Fresh Perspective - 09/19/08
1 Timothy 2:11-13 (NRSV) reads: "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. [Get ready; here comes the theological reasoning behind the above instruction:] For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. [As if to offer some consolation to the women he just dismissed as morally inferior the writer adds:] Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and holiness, with modesty. [That is, as long as she is quiet and submissive.]"
I now find it amusing when I look back and reflect on the exegetical gymnastics I once performed on this Scripture in order to make it say what it did not say, but what I wanted it to say. I guess my reasoning at the time was that I had to save the Bible from being so demeaning to women.
I have learned since then that such a task is impossible, but I have also learned that it is unnecessary. Human beings - with all their biases, faults, and misconceptions - were responsible for the Bible. To admit what now seems so obvious has not led me to abandon my faith or the Bible. The sacred Scriptures are still as crucial and central to my spiritual journey and faith development as they ever were, but now I approach them differently.
I am now free to make use of the Bible in ways that promote equality and healthy gender relations both outside and inside the church. I can apply interpretative methods to the text that allow me to filter out the biases and misconceptions, and focus on what is helpful, wholesome, and redemptive. Of course, I can never be sure that I myself am free from biases and misconceptions. For such is the human condition.
This awakening to the humanness of the Bible has been liberating for someone like me who was indoctrinated early in life into fundamentalist Christianity. I was often perplexed by the contradictions that I felt compelled somehow to explain away. I was also embarrassed by some of the Bible's teachings.
I have discovered that the only thing we really have to lose by allowing the Bible to be a human product of faith-struggling sinners and saints is our impossible preconceived ideals about what the Bible is. What freedom there is in letting go of the need to defend such ideals against critical biblical scholarship!
I suppose we can dig holes, stick our minds in them, and then go about our business as if there were no contradictions and shortcomings to be found in the Bible, but there is no redemption in denial. It is the truth that sets us free.
I wonder how many non-religious people today are turned off to Christianity by the Christian practice of bibliolatry (making an idol out of the Bible). Too many Christians are serving the Bible, rather than the God of the Bible, whose love and grace transcend the fallible attitudes and beliefs of all the biblical writers. As Dr. Metri Raheb, pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem says, "Some people have too much religion."