8 Comments»

1. Sharon:
   Feb. 29th, 2008

   The first thing I am struck with is: Are these guys reading the same story I am reading? As Eve is used to promote their ideas, I find some of their statements directly contradicting my reading of the “facts” of the case. This actually serves to remind me of my own lens that filters and interprets the work.
   First of all, in reading Timothy, I am following his argument through Adam being made first, but when he gets to the statement “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived,” I get a little confused. Never mind my feminist readings, in the traditional interpretations I have come across, the argument for women’s silence is the fact that Eve deceived Adam, as Adam claims in 3:12, that the woman gave him the fruit and he ate it. Timothy’s argument seems to be different in that he appears to be making the case that women are just not that bright and they can be deceived, not that they are crafty manipulators. Even though he commands women to learn, he doesn’t seem to think that their intelligence will allow them to reason or understand. Their only way to salvation is through the physical act of childbearing, as long as they stay the course and are guided correctly by the men.
   John Chrysostom also made me go back to the text because I just didn’t remember anything about the lack of sex or the introduction of intercourse AFTER the Garden. (I have read interpretations of the apple symbolizing sexual union.) He appears to be arguing that both Eve and sex were sort of interesting add-ons to creation, not an integral part of the initial divine plan. (In his description of that early paradise, however I cannot help but notice some potentially sexually charged language of “the clear river shooting forth.” )
   Again, are we reading the same book? He argues in 14.5 that after they did not obey God they became “earth and dust.” Looking back at Genesis 2:7 wasn’t Adam made out of the dust of the earth in the first place? If he is intentionally referring back to that verse, then is he arguing a pre-Garden state for man, to which the couple reverts? When he says that sex, procreation, childbirth, etc. were “banished” from the Garden in the beginning, it makes It sound like these elements were in existence all along. You can’t “banish” nothingness. So if the elements existed but were not allowed in the Garden, what is the moment of banishment? Is it when God breathed life into Adam, or when Eve was added on? When the pair was banished from the Garden, they must have run into Sex out in the world, since Sex had been banished earlier. In this piece, the personified Virginity walks away from them as Sex approaches. Eve appears to function in this piece as an unnecessary addition to creation, and the biggest trap of marriage is it will lead to sex, something that can only be experienced outside of divine paradise, in a place of banishment.

2. Margi:
   Mar. 1st, 2008

   Sharon, I also noticed some of the same inconsistencies that you pointed out in your post. The author of Timothy certainly seems to have his/her own understanding of gender norms and is using the Genesis text to push these gender norms onto his/her readers, in the name of God. The author not only says that Adam was not deceived, s/he also implies that only “the woman” was a transgressor (1 Tim. 2:14). Verse 15 is a bit confusing grammatically; it refers in the first half to to “she” while in the second half referring to “they”. Who is “they”? Women? Their children? The family unit? This makes a difference in terms of women’s salvation–are the women themselves supposed to remain faithful, loving, and modest, or are they dependent upon their children’s faith, love, and modesty? I agree with Sharon–this author doesn’t give women much credit for being clever or intelligent, nor does s/he think women should have any sort of agency or responsibility. Bearing children is no doubt a formidable task, but the act of conception is one that could be forced/coerced upon a woman, thus stealing her agency from her. This passage reminds me of a much later church thinker, Thomas Aquinas, who claimed that women’s usefulness lies only in their ability to bear children.
   John Chrysostom seems to think that the only purpose of marriage is to have offspring. He acknowledges women’s right to exist beyond their childbearing functions, but even so woman is still a helper to man in some capacity.
   It’s interesting that Chrysostom describes virginity as a “princely raiment” (v. 14:5), when in fact princes only exist because their parents are not virgins, and the eventual job of many princes is produce offspring to further the royal family line. The imagery of adornment and clothing is also interesting because the Genesis text claims that Adam and Eve were originally naked. In place of clothing, they were adorned in…virginity? And the fig leaves that they later put on represent marriage?
   Chrysostom also seems to miss the part in Genesis where God says to Eve, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing” (vs. 3:16), indicating that childbirth already exists as a phenomenon.

3. Sharon:
   Mar. 1st, 2008

   Margi, you caught me up short with your reference to the author of Timothy as s/he. I noticed a typo in my own post where I left out “the author of” and just wrote Timothy’s as if he was the author. (I knew not to assume Paul as the author, but ended up sounding pretty stupid with my omission.) I have to confess that my use of the masculine “he”, however, was not a typo. As I was reading the patriarchal message, I fell into the trap of simply assuming the author to be a man. I know better, but my Freudian slip called me to account.
   Then I started to think about what the implications would be for a female author of this text. Would a woman write a message that calls for her own silence? I am sure that women often collude in their own oppression, but would this be a means for a woman so moved in this direction? Wouldn’t simply writing a message transgress her own demand for silence and implicitly give her authority, even if it is penned in the name of Paul?

