Priscilla Papers 32.3 | Summer 2018

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riscilla

The academic journal of

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apers Vol 32, No 3 | Summer 2018

CBE International

New Testament Women

3 Wealthy Women in the FirstCentury Roman World and in the Church

Margaret Mowczko

8 The “Weaker Sex” or a Weak Translation? Strengthening our Interpretation of 1 Peter 3:7

John C. Nugent

12 Philemon in Light of Galatians 3:28 Nikki Holland

17 Imagining a Feminine God: Gendered Imagery in the Bible

Abigail Dolan

21 Article removed at author’s request

28 Book Review:

Patterns of Ministry among the First Christians

by Kevin Giles

Michaela Miller

29 Book Review:

Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction

by Rosemarie Tong and Tina Fernandes Botts

Jamin Hübner

Priscilla and Aquila instructed Apollos more perfectly in the way of the Lord. (Acts 18:26)

Most people, when they hear Jesus’s parable of the Lost Sheep, understand the shepherd to symbolize God. A glance at one of the most influential books on Jesus’s parables (by Joachim Jeremias) supports this claim, referring to “the shepherd as an image of God’s activity of love.” Bible readers, ancient and modern, have been conditioned to make this connection, for “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . . .”

Similarly, with the parable of the Prodigal Son, essentially all interpreters view the father as the God-figure. The identity of the parable’s father as God the Father is a central feature, for example, of Tim Keller’s 2008 best-selling book, The Prodigal God, which says in its introduction, “In this story the father represents the Heavenly Father. . . .”

Both of these parables are in Luke 15 (the Lost Sheep is also in Matthew 18). And it is widely known that Luke 15 offers a triad of parables—Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, Lost Son. If these three parables are siblings, the first two are twins. They follow the same structure and make the same point. We should, therefore, be both astonished and dismayed that it is so uncommon for the woman who lost her coin to be viewed as a God-figure! I trust I am not the only reader of Priscilla Papers who can testify to never having heard this woman described as symbolizing God. I have heard thousands of sermons and lessons, and in no setting—church, chapel, or class—do I recall this connection being made.

This issue of Priscilla Papers includes an article by Abigail Dolan titled, “Imagining a Feminine God.” Her article prompted me to write here about finding God in the parable of the Lost Coin and to choose a picture of the seeking woman for the cover. Abby’s article was among the winners of CBE International’s 2017 student paper competition. The other winners, also published here, are Haley Gabrielle and Nikki Holland. In this issue you will also read articles on 1 Peter 3 by John Nugent and on wealthy women of the NT era by Margaret Mowczko (you are encouraged to follow her egalitarian blog at MargMowczko.com).

Rounding out the issue are Michaela Miller’s review of Patterns of Ministry among the First Christians (by Kevin Giles, Cascade, 2nd ed., 2017) and Jamin Hübner’s review of Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction (by Rosemarie Tong and Tina Fernandes Botts, Westview, 5th ed., 2018).

On a different note, though I am writing this in early June, it will appear online and be mailed at about the same time as CBE’s conference in Helsinki, Finland. This international conference, “Created for Partnership,” is hosted by the Finnish organization, “RaTas—Christians for Equality.” If you are reading this in July or August of 2018, please offer up a prayer for the conference and its attendees.

Thanks be to the God of Jesus’s parables—Shepherd, Woman, Father—for seeking and finding us.

DISCLAIMER: Final selection of all material published by CBE International in Priscilla Papers is entirely up to the discretion of the publisher, editor, and peer reviewers.

Please note that each author is solely legally responsible for the content and the accuracy of facts, citations, references, and quotations rendered and properly attributed in the article appearing under his or her name. Neither CBE, nor the editor, nor the editorial team is responsible or legally liable for any content or any statements made by any author, but the legal responsibility is solely that author’s once an article appears in print in Priscilla Papers.

Editor: Jeff Miller Associate Editor / Graphic Designer: Theresa Garbe President / Publisher: Mimi Haddad President Emerita: Catherine Clark Kroeger† Consulting Editor: William David Spencer Peer Review Team: Lynn H. Cohick, Havilah Dharamraj, Tim Foster, Susan Howell, Jamin Hübner, Loretta Hunnicutt, Adam Omelianchuk, Chuck Pitts, Marion Taylor, Karen Strand Winslow On the Cover: The Lost Piece of Silver, John Everett Millais c. 1864 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Priscilla Papers is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®), http://www.atla.com, in the Christian Periodical Index (CPI), in New Testament Abstracts (NTA), and in Religious and Theological Abstracts (R&TA), as well as by CBE itself. Priscilla Papers is licensed with EBSCO’s fulltext informational library products. Full-text collections of Priscilla Papers are available through EBSCO Host’s Religion and Philosophy Collection, Galaxie Software’s Theological Journals collection, and Logos Bible Software. Priscilla Papers is a member publication of the American Association of Publishers.

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Priscilla Papers (issn 0898-753x) is published quarterly by CBE International 122 W Franklin Avenue, Suite 218, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2451 www.cbeinternational.org | 612-872-6898 © CBE International, 2018.

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Wealthy Women in the First-Century Roman World and in the Church Margaret Mowczko

The setting of the NT is the first-century Roman Empire, an ancient world alien to modern societies. Not too long ago, our understanding of women in this ancient world was especially limited. It was presumed first-century women were housebound with few freedoms and rights, and that good women lived quiet lives in anonymity under the authority of husbands or fathers.

This scenario was indeed the case for many women, but not for all women. If we read the NT carefully we can see this for ourselves.

In the NT, we see that women were active in public spaces.

Some were artisans like Priscilla, or in business like Lydia. Some women were independently wealthy like Phoebe, and some were even of royal birth with the privileges and power that came with nobility. There was not one place or one role for women as though all women were the same. In fact, only two roles were out of bounds for women, being a Roman soldier or an imperial official.1 Women filled many places and many different roles in society and in the church.

In this article, I look at the social dynamic of class, a dynamic that typically trumped gender.2 I also look at what the NT says about particular women who were wealthy. My hope is that this discussion will present a broader, more authentic view, beyond limited stereotypes, of the place and participation of certain women in the first-century church.

