Notes

Notes

NOTES

Preface

[1]. E.g. (among many others), Tal Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995); Bruce W. Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

[2]. E.g., Paul, Women, and Wives, pp. 160, 163, 243, 254.

[3]. See esp. Alan Padgett, “The Pauline Rationale for Submission: Biblical Feminism and the hina Clauses of Titus 2:1–10,” EQ 59 (1987): 39–52. For relevance to our culture today on a practical level, see also Rich Nathan, Who Is My Enemy? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), pp. 141–59.

[4]. I treated briefly this tension between his strategic social conservatism and his more progressive interests in “Paul: Subversive Conservative,” Christian History 14 (3, 1995): 35–37.

[5]. As I already noted from Plut. Bride 11, Mor. 139CD. Cf. Greek views of Egyptians in Diod. Sic. 1.27.2.

[6]. For Xenophon the wife rules (like a queen bee) over matters inside and the husband things outside (Oec. 7.33, 39), but if she works harder at her role she merits greater honor, making him a voluntary servant (Oec. 7.42). Cf. Mus. Ruf. 14, p. 92.38–94.1.

[7]. If the claim of mutual submission was unusual, it would invite attention all the more graphically; cf. the discussion of tropes on pp. 124–25 in Galen O. Rowe, “Style,” in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 B.C.–A.D. 400, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 121–57.

[8]. On virtues being the same for both, see, e.g., Mus. Ruf. 4, p. 44.10–35 (Lutz); for role distinctions in expressing virtue, see, e.g., Mus. Ruf. 3, p. 40.25–28.

[9]. Craig Keener, “Marriage,” pp. 680–93; “Family and Household,” pp. 353–68; “Headcoverings,” pp. 442–46; and related articles in Dictionary of New Testament Background, ed. Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000).

[10]. Edited by James R. Beck and Craig L. Blomberg (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001); a newer edition in a different format is being published. Linda Belleville, the other egalitarian contributor to that volume, engages the complementarian objections more vigorously, and should be consulted for many current arguments I cannot detail here (“Women in Ministry,” pp. 77–154 in Two Views; see also Linda L. Belleville, Women Leaders and the Church [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000]). Two (among many) other recent egalitarian works of note in the evangelical debate include Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Good News for Women (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997); Stanley J. Grenz with Denise Muir Kjesbo, Women in the Church (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1995); from the complementarian side, one of the most compelling is Andreas J. Köstenberger, Thomas R. Schreiner, and H. Scott Baldwin, eds., Women in the Church: A Fresh Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:9–15 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995). Another egalitarian work, Richard Clark Kroeger and Catherine Clark Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), was released at the same time as Paul, Women, and Wives, hence my book interacts with only their articles.

[11]. And Marries Another (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991), somewhat controversial; Gift & Giver: The Holy Spirit for Today (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), mostly ignored; Revelation, NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000). The major commentaries include The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols. (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003); A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).

[12]. Wayne Grudem, Robert Yarbrough, and Tom Schreiner, among others, dialogued with me on this and other issues. Some egalitarians who recoil at the citation of one or two of these names should be aware that complementarians recoil no less at the names of well-known egalitarians engaged in the debate. (For the most part, those on either side of the debate who have not written on the subject have happily escaped the acrimony.) In a friendly public dialogue at Dallas Theological Seminary several years ago, Darrell Bock modeled charity in a particularly noteworthy way.

[13]. “Junia” is clearly a woman’s name; the method used to contract Greek names into similar forms is irrelevant in the case of Junia, which is not Greek but Latin. See Richard S. Cervin, “A Note Regarding the Name ‘Junia(s)’ in Romans 16.7,” NTS 40 (1994): 464–70 (brought to my attention by Prof. Michael Holmes).

[14]. I am not comfortable with the question of “rank” in texts describing first-century ministry, but to the extent that one does discuss it, pastors do not rank above apostles and prophets (1 Cor. 12:28).

[15]. See my objections above and in “Women in Ministry,” pp. 31–32.

[16]. I offer another argument for the same basic position in my essay for the forthcoming book, Ronald W. Pierce, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, and Gordon D. Fee, eds., Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004).

[17]. Gordon Fee sent me a list of every use of the term in extant Greek literature, along with relevant contexts; the sense is generally “nonsense,” with an emphasis on false or improper teaching in didactic contexts.

[18]. For the relative lack of training, see, e.g., Paul, Women, and Wives, pp. 83–84. Because I documented this in chapter 2 rather than later, one reviewer of the book who read only chapter 3 thought that I did not document the claim.

[19]. See much more extended discussion in my “Women in Ministry,” pp. 27–73 (in the 2001 ed.).

[20]. On interpretations of the fall narrative in its own context, see briefly ibid., pp. 62–63.

[21]. See the careful study by Scott Baldwin, “A Difficult Word: authenteō in 1 Timothy 2:12,” in Women in the Church, pp. 65–80.

[22]. Belleville, “Women in Ministry,” pp. 134–35. Others also appeal to the cognate noun (cognates sometimes point toward similar meanings, though one cannot always depend on them to do so).

[23]. It is understandable that it is difficult even for many scholars, regardless of their views on gender, to read biblical texts consistently in their ancient settings. Basic familiarity with those settings typically takes years of rigorous study.

[24]. Cf. the somewhat more nuanced argument in David Gordon, “A Certain Kind of Letter: The Genre of 1 Timothy,” in Women in the Church, pp. 53–63. See my review of this book in JETS 41 (Sept. 1998): 513–16.

[25]. He might have also been surprised to discover that history outlasted the first century (1 Thess. 4:17).

[26]. See my “Women in Ministry,” pp. 46–49, 55–58 (in the 2001 edition); in the Pastorals, for culture-specific statements note, e.g., 1 Tim. 4:7; 5:9–13, 23.

[27]. See, e.g., Catherine Booth, Female Ministry: Woman’s Right to Preach the Gospel (New York: Salvation Army, 1975; first published 1859); esp. Ruth A. Tucker and Walter Liefeld, Daughters of the Church: Women and Ministry from New Testament Times to the Present (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987); Grenz and Kjesbo, Women in Church, pp. 36–62; and Nancy Hardesty, Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the 19th Century (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984).

[28]. See Daniel Doriani, “History of the Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2,” in Women in the Church, pp. 213–67.

[29]. F. F. Bruce, A Mind for What Matters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), chap. 17, “Women in the Church: A Biblical Survey,” pp. 259–325. Of course, because application of biblical ethics involves cultural recontextualization (for a variety of cultures, as missiologists point out), we need to take account of the forms of receiving cultures into which the message is translated; for a useful sociological study, see Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, Gender & Grace (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1990).

[30]. William Webb, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis, foreword by Darrell L. Bock (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001). See earlier Willard M. Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War, and Women (Scottsdale, Pa.: Herald, 1983).

[31]. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993. If Paul, Women, and Wives has been my most controversial book, the background commentary (with over 200,000 copies in print to date, including translations) has been the most widely accepted. This is perhaps because background itself, apart from a consistent hermeneutic for its use, does not lead to many self-evident conclusions (though some may quote this admission of mine out of context).

Introduction

[1]. Cf., e.g., the entire February 1991 issue of Mountain Movers, an Assemblies of God (AG) missions periodical, and the statement adopted by the General Presbytery of the AG, August 1990.

[2]. On women’s prominent roles in the black Baptist church, see especially Evelyn Brooks, “The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1984. This is not to say that women always had access to the pulpit, but to argue that the black church was ahead of much of U.S. culture. The prominent black Baptist educator Nannie Helen Burroughs started the National Training School for Women and Girls; this school is said to have sent out more women missionaries than any other school in the country.

[3]. A large percentage still disapprove of women as pastors (in contrast to some other black denominations like AME, AME Zion, and CME); see C. E. Lincoln and L. H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, N.C.: Duke, 1990), pp. 292–93). But most of the younger clergy in black churches support women as pastors (ibid., p. 290), which probably reflects the trend of the future.

[4]. Lincoln and Mamiya, Black Church, p. 58. Far earlier than this, Bishop Richard Allen, founder of AME, let Jarena Lee (b. 1783) preach in his pulpit; for her ministry, see M. C. Sernett, Afro-American Religious History (Durham, N.C.: Duke, 1985), pp. 160–79.

[5]. See Dorothy Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1984), pp. 87–104, 215–16. This was the case in spite of the popular societal ideal to the contrary (ibid., pp. 220, 255).

[6]. Such as Frederick Douglass, an AME Zion deacon, and prominent female religious figures such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman (J. H. Cone, For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984], pp. 123–25; in general, see pp. 122–39). For the position of white evangelical abolitionists such as Finney and Oberlin College, see N. A. Hardesty, Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the 19th Century (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984), pp. 15, 37, 44. The recognition of past oppression against the black community was a major reason for our local Baptist association’s explicit support of women’s ordination (Lincoln and Mamiya, Black Church, p. 41, on the East Cedar Grove Association).

[7]. This is stricter than the usual traditionalist position, which allows women to teach (as long as it is in Sunday School, and not in the pulpit) and to be missionaries (of which there have been very many; see e.g., Ruth Tucker and Walter Liefeld, “Women in Foreign Missions,” pp. 56–76 in World Christian Summer Reader 1990 [Pasadena, Calif.: World Christian, 1990]).

[8]. Harriet Tubman testified eloquently to her call (see in Sterling, Sisters, p. 397). Not only did she successfully smuggle hundreds of slaves northward on the Underground Railroad, but she led black Union soldiers through the South in slave-freeing raids without losing a single soldier, just like the Israelites in many OT “holy wars” (see in ibid., p. 259).

[9]. What we argue here has long been advocated by pastorally minded Bible scholars concerned with applying the text in the church today; e.g., B. H. Streeter and Edith Picton-Turbervill, Women and the Church (London: F. Fisher Unwin, 1917), p. 54: “We see again and again how our Lord, while enunciating eternal principles, conformed to the customs of the day. Customs, however, pass away while eternal principles remain.” The writers use this interpretive principle to explain why there were no women among the twelve apostles, given the “customs of the East.”

[10]. See especially Hardesty, Women.

[11]. E.g., Tim Stafford, “The Abortion Wars: What Most Christians Don’t Know,” CT (Oct. 6, 1989): 18.

[12]. Jacquelyn Grant, White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response, AARAS 64 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), pp. 195–201, rightly criticizes much of the feminist movement in the U.S. for starting from a purely white American perspective. Unlike many liberationist approaches, the present book begins from the evangelical premise that the original meaning of Scripture is the starting point and can provide an authoritative critique of church tradition. But Scripture must be applied to concrete situations now just as when it was written, and Dr. Grant’s perspective on contextualization is very useful (cf. especially pp. 209–22).

[13]. Gretchen G. Hull, “Under the Yoke: Facing the Challenge of Global Oppression,” pp. 16–19 in World Christian Summer Reader 1990 (Pasadena, Calif.: World Christian, 1990): 18.

[14]. “India’s Lost Women,” World Press Review (April 1991): 49.

[15]. Hull, “Yoke,” p. 18. Several of my Ugandan friends also confirmed this report.

[16]. Steven Myers, “Crown of Beauty Instead of Ashes,” pp. 20–25 in World Christian Summer Reader 1990 (Pasadena, Calif.: World Christian, 1990): 23.

[17]. Ibid., p. 22. New reports surface continually about the abuse of women around the world (e.g., “Against Their Will: Rape and Sexual Abuse in Custody,” Amnesty Action [Jan./Feb. 1992], p. 6).

[18]. Myers, “Crown,” p. 22.

[19]. Sterling, Sisters, p. 411.

[20]. The Chronicle, Nov. 15, 1988, p. 8.

[21]. The footnote in Sterling, Sisters, p. xii, referring to traditional white families, reads: “An 1868 editorial in the Nation noted that working class families remained intact because husbands enforced obedience ‘by blows and abuse.’ ” She points out that slave wives experienced relative equality with their husbands since both were equally subject to the master’s authority (ibid., pp. 37–38).

[22]. For short treatments, see e.g., James and Phyllis Alsdurf, “Battered into Submission,” CT (June 16, 1989): 24–27; H. W. Green, “Wife Abuse: When Submission Goes Too Far,” Charisma (July 1985): 44–54; more extensively, James and Phyllis Alsdurf, Battered Into Submission (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1989).

[23]. The Matthew’s Bible, in a note to 1 Pet. 3, endorsed beating the fear of God into a disobedient wife (R. W. Fogel and S. L. Engerman, Time on the Cross [Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1974], p. 146).

[24]. E.g., Hull, “Yoke,” p. 18.

[25]. G. G. Hull, “Biblical Feminism: A Christian Response to Sexism,” ESA Advocate (Oct. 1990): 14.

[26]. David Ayers, “The Inevitability of Failure: The Assumptions and Implementations of Modern Feminism,” pp. 312–31 in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1991), pp. 322–23. It appears to me that many conservative Christians were polarized against feminism because NOW embraced a prochoice stance, but this was not an official stance of the women’s movement before 1967, and groups such as Feminists for Life today evidence that prolife feminism remains a continuing option.

[27]. R. K. Johnston, “Biblical Authority and Interpretation: The Test Case of Women’s Role in the Church & Home Updated,” pp. 30–41 in Women, Authority & the Bible, ed. Alvera Mickelsen (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986), emphasizes that it is not just a question of one’s commitment to the Bible that determines how one reads the biblical evidence on the subject; he notes that there are committed conservative evangelicals on both sides of the issue. This is not to say, of course, that both sides correctly represent the biblical position.

[28]. Cf. e.g., Don Richardson, Peace Child (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1974), p. 272, for Christianity’s raising women’s standard of living in a culture. It could easily be argued that this widespread subordination (and usually oppression) of women reflects the effects of the curse on Eve. The question then arises: Should we as Christians work for or against the curse? (Camus similarly questioned whether Christians are consistent to work against a plague if they believe God sent it as a judgment.) We ought to be consistent in our response; if the existence of the curse means that we should help the effects of the curse along, then we also ought to advocate sin and death as much as possible, since these are also effects of the curse. God judged the Babylonians for crushing Judah, though they were unwittingly fulfilling God’s purposes; and God may similarly send judgments but call us to work for healing.

[29]. E. A. Clark, Women in the Early Church, MFC 13 (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1983), pp. 15–16, notices this practice as early as the church fathers. Patricia Gundry, Women Be Free (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977), pp. 43–54, provides numerous examples of the abuse of Scripture in history (e.g., to support slavery, to oppose inoculations, to advocate burning suspected witches, etc.).

[30]. And Marries Another: Divorce and Remarriage in the Teaching of the New Testament (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991).

[31]. Those most familiar with current scholarship in early Judaism will recognize that I have drawn from a wide variety of Jewish sources, including later Palestinian and Babylonian sources. This is because our sources particular to Asian or Achaian Judaism in the first century are severely limited, and I feel that it is best to provide the broadest possible context based on the convergence of the largest amount of data. Minimal commonalities are more crucial to our study of these NT texts than are detailed analyses of particular regional developments, as much as the latter are to be appreciated. Thus, for example, A. T. Kraabel, “Judaism in Western Asia Minor Under the Roman Empire” (Th. D. dissertation, Harvard, 1968), p. 6, points out that Asian and Palestinian Judaism are different (though cf. the connections on pp. 30–32); but he admits that the Asian evidence on religious life is sometimes “meager indeed” (p. 13). We have attempted to construct the picture based on the evidence we do have, rather than hypothesize on the basis of silence in cases where evidence is lacking. Local and early evidence should, however, be weighted more heavily than other evidence, particularly where differences are evident.

Chapter 1 Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:1–16

[1]. For a listing of major divergent views on 22 different points of interpretation in this passage, see S. D. Hull, “Exegetical Difficulties in the ‘Hard Passages,’ ” in Gretchen G. Hull, Equal to Serve: Women and Men in the Church and Home (Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1987), pp. 252–57.

[2]. G. W. Trompf, “On Attitudes Toward Women in Paul and Paulinist Literature: 1 Corinthians 11:3–16 and Its Context,” CBQ 42 (2, April 1980): 196–215 (regarding 1 Cor. 14:33–35 in the same way).

[3]. W. O. Walker, Jr., “1 Corinthians 11:2–16 and Paul’s Views Regarding Women,” JBL 94 (1, March 1975): 94–110. He sees three separate non-Pauline fragments here.

[4]. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “The Non-Pauline Character of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16?” JBL 95 (4, Dec. 1976): 615–21. He points out that denying that the text is Pauline may save face for Paul, but it does not do justice to the textual evidence (p. 621).

[5]. Lamar Cope, “1 Cor 11:2–16: One Step Further,” JBL 97 (3, Sept. 1978): 435–36.

[6]. “Tensions” need not be contradictions; they can be semantic differences rather than contradictions on the level of meaning.

[7]. Neither the Nestle-Aland nor the UBS text notes any texts omitting it, and B. M. Metzger’s textual commentary (A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2d ed. [New York: United Bible Societies, 1975], pp. 561–62) has no discussion of the “problem.” It is not, indeed, a textual problem, but a question of removing a difficult passage. This is the more so if E. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroad, 1983), p. 226 (following H. Wendland), is correct that 11:1–16 and 14:34–35 form an inclusio around Paul’s comments on the pneumatic worship service; this may well be correct, although 11:17–34 seem to me to continue the preceding section on foods.

[8]. B. K. Waltke, “1 Corinthians 11:2–16: An Interpretation,” BibSac 135 (537, Jan. 1978): 46–57.

[9]. G. R. Osborne, “Hermeneutics and Women in the Church,” JETS 20 (4, Dec. 1977): 337–52.

[10]. W. M. Ramsay, The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1913), pp. 214–15; so also A. M. Hunter, The Gospel According to St. Paul (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), p. 48. Cf. Jean Héring, The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, trans. A. W. Heathcote and P. J. Allcock (London: Epworth, 1962), p. 103.

[11]. M. D. Hooker, A Preface to Paul (New York: Oxford University, 1980), p. 17.

[12]. T. P. Shoemaker, “Unveiling of Equality: 1 Corinthians 11:2–16,” BTB 17 (2, April 1987): 60–63 (11:2–9 vs. 11:10–16); Alan Padgett, “Paul on Women in the Church: The Contradictions of Coiffure in 1 Corinthians 11.2–16,” JSNT 20 (1984): 69–86; idem, “ ‘Authority Over Her Head.’ Toward a Feminist Reading of St. Paul,” DSar 12 (1, 1986): 5–9 (11:4–7 vs. 11:7–16).

[13]. C. L. Thompson, “Hairstyles, Head-coverings, and St. Paul: Portraits from Roman Corinth,” BA 51 (2, June 1988): 112.

[14]. Gundry, Women, pp. 67–68, rightly cites 10:23, 31; 11:1.

[15]. It deals with status differentiation in the church, allowing those who are socially or economically inferior in the world to bear the same inferior status in the church.

[16]. For the view that they were ad hominem arguments, see also F. F. Bruce, “ ‘All Things to All Men’: Diversity in Unity and Other Pauline Tensions,” in Unity and Diversity in New Testament Theology: Essays in Honor of G. E. Ladd, ed. R. A. Guelich (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), p. 95; R. N. Longenecker, New Testament Social Ethics for Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), p. 81; idem, “Authority, Hierarchy & Leadership Patterns in the Bible,” in Women, Authority & the Bible, ed. Alvera Mickelsen (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1986), p. 74. Such arguments were common in Aristotle (see W. A. Meeks, The Moral World of the First Christians, LEC 6 [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986], p. 19, cited below). Explanations based on (ancient) logic were also common in rabbinic exegetical material; they appear in the Talmud at nearly three times the number of explanations from Scripture, ten times those from the Tosefta, and eighteen times those from the Mishnah (A. J. Avery-Peck, in Talmud of Israel, vol. 6: Terumot, ed. Jacob Neusner, et al. [Chicago: University of Chicago, 1988], p. 37).

[17]. Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. 530. This may also be reflected in the fact that Paul can praise them for keeping traditions in v. 2 (though these may well not include their behavior with head coverings; see ibid., p. 500), whereas in v. 17, introducing the Lord’s Supper issue, he protests, “I praise you not” (cf. Diogenes 17, to Antalcides [CynEp, pp. 110–11]), possibly reflecting an ancient epistolary emphasis on praise and blame that could even define certain types of letters (S. K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity, LEC 5 [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986], pp. 77–90).

[18]. Ramsay MacMullen, “Women in Public in the Roman Empire,” Historia 29 (1980): 210, n. 4.

[19]. J. B. Hurley, “Did Paul Require Veils or the Silence of Women? A Consideration of I Cor. 11:2–16 and I Cor. 14:33b-36,” WTJ 35 (2, Winter 1973): 200, citing no sources. (Cf. Fiorenza, Memory, p. 239, n. 67, following Hurley, who does cite J. P. V. D. Balsdon, “Women in Imperial Rome,” HT 10 [1, Jan. 1960]: 24–31; but Balsdon clearly shows that the piled-up hairstyle dates to the end of the first and early second century, not before [pp. 24–25, and only the pictures on pp. 24 and 27]). On p. 197, Hurley argues that the only verse mentioning a shawl is v. 15, which actually says that long hair is given instead of a shawl. But Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 496, points out that v. 15 speaks of long hair, not piled-up hair, which would not support Hurley’s thesis, either.

[20]. Hurley, “Veils,” p. 200.

[21]. Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 496. He offers a more thorough refutation on pp. 528–29, especially to the view that long hair is given “instead” of a shawl; he addresses the parallels cited by others in sufficient detail on pp. 506–7.

[22]. Men also might not appear in public for certain reasons, e.g., grief (Chariton Chaer. 2.1.1), but these were temporary and not directly related to the pervasive restrictions on women.

[23]. The matter was probably not as universal as some have thought; see W. Den Boer, Private Morality in Greece and Rome: Some Historical Aspects, MBCBS (Leiden: Brill, 1979), p. 251.

[24]. S. B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken, 1975), p. 72; cf. p. 170; Boer, Morality, pp. 243–44.

[25]. John Gould, “Law, Custom and Myth: Aspects of the Social Position of Women in Classical Athens,” JHS 100 (1980): 47. There were, of course, significant exceptions, e.g., in the theater; see H. P. Foley, “The Conception of Women in Athenian Drama,” in Reflections of Women in Antiquity, ed. H. P. Foley (New York: Gordon & Breach Science Pub., 1981), p. 161. The exception in the theater may be related to the status attained by certain mythic women; cf. Dorothy Willner, “The Oedipus Complex, Antigone, and Electra: The Woman as Hero and Victim,” AmAnth 84 (1, March 1982): 58–78.

[26]. K. J. Dover, “Classical Greek Attitudes to Sexual Behavior,” in Women in the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers, ed. John Peradotto and J. P. Sullivan, SSCS (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York, 1984), p. 145.

[27]. D. C. Verner, The Household of God: The Social World of the Pastoral Epistles, SBLDS 71 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1983), p. 31.

