Theology for the Masses

For most scholars, dealing with this passage is like trying to fold a fitted sheet – no matter how you manipulate it, it still doesn’t look right. The most they can hope for is to jumble together some cockeyed story and throw it in the closet hoping their guests won’t see the mess.*

This final verse in our pericope has taken a beating with the various interpretations – none of them offering anything theologically, contextually, or practically helpful. Most scholars would rather ignore the verse altogether. However, read in light of the Artemis Cult, it makes perfect theological and practical sense.

The usual interpretation – that is, taking the def. art. in front of ‘childbearing’ as specifying a specific childbearing, namely that of Mary’s deliverance of Christ, has nothing necessarily wrong with it. Both Egalitarians and Complementarians claim this as a legitimate interpretation. However, I do question it for this reason: Paul NEVER speaks of Christ’s birth anywhere else, and if this is going to be the only time he does so – why would he leave it so ambiguous? Just seems a bit odd to me. This doesn’t eliminate this interpretation as valid; rather it just poses a problematic question related to its oddity.

Now:

As noted previously, many Ephesian women considered the goddess Artemis superior to her brother Apollo because she preceded him in birth. This fact gave her female followers the ability to challenge the male dominance of Ephesus and rise above patriarchy (I know it’s an anachronistic term, but still helpful).

After her own birth, she helped her mother (Leto) in the delivery of her brother Apollo. For this action she became known as the goddess that assisted women in childbirth. Unfortunately, though, she killed many of these women, and this caused women to fear her as well as need her.

When Paul counters the Artemis cult in I Timothy 2 and replaces it with Hebraic narratives, he barbs Artemis in the process. Artemis couldn’t be trusted to save women. These women ‘will be saved,’ but not by Artemis. God (implied in the divine passive referred to later), by means of the Christian virtues he lists in this passage, will liberate these women.

The Genesis narrative offers no solutions to pain in childbirth; it only gives the origins thereof. Paul can use it to point to the problem, but cannot offer a solution. So Paul leaves Genesis and relies on Christian praxis for this liberation. (I know the dichotomy is a bit anachronistic, but I think it’s helpful at this point.)

By turning to Christian praxis, Paul can maintain that these women will be ‘saved’ (the Gk. word can mean ‘save’ ‘liberate’ ‘kept from harm’) through childbearing. This comes about “if” they appropriate a few specifically Christian virtues: faith, love, holiness, and modesty.**

The verb “will be saved” is a Gk. future passive indicative. This passive form is known as the ‘Divine Passive’ – suggesting that it is not the virtues that save, but divine action by means of the virtues. The salvation is contingent upon the virtues, but is enacted by God.

She will be saved “through childbearing” according to our English text. The Greek preposition here can also mean ‘during’ or ‘throughout.’ Thus, Paul may be speaking of being saved from the pain and possible death that arises during childbirth.

Following this, the listed Christian virtues actually transcend the punishment for the woman’s original sin. Christ’s death purchased salvation for sinners. In this act, He reverses the curses of the human sinfulness and institutes a community that is supposed to reflect pre-sin conditions, eliminating male patriarchy and pain in childbirth (the two punishments for the woman which just so happen to be the subjects of our pericope).

As women, through the appropriation of these virtues, return to the condition of the original community, they experience liberation from the original punishments. In other words, there is a reversal of the dominant world system of sin and a return to the original created order. Paul calls for a complete reversal, not only of our mythologies, but also of the way we order the world and see our community as a ‘new creation.’

SUMMARY: Sure, in their current sinful bodies, these women will still experience pain. But Paul offers a promise of hope. He barbs Artemis – where as Artemis may or may not save a woman in childbirth, Christ, through these virtues, offers these women hope of a future salvation (“they WILL be saved”) and a restoration of the created order within the community of faith – providing them present salvation from the original consequences of sin. They are being saved (both socially and spiritually) and will be saved (both socially and spiritually). He eliminates the fear of male dominance (as the first punishment) and death (the second punishment) in Christ and Christian virtues. Even though he is placing the original sin on the woman – he is liberating her from that sin through Christian virtues; something Artemis could have never done.

Ok: I’m sure there are some holes in my argument. Point them out so I can reflect on them. I’m still thinking through this issue and how this text works.

* Yep, I was doing laundry when I cam e up with this simile

** I don’t’ think these are strictly FEMALE Christian virtues. In fact, men are commanded to have these virtues in other place in the scripture. But in light of the female dominance in this community, Paul wants to emphasize these specific virtues and direct them at the women.