While this article narrowly focuses on wealthy women, who made up a small but significant part of the early church, I want to emphasise that wealth is not, and was not, a prerequisite for ministry. Jesus and Paul welcomed the poor and marginalised as both members and ministers in the Jesus movement.

Patriarchy and Class Patriarchy3 was a prevailing dynamic of Roman society, but it was not the only dynamic at work. As well as being patriarchal, Roman society was utterly class-conscious. The two dynamics are not the same, even though there is some overlap. Class distinctions were observed and reinforced daily. For instance, where someone sat in the theatre was determined by class. And where someone sat at a dinner party, if fortunate enough to be invited, was determined by class and even by relative status, or precedence, within one’s class.4 In the highly stratified Roman world, women came from every class. Some women, including Christian women, were free-born Roman citizens and were independently wealthy householders.

Some even came from families of the senatorial or equestrian ranks, the two upper classes of Roman society, or from equally high-status families in the provinces.5 The wealth of individuals and families in the upper classes was vast. And with wealth came power. Men and women who were commoners could be affluent, but their level of prosperity was usually not on the same level as that of senators and equestrians.

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The number of high-status people was small compared with the rest of the population, possibly only one percent.6 Yet, from the very beginning, the church attracted high-status women.7 By the second and third centuries, the number of young noblewomen converting to Christianity would create a real problem—noblemen were not converting in nearly the same numbers. As a result, a number of women of noble rank could not find Christian husbands of the same rank.8 It was illegal for highstatus Roman women to marry outside their rank. If they did, they could forfeit their noble status, their power, and even their wealth. Around AD 200, church leaders such as Tertullian and Callistus addressed this problem.9 Church leaders wanted noble Christian women to maintain their rank because the women could then use their wealth and influence to benefit the church, which they frequently did. Unlike the stereotypes, these were women who controlled their own finances.

Prominent Greek Women: Women of Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens (Acts 17) What about the stereotype that ancient women were mostly housebound? It is true that in the Greek world of previous centuries, many women, especially high-status women, had led cloistered, hidden lives. Yet the relative levels of restriction or freedom varied greatly whether a Greek woman lived, for example, in Athens or Sparta or Macedonia. In the first century AD, high-status women living in Roman cities, such as Corinth and Philippi (which were Roman colonies), and of course Rome itself, had more freedoms and more legal rights than their Greek sisters of preceding centuries. They also had more freedoms than women living in cities, such as Athens, that were still predominately influenced by Greek customs.

Nevertheless, even some first-century Greek women were making their presence felt in society. Again, we only need to look at the NT to see that this was the case.

In Acts 17, quite a few noblewomen (literally “women of the first families”) in the Macedonian city of Thessalonica became believers (Acts 17:4). It was no small thing for a Greco-Roman woman to convert to Christianity, as wives were expected to worship the gods of their husbands. Moreover, religious activities of the household and community were interwoven with the rhythms and activities of daily life. Despite the difficulties, many “honourable Greek women” became believers in the Macedonian city of Berea also (Acts 17:12). The Greek word for “honourable” (euschēmōn) in Acts 17:12 does not simply mean “respectable,” in that the women had good manners and high morals; it means “of high standing” or even “noble.”10 Further on in Acts 17, an Athenian woman named Damaris is mentioned alongside a man named Dionysius. Dionysius was a council member of the Areopagus (the supreme judicial

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court of the Athenians, named for the hill on which it met) and therefore from the upper classes. Damaris, Dionysius, and others with them, became believers. The fact that Damaris is named alongside Dionysius seems to indicate they are both from the upper classes but the nameless Athenians are not.

Luke, the author of Acts, was writing under the benefaction of a high-status person, Theophilus, and probably wanted to highlight prominent, high-status people who were converting to Christianity. These would be people Theophilus could identify with, and they would have lent respectability to the new movement. Nevertheless, we must not forget that the number of elite women and men becoming Christians was small compared with lower class men and women who were active in church life and ministry.

A Wealthy Jewish Convert: Lydia of Philippi (Acts 16) Some of the high-status Greek women who were becoming believers and joining the church had previously converted to Judaism. For a few decades, most converts to Christianity were Jewish or inclined toward Judaism in some regard. This may have been the case for the Thessalonian Greek women mentioned in Acts 17:1–4. It was certainly the case for Lydia in Philippi who is described in Acts 16:14 as a “God-worshipper,” a term indicating “not merely a devout person of any sort but a Gentile who worships the biblical God.”11 Lydia is also described as a businesswoman who dealt with costly cloth dyed with Tyrian purple. Because Lydia was a businesswoman she cannot have been of the highest class, as these people typically did not engage in business. Men and women in the most elite class were like dukes and duchesses who lived exclusively from the wealth of their agricultural estates.12 But members of the equestrian rank, or the provincial equivalent, could engage in business. Because Lydia dealt with a luxury item, which could only be used by the upper classes,13 and because she would have required a great deal of capital to run her business, she may have belonged to a class equivalent to the equestrian class. It is more likely, however, that she was a relatively wealthy commoner.14 Lydia had a home in Philippi that was large enough to accommodate Paul and his companions, and she had the freedom to invite them into her home without first asking a male guardian. When she and the household that is identified with her had been baptised, she said to Paul, “Now that you have decided that I am a believer in the Lord, come and stay in my house” (Acts 16:15 CEB). Paul accepted her hospitality. Lydia opened her home to Paul and his fellow travellers and to gatherings of the first church at Philippi (Acts 16:40).15 Philippi was a Roman colony situated in Macedonia.

Macedonia was one place where women had relative freedoms even when the Greeks ruled.16 If Macedonia produced perhaps the most competent group of men the world had yet seen, the women were in all respects the men’s counterparts; they played a large part in affairs, received envoys and 4 • Priscilla Papers

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obtained concessions for them from their husbands, built temples, founded cities, engaged mercenaries, commanded armies, held fortresses, and acted on occasion as regents or even co-rulers.17 Some of the leading women of Thessalonica, Berea, and Philippi, all Macedonian cities, joined the church where their wealth, clout, and protection could be used to benefit other members of their churches.