[28]. Verner, Household, p. 38.

[29]. Chariton Chaer. 5.4.10.

[30]. Chariton Chaer. 1.1.4–6; cf. similarly Jos. & As. 2:1–6 (in some editions, 2:1–11).

[31]. Ps-Phocyl. 215–16 (OTP 2:581; Greek version, p. 111).

[32]. MacMullen, “Women in Public,” p. 209; cf. also P. E. Harrell, Divorce and Remarriage in the Early Church (Austin, Tex.: R. B. Sweet, 1967), p. 31 (Val. Max. 2.9.2; 5.3.10–12).

[33]. Plut. Bride 31, Mor. 142CD.

[34]. Plut. Bride 32, Mor. 142D (LCL).

[35]. Plut. Bride 9, Mor. 139 (LCL). In Bride 30, Mor. 142C (LCL), he suggests that “most women, if you take from them gold-embroidered shoes, bracelets, anklets, purple, and pearls, stay indoors.” Cf. Artem. Oneir. 1.8.

[36]. Perhaps under Greek influence.

[37]. See e.g., J. P. Hallett, “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy: Counter-Cultural Feminism,” in Women in the Ancient World, p. 245.

[38]. Even here, they probably remained indoors most of the day since all their “duties” were domestic; see Martin Goodman, State and Society in Roman Galilee, A.D. 132–212, OCPHS (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld, 1983), p. 37.

[39]. Verner, Household, pp. 46–47, citing especially Philo Special Laws 3.169–171; Flaccus 89.

[40]. See Philo Special Laws 3.169–175 (conveniendy available in R. S. Kraemer, Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], p. 29).

[41]. 4 Macc. 18:6–7.

[42]. S. Safrai, “Home and Family,” in JPFC, p. 762, citing t. Ket. 7:6; m. Ket. 7:6; cf. b. Git. 90ab; p. Git. 9, 50d. See J. R. Wegner, Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford University, 1988), pp. 18, 40, 145–67.

[43]. Longenecker, Ethics, p. 80; Richard and Joyce Boldrey, Chauvinist or Feminist? Paul’s View of Women (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976), p. 59. The Boldreys cite E. A. Leonard, “St. Paul on the Status of Women,” CBQ 12 (1950): 319, but Leonard cites L. Delaporte on a Mesopotamian custom—quite far removed in place and time from Paul’s Corinth! Gundry, Women, p. 65, cites “Many pictures on vases and wine jars from early Greece” showing prostitutes “with short hair and without headdress of any kind”; but it is not clear that the evidence she cites would still hold true in Paul’s day.

[44]. J. F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law & Society (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University, 1986), p. 251, citing Mart. Epig. 10.52; Juv. Sat. 2.68, but noting (p. 252) that prostitutes were not forced to dress this way.

[45]. Middle Assyrian Laws, trans. T. J. Meek, in ANET, p. 183 (Tablet A, §40).

[46]. Ibid. (Tablet A, §41).

[47]. I am supposing that the rabbi was no later than the third century, because R. Johanan, a third-century rabbi, seems to build on this tradition.

[48]. Gen. Rab. 85:8.

[49]. I am thus in agreement with Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 511, n. 80, who notes that “there is no contemporary evidence” to support the view that short or shaved hair (or lack of head coverings) would indicate prostitutes. Indeed, m. Kel. 24:16 could suggest that prostitutes wore head coverings, too (the meaning of 28:9 is less clear).

[50]. E.g., F. F. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, NCBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 105; idem, “All Things,” pp. 94–95; Fiorenza, Memory, p. 227. Fee, 1 Corinthians, pp. 507–8, provides nearly the opposite suggestion, as just one possibility among others: the prophet in the Isis cult wore a head covering (according to one fresco from Pompeii), so Christian male prophets were to avoid this practice. But I think this is as unlikely here as Bruce’s proposal.

[51]. It is true that ecstatic dance in the more frenzied cults (cited in Fiorenza alongside the prophetic elements) was more naturally and easily conducted with heads uncovered, but we have no evidence of such activity in the Corinthian church.

[52]. Test. Sol. 13:1. OTP 1:974, n. a, compares the Greek Medusa and the artwork of demons on Aramaic incantation bowls.

[53]. In Athen. Deipn. 12.523b, closely cropped hair is associated with mourning. It is possible that this custom was extended to those who were sick (Petr. Sat. 101).

[54]. The woman Callirhoe in Chariton Chaer. 8.1.7; perhaps also 1.3.6. Her husband Chaereas also covers his head for mourning (3.3.14). This work is a novel, but the customs it assumes must have been authentic for the narrative to have been intelligible to the original readers.

[55]. Plut. R. Q. 26, Mor. 270D (kekryphalous).

[56]. Chariton Chaer. 1.11.2.

[57]. See p. M. K. 3:5, §20.

[58]. See Ab. R. Nathan 1 A.

[59]. Plut. R. Q. 14, Mor. 267A. Petr. Sat. 111 reports this as a standard custom in the Greek east, in Ephesus, as well.

[60]. Petr. Sat. 57.

[61]. Epict. Disc. 1.11.27; see also m. Sot. 9:15.

[62]. See 1 En. 14:24, where Enoch covers his face and trembles as he approaches God. (I have at this point followed Knibb’s translation as against Isaacs’.)

[63]. For uncovering the head, in awe before a king, see R. Berechiah’s parable in Pes. Rab Kah. 9:5. This evidence is late.

[64]. Ab. R. Nathan 9, §25 B (trans. Saldarini, p. 83). See similarly Gen. Rab. 17:8.

[65]. Ab. R. Nathan 17 A. Johanan ben Zakkai lived in the first century, but this tradition could, of course, be later.

[66]. Ab. R. Nathan 3 A.

[67]. Cf. e.g., the Chalcedonians, whose men customarily covered one side of their face when meeting outsiders, in Plut. G. Q. 49, Mor. 302E.

[68]. Thompson, “Hairstyles,” p. 113, citing Dio Chrys. 33d (1st Tarsic) Discourse for Tarsus, and paintings elsewhere.

[69]. See especially MacMullen, “Women in Public,” pp. 209–10, with notes.

[70]. Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, ICC, 2d ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1914), p. 230, citing Aristoph. Thesm. 838. The woman with the covered head in Petr. Sat. 14, 16, is a devotee of Priapus, which could make her exceptional, or from the east.

[71]. Thompson, “Hairstyles,” p. 104; cf. Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 507, on the tallith.

[72]. Sifre Num. 11.2.2. Num. Rab. 9:16, a later text, also affirms that covering their heads was the custom of Israelite women, without offering any polemic against unreligious women who failed to do so; it was thus no doubt standard practice. Fiorenza, Memory, p. 116, properly points to Jdt. 10:7; 11:21; 15:9, to prove that Judith’s beauty was publicly admired, and that she therefore must have been unveiled. But Judith was not married, the provenance of this text in Greek may be non-Palestinian, and it may reflect a Jewish understanding that in earlier times women were not always veiled; and contrast Susanna’s veil (Sus. 32). At the same time, Fiorenza’s observation may point in a helpful direction: at least upper-class, hellenized women probably ignored the custom (see below).

[73]. 3 Macc. 4:6. In 3 Macc. 1:4, Arsinoë, sister of Ptolemy IV Philopator, went about the ranks with “her braided hair hanging loose,” perhaps because she was taking on a traditionally masculine role; Ptolemy opposed the Jewish community till the end of the book, when he changed his mind, so Arsinoe’s example may not be relevant.

[74]. This observation was made by James Moffatt, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, MNTC (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938), pp. 149–50.

[75]. In F. C. Grant, ed., Hellenistic Religions: The Age of Syncretism, LLA (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), pp. 26–27. The inscription is early, but these rules continued in force through the second century CE. Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. James W. Leitch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), pp. 184–85, cites evidence that this was a normal practice in the mysteries, while observing that the custom at the Isis festival in Corinth seems to have been the opposite. His evidence on the Isis festival is from Apuleius, who writes in Latin for Roman readers, but we may suppose that Apuleius nevertheless knew and correctly represented the custom. Roman culture was quite prominent in Corinth.

[76]. Varro Lat. Lang. 5.29.130. The contrast between the Greek and Roman custom is also pointed out by Moffatt, Corinthians, pp. 149–50; and in much greater detail by R. E. Oster, “When Men Wore Veils to Worship: The Historical Context of 1 Corinthians 11.4,” NTS 34 (4 Oct. 1988): 494–96.

[77]. Plut. R. Q. 10, Mor. 266C. They are, however, to uncover to show respect to honorable men (ibid.).

[78]. For Saturn (R. Q. 11, Mor. 266E) and the god Honor (R. Q 13, Mor. 266F-267A). The concept of honor may again be significant.

[79]. Cf. Thompson, “Hairstyles,” p. 112.

[80]. Test. Jos. 9:5; Chariton Chaer. 6.4.5, imagining Callirhöe dressed as a huntress, like Artemis.

[81]. Apul. Metam. 2.8. Cf. similarly Deut. 21:12–14, to determine whether one’s attraction is related more to lust or love.

[82]. Apul. Metam. 2.8.

[83]. Apul. Metam. 2.8–9.

[84]. Chariton Chaer. 1.14.1; she had covered it back in 13.11.

[85]. See the warnings on the adulteress, note 89 below.

[86]. M. Ket. 7:6 (referring to the ketubah, which is both the marriage contract and the dowry she brought with her into the marriage). R. Meir (second century) is said to have reaffirmed that the law required a man to divorce such a wife, because she was clearly pursuing other men (Num. Rab. 9:12).

[87]. Ab. R. Nathan 14, §35 B.

[88]. See b. Sot. 9a; p. Sot. 1:5, §5; Num. Rab. 9:16. Cf. Sifre Num. 11.2.1 (R. Ishmael, early second century); Pes. Rab. 26:1/2 (suggesting a face-veil).

[89]. Sifre Num. 11.2.3; p. Sanh. 6:4, §1 (both late second to early third century). Cf. Num. Rab. 18:20.

[90]. Jos. & As. 15:1–2.

[91]. Jos. & As. 18:6.

[92]. Samuel Belkin, Philo and the Oral Law: The Philonic Interpretation of Biblical Law in Relation to the Palestinian Halakah, HSS 11 (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1940), p. 230.

[93]. Charillus 2, in Plut. SSpart., Mor. 232C (LCL).

[94]. See especially Paul’s rhetorical insult in 1 Cor. 1:26. They were, however, better off financially than many of Paul’s other church communities (2 Cor. 8:1–3); Corinth as a whole was a relatively prosperous urban center by ancient standards.

[95]. See e.g., D. B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven: Yale University, 1990) (especially on 1 Cor. 9); Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity, ed. and trans. John H. Schütz (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982).

[96]. Thompson, “Hairstyles,” p. 112.

[97]. See MacMullen, “Women in Public,” pp. 217–18; cf. also Catherine Kroeger, “The Apostle Paul and the Greco-Roman Cults of Women,” JETS 30 (1, March 1987): 37.

[98]. For instance, the adulteress whose head is uncovered in b. Sot. 9a is said to have plaited her hair for the sake of the adulterer. Although this is a later text, it is consistent with other evidence cited above, under notes 81–93.

[99]. One may take as an example the African tribe where missionaries forced tribal women to cover their breasts; only later did they learn that covered breasts in that society marked adulteresses, and that they had damaged the witness of these women by forcing them to conform to the style of Western culture, where bare breasts would be seductive and immodest. None of the men in Paul’s day wore ties to church; our dress must accommodate the particular culture we address. It should also be noted that Paul is talking here about causing severe spiritual offense, of the order that could hinder the ministry of the body of Christ and turn people away from Christ; he is not referring to others’ personal tastes. Paul requires his readers to consider other people’s interpretations of how they dress (“seductive!” “disrespectful!”), but he is most certainly not requiring them to keep up with fashions, even church fashions.

[100]. That he is using a wordplay is also noted by others, e.g., Boldrey, Chauvinist, p. 33; Bruce, “All Things,” p. 95.

[101]. In Greco-Roman tradition, e.g., Diogenes in Diog. Laert. Lives 6.2.55, 68; Suet. Calig. 27 (a farce writer’s double entendre); Martin Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, trans. Bertram Lee Woolf (reprint, Cambridge: James Clarke, 1971), p. 157. In Jewish texts, where a common method of midrashic interpretation is to interpret one word as another (by revocalizing the vowels or sometimes even by modifying the consonants, in Dead Sea texts as well as in the rabbis), see e.g., CD 8.10–11; Ps-Philo 2:1; Sifre Deut. 306.22.1; 318.4.7; 321.8.6; 345.2.2, 3.1; b. Tamid 32a; p. R. H. 3:9, §§1–3; T. H. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 481–85; W. H. Brownlee, “Light on the Manual of Discipline (DSD) from the Book of Jubilees,” BASOR 123 (Oct. 1951): 32; cf. b. Ber. 55b; Pes. Rab. 14:6; 21:6. W. G. Braude lists over 200 examples in Pesikta de-Rab Kahana (Pesikta de-Rab Kahana, trans. Braude and I. J. Kapstein [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1975], pp. 585–93). Fallacious etymologies were also standard: Hierocles Duties. Fatherland 3.39.34 (in A. J. Malherbe, Moral Exhortation: A Greco-Roman Sourcebook, LEC 4 [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986], p. 89); Plut. Isis 2, Mor. 351F; Marc. Aur. Med. 8.57; Anthony Hanson, “Philo’s Etymologies,” JTS 18 (1, April 1967): 128–39; cf. John 9:7 (R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols., AB 29 [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966–70], 1:373).

[102]. W. J. Martin, “1 Corinthians 11:2–16: An Interpretation,” in Apostolic History and the Gospel: Biblical and Historical Essays presented to F. F. Bruce on his 60th Birthday, ed. W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 231–42, makes much of comparing the woman to the church, and the man to Christ. This may be implied in the passage, though it is not explicit in the way we find it in Eph. 5.

[103]. Berkeley and Alvera Mickelsen, “What Does Kephalē Mean in the New Testament?” in Women, Authority & the Bible, p. 99.

[104]. Mickelsen, “Kephalē?” pp. 101–3; cf. Fee, 1 Corinthians, pp. 502–3. Rabbinic texts such as the baraita in b. Shab. 61a naturally reflect the Semitic idiom and do not affect our picture of the Greek sources.

[105]. P. B. Payne, “Response,” in Women, Authority & the Bible, pp. 118–19, thinks that “leader” is never a valid meaning for the term in pre-Byzantine Greek.

[106]. Note the figurative application of the literal use of “head” in Philo Special Laws 3.33, §184; Test. Zeb. 9:4; cf. Artem. Oneir. 1.35 (where a head can stand for a master, but a head is also said to be the cause, i.e., source, of life; cf. 1.2). The head is the ruling part of the body and seat of life (ruler or source?) in the medical texts of Galen and Hippocrates (C. E. Arnold, Ephesians: Power and Magic, SNTSMS 63 [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1989], pp. 81–82; Markus Barth, Ephesians, 2 vols., AB 34 [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974], 1:187, but noting [p. 191] that Paul speaks of the head, not the brain). It is where reason is established as a pilot in Plut. Plat. Q. 9.1, Mor. 1008A; “the chief member of the body” (because on top?) in Quint. 11.3.68 (cf. the head-tail contrast even in the OT and in 1 En. 103:11, etc.).

[107]. See R. A. Tucker, “Response,” in Women, Authority & the Bible, pp. 111–17.

[108]. Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 502.

[109]. Ibid., pp. 503–4.

[110]. Deut. 28:13, 44; Isa. 9:14–15; also Jub. 1:16.

[111]. See especially W. L. Liefeld, “Women, Submission & Ministry in 1 Corinthians,” in Women, Authority & the Bible, pp. 139–40, and the data he cites. Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, trans. J. R. de Witt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), p. 385, sees the idea of “representation” as most appropriate here.

[112]. E.g., Bruce, The Message of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), p. 37; idem, “All Things,” p. 95; Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty, All We’re Meant to Be (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1974), p. 30; Robin Scroggs, “Paul and the Eschatological Woman,” JAAR 40 (3, Sept. 1972): 284, following Stephen Bedale, “The Meaning of kephalē in the Pauline Epistles,” JTS, n.s. 5 (1954): 211–15, who is cited by most subsequent sources. Cf. also S. F. B. Bedale, “The Theology of the Church,” in Studies in Ephesians, ed. F. L. Cross (London-Mowbray, 1956), pp. 69–70, 72.

[113]. E.g., C. C. Kroeger, “The Classical Concept of Head as ‘Source’,” Appendix 3, in Hull, Equal to Serve, pp. 267–76 (not all the examples are equally compelling, but some are quite convincing, especially her examples from the church fathers; the problem is that these do not predate the NT). R. W. Crabb, “The KEPHALĒ Concept in the Pauline Tradition with Special Emphasis on Colossians” (Th.D. diss., San Francisco Theological Seminary, 1966), traces metaphorical meanings, including those of authority and priority of being, and Philo’s use of that which structures the forces of the universe (DA 29.04A, pp. 1280–81).

[114]. Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says About a Woman’s Place in Church and Family (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986), pp. 157–62, traces the evidence well; cf. also Mickelsen’ “Kephalē?’ pp. 105–8 (Eph. 4:15; Col. 2:19). We should mention in passing that alleged differences between the usage of body imagery in 1 Cor. 12 and Rom. 12 on the one hand and that in Ephesians and Colossians on the other has been used to argue against the Pauline authorship of the latter; but other writers of Paul’s day used head/body and body cosmological images interchangeably. See A. Van Roon, The Authenticity of Ephesians, NovTSup 39 (Leiden: Brill, 1974), pp. 275–93 (favoring authenticity). One could propose that Paul uses head/body imagery for husband and wife because of his use of this for Christ and his church (or the reverse, since husband and wife in Gen. 2:24 were said to become “one flesh”).

[115]. E.g., Fee, 1 Corinthians, pp. 503–4.

[116]. Ibid., p. 505.

[117]. Bilezikian, Roles, p. 138.

[118]. Grudem, “Does kephalē Mean ‘Source’ or ‘Authority Over’ in Greek Literature? A Survey of 2,336 Examples,” TJ, n.s. 6 (1, Spring 1985): 38–59. He argues that the current lexicons do not cite “source” as a meaning (p. 40), and that it does not occur in ancient literature (pp.43–46). The different count is due to the different ways scholars interpret the ancient texts, not due to any attempt to misrepresent the data.

[119]. I followed Grudem in my own article, “Is Paul’s Teaching ‘Sexist’?” Cruel (1, Fall 1980): 9, n. 34; but while much work went into Grudem’s research, I find Fee’s objections persuasive. J. A. Fitzmyer, “Another look at KEPHALĒ in 1 Corinthians 11.3,” NTS 35 (4, Oct. 1989): 506–11, also argues that “head” means “authority,” apparently independent of Grudem. Grudem, “Appendix 1: The Meaning of Kephalē (‘Head’): A Response to Recent Studies,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, ed. J. Piper and W. Grudem (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1991), pp. 425–68, provides a detailed and reasoned response to his critics, especially when he points out that “head” nowhere means “source” in the LXX (pp. 451–53) or when applied to a person (p. 433). His response to Liefeld’s suggestion of “honored part” (p. 458) seems less persuasive, but scholarship has undoubtedly not heard the last of this dispute.

[120]. Fee, 1 Corinthians, pp. 502–3, n. 42.

[121]. Cf. Plut. Isis 4, Mor. 352D.

[122]. Artem. Oneir. 1.22. Cf. Paus. Desc. Greece 2.3.7 in Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1983), p. 33. Contrast the Jewish custom of letting one’s hair grow long in mourning (Deut. 21:12 [cited by Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, p. 186, n. 46]; Gen. Rab. 98:15).

[123]. Plut. Isis 4, Mor. 352C; cf. Artem. Oneir. 1.22.

[124]. Ach. Tat. Clit. 5.19.2. In the case of a boy who was appealing to older homosexual men, shaving the head also repulsed potential suitors (Diog. Laert. Lives 7.3.166).

[125]. Mart. Epig. 2.67.

[126]. Test. Job 23:7–10 (OTP l:849)/23:8-11 (ed. Kraft, pp. 44–47); 24:9–10; ch. 25.

[127]. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “1 Corinthians 11:2–16 Once Again,” CBQ 50 (2, April 1988): 265–74 (though basing it on hair rather than head covering); idem, “Sex and Logic in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16,” CBQ 42 (4, 1980): 482–500; Kroeger, “Cults of Women,” pp. 37–38.

[128]. Fee, 1 Corinthians, pp. 510–11.

[129]. W. A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University, 1983), p. 161; cf. pp. 71,220, n. 107.

[130]. Kroeger, “Greco-Roman Cults,” pp. 37–38. Scholars provide evidence that such reversal was practiced, e.g., in the cult of Dionysus (Albert Henrichs, “Changing Dionysiac Identities,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, ed. E. P. Sanders et al., 3 vols. [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982], 3:138–39, 158); for Cybele, see below.

[131]. Epict. Disc. 1.16.10 and our discussion of Paul’s argument on “nature” (11:14) below may bolster the argument that Paul has this in mind here. The belief of some contemporary American churches that Deut. 22:5 precludes women from wearing pants is not very sound: that text refers either to transvestism in general or to ancient Near Eastern magical transvestism. For examples of the latter, see “Tale of Aqhat,” trans. H. L. Ginsberg, in ANET, p. 155 (though cf. the interpretation of P. C. Craigie, Ugarit and the Old Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], p. 60); Hittite “Ritual Against Impotence,” trans. A. Goetze, in ANET, pp. 349–50; cf. H. A. Hoffner, Jr., “Symbols for Masculinity and Femininity: Their Use in Ancient Near Eastern Sympathetic Magic Rituals,” JBL 85 (3, Sept. 1966): 326–34; C. H. Gordon, The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (New York: Norton, 1965), p. 168; J. C. Moyer, “Hittite and Israelite Cultic Practices: A Selected Comparison,” in Scripture in Context II: More Essays on the Comparative Method, ed. W. W. Hallo et al. (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983), pp. 27–29. (Ritual transvestism is sometimes associated with the possession trance in traditional religions today; cf. Raymond Prince, “Indigenous Yoruba Psychiatry,” in Magic, Faith, & Healing: Studies in Primitive Psychiatry Today, ed. Ari Kiev [New York: Free, 1964], p. 109.) Further, ancient men wore what modern observers might consider dresses, and most men who complain today about women’s wearing pants would not wear women’s pants (implying a recognition that women’s pants are really women’s clothing, not men’s).

[132]. So a daughter’s shameless (promiscuous) behavior in Sir. 42:11.

[133]. Ab. R. Nathan 14, §35 B; Ab. R. Nathan 7 A.

[134]. Plut. Bride 17, Mor. 140C.

