literally, which ones figuratively (and to what degree), and which ones to be completely ignored.
[1] - If I seem to focus on JWs too much in this thread, that's because I spent 20 years being one.
[2] - E.g. over at Jehovah's Witnesses, there's a lot that would technically qualify as "praying or prophesising" where women are't required to cover their heads, and men are not required to uncover theirs. Also definition of "cover" is "with a hat or similar", probably not what the authors had in mind.
[3] - As I understand it, Catholics in the West and in Africa are essentially two different religions. The former, having lived with it for centuries, ignore or pay lip service to all the rules that the latter obey to the letter.
> treatment of women in New Testament is pretty old-school patriarchal
It reflects the mores of the times, which were different than ours. People 2000 years from now will certainly look at us and be aghast at some of our norms.
My denomination has had woman pastors since the mid 1800s.
There are real issues there, but the homosexuality quote is one of the "big eight" anti gay quotes that come up often and turn out to be misunderstood or translation errors that don't hold up to serious scrutiny. Homosexuality as we know it today was not well known or named at the time that text was written, just to start. Searching for the "big eight" helps both with that specifically and the general business of understanding how ancient stories get misunderstood by our modern news clip processing habits.
The New Testament is often mistakenly touted as a "reformation" from the Old Testament, and cherry-picked apart into a more progressive form of Christianity, but, it's not all that different from the Old Testament in actuality. New Testament also defines dress codes for women and re-affirms a patriarchal family heirarchy.
Agree completely. While both texts do largely focus on people of Jewish origins, there is not a lot of actual overlap on content. Some of the NT books are seen as prophetical, so that lines up to some degree - but even those read very different.
It's not just content that differs either - the literary style of the NT also deviates greatly, since it borrows much more from hellenized culture than the OT. Especially the synoptic gospels. For example, John, was composed using a layered "onion" type narrative structure which was popular in other greek texts.
They're even so different, that one form of heresy that was more common back in the day (Gnosticism), would sometimes claim that the OT deity was a false-god (the demiurge), because how else do you explain such a personality change?
You mean, the same Jesus who appointed only men to be his disciples, while the women in his entourage were servants? It seems that Paul was just putting into words his practice.
Funny you mention that! Yes, the four gospels that were canonized by a patriarchal church organization do seem to paint a picture like that. But the Gospel of Thomas, and other ancient "heretical" texts tell a different story, where Jesus explicitly acknowledgd women as equals and Mary as the favorite disciple. So even some very early Christians would disagree with Paul here.
Edit. I’m not challenging or arguing any point. I was genuinely curious.