A Powerful Jewish Princess: Bernice (Acts chapters 25–26) As well as prominent Greek and Jewish women who became Christians, the NT mentions other powerful women who did not become Christians. Such women were among the celebrities of their day and had some influence on the politics and moral tone of society, especially politics and morality regarding women.

Two women of the highest class are mentioned in Acts. Drusilla, a Jewish princess, is mentioned in Acts 24:24. Drusilla was a daughter of Herod Agrippa I, hence a great granddaughter of Herod the Great.18 She was also the wife of Felix, the Roman governor of Judea between AD 56 and 60. Bernice, or Berenice, another Jewish princess, is mentioned in Acts 25:13, 23ff. and Acts 26:30–31. She was also a daughter of Herod Agrippa I. In Acts, she appears as the consort of her brother Agrippa II when they both hear Paul defend himself in Caesarea.

Bernice became one of the most powerful women of her day.

When she was sixteen, she married her uncle, Herod V, king of Chalcis and brother of Herodias.19 Bernice secured the title “queen” after her husband’s death when she was just twenty years old.20 Rome then gave her brother Herod Agrippa II the kingdom of Chalcis, which he ruled together with Bernice.21 Because they spent so much time together, rumours of incest circulated. To quell the rumours, Bernice married. She chose to marry the king of Cilicia, but the marriage was not a success, so she returned to live with her brother.22 Bernice was in Jerusalem in AD 66 as the Jewish revolt was beginning. She saw the brutality of Roman soldiers towards the Jews, and she sent frequent messages (via men of the equestrian rank) to the governor of Judea, Gessius Florus, concerning this. She even approached his tribunal seat in an attempt to diplomatically reason with him, but the governor did not listen (Josephus, J.W. 2.309–314). Bernice and her brother then tried to quiet the Jewish uprising themselves, with only temporary success (Josephus, J.W. 2.402–406).

When war did break out in 67, Bernice sided with the Romans, possibly because she saw them as becoming the victors. Furthermore, she became a powerful supporter of the Roman general Vespasian and even became his patron. Tacitus writes, “Queen Bernice too, who was then in the prime of youth and beauty, and who had charmed even the old Vespasian by the splendour of her presents, promoted his cause with equal zeal” (History 2.81.2). His cause was to become emperor, and he was successful. Around AD 68, Bernice became the lover and consort of Vespasian’s son Titus who was eleven years younger than her. Titus was the general whose troops destroyed

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Jerusalem in AD 70. Probably due to anti-Jewish sentiments in Rome, however, Titus sent Bernice away around the time he became emperor.

Women such as Bernice, Drusilla, and Herodias were powerful wealthy women of the highest class. They were accustomed to getting their way, and each had a staff of servants and slaves, as well as dependent clients, who did their bidding.

These noblewomen were not Christians, but their example may well have influenced and emboldened other women, including Jews and Christians, in some way.23 We know that some wealthy Jewish women in Asia Minor were benefactors of synagogues and were prominent in their communities. Inscriptions in Asia Minor reveal that a few of these women were referred to with leadership titles such as “ruler of the synagogue.”24 It is debated if these titles were honorary or whether women did run at least some synagogues in antiquity.

Whatever the case, these women were not invisible or powerless.

Women of Aristocratic Households: Junia, Julia, and Claudia?

We have seen that some women from the finest families in Macedonia joined the church, even if the Jewish princesses did not. Are there any Christian women from Roman senatorial families mentioned in the NT? Three of the most powerful aristocratic families in Rome were the Junian, Julian, and Claudian families.25 The women in these families were frequently named Junia, Julia, and Claudia, respectively. Interestingly, in the NT, there is a Junia, a Julia, and a Claudia, and they each lived in Rome. Were these women from aristocratic families?

There was a custom of freed slaves taking on the family name of their master or mistress, and this may have been the case for Junia who is mentioned in Rom 16:7. Her husband’s name, “Andronicus,” was a common slave name, so they may both have been freed slaves of the imperial household.26 This is likely the situation for Julia and her husband Philologus who are mentioned in Rom 16:15.27 Both Junia and Julia and their husbands28 were probably attached to aristocratic households but were not themselves of the upper classes. It is possible that several names in Rom 16 are of Christians who belonged to Caesar’s household.29 In his letter to the Philippians, Paul passed on greetings from the Christians in Caesar’s household (Phil 4:22). A few Christians would even gain positions of power within the imperial household. For example, Emperor Commodus, who ruled from 180–192, had a Christian concubine named Marcia.30 Through her influence, many Christians who had been enslaved and sent to the tin mines in Sardinia were freed. One of these slaves, Callistus, became bishop of Rome.

In 2 Timothy, greetings are sent from a Roman woman named Claudia. Identifying Claudia is difficult, for it was a common name, but because of the names mentioned with hers in 2 Tim 4:21, especially Pudens and Linus, there have been some suggestions regarding who this woman was. One suggestion is that she was Claudia Rufina, whose husband was a Roman

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senator named Pudens. This theory puts Claudia Rufina in the highest class. Another suggestion is that she was the mother of Linus who became bishop of the church in Rome in AD 67. Still another suggestion is that she was the daughter of Caratacus, a British chieftain who was captured and then freed by Emperor Claudius. Whatever her real identity and social status, Claudia, and the other individuals mentioned with her in 2 Tim 4:21, were each prominent in the church at Rome.

Some Christian women mentioned in the NT were of noble birth. But many other NT women, while they appear to be independent householders and relatively wealthy, did not belong to one of the upper classes. Roman laws first introduced in the late first century BC had made it possible for some women to retain their own wealth and not transfer it to their husbands’ families. This meant that if a woman from a wealthy family outlived her husband and father, she could become wealthy in her own right. The average age of first-time Roman brides was fourteen and the average of first-time husbands was twenty-four (though husbands could be considerably older). Thus it was not unusual for a wife to outlive her husband, provided she survived childbirth. It seems from the biblical texts that Lydia in Philippi, Nympha in Laodicea (Col 4:15), the “chosen lady” in Asia Minor (2 John 1),31 and others acted independently and thus may have been relatively wealthy widows. These women hosted and cared for congregations in their own homes.