[135]. Mart. Epig. 2.56 attributes wrongdoing to someone’s wife in order to reproach the husband. In 4 Macc. 9:2 one should avoid shaming one’s ancestors by departing from their customs. One’s honor or disgrace affects the honor or disgrace of one’s family or tribe; cf. Sifra Emorpar. 14.242.1.11.

[136]. Diog. Laert. Lives 2.114. Stilpo is said to have replied, “No more than I am an honor to her,” flouting conventional wisdom.

[137]. Verner, Household, p. 38, citing second/first century BCE Egyptian contracts.

[138]. Ps-Melissa to Kleareta (in Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 83).

[139]. Verner, Household, p. 65.

[140]. W. H. Leslie, “The Concept of Woman in the Pauline Corpus in Light of the Social and Religious Environment of the First Century” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1976), pp. 107–8: “Since the goal of worship is to glorify God, woman needs to be covered during worship in order to hide man’s (humanity’s) glory.” Bilezikian, Roles, p. 141: “humanity twice recognized.” Boldrey, Chauvinist, p. 37, appropriately compares Moses’ veil in 2 Cor. 3. Cf. G. W. Knight III, “The New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Male and Female with Special Reference to the Teaching/Ruling Functions in the Church,” JETS 18 (2, Spring 1975): 86. One of the first writers to point this out is M. D. Hooker, “Authority on her head: An Examination of I Cor. XI.10,” NTS 10 (3, April 1964): 415–16.

[141]. Against Moffatt, 1 Corinthians, p. 152, who thinks that Paul, like most rabbis, stressed Gen. 2 to the exclusion of Gen. 1:27 here. A third-century rabbi in Gen. Rab. 18:2 argues that God created Eve from a covered part of Adam’s body so that she would be modest. Sometimes the rabbis did read the accounts together; Ab. R. Nathan 9, §25 B, speaks of man always seeking his missing part, because woman comes from man, but this presupposes the rabbinic hermaphrodite interpretation of Gen. 1, as well as presupposing Gen. 2. But cf. especially the tradition attributed to R. Ishmael and R. Akiba’s discussion, probably early second century: man and woman together were created in God’s image and likeness, so “neither man without woman nor woman without man, nor both of them without the Shechinah” (Gen. Rab. 22:2, trans. 1:181; the same tradition is attributed to third-century R. Simlai in Gen. Rab. 8:9). The context seems to be procreation (E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, 2d ed., 2 vols. [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1979], 1:227–28; Moffatt, 1 Corinthians, p. 153).

[142]. As noted also by others, e.g., Liefeld, “Women,” pp. 145–46; cf. Scanzoni and Hardesty, Meant to Be, p. 66. Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 521, suggests that “authority” is their own term, and that they have been seeking their “rights.”

[143]. E.g., Moffatt, 1 Corinthians, p. 153.

[144]. Williams, Paul and Women, p. 64. Cf. the headdress in W. M. Ramsay, Luke the Physician and Other Studies in the History of Religion (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1908), pp. 175–76.

[145]. See especially W. M. Ramsay, The Cities of St. Paul: Their Influence on his Life and Thought (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1907), p. 203, who notes that the former idea is such unnatural Greek that no one would have thought of it but for their presupposition on how to read this passage.

[146]. E.g., Boldrey, Chauvinist, pp. 38–39, following Gerhard Kittel, who first proposed it.

[147]. The preservation of Aramaic in 1 Cor. 16:22 is often attributed to liturgical use (e.g., J. A. T. Robinson, Twelve New Testament Studies, SBT 1/34 [London: SCM, 1962], pp. 154–57; idem. Jesus and His Coming, 2d ed. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979], pp. 26–27; Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, trans. A. S. Todd and J. B. Torrance [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953], p. 13; idem, The Christology of the New Testament, trans. S. C. Guthrie and C. Hall [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959], pp. 201–2; R. N. Longenecker, The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity, SBT 2/17 [London: SCM, 1970], pp. 121–22; G. E. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], p. 341; Adolf Deissmann, Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927, p. 127), although it need not be associated with the Eucharist as some (e.g., Robinson, Cullmann) have supposed; at any rate it need not imply that most Jewish Christians in Greek-speaking parts of the Diaspora would have known Aramaic.

[148]. E.g., Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, p. 188; Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 520. Cf. Günther Schwarz, “Exousian echein epi tēs kephalēs (1 Korinther 11:10),” ZNW 70 (3–4, 1979): 249, who provides a better suggestion on the Aramaic, although we reject the idea that Aramaic is used here.

[149]. Cf. e.g., Test. Reub. 5:1: women do not have authority “over a man,” employing the same construction. This view is now accepted by many commentators, e.g., Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, p. 106; Longenecker, Ethics, p. 82; Hurley, “Veils,” p. 208; Liefeld, “Women,” p. 145. This insight was noticed as early as the 1600s (John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, 4 vols. [Oxford: Oxford University, 1859], 4:236–37) and is noted by Ramsay (above), but has been increasingly accepted since Morna Hooker’s article (“Authority,” pp. 410–16). Commentators differ on whether the authority is over her head (as I and some others have taken it), authority to pray publicly (e.g., Hooker, “Authority,” p. 415, arguing that women in Judaism could not pray or prophesy; Liefeld, “Women,” pp. 145–46), or authority over the angels mentioned in the text (Hurley, “Veils,” p. 208).

[150]. T. R. Schreiner, “Head Coverings, Prophecies, and the Trinity: 1 Corinthians 11:2–16,” in Manhood and Womanhood, p. 135, rightly points to the language of obligation here, but wrongly supposes that this justifies translating “authority over” as “authority on.”

[151]. He could have easily been misunderstood by Greek-speaking Jews, had he not qualified his statement. Philo, for instance, uses the temporal priority of man’s creation to argue that men take precedence in other ways (Special Laws 2.25, §124).

[152]. Roger Nicole, “Biblical Authority & Feminist Aspirations,” in Women, Authority & the Bible, p. 45; Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 523; cf. Gundry, Women, p. 69.

[153]. 1 Esd. 4:14–17, 22, especially 4:17, upon which Paul’s language here is probably dependent. Cf. Gen. Rab. 22:2, cited above, and 8:9. Josef Kürzinger, “Frau und Mann nach 1 Kor 11,11f.,” BZ 22 (2, 1978): 270–75 (followed by Fiorenza, Memory, p. 229), reads the Greek of 1 Cor. 11:11 as “different from” rather than “apart from,” seeing this as an affirmation of equality; but the point may be the same either way.

[154]. This would be a natural way for Greeks to read the text. The idea that women and men have different kinds of glory goes back to Aristotle, who cites Sophocles to prove that a woman’s glory, but not a man’s, is silence (quoted in M. R. Lefkowitz and M. B. Fant, Women’s Life in Greece & Rome [Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University, 1982], p. 64, §86).

[155]. See the extensive discussion of Philo in B. A. Pearson, The Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology in 1 Corinthians, SBLDS 12 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1973).

[156]. 1 Esd. 4:17. Cf. Sent. Sextus 237, an early Christian work: “A self-controlled wife is her husband’s glory” (eukleia); cf. also a related idea in the Latin Jewish epitaph in Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East (reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), p. 448. The familial sharing in glory or dishonor also extended to other relationships: Sir. 3:11.

[157]. R. A. Batey, New Testament Nuptial Imagery (Leiden: Brill, 1971), p. 22; cf. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, p. 183. This usage of “glory” for “reflection” began in the LXX and continued in Greek-speaking Judaism, especially Philo (Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, p. 187).

[158]. Apoc. Moses 29:10; Gen. Rab. 22:2. Eve is more apt to appear in a positive light in earlier than later sources; cf. Tob. 8:6.

[159]. Sib. Or. 1:23, 33. This may be because she was from Adam. Children, of course, bear the images of their parents (Gen. 5:3; 4 Macc. 15:4; Ps-Philo 50:7), which protects against adultery (Ps-Phocyl. 178; t. Sanh. 8:6; Pes. Rab Kah. 11:6; perhaps Wisd. 4:6; cf. the Greco-Roman idea in Chariton Chaer. 2.11.2; 3.8.7; Pythagorean treatise, third-second century BCE, in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 104, §107; in Platonic group marriages, Arist. Pol. 2.1.13, 1262a). A fourth-century rabbi, purportedly conveying second-century tradition, said that Eve’s image was “transmitted to the reigning beauties of each generation,” such as Sarah (Gen. Rab. 40:5, trans. 1:329).

[160]. Plut. Bride 14, Mor. 139F.

[161]. Artem. Oneir. 1.18.

[162]. Sifre Num. 11.2.3; Num. Rab. 9:33; cf. also Joseph Bonsirven, Palestinian Judaism in the Time of Jesus Christ (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964), p. 61; David Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (New York: Arno, 1973), p. 301. The greatest “glory” is to bring honor to God (Ep. Arist. 234; cf. 224).

[163]. Other possibilities, such as a link with proposed angelic spirits of prophecy in 14:32 (on the idea in 14:32, cf. E. E. Ellis, “Christ and Spirit in 1 Corinthians,” in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: Studies in Honour of C. F. D. Moule, ed. Barnabas Lindars and S. S. Smalley [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1973], pp. 275–76; I take 14:32 as referring to human spirits, which seems to me the only sound way to read it in context, would take us too far afield).

[164]. lQSa 2.8–9 (A. Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran, trans. G. Vermes [Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1973], p. 108); so also the armies in holy war (1QM 7.4–6; 12.7–9). Cf. 4QCryptic, on astrological physiognomy, cited by P. Alexander on 3 Enoch, OTP 1:250. The prohibition of physical abnormalities in OT tradition is paralleled by other sacerdotal customs in antiquity as well (Plut. R. Q. 73, Mor. 281C; the Doric inscription in Grant, Religions, p. 7). Participation in angelic liturgy was a common concept, too, in Jewish sources, as documented by A. T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet, SNTSMS 43 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1981), p. 112.

[165]. J. A. Fitzmyer, “A Feature of Qumran Angelology and the Angels of I Cor. XI.10,” NTS 4 (1, Oct. 1957): 48–58; repr. in idem, Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament, 2d ed., SBLSBS 5 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1974), pp. 187–204 (with a 1966 postscript on p. 203); H. J. Cadbury, “A Qumran Parallel to Paul,” HTR 51 (1, 1958): 1–2. This view is followed by Edwin Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle? Diseases, Demons & Exorcisms,” in The Miracles of Jesus, ed. David Wenham and Craig Blomberg, GP 6 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1986), p. 126; Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, p. 106; R. P. Spittler, The Corinthian Correspondence (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing, 1976), p. 56, against the view that these are lusting angels. This view actually predates the Qumran discoveries (cf. Robertson and Plummer, 1 Corinthians, p. 233; perhaps Moffatt, 1 Corinthians, p. 153).

[166]. Cf. Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos (Nashville: Abingdon, 1970), p. 257; Héring, 1 Corinthians, pp. 106–7 (with the qualification that the Corinthians might not have known these ideas; but given their pervasiveness in early Judaism and Christianity, I would guess that they did know of them).

[167]. The argument of Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 521, that lusting angels would require face and not merely head coverings, would falter if, as we have argued above, hair was itself a standard object of lust, and uncovered hair could be interpreted as signifying immodesty or a promiscuous invitation to look lustingly.

[168]. E.g., Sib. Or. 3:390–91; W. F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University, 1965), p. 65; W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement, 2d ed. (New York: Norton, 1966), p. 27. Justin 1 Apol. 5 interprets these as demons; cf. 1 En. 19:1. The fallen angels of Gen. 6 sounded enough like the fall of the Titans in Greek mythology for Diaspora Judaism to exploit the connection (Sib. Or. 1:307–23; 2:231); on the use of the term “Tartarus” (see below) in 2 Pet. 2:4 in this connection, see R. J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1983), p. 249; cf. J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and Jude (reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), p. 331 (by now “fully acclimatized in Hellenistic Judaism”).

[169]. In early Jewish and Christian texts, only the rabbis seem to have played down this interpretation, although some seem to have known the tradition (bar. in b. Yoma 67b; Pes. Rab. 34:2); in Justin Dial. 79, Trypho, advocating a rabbinic position, holds Justin’s view of fallen angels to be “blasphemous” (perhaps Justin’s exaggeration). See P. S. Alexander, “The Targumim and Early Exegesis of ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6,” JJS 23 (1, 1972): 60–71 (starting with R. Simeon ben Yohai, mid-second century CE); cf. M. Delcor, “Le mythe de la chute des anges et de l’origine des géants comme explication du mal dans le monde, dans l’apocalyptique juive. Histoire des traditions,” RHR 190 (1, 1976): 3–53 (OT, LXX, and rabbinic texts demythologize, in contrast to other literature); R. C. Newman, “The Ancient Exegesis of Genesis 6:2, 4,” GTJ 5 (1, Spring 1984): 13–36. In some rabbinic traditions male and female demons were descended from sexual acts as early as Adam (Pes. Rab Kah. 5:3; 2 Bar. 56:10–11 suggests that Adam’s sin affected the angels willing to fall); the view that Satan rebelled in Adam’s time (e.g., V. Adam 12:1; 13:1—16:4), treated below under Eve’s deception, is preserved as late as the Qur’an (Sura 2:34); one rabbi suggested that evil spirits accompanied Noah on the ark (Gen. Rab. 31:13). The fall of the sons of God is treated by many of the rabbis (as by many today) euhemeristically—as a tale of ancient heroes (e.g., Gen. Bab. 26:5); for brief treatments of Euhemerism in antiquity in general, see R. M. Grant, Gods and the One God, LEC 1 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), p. 61; J. F. Gardner, Leadership and the Cult of the Personality (London: Dent, 1974), p. xxiv; and the excerpt from Euhemerus’ Sacred History in Grant, Religions, pp. 74–76.

[170]. Philo On the Giants 4, §16 (with a significantly unorthodox view on angels!); On the Unchangeableness of God 1, §1; 1 En. 6:2; 19:1; 69:5; 106:13–15; Jub. 4:22 (on “polluted”; cf. Jude 6); 5:1; 7:21; 2 Bar. 56:13–15; Test. Sol. 6:3; 2 En. 18:5–6; probably CD 2.18; Gen. Apoc. 2.1; cf. J. A. Fitzmyer, “The Aramaic ‘Elect of God’ Text from Qumran Cave IV,” CBQ 27 [4, Oct. 1965]: 369–70; Gaster, Scriptures, pp. 522–23 (“The Epochs of Time”); texts in Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 2d ed. (New York: Penguin, 1981), pp. 259, 267; H. A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 2 vols., 4th rev. ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1968), 1:384–85; D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), pp. 249ff.; Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (New York: Menorah, 1979), p. 567; Margaret Barker, “Some Reflections upon the Enoch Myth,” JSOT 15 (1980): 7–29.

[171]. The language of 2 Pet. 2:4–7 probably reflects Sir. 16:7–8: God did not spare the giants or Lot’s city (cf. also Test. Naph. 3:4–5 for the connection); possibly also 1 En. 10:4–6; cf. 10:12–13; 16:1; 22:4; 45:2–3; 84:4; Jub. 5:6, 10 (cf. CD 2.19; using 2 Kgs. 25:7); 10:7–9; Sib. Or. 1:102, 180. If 2 Peter’s opponents claimed mystic revelations as support for their views, promethean motifs of fallen angels as secret-revealers in 1 Enoch may be significant; cf. P. D. Hanson, “Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel, and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6–11,” JBL 96 (2, June 1977): 226; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic Myth in 1 Enoch 6–11,” JBL 96 (3, Sept. 1977): 405.

[172]. E.g., Kelly, Peter, p. 257; E. M. Sidebottom, James, Jude, 2 Peter, NCBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 86; James Moffatt, The General Epistles: James, Peter, and Judas, MNTC (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1928), p. 232; Bo Reicke, The Epistles of James, Peter, & Jude, AB 37 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964), p. 199; Martin McNamara, Palestinian Judaism and the New Testament, GNS 4 (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1983), p. 68; Wesley Carr, Angels and Principalities (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1981), p. 132. The background is essentially the same as in 2 Peter, which may apply Jude’s language to a more specific problem.

[173]. The preaching of 3:19 as a proclamation of triumph over the fallen spirits (cf. 3:22); “spirits” is never used to refer to the deceased in the NT without explicit clarification (usually not in other texts either [e.g., Jub. 10:8; Test. Job 27:2], though there are exceptions, e.g., 1 En. 22:3, 5). See R. T. France, “Exegesis in Practice: Two Examples,” in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods, ed. I. H. Marshall (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 264–78; Ladd, Theology, p. 601; idem, The Last Things (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), p. 38; Kelly, Peter, p. 154; E. G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of St. Peter, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1947), pp. 353–54; Ernest Best, 1 Peter, NCBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), pp. 142–43; most thoroughly, W. J. Dalton, Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits: A Study of 1 Peter 3:18–4:6, AnBib 23 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965); idem, “The Interpretation of 1 Peter 3,19 and 4,6: Light from 2 Peter,” Bib 60 (4, 1979): 547–55; idem, “Christ’s Victory over the Devil and the Evil Spirits,” BiTod 1 (18, 1965): 1195–1200; idem, “Proclamatio Christi spiritibus facta: inquisitio in textum ex Prima Epistola S. Petri 3,18–4,6,” VerbDom 42 (5, 1964): 225–40 (NTA 9:372) (with too much emphasis on an Enoch “typology”—though Rendel Harris went so far as to emend the text, followed in Moffatt, Epistles, p. 141). The connection between the fallen angels and the flood (due to their proximity in Gen. 6) appears often in the texts we have cited above, e.g., Jub. 7:21; Test. Naph. 3:5. Others hold that this refers to Christ’s preaching through Noah in Noah’s day (J. S. Feinberg, “1 Peter 3:18–20, Ancient Mythology, and the Intermediate State,” WTJ 48 [2, Fall 1986]: 303–36; Wayne Grudem, “Christ Preaching Through Noah: 1 Peter 3:19–20 in the Light of Dominant Themes in Jewish Literature,” TJ 7 (2, Fall 1986): 3–31), or Christ’s preaching to the dead before his resurrection (C. E. B. Cranfield, “The Interpretation of I Peter iii.19 and iv.6,” ExpT 69 [12, 1958]: 369–72; Reicke, Epistles, p. 109, sees these and the fallen angels of Gen. 6!), but this seems to ignore the clear chiasmus in 3:16—4:4, paralleling the spirits of 3:19 and the heavenly rulers of 3:22 (4:6 functions as a conclusion recalling 3:18, not 3:19). Descents to the underworld are frequent in ancient Near Eastern and Greek texts, and some later Jewish and Christian apocalypses (e.g., Vision of Ezra).

[174]. 1 En. 16:2; 2 Bar. 56:14 (the reason for and time of expulsion is quite different in Rev. 12:4); cf. 1 En. 69:28. Ps-Philo 60:3 (most MSS) can use the Greek language of Tartarus as the rightful abode of demons; cf. Test. Sol. 6:3; for people, Sib. Or. 1:101 (= Gehenna, 1:103); 2:291, 302 (if not a Christian interpolation).

[175]. Test. Reub. 5:6 (OTP 1:784). This may be modeled on the basically magical fertility practice of Gen. 30:37–43, which God seems to have blessed only because it was Jacob (31:8–13). I am not as persuaded as some that the bulk of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is pre-Christian with only Christian interpolations, but I cite this passage because it is representative of data appearing in other texts.

[176]. Test. Sol. ch. 4, perhaps 5:3. Text 1:12–13 in C. D. Isbell, Corpus of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls, SBLDS 17 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1975), p. 18, speaks of demons “who appear ... to men in the likeness of women and to women in the likeness of men.” According to 1 En. 106:5–6 and Gen. Apoc. 2.15–16 (first thought a “Lamech Apocalypse”), Lamech initially thought that Noah was descended from angels because he was so extraordinary (rabbinic tradition transfers most extraordinary birth material to Moses). Apocryphal rabbinic stories, such as Satan disguised as a woman tempting R. Akiba, may be related to such traditions.

[177]. Tob. 6:14.

[178]. Test. Sol. 2:4; Ab. R. Nathan 37 A; Gen. Rab. 8:11; 14:3; cf. Jub. 10:5; Apoc. Abr. 14:6 (first-second century CE or later); also b. Hag. 16a, cited in W. M. Alexander, Demonic Possession in the New Testament: Its Historical, Medical, and Theological Aspects (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902), p. 28. Heavenly angels did not procreate (1 En. 15:6–7; contrast possibly 69:5, from the later Similitudes). In some traditions, humans would become like angels in the world to come (Matt. 22:30; cf. 2 Bar. 51:10, not specifically referring to marriage) and have no passion (b. B. B. 58a; Sib. Or. 2:328 is probably a Christian interpolation based on Matt. 22:30) or perhaps even no gender (Brian McNeil, “Asexuality and the Apocalypse of Zosimus,” HeyJ 22 [2, 1981]: 172–73, though I am not at all persuaded this is non-Christian or non-Gnostic Judaism). The view that the heavenly angels do not eat is also attested in Jewish tradition (Test. Abr. 4, 6 A; Ab. R. Nathan 1 A; Gen. Rab. 48:11, 14; Exod. Rab. 32:4; Lev. Rab. 34:8; cf. D. Goodman, “Do Angels Eat?” JJS 37 [2, 1986]: 160–75).

[179]. E.g., Boldrey, Chauvinist, p. 41.

[180]. G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers (Oxford: Oxford University, 1956), pp. 17–18, noted by D. E. H. Whitely, The Theology of St. Paul (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964), p. 26; Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, p. 106 (though still reading these in the light of the Qumran evidence for angels gathered for worship). It is commonly argued that Paul demythologized these powers, although retaining their demonic force; e.g., F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 422; idem, Message, p. 39; idem, “Myth and History,” in History, Criticism and Faith, ed. Colin Brown (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1976), p. 89.

[181]. With F. F. Bruce, “Paul and ‘The Powers That Be,’ “ BJRL 66 (2, Spring 1984): 78–96; J. L. C. Abineno, “The State, According to Romans Thirteen,” SEAJT 14 (1, 1972): 23–27; and others, against Oscar Cullmann, The State in the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1956), pp. 100, 108; idem, Christ and Time, trans. Floyd V. Filson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950), p. 194.

[182]. E.g., Plut. Fort. Rom. 11, Mor. 324B, speaks of the daimōn, or guardian spirit, of Rome. Cf. Harold Mattingly, Christianity in the Roman Empire (New York: Norton, 1967), p. 19. The concept appears frequently as a pagan one (occasionally adapted by Israel) in the OT, and the picture of God’s heavenly court (possibly demythologizing the 70 gods in El’s Canaanite pantheon) may suggest that the idea of guardian angels of the nations predates Daniel and LXX Deuteronomy.

