I’ve been working through a lot of memes lately, so I thought it was time to jump into something more substantial. When going through the memes, some of my favorite to address were those that dealt with Bible verses, so what I’m going to do in this series is look at some controversial or misunderstood passages, and dive into them. If you’d like to watch this as a video, head over to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4RhyGhuYxE&t=4s
1 Timothy 2:12 Women be Silent
This is a verse that is attributed to Paul that states: I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.
The over all context doesn’t help the matter at all. In the verses preceding, the author is telling women to dress modestly and they should study in silence, while the verses right after say that women will be saved through childbirth. So thoroughly sexist.
Let’s take a quick step back though. First Timothy, along with Second Timothy and Titus, are often seen together as the Pastoral Epistles. While the three letters do differ a bit, they all really focus on the life and rules that are to govern individual Christian communities.
One more quick step back. To understand Pauline Scholarship, it is worth nothing that not all the letters attributed to Paul are believed to be by Paul. This is largely determined by a few factors, including language, content, structure, etc.
This is something that is done to a lot of ancient works, as it wasn’t uncommon for a later writer to try to use the authority of someone else to put out a message. So we have to critically look at the works, and looking at the basic markers of an author, we can determine with a good amount of accuracy what is authentic or not.
For Paul, we can separate his work into three categories.
First, we have seven letter that are thought to be authentic by virtually all scholars. Those letters include:
First Thessalonians
Galatians
First Corinthians
Philippians
Philemon
Second Corinthians
Romans.
Second, there are two letters that scholars are divided on. Some claim they are forgeries, others say they are authentic, and then some argue that they are partial letters from Paul that have been filled out. The reason there is a split is because there are many things about those letters that seem authentic, but a few points stick out that raise flags. Those letters are:
Colossians
Second Thessalonians
Third, there are four letters that most scholars reject as being forgeries. In this group we can also include the book of Hebrews, which while it doesn’t bear the name of Paul, many early Christians attributed it to Paul, and that is really how it made it into the Bible. The four letters rejected are:
Ephesians
First Timothy
Second Timothy
Titus.
On this same subject, we also know that Paul wrote some letters that we no longer have. There could be many letters of Paul that we no longer have, but there are a few we know to have existed for sure.
These include a first letter to the church in Corinth and a third letter, called the Severe Letter, written to the church in Corinth.
Both Ephesians and Colossians mention earlier letters as well, which most likely would have been authentic, even though our letter to the Ephesians is a forgery, and there is some debate about Colossians. Citing authentic letters would have been a way to help solidify some authority there.
So with all that in mind, when dealing with First Timothy, we are working with a book that isn’t from Paul, but from someone writing in the name of Paul.
When looking at First Timothy, we are probably looking at a work that was created sometime after Paul had died. We are looking at a period of time in which Christianity was really beginning to form as a separate religion apart from Judaism.
While Paul believed that the end was coming very shortly, we begin to see a switch here, where the church is now going to have to form for the long run. The Pastoral Epistles are addressing different communities in order to try to help form what the church leadership will look like in the long run.
Between Paul and First Timothy, we see some major differences. First, Paul is against marriage and having children. He says that if one needs to have sex, get married and do it, but it’s more ideal to live a celibate life as this world would soon be replaced by the Kingdom of God, so we have more pressing matters to attend. First Timothy, on the other hand, they are promoting having children and being married.
The passage in question here also is quite different from what Paul says. For instance, in Romans 16:1-3 and 7, Paul is praising women who are leaders of the church. He’s lifting them up, and telling others to do likewise, that women have the right to have authority.
What we have then is a contradiction in the Bible that is caused by someone later on using the name of Paul in order to prop up their authority. This later person was trying to direct the growth of the church in the manner that they wanted.
Personally, I’m of the view that we reject the Pastoral Epistles. They may be of interest to see how some were trying to influence the growth and formation of Christianity, but other than that, I see little value in those works.