A Patron of Many: Phoebe of Cenchrea (Romans 16:1–2) Another woman who acted independently of a husband or father is Phoebe of Cenchrea. In Rom 16:1–2, Paul identifies this woman with three pieces of information that refer to her ecclesial status: she is “our sister,” “diakonos (“deacon/minister”) of the church at Cenchrea,” and “a prostatis (“patron”) of many” including Paul.

A patron—prostatis (feminine) or prostatēs (masculine)— was, without exception, an influential person in Roman society.

Until recently, however, when translating or commenting on prostatis in Rom 16:2, mundane words such as “helper” have typically been used. Noted scholar James Dunn calls attention to the bias against recognising Phoebe as an influential woman: “The unwillingness of commentators to give prostatis its most natural and obvious sense of patron is most striking.”32 He adds that, unlike many modern readers, Paul’s original readers “were unlikely to think of Phoebe as other than a figure of significance whose wealth and influence had been put at the disposal of the church at Cenchrea.”33 The practice of patronage flourished in the early Roman Empire and was an essential part of Roman society. Seneca even described it as “the chief bond of human society” (De Beneficiis 1.4.2). Having a patron was often a necessary means of gaining “access to goods, protection, or opportunities for employment and advancement.”34 As well as being an important part of Roman society at all levels, patronage was also important in the church. Edwin Judge has remarked, “Christianity was a movement sponsored by local patrons to their social dependents.”35

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Though the practice of patronage was informal and voluntary, certain social constraints and reciprocal obligations were integral to the client-patron relationship. And a wealthy man or woman who made a generous donation to his or her city, community, guild, or to an individual, etc., was able to exercise considerable influence and power.36 Forbes and Harrower write: Because patronage was “in many ways genderblind” women could deliberately, or as a by-product of their benefaction, increase their honour and presence in the public arena. . . . Women patrons thus won for themselves liberty to speak and act in political and religious affairs.37 It may be that the power of patrons was tempered in early Christian communities. Nevertheless, wealthy women who acted as patrons continued to be influential in the church even when other ministerial functions were increasingly denied to them. In many churches, male ministers “welcomed women as patrons and even offered them roles in which they could act as collaborators.

By 200 AD, the role of women [as patrons and collaborators] in Christian churches was quite unmistakable.”38 Like the apostle Paul, some of the great men of early Christianity, such as Clement of Alexandria (b. 150), Origen (b. 184/5), and Jerome (b. 347) were supported by wealthy female friends and colleagues.39

Conclusion The customs surrounding class distinctions and patronage gave high-status and wealthy women power and prominence in society. These customs also enabled high-status and wealthy women to have influence in the church: they were her patrons, protectors, house church leaders, and ministers. Unlike common stereotypes, these women were not housebound and sheltered, quiet or anonymous. However, much like other Christians, these wealthy women used their various resources and gifts to benefit their churches.40

Notes 1. Lynn H. Cohick writes, “Two jobs were restricted to women only: midwifery and wet-nursing, and two jobs were off-limits: soldiering and holding an imperial office.” Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 31.

2. Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, 22.

3. “Patriarchy is the power of the fathers: a familial-social, ideological, political system in which men—by force, direct pressure, or through ritual, tradition, law and language, custom, etiquette, education and the division of labour—determine what part women shall or shall not play, and in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male.” Adrienne Rich, Of Women Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: W. W. Norton, 1976), 57.

4. James wrote against preferential seating in his NT letter (James 2:1–9).

5. Wayne Meeks writes, “The ‘orders’ (ordines) or ‘estates’ of imperial Roman Society . . . were clear-cut, legally established categories. The two most important and enduring ones were the senators and the knights [or, equestrians]: the ordo senatorius and the ordo equester. In addition,

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the families whose members had served or were eligible to serve in the councils or senates of the provincial cities constituted a local order in those places.” Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 53.

6. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 53.

7. The early church was attractive to women, including women of high status, “because within the Christian subculture women enjoyed far higher status than did women in the Greco-Roman world at large.”

Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 1996), 95.

8. Peter Lampe notes that we cannot even name forty people of the senatorial class who were Christians before the time of Constantine (who died in 337), but of these forty individuals two-thirds are women.

Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 119. No doubt there were still other Christians of the senatorial class whose names we do not know.

9. See, for example, Tertullian, The Treatises on Marriage and Remarriage, trans. and annotated by William P. Le Saint, Ancient Christian Writers, vol. 13 (New York: Paulist, 1951).

10. See BDAG, εὐσχήμων. As examples, Joseph of Arimathea is described as euschēmōn (Mark 15:43), as are some women from Pisidian Antioch in Asia Minor (Acts 13:50). There is no doubt that wealthy women and men played important, leading roles in the church, but poorer people also made vital contributions and became leaders.

Moreover, Paul speaks out strongly against bias towards honourable and elite men and women in the churches. In 1 Cor 12, Paul uses the body as a metaphor for the church and includes the word euschēmōn: “In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary. And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, while the more ‘honorable parts’ [ta euschēmona, from euschēmōn] do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other” (1 Cor 12:22–25 NLT).

11. Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 493; see also Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles, SP (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1992), 293: “Luke’s usage is sufficiently flexible to make it impossible to know for certain whether . . . she was a Gentile attracted to the synagogue’s teachings, or whether she was in fact a pious Jew.” 12. Families of the senatorial class needed to have a net worth of more than 1,000,000 sestertii, and they did not engage in business. (As a very rough guide, one sestertius could buy two loaves of bread.) In the first century, some, but not all, of these senatorial families were of aristocratic descent.

13. Clothes dyed with Tyrian purple, also known as imperial or royal purple, were also worn by high-class prostitutes. See Bruce Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 42–43, 100, 105.

14. While it is likely Lydia ran her own business, it is also possible she was employed by someone else as a dealer of purple fabric.

15. Lydia’s hospitality in Philippi somewhat fits a pattern that Ben Witherington has observed: “prominent women are mentioned wherever house churches are mentioned in the New Testament. Women converts of some means who were offering occasional lodging and hospitality to fellow Christians became the Christian equivalent of a ‘mother of the synagogue’ as their homes, originally hostels for travelling Christians,

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became regular meeting places of the converts in their area. . . . the house was the center for the Church [in which] women quite naturally were in the forefront of providing for Christian life and growth, and the spread of the Gospel.” Witherington, Women and the Genesis of Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 212–13.