4. Margi:
   Mar. 2nd, 2008

   Sharon,
   I actually agree with you, that the author of Timothy was most likely a male. I would hope that a female wouldn’t write a message that silences other females. I suppose that writing in the name of Paul would be a particularly subversive act for a woman to undertake, but you’re right to point out that a female author would be ignoring her own advice in writing this passage.

   However, I still maintain my use of s/he in an effort to challenge our assumptions of gender categories (by our, I don’t mean just you and I but society in general). For example, what makes a male a man, or what makes a female a woman? Can they be switched? Can we challenge the binary categories of man/woman?

   I don’t think that either of these passages is trying to challenge gender binaries, but that’s simply my reasoning for using “s/he”.

5. Sharon:
   Mar. 2nd, 2008

   I agree with you. Your use of s/he did exactly what it is supposed to do. It stopped me short and made me question my assumptions. I had to ask myself why I had blithely used “he” when I know that “s/he” is at my disposal. You made me stop thinking about the author as “Bad Patriarchal Guy” with no identity and I had to wrestle with a real person behind the words. A layer of complexity emerged for me. It was the disruption of my reading that made me think about a wo/man writer, and the real wo/men who were receiving this message. In this vein, could the writer have been male in gender, but someone whose race, class, etc. would put him in a wo/men category? This makes me think of the possibilities of an author who feels the need to use Eve to promote a hierarchy that at least keeps certain persons lower than others. When we are really desperate to make our point and the stakes are high, we can find all kinds of things to justify our argument. This could explain why the use of “facts” of the story seem a little loose to me. What was at stake for the author of Timothy? Was there a challenge to leadership in the church or was there a challenge on the domestic front concerning childbearing/conception/procreation? As Margi raises the point about potential sexual coercion, I wonder if this could have been the subtext to the whole argument. Were the women talking too much about God or were they talking too much about the way they were being treated? Would talking about one be considered a threat to the other? What are the implications for Mary as the “new Eve?”

6. Shanell:
   Mar. 3rd, 2008

   Sharon, I agree with your statement, “…and the biggest trap of marriage is it will lead to sex, something that can only be experienced outside of divine paradise, in a place of banishment. Your use of the word, “trap” intrigued me. To me, a trap is something that someone ‘falls’ into, designed by someone else. Who would be the person who created the trap? Do you think Chrysostom would say God did? I guess I would describe it using the word “punishment,” but then again, it would lead to identifying the author of this punishment. I stand at a crossroad.

7. Shanell:
   Mar. 3rd, 2008

   I would like to further discuss the idea of childbearing as a means of salvation in I Timothy. First of all, it appears that only the the woman needs to be saved. There is no mention of salvation needing to be attained by the man. In verse 13 s/he (I liked that Margi - even though I’m struggling not to say “he”) states that “Adam was not deceived,” BUT HE DID EAT! Is Adam considered blameless because he did not eat first? … Okay, back to childbearing. How is the woman saved by having children? Is it because of the pain that God said she would experience in Gen 3:16? Will the pain overcome the sin? Will her children behave better than she? How? What are your thoughts?

   Why is the woman to be silent? Where is this coming from? Do you think this has something to do with Eve SPEAKING to the snake in the Garden? Because of Eve’s gullibility, are all women not to be trusted with speech, because it would be misguided, untrustworthy?

   Margi, your question about the identification of “they” in verse 2:15, is also a question of mine. I also wonder if “they” refer to the children (which is only identified with women and not men - ironic?). If it does refer to the children and they are not faithful, lov(ing) or holy, does that then mean that the woman is not saved? Where role does the man play in making sure that they are?

8. Yoon Jeong:
   Mar. 4th, 2008

   I also have a question about who “they” are. It seems to me that “they” are women who can be saved by childbearing if they keep in faith and love and holiness with modesty in that female readers seems to be mainly considered in 1 Timothy 2:11-15. In this passage, women’s salvation is described, connecting it to childbearing. I cannot find men’s salvation here. Childbearing is not just a qualification. Women’s salvation is very limited since women have to contitnue in virtue(faith, love, holiness, modesty) as well as childbearing. It is so hard for women to be saved comparing to men.
   The interesting thing is that the author of 1 Timothy uses Eve image represented in Genesis story regarding both women’s submission and their limited salvation. In Genesis 3:1-6, Eve is speaking with the serpent and gives the fruit to Adam. And Adam just ate it without any speaking or refutation. Eve is very independent and initiative while Adam is non-speaking and submissive to Eve. Eve’s authority is degraded in 1 Timothy 2:11-15. In this text, women should learn in silence with submission because Eve became a transgressor. But in Genesis 3, God did not punish women, speaking, “Shut up.” Instead, women’s pain in childbearing will be increasedn while Adam also gained pain in work. God does not seem to lower women’s authority. But the author challenge women’s authority and applies God’s response toward Adam and Eve to only Eve’s limited salvation.

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