[183]. Philo speaks of “powers” as mediatorial manifestations of God, similar to Stoic (Diog. Laert. Lives 7.1.147) or later Platonic thought (C. G. Rutenber, “The Doctrine of the Imitation of God in Plato” [Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1946], p. 17; cf. Wolfson, Philo, 1:217–26; John Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1977], p. 161); e.g., On the Unchangeableness of God 109–10; On the Confusion of Tongues 136ff.; 171, 174–75; Who is the Heir? 170; On Flight and Finding 69; Special Laws 1.47, 209; 4.187; Questions and Answers on Genesis 20; Questions and Answers on Exodus 18, 45, 65, 68. They seem to vacillate between being attributes and being personal beings. In Jewish mysticism, see G. G. Scholem, Jewish) Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1965), p. 33.

[184]. Mek. Shir. 2:112ff.; b. Ber. 16b-17a; Yoma 77a; Exod. Rab. 32:3; Pes. Rab. 17:4; 3 En. 29:1; 30:1–2.

[185]. Jub. 15:21–32; 35:17; 49:2–4; 1QM 17.7–8 (Michael’s rulership elevated “among the gods” and Israel among all flesh; the verb governs both clauses); 17.5–6; 14.15–16 (gods overthrown in context of evil spirits being smitten); 15.13–14 (wicked spirits = hero/warrior gods); Test. Sol. 6:4; 8:10; see P. J. Kobelski, “Melchizedek and Melchiresa: The Heavenly Prince of Light and the Prince of Darkness in the Qumran Literature” (Ph.D. diss., Fordham University, 1978), p. 123. The later rabbis often described their specific hostility toward Israel (3 En. 26:12; Sifre Deut. 315.2.1; Gen. Rab. 77:3, 78:3 [keeping in mind that Edom often stood for Rome]; Exod. Rab. 21:5; Lev. Rab. 21:4; Deut. Rab. 1:22–23; Song Rab. 2:1, §3; 8:8, §1) and judgment (e.g., Pes. Rab Kah. 4:9; 27:2; Song Rab. 8:14, §1).

[186]. 1 En. 40:9 (reading with Knibb against Isaacs); 61:10 (both references from the later Similitudes); 2 En. 20:1 (longer version); Test. Levi 3:8; Test. Job 49:2; Asc. Isa. 1:3; 2:2 (but 1:4 sounds suspiciously Christianized); 3 Bar. 12:3; in early Gnostic texts, e.g., Apoc. Adam 1:4; Hypostasis of the Archons. Angels could also be designated with terms of military rank, especially Michael as Archistrategos (e.g., Test. Abr. 14 A). J. Y. Lee, “Interpreting the Demonic Powers in Pauline Thought,” NovT 12 (1, 1970): 54–69, thinks Paul derives these terms from Jewish apocalyptic tradition, but others from gnosticizing traditions; Pierre Benoit, “Pauline Angelology and Demonology. Reflexions on the Designations of the Heavenly Powers and on the Origin of Angelic Evil According to Paul,” RSB 3 (1, 1983): 1–18, thinks he borrowed the language but did not deal with how evil angels became evil. Carr, Angels, p. 40, questions whether any of the language is clearly pre-Pauline, the best possibility being in 1 En. 61:10—from the Similitudes of Enoch, the date of which is uncertain.

[187]. Cf. C. C. Caragounis, The Ephesian Mysterion: Meaning and Content, CBNTS 8 (Lund: Gleerup, 1977), pp. 157–61; Cullmann, State, p. 68. For the LXX of Deuteronomy, see Russell, Apocalyptic, pp. 244–49; A. S. Peake, “Colossians,” in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, ed. W. R. Nicoll (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 3:479; C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935), pp. 18–19.

[188]. Lit., “it is a dishonor to him . . . glory to her”; I have sought a more idiomatic rendering. It might be even more idiomatic English to translate “it would embarrass him,” but it is unlikely that most longhaired men back then were embarrassed by their long hair; philosophers wore it as a badge of honor, “barbarians” as a matter of course. The perspective of “dishonor” is from the standpoint of Greco-Roman society in the time of Paul; see below.

[189]. Paul plays on “glory” in contrast to dishonor elsewhere as well (15:43; 2 Cor. 6:8); in 1 Cor. 15:43, as here, “glory” alludes to his use of the same phrase not long before this in his discussion.

[190]. Paul’s “divine passive” no doubt means, “by God.”

[191]. The word used here for covering, in fact, usually denotes pinned-up hair, which was commonly how long hair was publicly worn; see Thompson, “Hairstyles,” p. 112.

[192]. See Diog. Laert. Lives 7.1.88–89, 148–49; e.g., Epict. Disc. 1.19.7; Sen. Ben. 5.8.2, 5; 7.19.5; Ep. Lucil. 30:11; Marc. Aur. Med. 1.9.1, 17.5; 2.9, 11, 12, 16, 17; 3.1, 2.2, 9, 12; 4.1, 5, 9; etc. One can virtually flip through pages of Epictetus or Seneca at random and find it throughout.

[193]. Meeks, World, pp. 58–59. Seneca (Dial. 7.13.1) tries to harmonize the Stoic and original Epicurean positions on this matter.

[194]. Meeks, World, p. 60. One finds it often enough in Aristotle (e.g., Pol. 1.1.4, 1252b; 1.1.8–9, 1252b-52a; 7.15.11, 1337a), who also cites similar arguments made by others with whom he disagrees (Pol. 1.2.3, 1253b).

[195]. E.g., Orphic Hymn 10 (admittedly a hymn to physiō, not an argument); Juv. Sat. 10.300–301; 13.239; 14.31, 321; Hor. Poet. 108, 408; Sat. 1.1.50–51, 87; 2.111; 3.35–36; 5.102; 6.93; 10.12–14.1 have not tried to draw a distinction here between the semantic ranges of the Greek physis and Latin natura; the senses are roughly equivalent, and the specific semantic range varies from one author to another. The one philosophical group which thoroughly subordinated nature to culture-based custom (the Skeptics; cf. Sext. Emp. Out. Pyrr. 3.220) is addressed in Paul’s next argument.

[196]. E.g., Varro Lat. Lang. 5.5.31 (“all natura is divided into sky and earth” [LCL]); Sen. Clem. 1.9.1–2; Epict. Disc. 1.16.4 (on animals); Cic. Par. Stoic. 14; Leg. 1.5.16, 1.8.25 (the human mind); Tusc. Disp. 1.14.31 (nature proves the soul’s immortality). Some of Epictetus’ nature examples of animal practices show that one did not have to be biologically accurate to convince most hearers, who would not have known the difference anyway (e.g., Disc. 4.11.1–2).

[197]. Cic. Nat. Deor. 2.32.81; Offic. 1.33.120; Re Publ. 3.28.40; Epict. Disc. 1.17; Marc. Aur. Med. 2.17; Diogenes 25, to Hippon (CynEp, pp. 116–17). For a more detailed explanation, emphasizing the teleological character of nature, see Gilbert Murray, The Stoic Philosophy (New York: Putnam’s, 1915), pp. 37–40; and especially A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics (New York: Scribner’s, 1974), p. 148 (or more generally, pp. 147–78).

[198]. E.g., Diogenes 21, to Amynander (CynEp, pp. 114–15).

[199]. E.g., Rhet. ad Herenn. 3.22.35.

[200]. E.g., Sen. Dial. 6.7.3; 8.5.2; 9.2.11. Nearly all the examples above include ethical instruction. Contrast perhaps Hor. Sat. 1.3.113–17.

[201]. E.g., Zeno in Diog. Laert. Lives 7.1.87; Cicero Tusc. Disp. 5.28.82; Epict. Disc. 1.1.17; 1.2.34; 1.4.14, 29; 1.6.15, 20; 1.12.17, 19; 1.26.2; Sen. Dial. 1.4.8, 15; 6.7.1; 7.13.1; 8.5.1, 8. Marc. Aur. Med. 2.17 declares that “in the way of Nature there can be no evil” (LCL). For writers like Seneca, nature could be identified with God (Ben. 4.7.1; 8.1–3). Cf. Gerard Watson, “The Natural Law and Stoicism,” in Problems in Stoicism, ed. A. A. Long (London: University of London, 1971), p. 233.

[202]. Epict. Disc. 4.11.9–18.

[203]. Plut. Educ. 5, Mor. 3C.

[204]. This is self-evidently true even though some philosophers, like the writer of Crates 28, to Hipparchia (CynEp, pp. 78–79), could argue that “Women are not by nature [ephysan] worse than men.” Because “nature” could also mean “passion,” an expression of human nature (probably Ach. Tat. Clit. 1.11.3 [this could be “Necessity” instead]; Test. Reub. 3:3; contrast Diogenes 47, to Zeno [CynEp, pp. 178–79]), 1 Cor. 11:14 could mean: the passion that makes long-haired women attractive warns you not to show off hair in church. But this interpretation requires a narrow reading of “nature,” which is not demanded or implied by the context.

[205]. Cic. Invent. 1.24.34–35.

[206]. Epict. Disc. 1.16.10 (LCL).

[207]. Ibid., 1.16.14 (LCL).

[208]. Effeminate men make themselves “worse” than nature made them, according to Diogenes the Cynic in Diog. Laert. Lives 6.2.65. The Skeptic Sextus Empiricus notes that this is the prevailing opinion, but cites the example of the Amazons to prove that the opinion is not universally held (Out. Pyrr. 3.217).

[209]. Especially Jewish writers who confronted it in the Diaspora; Test. Naph. 3:4–5; Ps-Phocyl. 190. Cf. the fragment of Musonius Rufus in P. W. Van Der Horst, “Musonius Rufus and the NT,” NovT 16 (4, Oct. 1974): 309. Artem. Oneir. 1.80 argues this for lesbian intercourse, but possibly means that it is difficult to accomplish; he does not believe that such dreams are inauspicious in all cases. A number of Roman writers, like Paul and all ancient Jewish sources, did not look favorably on homosexual practices, but our discussion here is only how that relates to the issue of “nature.”

[210]. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, pp. 107–8.

[211]. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 125, noting that “Paul was not the first or the last moralist to conflate the two.” Cf. Ramsay, Cities of Paul, pp. 202, 204–5, 233, who thinks that Paul assumes the oriental custom common to Tarsus but unusual in Corinth.

[212]. The idea might be arguable from Rhet. ad Herenn. 3.3.4; Cic. Offic. 3.6.30. Sen. Dial. 5.27.3 might have been helpful, except he does not use the term “natura.”

[213]. Cic. Invent. 1.1.2; Oratore 2.21.89; Rhet. ad Herenn. 3.7.14, 3.16.28; Sen. Dial. 9.15.6; Epict. Disc. 1.11.5 with 1.10.6.

[214]. M. Cary and T. J. Haarhoff, Life and Thought in the Greek and Roman World, 4th ed. (London: Methuen, 1946), p. 99; Thompson, “Hairstyles,” p. 104. Grown women’s hair was generally long (ibid., p. 112); among the well-to-do, it was normally done up in coiffures (Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 99) (which were not counted as head coverings themselves; see above).

[215]. So also Robertson and Plummer, 1 Corinthians, p. 236. Cf. C. R. Hallpike’s essay, “Social Hair” (1969), as summarized by the editors in Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, ed. W. A. Lessa and E. Z. Vogt, 4th ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 99, which argues that long hair on men transculturally stands for being outside societal norms.

[216]. Artem. Oneir. 1.18 (trans., p. 26); cf. 1.30 (beard). Long hair in a dream could be a good sign for them.

[217]. Sext. Emp. Out. Pyrr. 1.155; 3.204, claims that Plato rejected men’s wearing feminine clothes, but Aristippus and, in Sextus’ view, the Persians, accepted it.

[218]. Thompson, “Hairstyles,” p. 104.

[219]. Arist. Rhet. 1.9.26, 1367a; Charillus 6 in Plut. SSpart., Mor. 232D.

[220]. Pomeroy, Goddesses, pp. 37–38.

[221]. Lucian Alexander the False Prophet 13.

[222]. Sext. Emp. Out. Pyrr. 3.217 speaks of Cybele’s approval of effeminate men immediately after noting Amazonian sex reversals.

[223]. Petr. Sat. 63, 70, may imply this.

[224]. Apul. Metam. 7.6. Héring, 1 Corinthians, p. 110, notes that “a man who lets his hair grow would pass (and actually did pass) as effeminate.”

[225]. Epict. Disc. 3.1.27–28 (LCL). He is not, of course, speaking of hair on the top of one’s head, but presumably the beard or (maybe more likely) the rest of the body.

[226]. Epict. Disc. 3.1.31.

[227]. Epict. Disc. 3.1.34.

[228]. Zeno in Diog. Laert. Lives 7.1.33.

[229]. Epimenides in Diog. Laert. Lives 1.109; Epicurus in Epict. Disc. 2.23.21 (beard); Cynics (Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 35); philosophers in general (Epict. Disc. 4.8.12; Artem. Oneir. 1.30 [beards]; Plut. Isis 3, Mor. 352C [beards]).

[230]. E.g., Diogenes the Cynic, in Diog. Laert. Lives 6.2.46 (LCL), who demanded that his interlocutor lift his robe to prove his gender.

[231]. Ps-Phocyl. 210–12 (OTP 2:581). OTP 2:581, n. b: “Aman’s wearing long hair was often considered as a sign of effemination, e.g. Philo, Spec. Leg. 3.37.”

[232]. Num. 6; e.g., Sifre Num. 25.

[233]. Num. Rab. 10:10. Conversely, certain kinds of hair trimming were associated with paganism; see Goodman, State and Society, p. 49.

[234]. Moffatt, 1 Corinthians, p. 154, “nature being regarded as supplying the norm even for such attire.”

[235]. Meeks, World, p. 19, observes that Aristotle’s ad hominem arguments appeal to “common experience, where ‘common’ means ‘common to property-owning Athenian citizens.’ “Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 530, notes that Paul elsewhere appeals to the practice of other churches (4:17; 7:17); the Corinthians seem to be acting as if they were independent from the other churches (cf. 14:33).

[236]. Quint. 1.5.72; 3.4.12 (auctores plurimos); cf. 5.11.36–37. The conduct of one’s ancestors could also be used to extract principles (e.g., Isoc. Panathenaicus 164, Or. 12).

[237]. Isoc. Demon. 50, Or. 1 (LCL).

[238]. Theon Progym. 4.140–44. Cf. Mus. Ruf. fr. 12 (On Sexual Indulgence, in Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 154), who concludes his argument: “Everyone knows that.”

[239]. E.g., b. Taan. 30b (local); p. R. H. 4:6, §1 (local); Bez. 3:6, §3d.

[240]. Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 33. The point is that custom varies from one culture to another (e.g., Sext. Emp. Out. Pyrr. 3.198).

[241]. See especially Liefeld, “Women,” pp. 146–47; cf. the helpful points in G. Pella, “Voile et soumission? Essai d’interprétation de deux textes pauliniens concernants le statut de l’homme et de la femme,” Hokhma 30 (1985): 3–20 (I know this article only through NTA 30:305).

Chapter 2 Questions about Questions—1 Corinthians 14:34–35

[1]. “As in all the churches of the set-apart ones” may go with the following clause as easily as with the preceding one. In favor of it attending the following paragraph is what appears to be the citation of other churches’ precedent in 14:36; but this could be intended to parallel a preceding argument (14:29–33) rather than to continue 14:33b–35. In favor of it attending the preceding paragraph, as we have translated it here, is the awkwardness of saying, “As in all the churches . . . let it be in the churches” (14:33–34). Of course, anyone who has wrestled with Paul’s syntax in Greek recognizes that awkward constructions in Paul are always possible, so it is unlikely that the issue will be resolved by appeal either to “standard” Greek grammar or to the passage’s structure. Paul elsewhere appeals to the example of other churches for specific activities meant only for his day (16:1), especially with regard to the covering of women’s heads (11:16); see above. But if the situation addressed in 14:34–35 is what we have proposed, Paul could have appealed to the example of the other churches, most of which probably did not even have the problem of women interrupting the speaker with uneducated questions. So in the end, it does not entirely matter which way one takes the clause. Since the issue must be decided on situational-contextual rather than grammatical grounds, it will depend on, rather than inform, our exegetical conclusions.

[2]. Cf. 11:5, which, we argued above, and most current readers agree, is culturally conditioned. It probably means “culturally inappropriate”; causes for “shame” vary from culture to culture, and most cultures of Mediterranean antiquity had a highly developed concept of “shame.”

[3]. Cf. John Piper and Wayne Grudem, “An Overview of Central Concerns: Questions and Answers,” in Manhood and Womanhood, p. 71.

[4]. Order and propriety were matters of major concern; cf. Diog. Laert. Lives 3.103–4; Plut. T.-T. 1.2.4, Mor. 617B (including ranks of distinction in seating arrangements) (contrast Menedemus in Diog. Laert. Lives 2.130, whose predilection in the other direction is considered unusual). Such a concern seems to have obtained, however informally, in Diaspora Jewish assemblies for prayer as well (3 Macc. 6:1). Among ancient rules relating to sitting or standing in different sacred settings (Pes. Rab. 15:9) and lecture settings (Ab. R. Nathan 6 A; b. Meg. 21a, bar.) were rules governing such actions (especially seating) according to rank (Apul. Metam. 10.7; Lycurgus 14 in Plut. SSpart., Mor. 227F; T.-T. 1.2.3–4, Mor. 616E, 617B; Gen. 43:33; Luke 14:7–11; t. Sanh. 7:8; 8:1; b. Hor. 13b, bar.; p. Ter. 8:7; Taan. 4:2, §§8–9, 12; Ket. 12:3, §6; Sanh. 1:2, §13; Gen. Rab. 98:11; Ps-Phocyl. 220–22; cf. p. R. H. 2:6, §9); the Essenes were especially particular about speaking according to rank and propriety (1QS 2.19–23; cf. 1QS 7.9–10; Jos. War 2.8.5, §132). While 1 Cor. 14:30–33 stresses order (apparently implying also that the inspired speaker should stand, taking the position of authority), its complete lack of emphasis on rank is significant.

[5]. It is possible that “to himself” is meant more literally, i.e., that the one who prays in tongues communicates divine messages to himself as if in prophecy (cf. 2 Sam. 23:2–3; Ps. 12:1, 5; 46:1, 10; 91:2, 14–16; Jer. 25:15; 27:2; Hos. 1:2); this depends primarily on whether we read “and to God” or “even to God” (in the latter case, “to himself” might mean he is the object of edification or that he is simply the only participant besides God).

[6]. Streeter, Woman, p. 60, points out: “It is remarkable with what persistency the Church and people in general are prepared to insist on literal application of texts in certain cases and absolutely disregard them in another.”

[7]. Streeter, Woman, p. 62, emphasizes Paul’s words, “let your women keep silence,” implying (he argues) that the Corinthian women were particularly problematic.

[8]. As a charismatic student once told me, restricting utterances in tongues to three makes sense in a regular church service, but Paul surely would not have enjoined it for an all-night prayer meeting! Given the purpose of the gifts (building up the believers in love, chs. 12–14), even prophecy, if practiced as in the NT, might cause division in many non-charismatic churches, so many readers would view even Paul’s exhortations concerning prophecy as the most useful gift as also conditioned by the situation. (This is simply to reaffirm that various modern situations will be different from the one in Corinth, and that we need to take into account the situation when we apply the text; it is not to deny our need for the gifts today.)

[9]. That it is in some measure a Pauline fragment from another letter has also been proposed; cf. R. W. Allison, “Let Women be Silent in the Churches (1 Cor. 14:33b–36): What did Paul Really Say, and What did it Mean?” JSNT 32 (1988): 27–60, who argues also that Paul is refuting a Corinthian position.

[10]. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 125 (although he does not commit himself to this position absolutely); cf. idem, “The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity,” HR 13 (3, Feb. 1974): 203–4, again tentatively.

[11]. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, p. 246.

[12]. Scroggs, “Woman,” p. 284.

[13]. Bruce, “All Things,” p. 94, notes its “textual doubtfulness”; in idem, 1 and 2 Corinthians, pp. 135–36, he notes that if these verses are genuinely Pauline, they may refer to asking questions or discussing prophecies, but he thinks that they mean more than that.

[14]. Fee, 1 Corinthians, pp. 699–705.

[15]. Cf. Metzger, Textual Commentary, p. 565.

[16]. E.g., G. M. M. Pelser, “Women and ecclesiastical ministries in Paul,” Neot 10 (1976): 100.

[17]. Sometimes upper-class writers wished their letters to be published; e.g., Diog. Laert. Lives 1.122 (Pherecyded’s letter to Thales); D. E. Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment, LEC 8 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), pp. 171–72. This was much more often a Roman than a Greek trait (ibid., p. 170), but Corinth included Roman as well as Greek elements, and the custom would have been known to both Paul and the Corinthians. In practice, of course, most texts were passed along among individuals (cf. R. J. Starr, “The Circulation of Literary Texts in the Roman World,” CQ 37 [1, 1987]: 213–23); only inscriptions were actually published for the public eye. This is not the place to investigate the old distinction drawn between letters and epistles (Deissmann, Light, pp. 229–34; idem, Bible Studies [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1923], pp. 3–59; cf. George Milligan, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Thessalonians [London: Macmillan, 1908], p. 121; more nuanced, W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1904], pp. 23–26; idem, Teaching of Paul, pp. 412–47; idem, “Roads and Travel [in the New Testament],” in Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1904], 5:401; cf. R. P. Martin, “Approaches to New Testament Exegesis,” in New Testament Interpretation, p. 232; see especially Stowers, Letter Writing, pp. 17–19; Aune, Environment, p. 160). Most of Paul’s letters to congregations offer moral exhortation, like philosophers’ letters to disciples and others (e.g., Diog. Laert. Lives 1.43–44, 64–67, 73, 81, 93, 99–100; CynEp passim [mostly or all pseudepigraphic]; cf. Stowers, Letter Writing, pp. 37–43; Aune, Environment, pp. 167–68; Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 79). They would have been publicly read to the congregations. Although the reading of Paul’s letters would have been limited to their local congregation, their public use could have sped up the process of their collection and eventual scribal copying and publication.

[18]. Besides allusions; this is explicit in 1 Clem. 47.

[19]. There are, of course, many cases of marginal notes coming into the text through scribal misreadings; but we are again dealing with something early in the history of this text’s transmission, and the naked imperatives are more naturally Pauline or willfully pseudonymous than a marginal note someone appended to the original autograph. Cf. also D. A. Carson, “ ‘Silent in the Churches’: On the Role of Women in 1 Corinthians 14:33b–36,” in Manhood and Womanhood, p. 142.

[20]. Rhetorical practice employed “dwelling on the point” (including returning to it) (Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.45.58), and digressions were standard even in historical works (see Aune, Environment, p. 30). A common rhetorical technique for transitions was one point reminding the writer of another (Quint. 9.2.60–61). Fiorenza, who also thinks that the grounds for exclusion are more theological than textual (Memory, p. 230), suggests that this passage, far from being a randomly placed digression, is meant to join 11:1–16 in framing Paul’s discussion on church worship services (ibid., p. 226).