16. See further, Aída Besançon Spencer, “Leadership of Women in Crete and Macedonia as a Model for the Church,” Priscilla Papers 27, no. 4 (Autumn 2013): 5–15; Robert F. Hull Jr., “Constructing Euodia and Syntyche: Philippians 4:2–3 and the Informed Imagination,” Priscilla Papers 30, no. 2 (Spring 2016): 3–7.

17. W. Tarn and G. T. Griffith, Hellenistic Civilisation, 3rd ed. (London: Methuen, 1952), 98–99.

18. Herod Agrippa I is mentioned in Acts 12. He had James, the brother of John, killed, and Peter imprisoned.

19. Herod V’s sister was Herodias, who was responsible for the death of John the Baptist (see Matt 14, Mark 6, Luke 3). Chalcis was a small kingdom situated in Lebanon.

20. “On a Latin inscription from Beirut she is called ‘Queen Berenice, daughter of the great king Agrippa’ (Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions (1927) pp. 243–44); on a Greek inscription she is called ‘Julia Berenice, the great queen’ (IG III.556 = CIG 361).” F. F. Bruce, The Book of Acts, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 457n27.

21. In parts of the ancient world, it was not an oddity for a woman to be a ruler, even in her own right. Egypt sometimes had women rulers, the most famous being Cleopatra VII, the last Egyptian pharaoh.

And Kush (called Ethiopia in the Bible) sometimes had women rulers.

Candace, mentioned in passing Acts 8:27, is one such ruler. “Candace” (Greek Kandake) was a dynastic name or title.

22. Women who were Roman citizens could easily divorce their husbands, and divorces were common in the upper classes as new political allegiances were formed and old ones broken.

23.The dress and behaviour of wealthy women in the Ephesian church, addressed in 1 Tim 2:9–10, may have been influenced by the dress and behaviour of elite women who were seen as roles models.

24. For example, a second-century AD inscription from Smyrna mentions a woman named Rufina who was synagogue ruler. The inscription reads: “Rufina, a Jewess synagogue ruler, built this tomb for her freed slaves and the slaves raised in her household. No one else has a right to bury anyone here” (CII 741; IGR IV. 1452). See Bernadette J. Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background, BJS 36 (Atlanta: Scholars’, 1982).

25. The first five Roman emperors—Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—belonged to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. That is, their lineage came from both the Julian and Claudian families.

26. Amy Peeler notes, “Andronikos is a male Greek name, often given to slaves or freedman (manumitted slaves). Junia is . . . a common female Latin name, related to the esteemed Roman family the gens Junia, which could be taken by their slaves or the descendants of their slaves.” Peeler, “Junia/Joanna: Herald of the Good News,” in Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible, ed. Sandra Glahn (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2017), 273–85, 278. Richard Bauckham and Ben Witherington III argue instead that Junia is one and the same as Joanna, a disciple of Jesus who had been a member of the court of Herod Antipas with her husband Chuza. See Richard J. Bauckham, Gospel Women (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 109–202; and Ben Witherington III, “Joanna: Apostle of the Lord—or Jailbait?” BRev 21, no. 2 (Spring 2005): 12–14.

27. Philologus may well be the same man who is mentioned in several surviving inscriptions of the imperial household. See J.

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B. Lightfoot, Epistle to the Philippians (London and Cambridge: MacMillan, 1869), 175.

28. Slaves and freedmen could not legally marry under Roman law; nevertheless, many couples belonging to these lower classes lived as husband and wife.

29. Lightfoot, Epistle to the Philippians, 171–75, discusses Ampliatus, Urbanus, Stachys, Apelles, and Aristobulus.

30. Though they were not legally married, Commodus and Marcia lived as husband and wife. Marcia was regarded as the consort of Commodus and she was known for her acts of benefaction.

31. Scholarship is divided on whether “chosen lady” refers to a woman or to a congregation. For a defence of the view expressed above, see Margaret Mowczko, “The Elder and the Lady: A Look at the Language of 2 John,” Mutuality 23, no. 4 (Winter 2016): 12–13; William David Spencer, “Editor’s Reflections,” Priscilla Papers 28, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 2–4.

32. James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9–16, WBC 38B (Dallas: Word, 1988), 888.

33. Dunn, Romans 9–16, 889.

34. David deSilva, “Patronage and Reciprocity: The Context of Grace in the New Testament,” ATJ 31 (1999), 32.

35. Edwin A. Judge, The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community (London: Tyndale, 1960), 8.

36. Jesus referred to the practice of patronage in Luke 22:24–27 using the word “benefactors” (euergetai, cf. Matt 20:25–28). Jesus rejected this Greco-Roman leadership model “and the manner in which those in authority exercised power and authority over those under them.” Cynthia Long Westfall, Paul and Gender: Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women in Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 244.

37. Greg W. Forbes and Scott D. Harrower, Raised from Obscurity: A Narratival and Theological Study of the Characterization of Women in Luke-Acts (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2015), 32.

38. Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 144–45.

39. Many of these women were well-educated. The education of girls in the first century is beyond the scope of this article.

40. In the first decades of the church, spiritual giftedness was one of the primary qualifications for ministry. Gifted people, regardless of wealth and status, participated in ministry in churches founded by Paul and others. There is ample evidence that women, whether rich or poor, were prophets in the early church. For example, the apocryphal 3 Corinthians mentions Theonoe, and Fragment 9 of the apocryphal Acts of Paul mentions Myrte, both prophetesses in the Corinthian Church (cf. 1 Cor 12:28, 14:26, 39). The prophesying daughters of Philip (Acts 21:9) were well known in the early church, and Eusebius associates them with apostolic gifts, teaching, and foundational ministry (Hist.

Eccl. 3.37.1; cf. 5.17.3).

Marg Mowczko holds a BTh from the Australian College of Ministries and an MA in early Christian and Jewish studies from Macquarie University. She is a prominent egalitarian blogger (see MargMowczko.com). Marg lives near Sydney, Australia, with her husband, Peter.

