heavycola wrote:Following a discussion about this in meatspace (what white-knuckle weekends I have)...
So St Paul is the NT authority on homosexuality's sinfulness, yes?
But Paul was also pretty authoritative when it came to women:
Ephesians 5
22: Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. 23: For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24: As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.
1 Timothy 2
11: Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. 12: I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.
1 Corinthians 14
34: the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. 35: If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
Should women be this silent and submissive? Is this how christian men are supposed to treat their wives and daughters?
If not, why are these instructions from Paul dispensable while his instruction on same-sex shagging are not?
Yes, yes, this looks like a troll thread, but i am genuinely interested in this apparent discrepancy that was only pointed out to me yesterday by a theologian buddy.
To get back to the original OP question, taking it as a legitimate question and not simply a troll... both Saul/Paul AND Martin Luther are notorious for disdain of women. There are a lot of explanations for this, many mentioned above.
However, there are also a couple of other points. First, I will put forward an extremely controversial idea that I am just mentioning, not going to debate. This takes note of fact that Paul came into the scene after Christ died and that the real 12th disciple was not Paul, but Mary. (who was NOT Mary the prostitute, though many believe certain church leaders intentionally let the two women be confused to reduce the impact of Mary Magdelene). Now, I am not going to argue that, but if it interests you, you can research it.
The other is that Paul was very much a product of his time. His "benefit" or "addition" to the faith is that he went a long way to open it up to non-Jews. However, there was no way that non Jews, Greeks in particular, would have accepted any kind of female-male parity. Slavery is also not condemned. Humanity had to change and grow. However, its also noted that. as with the case of slavery, there is some difference of opinion in what Paul's words actually mean. The word "dominate", for example, in regards to the Earth is often said to be a slight mis-translation/misunderstanding of western bias. The word it is derived from has, at its root "domos" , which is perhaps more correctly translated as "caring for". It is interesting that some of the exact wording used for slaves is also used for women. In many respects, some of the advice can be seen as how less powerful people can make an impact. Fighting or direct confrontation is rarely the best answer. Instead, the advice is to submit.. and, essentially "shame" the more powerful person into good action.
Another idea often expressed is, plain and simply, that men are more "geared for" direct leadership, whereas women are more "geared for" indirect leadership -- the power behind the man, so to speak. That position, in history can mean far more power than being in the fore, but with a bit less risk.
Finally, there is the concept of "if no one else..". IN other words, it might be preferable for men to be in charge, but it is perfectly acceptable for women to take those roles when they are better than the men.
There are other, more liberal ideas about that, but this is all I have time and brainpower for right now.