[21]. This is often pointed out; e.g., Bruce, “All Things,” p. 89. For more material, cf. Keener, And Marries Another, pp. 184–85, n. 131, particularly on responses to imaginary interlocutors, which were frequent in what scholars traditionally called diatribe style (e.g., Dio Chrys. 21st Disc., On Beauty; 61st Disc., Chrys.; 67th Disc., Pop. Opin.; Epict. Disc. 1.1.23–25, 28; Sen. Ben. 4.5.1, 21.6; Dial. 3.6.1, 8.6; Ep. Lucil. 14.1; 42.2; Hor. Sat. 101–2; Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.16.23–24; Cic. Tusc. Disp. 3.23.55; 5.36.103; Mek. Pisha 1.35; p. Sanh. 6:1, §1).

[22]. N. M. Flanagan and E. H. Snyder, “Did Paul Put Down Women in 1 Cor 14:34–36?” BTB 11 (1, Jan. 1981): 10–12; C. Ukachukwu Manus, “The Subordination of the Women in the Church 1 Cor 14:33b–36 Reconsidered,” RAfT 8 (16, 1984): 183–95; W. C. Kaiser, Toward an Exegetical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), pp. 76, 119; Bilezikian, Roles, pp. 150–53.

[23]. D. W. Odell-Scott, “Let the Women Speak in Church. An Egalitarian Interpretation of 1 Cor 14:33b–36,” BTB 13 (3, July 1983): 90–91. He defends this position in idem, “In Defense of an Egalitarian Interpretation of 1 Cor 14:34–36. A Reply to Murphy-O’Connor’s Critique,” BTB 17 (3, July 1987): 100–103.

[24]. Odell-Scott, “Women Speak,” pp. 91–92; Kaiser, Exegetical Theology, p. 77. Odell-Scott thinks that the opponents are Jewish legalists. Bilezikian, Roles, pp. 146–57, uses sets of parallel statements supposedly framing this passage to support the case, but the “framing” verses do not appear to me any more substantially linked to one another than they are to other verses in the chapter. Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript, ASNU 22 (Uppsala: Gleerup, 1961), pp. 275, 306, sees in 14:36 an allusion to the Torah going forth from Jerusalem, and reads this as a Jerusalem church tradition derived from Jesus himself; cf. Bruce, “All Things,” p. 97; idem, 1 and 2 Corinthians, p. 136; this seems to me unlikely. Peter Richardson and Peter Gooch, “Logia of Jesus in 1 Corinthians,” in The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels, ed. David Wenham, GP 5 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1984), p. 45, suggest that it is a saying from the risen Lord; in this context, either prophecy (perhaps Paul’s at that moment) or written Scripture seems the most likely meaning.

[25]. Liefeld, “Women,” p. 149. In n. 40 he charges that Odell-Scott fails to discuss ē in 1:13; 6:2, 9, 16, 19; 9:6, 8, 10; 10:22.

[26]. D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), p. 39, points this out; it is a natural observation for all Greek readers, and one which deprives the use of the masculine here of any evidential value.

[27]. Cf. also ibid., p. 38.

[28]. Cf. e.g., Demosthenes 3d Philippic 15; Epict. Disc. 1.6, 1.19.2–6; cf. Aune, Environment, p. 201; S. K. Stowers, “The Diatribe,” in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament, SBLSBS 21 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988), p. 75; Martin Dibelius, James, rev. Heinrich Greeven, trans. Michael A. Williams, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 150; Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 130.

[29]. Epict. Disc. 1.5.10, 8.15, 10.7, 11.24, 13, 19.7, 26.6, 28.24, 29.9; 2.8.2; 3.1.42 (besides his characteristic mē genoito, cf. his oudamōs, “by no means,” e.g., 1.12.15); cf. S. K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans, SBLDS 57 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1981), pp. 153–54, for a correction of Bultmann on the nature of Paul’s and Epictetus’ use. Cf. J. B. Lightfoot, St Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, 3d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1869), p. 117; Robertson and Plummer, 1 Corinthians, p. 126, for the LXX and Arrian (William Sanday and Arthur Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, ICC, 5th ed. [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1902], p. 72, allege that Paul here adopts “the mistranslations in LXX”). The opposite form could be used as a blessing formula (e.g., Jdt. 15:10).

[30]. Cf. E. M. Yamauchi, The Stones and the Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972), p. 102; Leonard Swidler, Women in Judaism: The Status of Women in Formative Judaism (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1976), pp. 89–90 (following Sukenik).

[31]. Jos. War 5.5.2, §§198–200; cf. b. Yoma 16a; S. Safrai, “The Temple,” in JPFC, pp. 865–70; E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah (London: SCM, 1990), pp. 104–5. The distinction between Jewish women, proselytes, and slaves, on the one hand, and “Israel” on the other, may be significant (e.g., Sifre Num. 39.6.1); “the court of Israel” was holier than “the court of women” (m. Kel. 1:8).

[32]. H. G. May, “Synagogues in Palestine,” BA 7 (1, Feb. 1944): 14, cites the balconies in the court of women (m. Mid. 2:6), but while this may offer a rationale for later segregation of genders, it offers no evidence of segregation of synagogues this early. His citation of Philo would be more helpful, but does not account for the lack of archaeological data to support the thesis. Ben Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus, SNTSMS 51 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1984), p. 7, notes that there is no evidence before Trajan’s time; the Trajanic evidence he cites (p. 135, n. 79, where he follows Sukenik but cites the reference differently) is from the Palestinian Talmud, which does not necessarily guarantee even an authentically Trajanic date.

[33]. S. Safrai, “The Synagogue,” in JPFC, p. 939.

[34]. B. J. Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue (Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1982), pp. 103–38, dealing also with the side rooms. For Sardis, see A. R. Seager, “The Synagogue and the Jewish Community: The Building,” in G. M. A. Hanfmann et al., Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times, ed. W. E. Mierse (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1983), pp. 170–71.

[35]. Catherine and Richard Kroeger, “Strange Tongues or Plain Talk?” DSar 12 (4, 1986): 10–13; Kroeger, “Cults of Women,” p. 30; cf. Leonard, “Status of Women,” p. 318. Longenecker, Ethics, p. 86, also sees charismatic excess here.

[36]. This is found in other societies, too, e.g., in the secret societies noted by Mircea Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), p. 79 (who, however, also notes the analogous behavior of male secret societies in the same cultures). It should be pointed out that Dionysiac “liberation” was not viewed by all social classes as liberation; Euripides may have been showing the destructiveness of the irrational impulse in Agave’s tragedy (cf. Charles Segal, “The Menace of Dionysus: Sex Roles and Reversals in Euripides’ Bacchae,” in Women in the Ancient World, pp. 208–9).

[37]. See R. S. Kraemer, “Ecstatics and Ascetics: Studies in the Function of Religious Activities for Women in the Greco-Roman World” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1976), especially pp. 9–123 (though the imposition of the millenarian model is as external to the data as the psychoanalytic model); idem, “Ecstasy and Possession: The Attraction of Women to the Cult of Dionysus,” HTR 72 (1, Jan. 1979): 55–80; idem, “ ‘Euoi Saboi’ in Demosthenes de Corona: In Whose Honor Were the Women’s Rites?” in SBL 1981 Seminar Papers, SBL Seminar Papers 20 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1981), pp. 229–36, especially p. 233; cf. Otto, Dionysus, pp. 142, 171–80; Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 114–15, 250–53. For implications of social disruption in the behavior of the Maenads, see Artem. Oneir. 2.37; Segal, “Menace,” pp. 195–212 (with perhaps too much psychoanalytic theory); Henrichs, “Identities,” pp. 137–60; cf. also the sexual warfare indicated in Plut. T.-T. 1.1.3, Mor. 614A; Sheila McNally, “The Maenad in Early Greek Art,” in Women in the Ancient World, pp. 107–8, 119, 123.

[38]. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 25, points out that Isis appears not only as liberator, but also as model spouse and protector of marital chastity; cf. also S. K. Heyob, The Cult of Isis Among Women in the Graeco-Roman World, EPROER 51 (Leiden: Brill, 1975), pp. 76, 80. Accusations against Isis-worshipers’ morality (e.g., Juv. Sat. 6.489) came easily to ancient satirists given to slander (in Sat. 6.511–29 he mocks worshipers of Isis; in 542–47, Jewesses).

[39]. Especially Juv. Sat. 6.314–41 (frenzied women in the mysteries). Cf. the third/second century BCE Pythagorean treatise in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 104–5, §107.

[40]. Undoubtedly for socioeconomic reasons, there were few women in the cult at Samothrace (S. G. Cole, Theoi Megaloi: The Cult of the Great Gods at Samothrace, EPROER 96 [Leiden: Brill, 1984], p. 42); Mithraism excluded women altogether (J. G. Gager, Kingdom and Community [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1975], p. 133); the cult of Dionysus was open to both (L. H. Martin, Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction [New York: Oxford University, 1987], p. 93), although feminine participation was more prominent up through the late hellenistic period (Kraemer, “Ecstatics,” pp. 48–57). This is not to deny their significant role in many such cults (cf. Pomeroy, Goddesses, pp. 75–78, 205–6, 217–26), but to argue that upper-class Roman men who produced much of our literary evidence reflect a chauvinistic bias that may not have reflected the reality experienced by the vast majority of Greco-Roman society.

[41]. See Heyob, Isis, pp. 37–52; for Greco-Roman women’s perceptions, see pp. 53–80.

[42]. For percentages of men and women, see ibid., 81–110. Cf. similarly H. C. Kee, Christian Origins in Sociological Perspective (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), p. 91; cf. Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in their Historical Setting (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 129.

[43]. Most feminine participation in Greek ritual was not ecstatic, if a survey of women’s rituals in Greek and Roman religion in Kraemer, Maenads, pp. 11–42, is indicative of the general situation. This seems to include the second century CE rituals in Corinth described in Pausanias Descr. Gr. 35.6–8 (in ibid., p. 34).

[44]. Dionysus was popular by the sixth century BCE (Walter Burkert, Greek Religion [Cambridge: Harvard University, 1985], p. 166); most elements of the myth can be traced as early as the Iliad (Otto, Dionysus, pp. 54–55), but its prominence in the hellenistic period (Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 2 vols. [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982], 1:180–83) is not as easily documented in the NT period. The suppression of the cult in Rome after the excesses of 186 BCE (as reported by Livy 39.18; see Beryl Rawson, “The Roman Family,” in The Family in Ancient Rome [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1986], p. 16) may have contributed to its decline. That it continued to exist, of course, is not in dispute; many Greek cities held Dionysiac festivals once every two years in the first century BCE (Diod. Sic. 4.3.2–5 in Kraemer, Maenads, p. 26), and we should not think that Romanization would have suppressed this entirely; we have evidence of its existence in second century CE Rome (M. P. Nilsson, The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age, SUASIA 5 [Lund: Gleerup, 1957], p. 47, though noting that this woman had been introduced to this mystery in Asia Minor; it was perhaps more common elsewhere; cf. in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 252–53, §245). In the Roman period, it seems to have persisted especially in the east (Nilsson, Mysteries, pp. 45–66; cf. p. 147).

[45]. Plut. R. Q. 112, Mor. 291AB; T.-T. 4.6.1, Mor. 671C; cf. Lucian Dionysus: An Introduction; Plut. Alex. 2.5; Henrichs, “Identities,” pp. 143–47; Burkert, Religion, pp. 164–65. Despite mythical associations, there were real Maenads; cf. the inscriptions cited by Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 113–14, §115; pp. 252–53, §245.

[46]. Lucian SyrG 51 (Grant, Religions, p. 118); Lucr. Nat. 2.614–15; Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.49.62; Epict. Disc. 2.20.17, 19; Juv. Sat. 2.110–16; cf. Heraclitus 9, to Hermodorus (CynEp, pp. 212–13); Juv. Sat. 6.514–16; Hor. Sat. 1.2.120–21; G. S. Gasparro, Soteriology and Mystic Aspects in the Cult of Cybele and Attis, EPROER 103 (Leiden: Brill, 1985), pp. 26–28, 53; Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1987), pp. 6, 36. Their castration did suggest to some that they were no longer fully male (M. J. Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult [London: Thames & Hudson, 1977], pp. 96–101; cf. Epict. Disc. 3.1.31; contrast 2.20.19); but the Maenads had similarly taken on traditionally masculine characteristics, so that gender reversal, rather than a limitation of frenzy to the ritual behavior of one gender, seems to be in view.

[47]. Plut. R. Q. 108, Mor. 289E; Apul. Metam. 7.8; Mus. Ruf. fr. 12 (Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 154); Ab. R. Nathan 9, §24 B; 4 Macc. 15:5 (where it is partly a compliment); Gardner, Women, pp. 21, 67; M. R. Lefkowitz, Women in Greek Myth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1986), pp. 112–32; Wegner, Chattel, pp. 159–62; Pomeroy, Goddesses, pp. 150, 230; Peradotto and Sullivan, “Introduction,” in Women in the Ancient World, p. 3; Moses Hadas, ed., Aristeas to Philocrates, JAL (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), p. 198. This judgment was sometimes meant as a call to protect women, rather than to repress them (Lefkowitz, Myth, pp. 134–36; b. B. M. 59a; cf. 1 Pet. 3:7 and the commentaries loc. cit.), and there were thought to be “exceptions” (4 Macc. 16:5, 14).

[48]. Cf. our own tentative suggestions on this matter in our treatment of the background of Eph. 5:21–31.

[49]. Boldrey, Chauvinist, p. 61. The Boldreys do agree that Paul does not allow forbidding to speak in tongues (14:39), but think that since this was the main cause of chaos in the assembly, the chaos caused by the women probably includes it.

[50]. Both references to prophecy in ch. 14 parallel glossolalic speech.

[51]. F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1963), p. 67; Liefeld, “Women,” p. 150; Wayne Grudem, “Prophecy—Yes, but Teaching—No: Paul’s Consistent Advocacy of Women’s Participation Without Governing Authority,” JETS 30 (1, March 1987): 20, n. 13.

[52]. Hurley, “Veils,” p. 217; Carson, “Silent,” p. 152; Liefeld, “Women,” p. 150, following Grudem. Liefeld cites the analogy of Miriam judging Moses, but it was not his prophecy that was being judged, nor is it fair to exclude Aaron (though only Miriam was in this case punished, as he notes), nor is it likely that this analogy would have occurred to Paul’s readers. David Hill, New Testament Prophecy (Atlanta: John Knox, 1979), p. 135, suggests that some women may have abused the gift of prophecy, and that here their speech had to be tested.

[53]. C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, ICC, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975), 2:620; cf. D. E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 220–21. Distinguishing good from evil could be lauded as a necessary and natural faculty (Marc. Aur. Med. 9.1.2; Antisthenes in Diog. Laert. Lives 6.1.5), but the distinguishing in 12:10 is a spontaneous manifestation of the Spirit testing prophecies of Christian prophets, not an application (in this case) of standard criteria for judging between valid and invalid prophets (contrast J. Martucci, “Diakriseis pneumatōn (1 Co 12,10),” EgTh 9 [3, 1978]: 465–71, using Did. 11.8). Aune, Prophecy, p. 32, argues that testing of oracles was rare in Greek circles; their interpretation, however, was more problematic until they were fulfilled (p. 51). But “evaluation,” not “interpretation,” of prophecies is what is in view here (Hill, Prophecy, pp. 133–34; Wayne Grudem, “A Response to Gerhard Dautzenberg on 1 Cor. 12.10,” BZ 22 (2, 1978): 253–70; M. E. Boring, Sayings of the Risen Jesus, SNTSMS 46 [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1982], p. 66, against Dautzenberg; though “judging dreams” could mean interpreting them, Artem. Oneir. 1.11). Plato could also affirm inspiration yet subordinate it to the interpretation of governors before implementation (cf. E. N. Tigerstedt, “Plato’s Idea of Poetical Inspiration,” CHL 44 [2, 1969]: 64–65), although his governors do not seem to have been acting charismatically.

[54]. Groups of prophets also appear in 1 Sam. 10 (probably under Samuel’s influence; cf. 1 Sam. 3:1) and 2 Kgs. 2; 4:38–44; 6:1–7 (submitted to the leadership of Elijah and his successor, Elisha).

[55]. Perhaps the relative youth of the Christian movement had not permitted the maturation of local prophets to guide the others. What is significant, however, is not the lack of prophets but their abundance. As I argued in my dissertation, “The Function of Johannine Pneumatology in the Context of Late First-Century Judaism,” the early Christians were “hyper-charismatic” compared to the rest of early Judaism, especially to what became the rabbinic movement. Since the average house church in Corinth may have held about fifty members, a plurality of members exercising the prophetic gift and an encouragement to others to seek this gift suggest a more active exercise of spiritual gifts than is seen even in many charismatic and Pentecostal churches today. As we see in Corinth, of course, this could also lead to the need for instruction and qualification.

[56]. Knight, “Teaching,” p. 88.

[57]. That Paul’s prohibition of women’s speech here applies to the asking of questions has often been suggested, e.g., Williams, Paul and Women, p. 70; Kevin Giles, Created Woman: A Fresh Study of the Biblical Teaching (Canberra: Acorn, 1985), p. 56.

[58]. E.g., R. Akiba in Ab. R. Nathan 6 A. Cf. Luke 2:46 (perhaps), and Jesus’ and Paul’s use of rhetorical questions.

[59]. See t. Sanh. 7:10 (trans. Neusner, 4:221–22). S. Safrai, “Education and the Study of the Torah,” in JPFC, p. 966, notes that rabbis taught in such a way as to encourage students’ questions and participation; cf. also Goodman, State and Society, p. 79.

[60]. Plut. Lectures 11, Mor. 43BC. The same advice holds for questions asked of knowledgeable persons at dinner parties; cf. Plut. T.-T. 2.1.2, Mor. 630BC.

[61]. Plut. Lectures 4, Mor. 39CD (LCL).

[62]. Plut. Lectures 18, Mor. 48A (LCL).

[63]. Plut. Lectures 18, Mor. 48B.

[64]. Plut. Lectures 13, Mor. 45D.

[65]. On the other hand, more well-to-do Roman women in the congregation might have been more apt to speak out than their less educated, less well-to-do counterparts, and their speaking out may have created tension with the less educated women.

[66]. Hipparchia, Crates’ wife, is the most famous (Diog. Laert. Lives 6.7.98; Diogenes 3, to Hipparchia [CynEp, pp. 94–95]), but others are reported, such as (possibly) Pythagoras’ wife Theano and his daughter Damo (Diog. Laert. Lives 1.42–43); Eumetis or Cleobulina, who studied with Anacharsis (Plut. Dinner of 7 Wise Men 3, Mor. 148CE), or Cleobuline, daughter of Cleobulus (Diog. Laert. Lives 1.89); two pupils of Plato (Diog. Laert. Lives 4.1); Aristippus’ daughter Arete (his other listed pupils are all male, Diog. Laert. Lives 2.72, 86). In a later period, we find “Magnilla the philosopher, daughter of Magnus the philosopher, wife of Menius the philosopher” (second/third century CE inscription in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 160, §168). Most of these figures of earlier times were relatives of male philosophers, just as the few women who studied rabbinic law were. But there is evidence of other women who studied philosophy as well: the bride in Plutarch’s Advice to Bride and Groom seems to be representative of upper-class women who had some training in philosophy. Even Hipparchia’s abilities are later questioned by some, however (Crates 28–29, to Hipparchia [CynEp, pp. 78–79]). In theory women were often affirmed to be capable of learning philosophy (Crates 29, to Hipparchia [CynEp, pp. 78–79]; Mus. Ruf. fr. 3 [That Women Too Should Study Philosophy, in Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 134]; Epicurus [Stowers, Letter Writing, p. 39]; Cleobulus [Diog. Laert. Lives 1.90]).

[67]. R. A. Culpepper, The Johannine School: An Evaluation of the Johannine-School Hypothesis Based on an Investigation of the Nature of Ancient Schools, SBLDS 26 [Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1975], p. 129, notes (on Zeno’s school): “In contrast to the Epicurean school, women were not admitted to the Stoic school.” Meeks, Moral World, p. 46, observes: “Musonius argued that women, too, should study philosophy, but there is no record of any women among his own pupils.” R. B. Ward, “Musonius and Paul on Marriage,” NTS 36 (2, Apr. 1990): 288, observes that Musonius wanted women to be educated “specifically in Stoic philosophy, a philosophy that taught, above all, the virtue” of self-control (Mus. Ruf. fr. 3, 42.33, 23).

[68]. For the ideal in this period, cf. Quint. 1.1.6; (Ps)Plut. A Woman, Too, Should be Educated, fr. 128–33 (LCL); for the practice, see Meeks, World, p. 62. Arist. Pol. 2.4.6, 1266b had argued against educating everyone in the same way; they should be trained to fulfill their proper roles in society, not for anything else.

[69]. Cf. 1 Esd. 9:40. Brooten, Women Leaders, pp. 140–41, cites further evidence. She observes that women may have sometimes read Torah in Diaspora synagogues (ibid., p. 95); an argument to the effect that it was standard would be an argument from silence as much as its converse, but it seems to have been permitted in some cases (t. Ber. 2:12; b. Meg. 4a; cf. Witherington, Women, p. 7); G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 2 vols, (reprint, New York: Schocken, 1971), 2:131, notes that a woman was permitted to read publicly, but states that “this was disapproved on grounds of propriety and no instance is reported.” Probably most synagogues were more restrictive, but there were some exceptions in parts of the Roman Empire where local custom may have dictated otherwise, as in the case of certain synagogue officials Brooten mentions (see Brooten, Women Leaders, pp. 5–39; cf. also R. S. Kraemer, “A New Inscription from Malta and the Question of Women Elders in the Diaspora Jewish Communities,” HTR 78 [3–4, 1985]: 431–38 [fourth or fifth century Malta]; S. J. D. Cohen, “Women in the Synagogues of Antiquity,” ConJud 34 [2, Nov. 1980]: 23–29). It should be noted that what one learned in a synagogue was quite different from what disciples of sages were taught, however (at least according to second-century Palestinian practice; see Goodman, State and Society, p. 74).

[70]. This is extolled in Sus. 3; it should be admitted, however, that heroines in Greek literary works do not seem to have represented Greek men’s normal ideal for Greek women, and this may be the case as well with Jewish works written under Greek influence.