Priscilla Papers | Vol. 32, No. 3 | Summer 2018 • 7

The “Weaker Sex” or a Weak Translation?

Strengthening our Interpretation of 1 Peter 3:7 John C. Nugent

First Peter is a subtle and subversive letter. Scholars are increasingly coming to recognize its subversive nature.1 This is especially evident in 2:13–17, where the author asks readers to submit to human authorities—all the while referring to those authorities as fools, insisting that believers live as free people, and granting the emperor only the same honor that is due everyone else but not the love he craves or the fear he expects. Peter reserves such love and fear for fellow believers and God, respectively. This is not run-of-the-mill social conservativism. It is what John Howard Yoder called revolutionary subordination.2 It is the power of God demonstrated from a posture of apparent weakness.

It is increasingly common for scholars to roll this subversive trope forward into the following two subsections, which ask slaves to submit to their masters and wives to their husbands.

These slaves are not asked to be doormats, but Christ followers who subvert injustice the way Jesus did—by bearing up under it and leveraging it for our salvation. Likewise, wives do not submit to unbelieving husbands from a posture of inferiority, but from one of triumph that wins over their husbands by the superior power of godly conduct.

Yet Peter’s subversive engine appears to have run out of steam by 3:7. There he highlights the weakness of women—referring to them as weaker vessels—and implores men to give them, like the emperor, only the same basic honor that everyone else deserves.

For God offers women the gift of life, too, and these men would not want anything to hinder their prayer lives.

Fortunately, Peter wakes from this apparent patriarchal slumber in the very next verse and begins exhorting the entire community not to get sucked into pagan notions of power and retaliation, but to repay evil with a blessing and so ultimately to triumph like Jesus did—the Jesus, he points out, who suffered for a little while, but is now seated at God’s right hand with all “angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him” (3:22).

How odd for Peter to raise up women before their unbelieving husbands, then to shove them down beneath their believing husbands, then partially to raise them back up by appealing to their common lot before God and by threatening men with ineffectual prayer—and then, immediately afterward, to instruct the whole community to embrace the subversive way of Jesus.

For those who see subversive strains all throughout 1 Peter, the brief instruction to men in 3:7 seems entirely out of place.

The commentary tradition appears to be blissfully unaware of this tension. Social conservatives interpret Peter as saying that, even though women are subordinates in the flesh, they are nonetheless equals with regard to salvation and should be honored as such. To them, womanly weakness is self-evident truth, even if it chafes against contemporary notions of political correctness. Social progressivists interpret Peter as saying much the same thing, only they dismiss his nod toward male 8 • Priscilla Papers

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superiority as unfortunate but understandable cultural baggage that we are obligated to leave behind.

In this article, I offer a third option. Peter was not, in fact, affirming that women are weaker. Rather—consistent with the subversive nature of the wider pericope in which this verse is situated—he was asking men to lay aside their cultural advantage and to win over their unbelieving wives in the same Christlike manner that slaves, women, and the wider community were called to non-coercively welcome Gentiles into the chorus of believers who will “glorify God when he comes to judge” (2:12).

I proceed by providing an alternative translation of 1 Pet 3:7 that better fits its context and better reflects the nuances of the Greek text. In particular, I examine the connective function of the term “likewise, in the same way” (homoiōs), the ambiguous meaning of the phrase “grace of life,” the comparative sense of the adverb “like, as” (hōs), the indefinite state of the phrase “weaker vessel,” and the default meaning of “vessel.”

After addressing these five textual issues, I offer an alternative translation and submit a few important implications of this passage.

The Connective Function of the Term “likewise, in the same way” (homoiōs) First Peter 3:7 begins by emphasizing its connection to preceding sections. Most translations make this perfectly clear. The NRSV says, “Husbands, in the same way. . . .” Some commentators minimize the importance of the connecting term homoiōs, saying that it only means that Paul is here rounding out his household code by tacking on a brief address to husbands.3 However, there are several reasons to believe that the author intended “in the same way” in a much stronger sense. That is, the same logic he uses to instruct slaves and wives also applies to husbands.

The most obvious reason is that the immediately preceding section begins in an analogous way. First Peter 3:1 begins with homoiōs, thus the NRSV translation, “Wives, in the same way….”

This section addressing wives clearly points back to the previous section addressing slaves, which begins in 2:18. The most natural reading, then, is that the sections addressing slaves, wives, and husbands belong together.

Strengthening the connection between these subsections is that all three are driven by participial verbs that are set up by the imperative verb “submit” (hupotassō) in 2:13.4 This rather transparent structure is lost in translation, since most English versions render not only the imperative in 2:13, but also the lead participles in our three subjections, as imperatives. A clearer translation would not say “submit to every human institution on account of the Lord (2:13) . . . slaves submit to your masters (2:18) . . . wives submit to your husbands (3:1) . . . and husbands

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cohabitate according to knowledge (3:7).” Rather, it would retain the structure by saying, “Submit to every human institution on account of the Lord . . . slaves submitting to your masters . . . wives submitting to your husbands . . . and husbands cohabitating according to knowledge.”5 First Peter 3:7 should be read in the context of this wider pericope, following the lead imperative to submit.

The Ambiguous Meaning of the Phrase “grace of life” The connectedness of the aforementioned subsections goes a long way to help us interpret a highly ambiguous phrase in 3:7 (charitos zōēs) which means “grace of life.” An inordinate number of commentators assume that the women referred to in this passage are believers and thus interpret this phrase as the gift of eternal life.6 Yet this phrase, which appears only here in all of Scripture, may just as well denote the gift of life in general.

Some commentators assume, contra Paul in 1 Cor 7:12, that all first-century women adopted the religion of their husbands.7 Others assume that because inheritance language is connected to salvation elsewhere in 1 Peter (1:5 and 3:9), it must be here as well.8 Yet before we rush to interpret this phrase in light of Greco-Roman convention and parallels in the wider book of 1 Peter, we ought to consider its place within its most immediate context, which is 2:11–3:7.