A Very Brief Background to Artemis:

The Greek/Roman female deity Artemis/Diana had a twin brother named Apollo. When her mother went into labor, Artemis came out of the womb first. Having preceded Apollo, many female worshipers considered her superior to Apollo because it symbolized the female preceding the male and therefore being superior. After she was born, while her mother was giving birth to her brother, Artemis assisted her mother across a river where she helped her mother give birth. This act made her, in the eyes of the women who followed her, the goddess of protection during childbearing. The problem, however, lied in that she was prone to killing a woman in labor just for the fun of it. This caused women not only to need her assistance, but also to fear her assistance.

Artemis was sort of a Feminist deity of the Greco-Roman world – especially Ephesus, Timothy’s location when Paul wrote to him (as her temple was in Ephesus). Women rallied around here for strength and escape from male oppression, and she gave them an avenue of resistance in a patriarchal culture.

I Timothy 2

As the previous word study from my last post suggests, the problem in the church did not lie in the fact that the women were preaching or having authority, but rather, they were enacting violence (probably through sermonic rhetoric) against the men in their congregations. Paul’s remarks do not forbid a woman “to teach or have authority”, but rather the Gk. word usage and construction of the sentence suggests he is forbidding women to “teach in such a way that oppresses men.” (my own paraphrase)

The Artemis Cult gives us the historical background to understand how this authoritative feminism might have arisen in their midst, and it gives us clear understanding of Paul’s subsequent response. The Ephesian women, through their cultural assumption of female superiority derived from Artemis, oppressed the men in their congregation. Paul responds with some statements regarding Adam and Eve – statements which have been taken to mean male leadership and female subordination. He says,

“For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”

Adam and Eve

Paul gives 2 reasons women shouldn’t dominate men through their sermonic rhetoric:

1. Adam was created first and Eve was created second
2. Eve was deceived while Adam wasn’t

Traditionally these two statements have been interpreted to eliminate the possibility of women becoming preachers or pastors. It has been suggested by many that 1. Men are superior to women because God created them first. And 2. Men are superior to women because women are easily deceived and men are intellectually superior.

These statements fall apart when we examine them in light of the Artemis Cult.

How do these 2 reasons fit into the Artemis hypothesis?

First, by maintaining that Adam was the first one created and Eve the second, Paul is not establishing patriarchy based on the order of creation as most biblical Complementarians assume. Rather, Paul is answering the objection of the Artemis Cult. The Artemis Cult assumed female superiority based on the fact that Artemis preceded here male counterpart Apollo. Paul, reorienting the mythology by which these people have ordered their lives, introduces Hebraic narrative as a way of subverting the female dominance. In other words: Paul counters Artemis with Adam, suggesting a new way of viewing the created order and power. He is not establishing male dominance so much as he is disestablishing female dominance. He’s saying, “Female superiority founded upon the Artemis philosophy does not work in this new community because in the new community, founded upon Hebraic narratives of Genesis 1, the male came first. Thus, your premise is really no foundation for the way you ladies are acting.”

Second, he suggests, female superiority in teaching roles cannot be assumed either. After all, it was Eve who was deceived, not Adam. (Where Paul gets this from Genesis I do not know.) The ultimate failure of your first mother is no basis for establishing female dominance – it simply doesn’t work. This explanation also gives us reasons as to why this theology is so foreign to the New Testament outside of this passage. In every other instance Paul blames the sin on Adam (Romans 5). Here, however, Eve is blamed for the Fall. Why the theological shift? Actually, there isn’t a theological shift. Paul is simply arguing that their mother Eve does not provide them with opportunity for female dominance. He is simply trying to get his point across.

Related to this second point, Eve’s deception was probably connected to Adam’s lack of teaching. That is, interpreters throughout the ages have read into the Genesis text that the serpent deceived Eve easily because Adam did a bad job of teaching. Though I have some questions about this interpretation, I do think it can work with my I Timothy 2 interpretation. All a woman in the Artemis cult needed to take leadership was an ecstatic experience. Discipleship was not a prerequisite. However, Paul will not have them transfer this assumption into the ecclesiastical community. Discipleship is essential, and one cannot teach if they have not undergone long term discipleship. The church has stricter standards than the pagan cults did.

In the end, whether this text was written by Paul or one of his disciples, we need to understand that this is not a proof-text for male dominance or solely male leadership in the ecclesiastical arena. Yes, this text IS bringing women down. However, it is not bringing them down from oppression to further oppression; it is bringing them down from a place of dominance to a place of equality with men.

Paul does not assume a gender based hierarchy in this text – or any other for that matter. I will argue over the next few weeks (months?) from each of Paul’s male/female relation texts that this is the case.

*I promised in my last post to comment on the ‘saved through childbearing’ aspect of this text. I would have done it in this post, but that would have made this post so long no one would want to read it. I am working on it, and it will be my next post.