[71]. 2 Tim. 1:5 (because the father was a Gentile, Acts 16:3); Tob. 1:8 (because his father had died); Verner, Household, p. 137 (noting that the father had the primary responsibility; cf. also 4 Macc. 18:9–19; Koh. Rab. 4:1, §1; Safrai, “Home and Family,” p. 771; idem, “Education,” p. 947; Moore, Judaism, 2:127); but contrast the evidence in Swidler, Women, p. 114, on their teaching other children. Later rabbis could claim that a woman could earn merit by sending her children and husband to places of study (b. Ber. 17a; Sot. 21a). The evidence is stronger, however, in Roman circles: Quint. 1.1.6; Plut. Educ. 20, Mor. 14B; cf. William Barclay, Train up a Child: Educational Ideals in the Ancient World (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959), p. 157, but it must have been practiced to some degree in Jewish circles, for the law clearly mandated it (see the references in Nicole, “Authority,” pp. 48–49).

[72]. Sifre Deut. 307.4.1; b. Ber. 10a (concerning a Tanna, though the tradition is later); Exod. Rab. 52:3 (later tradition about a Tanna). See Moore, Judaism, 2:128–29, for more references.

[73]. M. Sot. 3:4; p. Hag. 1:1, §1.

[74]. M. Sot. 3:4 (quoting from Neusner’s translation in the Palestinian Talmud, 27:92). R. Joshua, often opposed to R. Eliezer, agrees here that it is not good to teach one’s daughter much Torah.

[75]. Burning the Torah was a terrible offense, for which, Josephus tells us, a Roman soldier lost his life; only scrolls contaminated with heresy were not to be saved from the fire.

[76]. Num. Rab. 9:48.

[77]. Safrai, “Education,” p. 955, citing the later OT writings, the Apocrypha, Philo, Josephus, and the Tannaim. I say “much,” because in m. Ned. 4:3 it is clear that daughters as well as sons could be instructed, and we should not suppose that all men in all periods practiced the custom in exactly the same way. But while Christian apologists have sometimes overemphasized the chauvinism of early Judaism to make early Christian views look better (or at least normal for their day), some apologists for ancient Judaism have made it less chauvinistic than it was, and this is also not fair to a study of these documents in their historical context.

[78]. E.g., m. Hag. 1:1; t. Ber. 6:18 (where a parable explains that those who try to do the commandments, but cannot do them properly, will end up offending God); p. Hag. 1:1, §7; cf. b. Ber. 45b. This was because women were not included in the designation “Israel” (b. Men. 61b). For children’s exemption from the commandments, cf. e.g., p. Hag. 1:1, §4.

[79]. See Mek. Pisha 17.160–61.

[80]. See m. Suk. 2:8; b. Suk. 2b (21b addresses slaves); p. Suk. 2:9. Cf. Bonsirven, Judaism, p. 119.

[81]. See b. Kid. 34a.

[82]. Wegner, Chattel, p. 161, suggests that the rabbis feared their sexual liberation; she documents that the legal aspects of women as chattel relate primarily to a wife’s sexuality.

[83]. Witherington, Women, p. 195, n. 232, is right to point out that these exceptions involve women who could learn from scholars in their own homes, i.e., from husbands or masters. Swidler, Women, pp. 97–104, details Beruriah wife of R. Meir, but calls her “The Exception that proves the Rule”; on pp. 104–11 he argues that the other “exceptions” were not clearly learned in Torah.

[84]. Sifre Deut. 157.2.2.

[85]. Jos. Ant. 4.8.15, §219 (LCL).

[86]. Safrai, “Education,” p. 955.

[87]. Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145B (LCL).

[88]. Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145C.

[89]. Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145DE.

[90]. E.g., Sir. 22:5; 26:14; Num. Rab. 9:12. Women are said to be characteristically talkative (e.g., Deut. Rab. 6:11). A godly woman, according to Jewish tradition, was a gentle, peaceful woman (Jub. 36:23).

[91]. The language of something being “disgraceful” (v. 35) refers to decorum or order, which had to do with societal criticism in a specific cultural context (Liefeld, “Women,” pp. 140–42, makes this case ably). Cf. similarly Nicole, “Authority,” pp. 45–46.

[92]. Sen. Ep. Lucil. 52:10: Pythagoras made his disciples keep silence for five years.

[93]. Extrapolations of the law could be seen as law (t. Ber. 6:19), although the idea of oral Torah is probably only from a significantly later period.

[94]. Kaiser, Exegetical Theology, p. 76; Gundry, Women, p. 70. Although Paul elsewhere appeals to general custom (see Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, p. 246, n. 57), it is equally unlikely that this would be what he means here by “law.”

[95]. Technically, of course, the body of “rabbinic law” did not yet exist, and even the concept of “oral law” may be considerably later (at the writing of this book, the matter is still debated). But we use the term here to include the possibility of interpretive legal traditions summarized as part of the law. (In this book I have tried to avoid discussion of the nature of “rabbinic” and other bodies of literature in the text itself, since most of the readers will not be familiar with current scholarly debates in Jewish or classical studies. Those readers who are aware of the nuances of scholarly debate will recognize at once the relative value and proper use of the different sources, without my further explanation.)

[96]. See Fee, 1 Corinthians, pp. 707–8.

[97]. One may compare his use of “law” for the commandments in Galatians. For phrases like “Scripture says” or “the law teaches,” cf. e.g., Sifra A. M. pq. 11.191.1.3.

[98]. “Law” (Sifre Deut. 32.5.12) and “Law and Prophets” (4 Macc. 18:10–18) naturally included other writings, and later rabbis could comment that “The Torah itself comes in three parts—Torah, Prophets, and Writings” (Pes. Rab Kah. 12:13, trans. Braude, p. 238).

[99]. Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.24, §§200–201.

[100]. Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, p. 136.

[101]. W. A. Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in 1 Corinthians (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1982), p. 71, notes on v. 36 that no one at Corinth spoke with absolute divine authority. Of course, the fact that Paul’s authority was greater than theirs did not mean that they had no authority; OT prophets could make mistakes or could need to wait on God for an answer (2 Sam. 7:3–5; 2 Kgs. 2:16–17; Jer. 28:10–13), and apostles were likewise not always infallible (Gal. 2:11). As Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, p. 136, notes, the point is that “the Corinthians must not be a law to themselves.” 1 Cor. 14:37 may well apply to the whole chapter, not just to the preceding verses (with Aune, Prophecy, pp. 257–58).

[102]. Perhaps this is only a harsh statement of Paul (cf. p. M. K. 3:1, §4, late second to early third century), but the passive probably implies a pronouncement of divine judgment: cf. G. P. Wiles, Paul’s Intercessory Prayers, SNTSMS 24 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1974), pp. 119–21; Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 712; Aune, Prophecy, p. 258 (although I am not convinced that this need be oracular).

[103]. Even here, Paul makes a general statement covering only several verses; but in nearby Cenchraea, at least, we know of a woman who probably shared in the ministry of the word; see the discussion of Phoebe in Appendix A.

Chapter 3 Learning in Silence—I Timothy 2:9–15

[1]. Eph. 5:31 also appeals to the creation order, but it does so in order to establish the opposite point, namely, the unity of husband and wife and therefore their mutual service and dependence. See chapter 5 below.

[2]. For a listing of divergent views on 25 major questions of interpretation in 1 Tim. 2:8–15, see Hull, “Difficulties,” pp. 259–65.

[3]. I refer here to NT scholars in general, not to evangelical scholars (whose positions are sometimes ignored when less conservative scholars calculate majority opinions). Discussions of the issue from both sides are widely available, but I have chosen in this book to emphasize how the text should be read by those of us who believe it to be Pauline.

[4]. Meeks, “Androgyne,” p. 208, and Scroggs, “Woman,” p. 284, are among those who see a diminution of Paul’s radical equality position in second- and third-generation Christianity.

[5]. The plural “kings” indicates client rulers as well as the Roman princeps.

[6]. A. M. Rabello, “The Legal Condition of the Jews in the Roman Empire,” ANRW 2.13, pp. 703–4. The emperors paid for these sacrifices (Bonsirven, Judaism, p. 155). This practice of offering sacrifices on behalf of a ruler appears in Palestine quite early (1 Esd. 6:31–32); also among Egyptian Jews in the Ptolemaic period (Ep. Arist. 45), who felt that kings were to seek the peace of their subjects (Ep. Arist. 291–92); a Jewish ruler of the second century BCE asks the Spartans to remember his people at every time in their sacrifices and prayers (1 Macc. 12:11); a high priest was said to have sacrificed on behalf of an invader official’s recovery (2 Macc. 3:32). Philo says that on Yom Kippur the high priest offers prayers for the peace of all humanity (Embassy to Gaius 306).

[7]. Philo, Embassy to Gaius 232; b. Yoma 69a (superimposed on Alexander of Macedon!); cf. James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue (New York: Atheneum, 1979), pp. 9–10. A pre-70 teacher said to pray for the peace of the government (m. Ab. 3:2; cf. Jer. 29:7; Bar. 1:11; Ep. Arist. 45). This was within the bounds of acceptable Roman practice: Roman officials took vows for Augustus’ health (Pliny Ep. 10.52; Res Gestae 9.1, in The Roman Empire: Augustus to Hadrian, ed. R. K. Sherk, TDGR 6 [New York: Cambridge University, 1988], p. 43, §26; cf. the sacrifice in the temple of Caesar in ibid., p. 58, §32); sacrifices could also be offered in honor of someone never deified (I. Ital. 13.1, p. 329, in ibid., p. 54, §28C).

[8]. Jos. War 2.17.2, §§409–10; cf. Bo Reicke, The New Testament Era (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), p. 256; Moore, Judaism, 2:115. The hoped-for restoration of this sacrifice was for the purpose of obtaining Roman favor (Reicke, Era, p. 287). It is possible, though not proved, that Jewish-Roman tensions in Palestine on the verge of revolt were affecting Diaspora synagogue communities, and through them some of Paul’s churches; “peace” here could then refer to political stability (2 Macc. 12:2), and prayer could be seen as a pious alternative to Zealot-like violence (3 Macc. 1:23).

[9]. See ch. 4 below.

[10]. As in the Isis propaganda in Apul. Metam. 11.17. Oscar Cullmann, State in the New Testament, p. 85, says that this practice continued among the Christians even in times of harshest persecution; cf. e.g., Polycarp Phil. 12; Tert. Apol. 40.13–15.

[11]. The wording of v. 3 may suggest that some saw this as a compromise with the imperial cult; Paul saw it instead as good sense. It is also possible that God’s wish for everyone to be saved in this text is more directly related to the prayers; the biblical teaching that kings’ hearts could be turned by God’s will also led to the possibility that prayer could affect rulers (e.g., Ep. Arist. 17); but Jewish prayers were for the emperor’s well-being and behavior, not his conversion (Hans Conzelmann, History of Primitive Christianity, trans. John E. Steely [Nashville: Abingdon, 1973], p. 133). Cf. t. ’A. Z. 1:3: “They ask after the welfare of gentiles on their festivals for the sake of peace” (Neusner 4:311; cf. Pes. Rab Kah. 28:9). Richard and Catherine Kroeger, “May Women Teach? heresy in the pastoral epistles,” RefJ 30 (10, Oct. 1980): 15 (also F. B. Martin, Call Me Blessed [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], pp. 151–52), suggest that the following verses about women teaching relate to female mediator figures, given the context (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5); but this does not seem the most natural way to construe the context, nor are female mediatorial figures necessarily connected with women’s teaching roles (cf. our discussion of the cult of Isis in ch. 4). The points of contact with Gnosticism that Catherine Kroeger notes in “1 Timothy 2:12—A Classicist’s View,” in Women, Authority & the Bible, pp. 232–42, are real, but I think the influence more likely flows from the NT to Gnosticism rather than the reverse. (She is careful to qualify that she does not see fully developed second-century Gnosticism in this text, p. 242.) Serpent veneration may be pre-Ophitic (ibid., p. 242), but this is not the element of Gnostic tradition that would be addressed in 1 Tim. 2, or even in Rev. 12 (where Gen. 3 could account for it, or Asclepius, Python, etc.).

[12]. A. B. Spencer, Beyond the Curse (reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1989), p. 73, compares Josephus’ report of a quarrel during synagogue prayer.

[13]. Cf. Plut. Bride 37, Mor. 143C, who praises the wife wise enough to remain silent until her husband has finished his fit of male rage; one of the terms for her silence is the same enjoined on women later in this passage.

[14]. See in A. D. Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), pp. 18–19; in the Homeric period, C. H. Gordon, The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (New York: Norton, 1965), p. 259. Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles, trans. Philip Buttolph and Adela Yarbro [Collins], Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), p. 44, point out that “holy hands” “in the Greek tragedians are hands which are ritually pure”; presumably 1 Tim. 2 refers to hands undefiled by angry use (“holy” meaning right behavior, as in Sib. Or. 1:170; see G. D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, NIBC [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson 1988], p. 71).

[15]. E.g., Ep. Arist. 305–6; S. Safrai, “Religion in Everyday Life,” in JPFC, p. 830. Of course, OT ritual purification, especially for the priests, developed further under later influences (e.g., Jub. 21:16).

[16]. Besides the biblical references (such as Isa. 1:15; Lam. 1:17; 2:19; 3:41), see Jub. 25:11; 1 En. 84:1; Ps. 155:2; 1 Esd. 9:47; 2 Macc. 3:20 (women); 14:34; 15:12, 21; 3 Macc. 5:25; 4 Macc. 4:11; Sib. Or. 3:559–60, 591–93; Test. Mos. 4:1; Mek. Pisha 1:38; t. M. K. 2:17; cf. 1 Clem. 29; Acts of John 43; cf. also the priestly blessing (m. Taan. 4:1; Sifre Num. 39.4.1; p. Taan. 4:1, §2). For the lifting of hands in earlier Near Eastern texts, see e.g., J. F. Ross, “Prophecy in Hamath, Israel, and Mari,” HTR 63 (Jan. 1970): 3. The same practice is still followed in Islam (cf. Phil Parshall, Bridges to Islam [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983], p. 81).

[17]. Epict. Disc. 4.10.14; Plut. Cleverness of Animals 17, Mor. 972B; Chariton Chaer. 3.1.8; Apul. Metam. 3:7 (to supplicate people); Suet. Nero 41; Deissmann, Light, p. 415; in Zoroastrianism, see Jack Finegan, The Archeology of World Religions (Princeton: Princeton University, 1952), p. 91.

[18]. This posture of prayer is also found in some societies unrelated to ancient Mediterranean culture, e.g., some African societies (J. S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophies [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970], p. 84). It is possible that Paul desires the raising of hands only because’ this is understood as pure worship in the culture he was addressing, using the imagery of worship standard in his culture.

[19]. The latter view is found in Fee, 1 Timothy, p. 71; Verner, Household, p. 167, but the parallel examples cited by J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1972), p. 65 (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 2:14; 1 Thess. 1:8; also Mai. 1:11, cited also by Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, p. 45) suggest the former position. One could read “in every place” with the verb rather than with the noun that immediately precedes this phrase, meaning that prayer should be held in every place (cf. Pes. Rab Kah. 24:4), but this is not the most natural way to take the syntax.

[20]. Fee, 1 Timothy, p. 70; Gundry, Women, p. 76; F. F. Bruce, “All Things,” p. 94 (following Chrysostom); more tentatively, Verner, Household, p. 168; Williams, Paul and Women, pp. 110–11. Roger Nicole’ “Authority,” p. 47, n. 1; and D. J. Moo, “1 Timothy 2:11–15: Meaning and Significance,” TJ 1 (1, Spring 1980): 63, cover the evidence for both positions fairly. Men’s “pure hands” in prayer correspond to the true, spiritual adornment required of women in prayer.

[21]. Cf. Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, p. 65.

[22]. Cf. ibid., p. 66. D. M. Scholer, “1 Timothy 2:9–15 and the Place of Women in the Church’s Ministry,” in Women, Authority & the Bible, p. 198, sees this as the concern for propriety, for the church’s reputation in Greco-Roman society, which is stressed quite often through the Pastorals (he cites 1 Tim. 3:4–5, 7, 12; 5:14; 6:1; Titus 1:6; 2:4–5, 8, 10).

[23]. They also seem to have been permitted in OT culture. Earrings may be a sign of paganism in Gen. 35:4; Jub. 31:2 (cf. Jos. & As. 3:6; Koh. Rab. 9:15, §4 [translator’s interpretation]; Song Rab. 2:2, §2; Balch, Wives, pp. 101–2), but in Gen. 24:22 and Exod. 35:22 they appear to be acceptable (cf. the ornateness of the garment in Exod. 39).

[24]. See b. Shab. 64b; other references in Safrai, “Home and Family,” pp. 761–62.

[25]. Ab. R. Nathan 4 A; 8, §22 B; and b. Ber. 61a (with an earlier attribution); Koh. Rab. 7:2, §2 (much later attribution).

[26]. Ab. R. Nathan 9, §24 B; Gen. Rab. 17:8.

[27]. Cf. Asenath after her conversion in Jos. & As. 18:6 (in some enumerations, 18:4–5); that ornaments for a rich bride included jewelry was commonplace, though in Roman society they were normally gifts of the groom (Ludwig Friedländer, Roman Life and Manners Under the Early Empire, trans. Leonard A. Magnus, J. H. Freese, and A. B. Gough, 4 vols. [New York: Barnes & Noble, 1907], 1:235).

[28]. See b. Shab. 64b, though it may refer to the menstrual taboo. The Dead Sea sect may have prohibited the wearing of finery or may not have been able to afford it (C. T. Fritsch, The Qumran Community: Its History and Scrolls [New York: Macmillan, 1956], p. 11); but since all property was held in common, such adornments were probably simply contributed into the wealth of the community.

[29]. Arist. Pol. 3.7.3, 1282b; Rhet. 1.6.10, 1362b; Jdt. 8:7; cf. t. Ber. 6:4; OTP 2:203, n. k. It is a subject for praise in encomium speeches, along with other bodily attributes like health and strength (Theon Progymn. 9.20). Although Callirhoe’s nobility of character is stressed throughout Chariton’s narrative, beauty is stressed as her central virtue (e.g., Chaer. 3.2.14); women were often renowned for beauty (e.g., Athen. Deipn. 13.608F). Plut. Bride 25, Mor. 141D, however, says that a woman is loved more for her character than for her beauty.

[30]. Ach. Tat. Clit. 4.5; Plut. Div. Veng. 33, Mor. 568A; Jos. & As. 1:4, 5/1:6, 8); Pes. Rab Kah. 17:6. For men: Arist. Rhet. 1.5.13, 1361b; Chariton Chaer. 2.5.2; Plut. Lyc. 17.4; Artapanus on Moses (Euseb. Pr. Ev. 9.27.37, in OTP 2:903).

[31]. Ach. Tat. Clit. 1.4.3; Artem. Oneir. 1.25.

[32]. Ach. Tat. Clit. 1.4.3; Chariton Chaer. 2.2.2; Apul. Metam. 5.22; Plut. Theseus 23.2. Artem. Oneir. 1.28 adds full cheeks.

[33]. Sext. Emp. Against the Ethicists 3.43.

[34]. Jdt. 10:7 (to Judith’s advantage); Sir. 9:8; 25:21; cf. Sir. 11:2 (do not judge a man by beautiful appearance). A woman’s beauty is again a good thing in Sir. 36:22. Plut. Bride 24, Mor. 141CD, says not to marry for beauty; it is more important to know how a woman will be to live with.

[35]. Chariton Chaer. 2.1.5; book 5, e.g., 5.5.3, 9; 6.1.9–12, 6.6.4.

[36]. Diog. Laert. Lives 6.1.10; Epict. Encheir. 40; Jdt. 10:4; Jos. & As. 18:6/18:4–5.

[37]. Apul. Metam. 2.9; Jdt. 10:3 (braided hair).

[38]. 1 En. 8:1–2; Test. Reub. 5:3, 5; Test. Jud. 12:3, 13:5; Test. Jos. 9:5. Tert. Apol. 6.4 says that things have become so bad that a matron and a prostitute dress the same way. Fee, 1 Timothy, p. 72, sees 1 Tim. 2:9–10 as addressing women’s seductiveness. C. D. Osburn, “Authenteō (1 Timothy 2:12), RestQ 25 (1, 1982): 11, is thus not correct to suggest that there are no sexual connotations because overdressing rather than underdressing was in view.

[39]. Test. Reub. 5:1–5.

[40]. Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 99.

[41]. Diogenes 38 (CynEp, pp. 162–63); cf. his criticism of an elaborately dressed youth in Diog. Laert. Lives 6.2.54; cf. also Epict. Disc. 3.1 (perhaps the elaborate dress is viewed as effeminate?). Men’s adornments are also critiqued in 1 En. 98:2; cf. Mart. Epig. 4.36; 10.83; Sext. Emp. Out. Pyrr. 3.203, however, thinks that the nature of men’s adornment is geoculturally determined.

[42]. Socrates 6 (CynEp, pp. 232–33). Naturally the Cynics opposed luxury, but so did Epicureans (Lucr. Nat. 2.20–53).

[43]. Plut. Statecraft 27, Mor. 820A.

[44]. Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145AB.

[45]. Lutz, nos. 18AB, pp. 19, 20, in Meeks, Moral World, p. 49.

[46]. On ancient “luxury of dress and adornment,” see Friedländer, Life, 2:173–85 (pp. 180–82 for pearls and jewelry); Plut. Bride 29, Mor. 142AB; Cary and Haarhoff, Life, pp. 98–99; Ramsay MacMullen, Roman Social Relations: 50 B.C. to A.D. 284 (New Haven: Yale University, 1974), pp. 106–7; Aldo Massa, The World of Pompeii (Geneva: Minerva, 1972), p. 55; Jerome Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome (New Haven: Yale’ University, 1940), pp. 164–70. The beautifying tools used included heated irons to arrange hair (Varro Lat. Lang. 5.29.129).

[47]. Mart. Epig. 2.66.1–8.

[48]. Juv. Sat. 6.352–65. Luxuries come under fire elsewhere, too, of course; Hor. Ode 1.38 (cf. 3.9.4) abhors Persian extravagance. In Jos. & As. 10:11/12 Asenath, upon her conversion, gives her expensive clothing to the poor, though she later dresses up to attract Joseph.

[49]. Juv. Sat. 6.457–73. Cf. Jos. & As. 4:1/2; Artem. Oneir. 1.78 for what could be a connection between expensive fineries and intercourse.

[50]. See the first century BCE Roman inscription in Lefkowitz and Fant, Life, p. 135, §138, and the third/second century BCE treatise attributed to Pythagoreans in ibid., p. 105, §107.

[51]. Plut. Bride 30, Mor. 142C, on the analogy of Egyptian peasant women who had no shoes.

[52]. Scholer, “Women’s Adornment: Some Historical and Hermeneutical Observations on the New Testament Passages,” DSar 6 (1 1980): 5.

[53]. Artem. Oneir. 2.6; Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, pp. 66–67.

[54]. Hurley, “Veils,” pp. 199–200, taking the construction as a hendiadys.