Although grammatically-speaking the string of participles connecting our three subsections follows the lead imperative in 2:13 (hupotagēte, from hupotassō, “submit”), the discourse as a whole begins thematically, in 2:11, with the term “beloved” (agapētoi). This term of direct address establishes the beginning of a new main discourse, one that continues at least through 3:7 and perhaps beyond.9 In vv. 11–12, the recipients are identified as “aliens and exiles” and are encouraged to exhibit such good “conduct” (anastrophēn) among the Gentiles that they, too, might be drawn to glorify God when he comes to judge. From this evangelistic perspective, the author then commands Christians to submit to various human institutions in v. 13. He commands them to do so not because those in power are somehow superior but, according to v. 15, because it is God’s will that by doing good they might silence the “ignorance of the foolish.” The word for ignorance here is agnōsia, or lack of knowledge (gnōsis)—in this case, the knowledge that comes with faith.

In the next two verses, the author wraps up his double introduction to our wider passage by instructing believers to live as free people and yet to honor all people, including the emperor (vv. 16–17). He employs the notions of knowledge, freedom, and honor to set up all three subsections because they establish believers as those who are in the know and truly free, but who must use their freedom to honor all people, particularly those who lack knowledge.

The author then turns immediately to slaves whom he calls to submit to their masters, even those who are harsh.

Presumably such masters would be unbelievers. For the author goes on to use the example of Jesus who suffered at the hands of unbelievers and, in so doing, triumphed over them and

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opened the door of salvation to those who would believe. Slaves are encouraged to walk in his train and share in his triumph.

This is not how 1 Peter exhorts fellow believers to relate to one another. Their relationship to each other is characterized in 3:8 by unity of spirit, sympathy, mutual love, and humility; in 4:8 by constant love and uncomplaining hospitality; and in 5:5 by mutual humility. It is unthinkable in this context that a believer would be suffering at the hand of a fellow believer.

The author then turns to wives whom he calls, in the same way (homoiōs), to submit to their husbands. But here the evangelistic thrust is far more explicit. They submit “so that” their husbands “may be won over without a word by their wives’ conduct” (3:1).

This is the same word for conduct in 2:12 (anastrophēn) that leads Gentiles to glorify God. Just like slaves are encouraged to use their freedom in a Christlike way as a witness to their masters, so wives must exercise their freedom in Christ to win over their husbands with pure and gentle conduct.10 Thus when husbands, in the third subsection, are called to behave homoiōs, “in the same way,” it is most natural to assume that he is addressing husbands who are married to unbelievers.

Not only does it preserve the steady chain of witness to unbelievers going back to 2:11, but the fact that husbands are called to act in accordance to “knowledge,” echoing 2:15, and are also asked to “honor” their wives, echoing 2:17, establishes two strong verbal links to the introduction of this passage where witness to unbelievers is explicit.

It therefore makes the most sense to interpret the author as instructing husbands to win over their unbelieving wives by their good, honoring conduct.11 Whereas wives were told not to resort to outward beauty like unbelievers often did, men ought not resort to the marital authority granted them by wider society to force their wives into faith. With this in mind, the “grace of life” that husbands have inherited along with their wives may simply refer to the divine gift of life that all humans share, which obligates God’s people to honor all fellow humans.12

The Comparative Sense of the Adverb “like, as” (hōs) Having situated our weaker vessel passage within its immediate context, we turn now to clause level analysis—our target clause being “as weaker vessels” (hōs asthenesterō skeuei). The first word in this clause begins an adverbial conjunction, which often functions comparatively and so is translated “as” or “like.” The same term appears in 1:14 “like obedient children,” 1:19 “like that of a lamb,” 1:24 “like grass and all its glory,” 2:2 “like newborn infants,” and 2:5 “like living stones.” Such uses are often metaphorical, but this is not always the case. Sometimes hōs conveys a characteristic that is quite straightforward. In 2:11, Peter addresses the audience “as aliens and exiles,” in 2:13 the king is identified “as supreme,” and in 2:16 the audience is addressed both “as free” and “as servants of God.” So we must analyze the immediate context to determine how hōs is being used and what exactly it modifies.

Translators disagree widely about what hōs modifies in 1 Pet 3:7. It could modify the woman, as in the NRSV: “paying honor

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to the woman as the weaker sex.” It could define how husbands ought to cohabit with knowledge as in the 1995 revision of the New American Standard Bible: “live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker.” It could modify how men ought to honor their wives, as in the KJV: “giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel.” Agreement upon where the implied commas should be placed would presumably help matters. Yet some of our earliest editions of the Greek New Testaments disagree with how this sentence should be parsed. Erasmus in 1516 disagrees with Stephanus in 1550.

And the text shared by the modern editions of Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Societies changed between their 1979 and 2000 editions. More recently, OpenText.org, an online source developed by Stanley Porter and his associates, breaks down the text in still a different way.13 It is therefore difficult to invoke some sort of textual analysis trump card to settle this debate in a definitive way. It will have to do for now to note the use of the comparative hōs and to see what further information the rest of the clause provides.

The Indefinite State of the Phrase “weaker vessel” Though the definite article is conspicuously absent from our target clause all throughout the manuscript tradition, nearly every English translation renders the phrase hōs asthenesterō skeuei as if it were definite,14 which leads to translations like “the weaker vessel,” “the weaker sex,” or “the weaker partner.” When linked with the comparative hōs, the definite article carries the meaning in a specific direction. If the wife in the passage is referred to as “the” weaker partner, this implies that she is being compared to her husband who is presumably the stronger one. So, no matter where one places commas in this sentence, the same sense is conveyed: the phrase “weaker vessel” refers directly to the woman. Yet the most natural rendering of this phrase without the definite article would be “as with a weaker vessel,” and this opens up a different meaning for the word “vessel” than is assumed by English translations and all the major commentaries.

The Default Meaning of “vessel” Most commentators point out that the term skeuei, in its most basic sense, means a material object that is used to carry out a particular function, often a jar or container of some sort. For instance, in Luke 8:16 we are told that no one lights a lamp only to cover it over with a jar or vessel. By extension, skeuei sometimes refers to a person who carries out a particular function. In the Greek OT, this term refers to an inanimate instrument or container over 270 times. Of those instances, less than thirty refer to humans as vessels and all such cases refer to a royal armor bearer (a “vessel” carrier).15 In the NT, skeuei appears twenty-two times, and only three of them refer to people.16 The ordinary sense of the term is therefore an instrument or container.