[55]. R. M. Grant, Early Christianity and Society (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 80 (who notes that much wealthier women existed); Verner, Household, p. 168.

[56]. Verner, Household, p. 180.

[57]. Diogenes 46, to Plato the sage (CynEp, pp. 176–77); Thales in Diog. Laert. Lives 1.37.

[58]. Cf. Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 82 (on the Pythagorean letters); Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 111; Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, p. 46 (on inscriptions).

[59]. Plut. Lyc. 15, SSpart., Mor. 227B-228A (LCL); cf. Lyc. 19, Mor. 228B.

[60]. Epict. Encheir. 40 (LCL).

[61]. A third/second century BCE treatise attributed to the Pythagoreans, in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 105, §107.

[62]. Ps-Melissa, Letter to Kleareta (in Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 83).

[63]. E.g., Plut. Bride 10, Mor. 139C; a third/second century BCE treatise attributed to the Pythagoreans, in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 105, §107 (see also Balch, Wives, p. 101). For young men, “silence” was appropriate (Plut. Lectures 4, Mor. 39B).

[64]. Isoc. Demon. 15, Or. 1 (LCL).

[65]. Ps-Melissa, Letter to Kleareta (in Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 83). One may also compare Crates 9, to Mnasos (CynEp, pp. 60–61); Plut. Statecraft 27, Mor. 820A; Verner, Household, pp. 168–69; Kelly, Peter, p. 129.

[66]. 3 Macc. 3:5; 6:1; 4 Macc. 6:2. Sifre Deut. 36.4.5 reflects it as well, although the analogy there may have arisen naturally without direct influence from the milieu.

[67]. Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, pp. 67–68, cites the silence required of them in synagogues. This cannot have been true in all synagogues, since they exercised leadership roles in some of them (e.g., CIJ 2:10, §741); but our extant evidence (which seems to be a representative sampling) suggests that Jewish congregations with prominent roles for women were certainly in the minority. “Silence” was valued as part of women’s submissiveness in various periods, especially in classical Athens (Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 74), which is one of our most extreme examples.

[68]. Cf. Isoc. Demon. 41, Or. 1 (using a Greek term that was generally stronger than Paul’s). Spencer, Curse, pp. 77–78, cites rabbinic texts advising silence for students.

[69]. Diog. Laert. Lives 8.1.10, claiming that Pythagoras required this of his disciples for their first five years, and using the same term as here.

[70]. See Fee, 1 Timothy, p. 72.

[71]. Spencer, Curse, pp. 75–80; it is used for Abraham in Test. Ab. 1; A. Moo, “1 Timothy 2:11–15”; idem, “What Does It Mean Not to Teach or Have Authority Over Men? 1 Timothy 2:11–15,” in Manhood and Womanhood, p. 183, prefers “silence” to “quietness” because the context is teaching, but a verbal cognate of the same word is used in the same context (2:2) to mean “quietness,” as is often pointed out.

[72]. Kroeger, “Classicist’s View,” pp. 231–32. Part of the problem is that the term occurs in extant literature especially in Christian documents (cf. Deissmann, Light, pp. 88–89).

[73]. G. W. Knight III, “Authenteō in Reference to Women in 1 Timothy 2.12,” NTS 30 (1, Jan. 1984): 143–57, arguing that the normal Greek usage is simply “to have authority.”

[74]. Scholer, “Ministry,” p. 205; cf. Martin, Blessed, pp. 137–42. Osburn, “Authenteō,” pp. 2–4, favors “domineer” over the earlier sense of “murder.” He sees “domineering” as applying to teaching vs. childrearing and modest dress (ibid., pp. 11–12).

[75]. Spencer, Curse, pp. 86–88.

[76]. Hardesty, Women, p. 81.

[77]. Moo, “1 Timothy 2:11–15,” pp. 66–67.

[78]. Cf. L. E. Wilshire, “The TLG Computer and Further References to AUTHENTEŌ in 1 Timothy 2.12,” NTS 34 (1, 1988): 120–34.

[79]. Walter Lock, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1924), p. 32, bases his conclusion on very limited evidence, but adduces the helpful contrast with LXX Gen. 3:16.

[80]. Scholer, “Ministry,” p. 205.

[81]. Piper and Grudem, “Overview,” pp. 69–70, 85.

[82]. Gundry, Women, p. 70 (on 1 Cor. 14:34–35); Spencer, Curse, pp. 106–7; P. B. Payne, “Libertarian Women in Ephesus: A Response to Douglas J. Moo’s Article, ‘1 Timothy 2:11–15: Meaning and Significance,’” TJ 2 (2, 1981): 169–97; Williams, Paul and Women, p. 112; J. Nolland, “Women in the Public Life of the Church,” Crux 19 (3, 1983): 17–23; Alan Padgett, “Wealthy Women at Ephesus. I Timothy 2:8–15 in Social Context,” Interp 41 (1, Jan. 1987): 19–31. Scholer, “Ministry,” pp. 216–17, gives examples of Christian leaders holding this position as early as the 1600s, and examples from the 1800s including Catherine Booth and A. J. Gordon.

[83]. Moo, “1 Timothy 2:11–15,” pp. 62–83.

[84]. J. I. Packer, “Let’s Stop Making Women Presbyters,” CT (Feb. 11, 1991): 20.

[85]. Though, unless they are reckoning the chronology of Paul’s life so as to have him survive Nero’s persecution, their date of 67 CE would make 2 Timothy post-Pauline. Their date is probably a typographical or editorial error.

[86]. Piper and Grudem, “Overview,” p. 82.

[87]. This is treated more thoroughly in our chapter on 1 Tim. 3:2 in my And Marries Another, pp. 83–103. That book treats the unqualified statement of general principle, especially on pp. 23–28.

[88]. Knight, The New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), p. 45. Although I do not agree with his conclusions, it should be noted to Knight’s credit that he does come up with an explanation for the difference. But the whole principle of “reading one passage in the light of another,” as if the original readers had the whole NT before them at once, seems problematic. Such a hermeneutic allows the privileging of theological agendas over exegesis; proper exegesis means trusting the Bible enough to do one’s thorough exegesis on each passage first, then comparing the teaching of all the texts. If the Bible is inspired and our systems cannot accommodate diverse teachings within it, then we need to revise our systems, not proclaim the authority of one text of Scripture over against another. Knight would probably agree with me on this point, but I believe that his wording is seriously misleading here.

[89]. Cf. ibid., p. 46.

[90]. The size of unit is unspecified, but we may assume that it is best taught in the context that was available to its first readers or hearers, i.e., how a passage functions in the context of the particular book in which it was written (Genesis, Jeremiah, Mark, etc.).

[91]. Also Rom. 15:14. Some of what we call NT interpretation of the OT may be argument by analogy or argument from the lesser to the greater (cf. Arist. Rhet. 2.23.4–5, 1397b).

[92]. 1 Cor. 14:34 is laid against 1 Cor. 11:5. Knight is right that 1 Cor. 11:5 mentions the issue of women prophesying only “incidentally” (New Testament Teaching, p. 45). But while Paul does not specifically expound on the practice, he does plainly accept it (what is at issue here), and 1 Corinthians thus preserves for us his guidance on the matter.

[93]. Cf. the case in Verner, Household, pp. 158–59.

[94]. Spencer, Curse, p. 85, points out that learning was normally done so that one could teach (m. Ab. 6:6; cf. 2 Tim. 2:2). While this is probably the case here, given the context, in Judaism one also learned so one could obey; and in rabbinic literature, women were considered deprived of obeying certain commandments because they were deprived of learning them.

[95]. See Appendix A.

[96]. See Spencer, Curse, pp. 84–85; Fee, 1 Timothy, p. 72.

[97]. Packer, “Presbyters,” p. 20.

[98]. It is unlikely that the writer of the Pastorals is opposing the Gnostic view that Eve actually gave good knowledge (Kroeger, “Women Teach?” p. 17), unless 1 Timothy is dated in the mid-second century. One could argue for proto-Gnostic tendencies already in Paul’s day (ibid., p. 18), but the actual evidence that he could be combatting this Gnostic position in the 60s of the first century is not good, and it is always precarious to extrapolate backward from Gnostic texts that show so much Christian (including NT) influence.

[99]. Ab. R. Nathan 9, §25, B; p. Sanh. 2:4, §2, citing Tannaitic tradition; Gen. Rab. 17:8 (R. Joshua).

[100]. Ab. R. Nathan 9, §25 B; 42, §117 B; Gen. Rab. 17:8.

[101]. Ab. R. Nathan 42, §117 B; Gen. Rab. 17:8.

[102]. Gen. Rab. 21:5, R. Berekiah (very late) in R. Hanan’s name. Cf. a sightly earlier tradition in Lev. Rab. 18:2, R. Judah ben R. Simon in R. Joshua ben Levi’s name (“his judgment and destruction are from himself” refers to Eve).

[103]. Ab. R. Nathan 1 A.

[104]. Sib. Or. 1:42–45 (OTP 1:336). Probably Sib. Or. 1 contains Christian interpolations but is in the main a pre-Christian Jewish document; the provenance may be Asian or Egyptian.

[105]. E.g., V. Adam 18:1, 35 (Apoc. Mos. 9); 38:1–2 (Apoc. Mos. 11:1–2); 44:1–5 (Apoc. Mos. 14); Apoc. Mos. 31–32, 42. Cf. Leonhard Rost, Judaism Outside the Hebrew Canon (Nashville: Abingdon, 1976), p. 154; the late Gr. Ezra 2:15–16 (ed. Wahl, p. 27; cf. Tischendorf’s text, p. 26, on the textual variant). Cf. also Ab. R. Nathan 1 A: the serpent could not deceive Adam, so he went through Eve. But in the late Apoc. Sedrach 5:1 (same Greek word) Adam was deceived; in Sifre Deut. 323.6.2 the serpent led both astray; in Sib. Or. 1:40 the serpent deceitfully (doliōs) led them both astray, but in 1:42–43, the blame is especially placed on Eve.

[106]. V. Adam 10:1 (Apoc. Mos. 29:17). Given the confluence of the Corinthians’ role as virgins betrothed to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2) and the mention of deceptive angels of light (11:14), it is not impossible that Paul has this in view in 2 Cor. 11:3. But deceptive angels also occur in other contexts (Apoc. Mos. 17:1; Test. Job 6:4, 17:2/1; 23:1; Pes. Rab Kah. 26:2; cf. Test. Abr. 16 A, 13 B [for Abraham’s good]; cf. A. B. Kolenkow, “The Angelology of the Testament of Abraham,” in Studies on the Testament of Abraham, ed. G. W. E. Nickelsburg, SBLSCS 6 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1976), p. 158; seductive gods as in Ach. Tat. Clit. 2.15.4 and often; Satan as a woman seeking to seduce Akiba and Meir in Urbach, Sages, 1:480), and the serpent of Gen. 3 was often held to be Satan or the angel of death in disguise (e.g. 3 Bar. 9:7, both recensions; Danielle Ellul, “Le Targum du Pseudo-Jonathan sur Genèse 3 à la lumière de quelques traditions haggadiques,” FV 80 [6, Dec. 1981]: 12–25) (the earlier rabbinic traditions do not identify the serpent with Satan or other evil angels).

[107]. This element is presupposed as early as Wisd. 2:23–24; Jos. Ant. 1.1.4, §41; also in b. Sanh. 59b (later). In some versions, he refused to worship, e.g., Apoc. Sedrach 5:2–6. But this element can exist independently of other parts of the story.

[108]. Ab. R. Nathan 1 A; t. Sot. 4:17–18; Gen. Rab. 18:6; 20:4, 5.

[109]. There is probably an allusion to this in 4 Macc. 18:8; cf. 2 En. 31:6 J (if this recension was not influenced by the Bogomils here); Gen. Rab. 24:6. Philo speaks of the serpent as pleasure enticing Eve, who represents sense perception (On the Creation 157, 165; cf. On Husbandry 107), but this is common Philonic imagery for women in general.

[110]. Ab. R. Nathan 1 A. The point of the later tradition in Exod. Rab. 28:2 is less clear.

[111]. Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145CE; Chariton Chaer. 1.4.1–2. Cf. Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 150; cf. Spartans in Herod. Hist. 4.145.1 (in Gould, “Law,” pp. 54–55). Pandora’s role in Greek tradition is somewhat analogous to Eve’s in developed Jewish tradition, though less prominent; cf. the survey of Hesiod summarized in L. S. Sussman, “Workers and Drones: Labor, Idleness and Gender Definition in Hesiod’s Beehive,” in Women in the Ancient World, p. 89.

[112]. Test. Job 26:6/7–8; b. Shab. 33b (the story of R. Simeon ben Yohai).

[113]. Cf. “the woman” for Eve in Jos. Ant. 1.1.4, §§40, 43, 48. On the other hand, “anyone like Eve” means “a woman” in Ab. R. Nathan 19, §41 B; her behavior affected all subsequent women in Ab. R. Nathan 9, §25 B.

[114]. Scholer, “Ministry,” p. 208; Kaiser, Exegetical Theology, pp. 119–20. In contrast, Moo, “1 Timothy 2:11–15,” p. 70, thinks that Eve’s sin is at least “exemplary and perhaps causative” and affects the nature of women in general.

[115]. E.g., Swidler, Women, pp. 26–27; Giles, Created Woman, p. 15.

[116]. So also Scholer, “Ministry,” p. 209; cf. Leslie, “Woman,” p. 330, who sees this as “reminiscent of Paul’s rabbinical-style argument in I Cor. 11:8f. for requiring women to wear a head-covering during worship.” Knight, Teaching, pp. 40–41, suggests that the point is not chronology but derivation, on the analogy of 1 Cor. 11:8–9 (cf. also Moo, “1 Timothy 2:11–15,” p. 68); but he fails to cite 1 Cor. 11:11–12, several verses down, which would have ruined his point. His argument (Knight, “Teaching,” p. 85) on the creation order being determinative is flawed by his failure to come to terms with the real demand of 1 Cor. 11:1–16.

[117]. Cf. Kaiser, Exegetical Theology, p. 120. Spencer, Curse, p. 88–89, reads it as concessive: though Adam was created first, Eve transgressed first; this reading also connects the two elements mentioned in 1 Tim. 2:13–14.

[118]. Although I originally noticed this independently, it has been pointed out by many others, e.g., Scholer, “Ministry,” p. 210; Spencer, Curse, pp. 89–90.

[119]. Also Scholer, “Ministry,” p. 196.

[120]. Spencer, Curse, p. 92; idem, “Eve at Ephesus (Should women be ordained as pastors according to the First letter to Timothy 2:11–15),” JETS 17 (4, Fall 1974): 215–22; Williams, Paul and Women, p. 113; Lock, Pastoral Epistles, p. 33; P. K. Jewett, Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), p. 60.

[121]. E. F. Scott, The Pastoral Epistles, MNTC (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1936), p. 28.

[122]. Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, p. 69; Verner, Household, p. 170. J. H. Ulrichsen, “Noèn bemerkninger til 1. Tim. 2,15,” NTT 84 (1, 1983): 19–25 (NTA 29:42), suggests that the text means she is saved because she raises her children to be good Christians. The term translated “childbearing” can also include “childrearing” (Moo, “1 Timothy 2:11–15,” pp. 71–72).

[123]. Scholer, “Ministry,” p. 197. The virtue of sōphrosynē, or self-control, sobriety, was often praised (e.g., Plato Charmides 159B–176C; Plut. Poetry 11; Mor. 32C; Acts 26:25, sometimes meaning also restraint from sinful desires (4 Macc. 1:31; cf. Ps-Phocyl 76), including sexual desires (Test. Jos. 4:1–2; Ach. Tat Clit. 1.5.6).

[124]. E.g., Exod. 14:13, 30; Sir. 46:1; Jdt. 8:17; 9:1; 11:3; 1 Macc. 4:25; Ps. Sol. 16:5; Jos. Ant. 2.16.2, §339; 3.1.1, §1; 11.6.12, §282; War 5.9.4, §415; 6.5.4, §310; Philo The Decalogue 53, 60, 155; 4 Macc. 15:8; Test. Job 19:2/1; Apul. Metam. 6.28; Chariton Chaer. 2.7.6, 2.8.1; cf. Plut. Statecraft 32, Mor. 824D; Apul. Metam. 3.27. It has a more “spiritual” sense in Tob. 12:9; Wisd. 9:18; 1 En. 50:3–4; Test. Job 3:5; Marc. Aur. Med. 12.29. Nigel Turner, “Second Thoughts—VII. Papyrus Finds,” ExpT 76 (1964): 46, is right to point out that the specialized Christian usage is different from the connotations of some other religious environments, but Christians were not averse to using other senses of the term when the circumstances called for it (e.g., Acts 27:20, 31; cf. 27:43–28:1); and deliverance was the usual, not the specialized religious, use of the term.

[125]. Plut. R. Q. 2, Mor. 264B; cf. Otto, Dionysus, p. 171. It is not unlikely that the Ephesian Artemis also absorbed this function.

[126]. Heyob, Isis, pp. 70, 80, 128.

[127]. Cf. Test. Sol. 13:3, 6, where a particular demon was in charge of causing miscarriages and birth defects, but could be overcome by invoking a certain angel. Deities such as Zeus (inscription in Grant, Religions, p. 30; Epict. Disc. 1.22.16; Plut. On Borrowing 7, Mor. 830B; Athen. Deipn. 7.288.f), certain goddesses (Orphic Hymns 14.8; 27.12; 74.4), Ptolemies (CPJ l:185–86, §38, 218 BCE; cf. a Jewish Alexandrian to the prefect in CPJ 2:31–32, §151), and deified emperors (Empire, ed. Sherk, pp. 57–59, §32, p. 61, §34B; Mart. Epig. 2.91) were seen as saviors; God was also addressed this way in Jewish tradition (1 Macc. 4:30; Sib. Or. 1:73, 152, 167; 2:28; 3:35; Otto Betz, What Do We Know About Jesus? [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968], p. 109; Longenecker, Christology, pp. 142–43; Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, pp. 100–103).

[128]. This is the major emphasis of her punishment in Jos. Ant. 1.1.4, §49. Jub. 3:24 has both birthpangs and husband’s rule (following Genesis very closely, except it deals with her nakedness before she gave the fruit to Adam, probably because Jubilees resents the hellenistic gymnastic nakedness of its day).

[129]. A third-century rabbi could nevertheless assert that man’s suffering in toil is twice as difficult as women’s labor in childbirth (b. Pes. 118a). Another rabbi, however, argued that the serpent was most cursed, then Eve, and Adam least (Gen. Rab. 20:3).

[130]. Ab. R. Nathan 42, §117 B (trans. Saldarini, p. 254); also 9, §25 B; cf. m. Shab. 2:6; Koh. Rab. 3:2, §2, with the same punishments but no mention of Eve. The pain of Gen. 3:16 is also extended to menstrual cramps (Ab. R. Nathan 1 A). We suggest that Paul here argues in a manner analogous to this, not that he knew this exact tradition.

[131]. Apoc. Mos. 25:1–2 (OTP 2:283).

[132]. V. Adam 19:2; 21:2. In Crates 33, to Hipparchia (CynEp, pp. 82–83), it is not piety but toil—the hard life of the Cynic philosopher—that provided a good birth.

[133]. Cf. the removal of women’s birth pangs in the eschatological time of peace (2 Bar. 73:7). One may note, in contrast to this, the tendency in ancient Greek literature to parallel women’s sufferings or death in childbirth with that of heroic men in war (Nicole Loraux, “Le lit, la guerre,” Homme 21 [1, Jan. 1981]: 37–67).

[134]. Pes. Rab Kah. 22:2, a later story about the second-century rabbi Simeon ben Yohai.

[135]. See p. Taan. 4:3, §2. These particular stories are later but illustrate the way childbirth and piety were connected in Jewish thought.

[136]. Ode Sol. 19:7–9.

[137]. Chrisdan women certainly suffer pain in childbirth, and have not always come safely through; but that Paul means that God hears the cries of one of his daughters in travail is as reasonable as James’s promise that the sick will be healed (Jas. 5:14), even if readers must then explain why some of them are not.

[138]. Pointed out by others, e.g., Bilezikian, Roles, pp. 180–81.

Chapter 4 Why Paul Told Wives to Submit—The Social Situation of Ephesians 5:18–33

[1]. This approach of concentrating on the more detailed passage is also followed by scholars holding the position we are challenging; see G. W. Knight III, “Husbands and Wives as Analogues of Christ and the Church: Ephesians 5:21–33 and Colossians 3:18–19,” in Manhood and Womanhood, p. 165.

[2]. The most complete treatment of opposition to foreign cults with which I am familiar is D. L. Balch, Let Wives be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter, SBLMS 26 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1981), pp. 65–80 (ch. 5, “Greco-Roman Criticism of Eastern Religions”); see also p. 118.

[3]. Juv. Sat. 3.62. Although Juvenal refers to Eastern religions as a whole, it is interesting that Syrian Antioch, a major sending church in Paul’s Gentile mission (Acts 13:1–3; 14:26–28), was situated on the Orontes.

[4]. M. Stern, “The Jews in Greek and Latin Literature,” in JPFC, pp. 1150, 1157, citing Tacitus, Seneca, and Juvenal; cf. Meeks, World, p. 22. On the growing distrust of Roman aristocrats toward foreign elements in Rome in general, cf. e.g., Meeks, World, p. 25. The Roman elite’s ethnocentrism may be exampled in Claudius’ response to the Senate in 48 CE, preserved in inscriptions and paraphrased by Tacitus (see Empire, ed. Sherk, §55, pp. 97–98).

[5]. Apul. Metam. 8.27–28, where they cut themselves. The Phrygian music (8.30) could suggest the worship of Cybele, but 9.9–10 seem to distinguish her from the mother of the gods; this one claims to be her “sister.”

[6]. Apul. Metam. 9.9–10.

[7]. Ibid., 8.29.

[8]. Petr. Sat. 16–26, including male prostitutes, aphrodisiacs, and the marriage of a seven-year-old girl. Petronius does not feel equally perturbed about men chasing boys.

[9]. Cf. Cic. Leg. 2.10.25, whose ideal laws exclude “the worship of private gods, whether new or alien” as disruptive to Roman religion (LCL). The necessity of preserving Roman religious custom is often heard, e.g., Rhet. ad Herenn. 3.3.4.

[10]. Grant, Gods, p. 33.

[11]. No doubt made a mystery only under Greek influence.

[12]. For its popularity, see H. C. Kee, Miracle in the Early Christian World (New Haven: Yale University, 1983), pp. 105–45.

[13]. In the 40s, under Caligula: see Françoise Dunand, “Les Mystères Egyptiens,” in Mystères et Syncrétismes, EHR 2 (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1975), p. 38; Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 343. It existed in Rome, with its own temple, from the first century BCE (Grant, Gods, p. 34), but the scandal in the reign of Tiberius had been a major setback (see p. 141 below).

[14]. Heyob, Isis, pp. 26–27. They increased again under the Antonines (ibid., pp. 28–33).

[15]. See Grant, Society, p. 60. Of course, Greeks had long touted their own cultural superiority (cf. Plato Rep. 5.470C; Diog. Laert. Lives 1, §33; 6.1.1, 10.117; Lucian Dem. 40; Diogenes 28 to the Greeks [CynEp, pp. 124–25]; contrast Anacharsis to Solon 2.1–2 [CynEp, pp. 38–39]), classifying other peoples as “barbarians” (Plato Laws 9.870AB; Crat. 409DE, 421D; Alcib. book 2, 141C; Isoc. Pan. 108, Or. 4; Helen 67–68, Or. 10; Nic./Cyp. 50, Or. 3.37; Dio Chrys. 1st Disc, on Kingship 14; 12th Olymp. Disc. 27–28; 31st Disc. 20; 32d Disc. 35; 36th Disc. 43; Diog. Laert. Lives 6.1.2; Athen. Deipn. 11.461b; Plut. Eum. 16.3; Ages. 10.3; Tim. 28.2; Bride 21, Mor. 141A; Sext. Emp. Out. Pyrr. 3.267; Against the Ethicists 1.15; Strabo Geog. 13.1.1; 15.3.23; 16.2.38; Chariton Chaer. 6.7.12). Other peoples did not all take kindly to this (Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.3, §§15–18; 1.11, §58; Sib. Or. 3:171, 732; 4:70; cf. 4:1), although some accepted the typical Greek division of humanity into “Greeks” and “barbarians” as simply a standard way of speaking of all peoples (Rom. 1:14; Cic. Invent. 1.24.35; probably Offic. 3.26.99; Sen. Dial. 5.2.1; Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.22, §201; 2.39, §282; War 5.1.3, §17; Ant. 1.3.9, §107; 15.5.3, §136; 18.1.5, §20; Philo On Drunkenness 193; On the Cherubim 91; On Abraham 267; On Joseph 30; Life of Moses 2.18, 20; The Decalogue 153; Special Laws 2.44, 165; 4.120; Every Good Man is Free 94; On the Contemplative Life 21; 48; Embassy to Gaius 145; 292; Tatian 1, 21, 29). Although Jews were normally counted among non-Greeks (Strabo Geog. 16.2.38; Jos. War 1 preamble 1.3; contrast perhaps Philo Special Laws 2.165; 1 Cor. 10:32), educated Jews in Alexandria sometimes protested that they were culturally Greek.

[16]. Heyob, Isis, p. 36. Religious tolerance seems to have been higher in the period of the Republic; see Tenney Frank, Aspects of Social Behavior in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1932), p. 42. Judaism naturally despised Isis-worshipers, too; cf. Sib. Or. 5:484–91 (probably late first to early second century CE Egypt); the “thricewretched goddess” (5:484; OTP 1:404) may be an allusion to the triplegoddess tradition applied to other composite goddess figures of antiquity.

[17]. Plut. T.-T. 4.6.1–2, Mor. 671C-672C, e.g., 6.2, Mor. 671DE (the Feast of Tabernacles is associated with Dionysus) and 672A (so also the Sabbath).

[18]. Lucian still has them mixed up in the second century in Pereg. 11. Outsiders recognized Christianity’s Jewish roots well into the third century, no doubt to the embarrassment of many of the Jewish leaders (cf. R. L. Wilken, “The Christians as the Romans (and Greeks) Saw Them,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, ed. E. P. Sanders et al., 3 vols. [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980–82], 1:119–23).

[19]. The sorts of charges cited against Judaism (cf. Tac. Hist. 5; Jos. Ag. Ap. 2) came to be leveled against Christians (cf. the ass’s head in Tac. Hist. 5.4; and Tert. Apol. 16.1–4). They came to be accused especially of atheism (for rejecting the gods, Athenag. Plea 3; Justin 1 Apol. 6; probably Marc. Aur. Med. 3.16.1), incest (probably based on brother-sister love in Christ; Athenag. Plea 3; Theoph. 3.4; Tert. Apol. 2.5, 20; 4.11; 7.1; cf. the story in B. J. Bamberger, Proselytism in the Talmudic Period [New York: KTAV, 1968], p. 235), infanticide and cannibalism (based on a literalistic misunderstanding of the Lord’s Supper, Athenag. Plea 3; Theoph. 3.15; Min. Fel. Oct. 9.5; Tert. Apol. 2.5, 20; 4.11; 7.1); several of these charges recur in later Jewish sources (B. L. Vistozky, “Overturning the Lamp,” JJS 38 [1, Spring 1987]: 72–80). Cannibalism (Otto, Dionysus, p. 113; Diog. Laert. Lives 7.1.121, 7.7.188) and child sacrifice (Tert. Apol. 9.2) may not have disgusted some marginal groups, but were generally among the greatest conceivable vulgarities, and figures such as Orpheus (Guthrie, Orpheus, p. 40) and Isis (Grant, Religions, p. 132) took credit for abolishing them.

[20]. Tacitus, who does not supply all the details provided in Josephus, nevertheless links the two events, and it almost sounds as if both the Egyptian and the Jewish communities were expelled by Tiberius at the same time (Ann. 2.85). The context is sexual offenses of upper-class women, but Tacitus seems only to be reporting discussions in the Senate. Perhaps because Judea was part of the Roman province of Syria, Jews and Syrians could be confused (possibly this explains Juv. Sat. 8.160).

[21]. As a Roman aristocrat, he received a lesser punishment, although he was more guilty than the priests. Class distinctions were part of standard Roman legal discrimination; e.g., Callistratus in Digest 47.21.2 (Empire, ed. Sherk, §160, p. 205).

[22]. Cf. Heyob, Isis; Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 25.

[23]. Jos. Ant. 18.3.4, §§64–80.

[24]. Jos. Ant. 18.3.5, §§81–83. Josephus adapts his narrative according to standard literary conventions for apologetic purposes (H. R. Moehring, “The Persecution of the Jews and the Adherents of the Isis Cult at Rome A.D. 19,” NovT 3 [4, Dec. 1959]: 293–304), but this does not bring his basic story into question (Heyob, Isis, p. 118, thinks Josephus was just making Judaism look good at the expense of Isis devotees).

[25]. Juv. Sat. 14.102–3.

[26]. Ibid., 14.100–101.

[27]. Tac. Hist, book 5.

[28]. Cf. C. Salles, “Le monde gréco-romain du 1er siècle: une société interculturelle?” Supplément 156 (1986): 15–28 (NTA 31:85).

[29]. See Stern, “Literature,” p. 1118. For anti-Judaism in Greco-Roman antiquity, see e.g., CPJ 1:24–25; 2:36–55, §153; 3:119–21, §520; Philo Flaccus 1; 47; 85; Sib. Or. 3.271–72; Quint. 3.7.21; Hor. Sat. 1.5.100–101; Juv. Sat. 14.96–106; Persius Sat. 5.179–84; S. J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, LEC 7 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), pp. 46–49; J. C. Meagher, “As the Twig Was Bent: Antisemitism in Greco-Roman and Earliest Christian Times,” in Anti-Semitism and the Foundations of Christianity, ed. A. T. Davies (New York: Paulist, 1979), pp. 1–26; J. L. Daniel, “Anti-Semitism in the Hellenistic-Roman Period,” JBL 98 (1, March 1979): 45–65; E. R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vols. (New York: Pantheon, 1953–68), 12:54. Nevertheless, Judaism was popular, as attested in the numbers of proselytes and God-fearers (J. G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism [New York: Oxford University, 1983], pp. 67–88; Cohen, Maccabees, pp. 49–58), though this only exacerbated the hostility of other outsiders (Gager, Anti-Semitism, pp. 59–61; cf. E. M. Smallwood, The Jews Under Roman Rule, SJLA 20 [Leiden: Brill, 1976], pp. 203–5).

[30]. Cf. e.g., Jos. Ant. 16.6.2, §§162–65; 19.5.2, §§280–85. The status of religio licita is often affirmed for Judaism (e.g., Meyer Reinhold, Diaspora [Sarasota: Samuel Stevens, 1983], p. 74; Selwyn, Peter, p. 51), though it may not be strictly accurate, since Judaism functioned as a collegium rather than a religio (Parkes, Conflict, p. 8; cf. Koester, Introduction, 1:365). Josephus’ evidence points not toward a religio licita status per se, but toward the use of precedents and appeals (Tessa Rajak, “Was There a Roman Charter for the Jews?” JRS 74 [1984]: 107–23). Precedent was important in Roman law (Augustus’ powers are cited in support of those of Vespasian in a law of 69–70 CE, in CIL 6.930, in Empire, ed. Sherk, pp. 124–25, §82), and Luke seems to appeal to as many legal precedents as possible in establishing the acceptability of Christianity in the book of Acts.

[31]. See especially the thesis of Gager, Anti-Semitism, who thinks that the main cause of antipathy toward Judaism in Rome was its popularity among others in Rome. Jewish proselytism does not appear in favorable light in our Roman sources: Hor. Sat. 1.4.141–44; see the full sampling in Molly Whittaker, Jews and Christians: Graeco-Roman Views, CCWJCW 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1984), pp. 85–91; cf. Parkes, Conflict, pp. 25–26. Of course, the foreignness and non-Roman exclusiveness of Judaism was also offensive, as may be attested in repeated criticisms of circumcision, Sabbath, and food laws (cf. Tac. Hist. 5.1–5; Gager, Anti-Semitism, p. 58; Smallwood, Rule, p. 123; J. N. Sevenster’ The Roots of Pagan Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World, NovTSup 41 [Leiden: Brill, 1975], pp. 89–144); but Judaism’s popularity may be what made these threatening and more than objects of ridicule.

[32]. Judaism laid claim to protection partly on the basis of its antiquity (Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.1, §1); respect for the antiquity of tradition may be one reason the Sibylline Oracles were placed in the distant past (H. W. Parke, Sibyls and Sibylline Prophecy in Classical Antiquity [New York: Routledge, 1988], p. 8). Although early Christians like Luke (who ties Christianity into the history of Israel in Luke-Acts) and Justin (1 Apol. 44) appealed to the antiquity argument, Roman magistrates did not initially grant recognition in their case.

[33]. We refer to the Neronian persecution of 64 CE, in Rome, reported by Tacitus and Christian tradition (Tac. Ann. 15.44; Tert. Apol. 5.3; Euseb. Eccl Hist 2.25.79–80). The objections of G. Fau, “L’authenticité du texte de Tacite sur les Chrétiens,” Cahiers du Cercle Ernest-Renan 19 (72, 1972): 19–24 (NTA 16:218) are untenable; cf. Mattingly, Christianity, pp. 31–32; A. Giovannini, “Tacite, l’‘incendium Neronis’ et les chrétiens,” Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes 30 (1–2, 1984): 3–23 (NTA 29:307); M. J. Harris, “References to Jesus in Early Classical Authors,” pp. 343–68 in The Jesus Tradition Outside the New Testament, ed. David Wenham, GP 5 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1984), pp. 348–50.

[34]. Plut. Bride 19, Mor. 140D (LCL). For an example of Plutarch’s objections to foreign superstitions, cf. Plut. Superst. 2, Mor. 166AB (he includes Judaism as such in Superst. 8, Mor. 169C).

[35]. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 25; cf. J. E. Stambaugh and D. L. Balch, The New Testament in Its Social Environment, LEC 2 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), pp. 123–24. Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 206, notes “the Romans’ use of religious sanctions to promote socially desirable behavior,” referring to the cults of Fortuna; for the Romans, religion should establish, not challenge, the social fabric.

[36]. Examples from the hellenistic period may be found in W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, 3d rev. ed. (New York: New American Library, 1974), pp. 99–100. Verner, Household, pp. 64–67, acknowledges improvements but notes that in hellenistic Egypt the same social restrictions obtained on wives; they were “expected to be domestic, socially retiring, chaste, and submissive to their husbands,” lest they shame the household.

[37]. S. B. Pomeroy, “Women in Roman Egypt: A preliminary study based on papyri,” in Reflections of Women in Antiquity, ed. H. P. Foley (New York: Gordon and Breach Science Pub., 1981), pp. 303–22; Verner, Household, pp. 68–70; cf. Meeks, Urban Christians, pp. 23–24. Some examples of powerful upper-class women—both respected and despised—are gathered, e.g., in Balsdon, “Women,” pp. 24–31.

[38]. Carcopino, Life, pp. 84–85; cf. pp. 90–95, although the case may be exaggerated; cf. Friedländer, Life, 1:237–38.

[39]. See Hallett, “Elegy,” p. 244.

[40]. Cf. Susan Treggiari, “Jobs in the Household of Livia,” PBSR 43 (1975): 48–77; cf. also the Greek inscription of a message from Augustus in Karia, in Empire, ed. Sherk, p. 7, §3, where Livia’s influence over her husband is evident even as early as shortly after 27 BCE.

[41]. Verner, Household, p. 81.

[42]. On Juvenal, see Tony Reekmans, “Juvenal’s Views on Social Change,” AncSoc 2 (1971): 117–61.

[43]. Martin, Slavery, p. 89; for Philo similarly, see ibid., p. 93.

[44]. E.g., the inscription cited in Empire, ed. Sherk, §35, pp. 61–63, in which no senator’s descendant was allowed on stage, hence rejecting lower-class occupations (19 CE; one may contrast the socially “inappropriate” behavior in which Nero engages a generation later).

[45]. MacMullen, Relations, p. 105.

[46]. Isoc. Nic./Cyp. 55, Or. 3.38 (LCL). For the moralists’ unitary view of society, see Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 88, and the excerpt from Hierocles he cites on pp. 100–104. Meeks, World, p. 21, shows how Creon’s position in Sophocles’ Antigone 663–77, from classical Athens, reflects the fear of women’s disobedience disrupting the civic order.

[47]. Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 154; on Stoics, see especially ibid., p. 230. See Val. Max. Mem. Deeds 6.3.9, first century CE (in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 176), on an early Roman who cudgeled his wife to death for drinking some wine. Valerius Maximus need not be approving of beating one’s wife to death, but he is appealing to the “higher” standards of earlier Rome concerning wifely submission.

[48]. He ridicules particularly Trimalchio’s wife Fortunata, who controls her husband’s money (Petr. Sat. 37).

[49]. Juv. Sat. 4.30–37 (although Juvenal also mocks male bedfellows).

[50]. Juv. Sat. 4.111–12; 6.246–67. The “joys” are probably sexual pleasures, as Teiresias the seer testified in the older Greek story. The violence no doubt refers to bickering savagely with her husband in bed, to which he refers in 6.268–85. This is, he complains, all due to the influx of luxury in recent times; the hard-working, humble wives of old Latium were chaste (6.286–305).

[51]. Juv. Sat. 6.219–24; he goes on to note that she also changes husbands frequently. In 6.474–85, he again charges that matrons will abuse the slaves unless the husbands are there to ensure their safety.

[52]. Juv. Sat. 6.434–56.

[53]. In Petr. fr. 6 (LCL).

[54]. Gould, “Law, Custom and Myth,” p. 57, suggests that the men of ancient Athens appear to have been uncomfortable with women’s potential for their own undoing as reflected in the myths.

[55]. Cato the Elder 3, in Plut. SRom., Mor. 198D (LCL). Of course, this fits Plutarch’s own view, but this is not necessarily a reason to dispute the likelihood that he depends on prior tradition.

[56]. Cic. Par. Stoic. 36.

[57]. Rawson, “Family,” pp. 26–27.

[58]. Verner, Household, p. 81.

[59]. Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 123.

[60]. For his linking of household codes with the theory of the polis, the (city-) state, see Arist. Pol. book 1, e.g., chs. 1–3; connections between state and household precede him (e.g., Lycurgus 21 in Plut. SSpart., Mor. 228CD; or, more reliably, Soph. Antigone as cited in Meeks, World, p. 21). For the societal function of the household codes, see A. J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity, 2d ed. (Philadelphia-Fortress, 1983), p. 51.

[61]. Balch, Wives, p. 117; Dieter Liihrmann, “Neutestamentliche Haustafeln und antike Ökonomie,” NTS 27 (1, Oct. 1980): 83–97. Balch, Wives, pp. 23–31, covers Platonic material and Stobaeus; pp. 33–49, Aristotelian and dependent writers; pp. 33–49, the “topos” in the imperial period; and pp. 51–59, the same in eclectic Stoics, hellenistic Jews, and Neopythagorean texts. Other kinds of social relations could be constructed, e.g., to one’s body, to the divine, and to other people (Marc. Aur. Med. 8.27); but we can say without doubt that lists of social duties were at least common (Epict. Encheir. 30). For the household codes, in Seneca, see Ben. 2.18.1–2; 3.18.1–4 (D. L. Balch, “Household Codes,” in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament, pp. 27–28); but the most convincing of the non-Peripatetic examples appears to be Hierocles (see in Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 85). For a treatment of previous research, see Verner, Household, pp. 16–22; Balch, Wives, pp. 1–20; idem, “Codes,” pp. 47–50. Some commentators, noting that the Stoic and Jewish parallels (e.g., in Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, trans. William R. Poehlmann and Robert J. Karris, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971], pp. 154–57; Kelly, Peter, pp. 107–8) were not particularly close, and writing before the views of Balch, Lührmann, and Thraede on the Peripatetic roots of the structure became generally disseminated, thought that this was a spontaneous Christian form in the NT (C. L. Mitton, Ephesians, NCBC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981], p. 194, is a notable example; cf. P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, WBC 44 [Waco, Tex.: Word, 1982], pp. 215–26; G. E. Cannon, The Use of Traditional Materials in Colossians [Macon, Ga.: Mercer University, 1983], pp. 111–21. Leonhard Goppelt, Theology of the New Testament, trans. John E. Alsup, 2 vols. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981–82], 2:169–70, regards it as a Stoic form but with roots in the Jesus tradition’s affirmation of civil authority).

[62]. Slaves, like wives and children, were commonly considered part of the household; see Rawson, “Family,” pp. 7–8; in Judaism, cf. CPJ 1:249–50, §135 (second century BCE); p. Ter. 8:1; Safrai, “Home,” p. 750. It also included “freedmen, hired laborers, and other clients” (Aune, Environment, pp. 59–60); cf. m. Ab. 1:5, where a pre-Christian Jewish teacher is said to exhort his hearers to “let the poor be sons of your house,” i.e., be (functional) dependents.

[63]. Arist. Pol. 1.2.1, 1253b (LCL). The three pairs also appear in Arist. Pol. 1.2.2, 1253b; 1.5.3–4, 1259b; 3.4.4, 1278b.

[64]. Balch, “Codes,” p. 27. Even Artem. Oneir. 1.24 defines as classes subservient to a man, “wife, children, and slaves.” Interestingly, Jewish legal literature typically classifies as dependents or as those incapable of full equality “women, slaves, and minors” (e.g., m. Suk. 2:8; p. Suk. 2:9), though other categories such as deaf mutes and imbeciles are also introduced; Swidler, Women, pp. 117–18, sees this as generally demeaning to women. Other philosophers, like the Cynics, completely ignored questions of transforming the social order (Meeks, World, p. 55). Post-Aristotelian Greek thinkers seem to have shared Aristotle’s penchant for categorization.

[65]. Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 123.

[66]. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 30.

[67]. Arist. N. E. 8.11.2, 1161a (over son); 8.11.4, 1161a (over wife); Stowers, Letter Writing, p. 31. Aristotle held that the state was composed of households (Pol. 1.2.1, 1253b), but disagreed with those who thought its government the same as that of the city-state (e.g., Pol. 1.1.2, 1252a).

[68]. In Grant, Religions, pp. 131–33, especially p. 132. This text is from second century CE Asia, probably copying an earlier one from Egypt.

[69]. E.g., Sir. 7:18–28.

[70]. Apologetic concerns could also be reflected in Palestinian Jewish community laws; cf., e.g., Sifre Deut. 344.3.2.

[71]. Malherbe, Aspects, p. 51; cf. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 106.

[72]. Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.201–17; see especially the comments in Balch, “Codes,” pp. 28–29. This is true despite the fact that Josephus is often partly defending himself (cf. Clemens Thoma, “Die Weltanschauung des Josephus Flavius. Dargestellt anhand seiner Schilderung des jüdischen Aufstandes gegen Rom [66–73 n. Chr.],” Kairos 11 [1, 1969]: 39–52). On the importance of apologetic in Greek-speaking Judaism, cf. e.g., C. R. Holladay, Theios Aner in Hellenistic Judaism, SBLDS 40 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1977), passim. While agreement has not been reached on whether many of our Greek-Jewish documents were meant to convert Greeks to Judaism, or Jews to a greater level of hellenization (e.g., Victor Tcherikover, “The Ideology of the Letter of Aristeas,” HTR 51 [2, April 1958]: 60, 83; I think this much less likely, especially for Aristeas, whose readers would not have understood it had they not already had Greek education), or just as general propaganda showing that Jews were respectable citizens of Greek cities like Alexandria, I believe that it is fair to look for apologetic elements in most of this literature.

[73]. Besides those familiar to us from Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Peter, and possibly 1 Timothy, see Did. 4; Ign. Antioch. 9–10 (probably pseudonymous).

[74]. On 1 Peter, see Balch, Wives, pp. 81–116. Also Aune, Environment, p. 196, and others, following Balch.

[75]. Cf. Meeks, World, pp. 128–29 (on 1 Thessalonians).

[76]. See Balch, Wives, pp. 90–92, for data from ancient moralists that would strengthen this contention.

[77]. C. L. Rogers, Jr., “The Dionysian Background of Ephesians 5:18,” BibSac 136 (543, July 1979): 257, suggests that the admonition of wifely submission in 5:22 is anti-Dionysiac. We acknowledge a possible connection with Dionysus, but the polemic is more likely to protect Christians from Roman perceptions of that cult than against any inroads that cult was likely to have been making into first-century churches.

[78]. One might also ask, if the use of the Haustafeln, or household codes, in Eph. 5 is apologetic, why he does not tone down possible astrological connotations to his language in Eph. 1 more explicitly, since some conservative Romans (like the later emperor Domitian) disliked astrologers. But there was widespread acceptance of divination, which was even part of state cults; and astrological beliefs, which had become standard fare in the imperial Mediterranean, were not the same as astrological predictions of an emperor’s demise. And ultimately his language is anti-astrological anyway.

[79]. E.g., Rom. 12:17; 1 Cor. 6:6; 10:32; 14:23–25; 2 Cor. 8:2; 1 Thess. 4:12.

[80]. Cf. the similar argument of Alan Padgett, “The Pauline Rationale for Submission: Biblical Feminism and the hina Clauses of Titus 2:1–10,” EQ 59 (1, Jan. 1987): 39–52; Johnson, “Response,” in Women, Authority & the Bible, p. 157.

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