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and “dishonor.” Paul says in Rom 9:21, “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object [skeuos] for special use [timēn] and another for ordinary use [atimian]?”

This passage and 2 Tim 2:20 testify that honor is something ascribed to vessels, which provides interesting context for interpreting our contested passage.

Neither the translations nor the commentaries seriously consider that the “weaker vessel” of 3:7 might simply be a fragile piece of pottery that warrants special care, like a family heirloom.

If such is the case, this verse could be saying that Christian husbands ought to treat their unbelieving wives with special care. Rather than lord their religion over them, they ought to woo their wives into the faith by according special dignity to them. This would be analogous to how Christian wives win over their unbelieving husbands and how Christian slaves relate to their unbelieving masters.

We might then offer a variety of translations of 1 Pet 3:7, each of which conveys the same basic meaning: Following the Structure Offered on OpenText.org Husbands, in the same way, cohabitating according to knowledge: as with a delicate vessel, to the wife, showing honor as also to coheirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Following the Punctuation of the 26th edition of the Greek text by Nestle and Aland (and thus the NRSV and ESV) Husbands, in the same way, cohabitating according to knowledge, showing honor to the wife as to a delicate vessel, as also to coheirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Following the punctuation of 27th edition of the Greek text by Nestle and Aland Husbands, in the same way, cohabitating with your wife according to knowledge as with a delicate vessel, showing honor as also to coheirs of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

If this basic approach to translation is correct, then Peter is not instructing his audience to think of women as being weaker.

Rather, he is holding up how households treated precious vessels as a model for how husbands ought to treat their unbelieving spouses. He calls them to act out of faith knowledge—like Christian citizens, slaves, and wives earlier in the pericope— not out of widely shared societal notions that men are stronger than women. If Peter were encouraging that sort of knowledge, this would stand against his instruction to wives in the previous section, where he instructs them not to use outward beauty to win over their husbands, which would have been the societal norm. Were that the case, he would not have said “Husbands, in the same way” but “Husbands, on the other hand,” and then applied a different standard to them.

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Howard Marshall, 1 Peter, IVP New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 104; Scot McKnight, 1 Peter, NIV Application If this alternative translation is correct, four implications follow.

Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 185; Michaels, 1 Peter, First, and most obvious, we ought not appeal to 1 Pet 3:7 in order 169–70; Pheme Perkins, First and Second Peter, James, and Jude, IBC to argue that women are weaker than men. It is simply not what (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 59; Thomas Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, NAC (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 161; Donald the passage is about. Indeed, it may be a subtle polemic against P. Senior, 1 Peter, SP (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2008), 84; Duane F. this notion.

Watson, First and Second Peter, Paideia Commentaries on the New Second, we should pause before applying the instruction Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 76–77. in this entire pericope—whether concerning slaves, wives, or 7.

E.g., Davids, The First Epistle of Peter, 122. husbands—to relationships between fellow believers. Though 8. E.g., Senior, 1 Peter, 84. some of it may be relevant, the author’s concerns lie elsewhere.

9. I owe this insight to Greek scholar and colleague Ronald D. Peters.

Third, since the women in this verse are not believers, 10. That Sarah is introduced as a role model does not mean this Peter’s rationale for showing them honor may be seen as having section is not about the relationship between believing wives and even wider applicability. Believers ought to show honor to all unbelieving husbands. There is no reason to assume that behavior unbelievers on account of their being coheirs of the grace of toward a believer cannot be used to exemplify behavior toward an life. Their lives are not a waste should they not choose to follow unbeliever. Plus, it is quite possible that the example of Sarah being Jesus. It is indeed a shame that they do not experience eternal appealed to is her submission to Abraham precisely when he did not believe in God’s promise to give him a son life, but their present lives are just as much a gift from God as ours. This builds We ought not appeal to 1 Pet 3:7 through Sarah. Cf. Bott, “Sarah as the ‘Weaker upon the OT notion that all humans are in order to argue that women Vessel,’” 243–59. Though I do not find Bott’s made in God’s image and that all blood is are weaker than men. It is simply interpretation of 3:7 to be persuasive, he sacred, not just the blood of our family or not what the passage is about. helpfully illuminates the allusion to Sarah and Abraham in 3:6. tribe or gender. Any notion of Christian Indeed, it may be a subtle polemic 11. Supporting the view that these women superiority is refuted by this pericope. against this notion. are unbelievers, see Carl D. Gross, “Are the Finally, 1 Pet 3:7 teaches us that when Wives in 1 Peter 3.7 Christians?” JSNT 35 (Feb society grants believers social privilege, for whatever reason— 1989): 89–96; Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter, BECNT (Grand Rapids, Baker, whether gender, ethnicity, seniority, or majority status—we 2005), 207–8. Jobes concludes, “the husband is to treat his wife as if ought not wield such privilege in order to coerce unbelievers she were a sister in Christ. The unbelieving wife is to be accorded the into Christian faith and practice. This passage calls upon people same respect as a fellow Christian . . . with the hope of winning her to authentic faith” (208). of social privilege to lay aside their privilege and to extend God’s 12. This understanding finds support in some of the most reliable gift to those below us in the social pecking order as the same gift manuscripts.

Codex Sinaiticus (4th cent.) and Codex Alexandrinus (5th of grace that we received. In order for God’s gift to be received as cent.) add the term poilikēs, which would lead to a translation like “the a gift, it must be presented in a way that is rejectable. Anything grace of various kinds of life.” This suggests that, even though the wife less is not God’s gift of salvation, but just another human rule. may not yet be a coheir of new life in Jesus, she is coheir of another, Notes albeit more basic, kind of life that is also an invaluable gift from God. On the other hand, P72 is a 3rd-4th century papyrus that inserts the 1. E.g., Miroslav Volf, “Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on word aiōnou, which would render the phrase “eternal life.” the Relation between Church and Culture in 1 Peter,” ExAud 10 (1994): 13. Ronald Peters offered valuable assistance regarding the location 15–30. of the comma in the textual tradition.

2. John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster, 2nd 14. E.g., KJV (1611), ASV (1901), RSV (1952), JKJ (1982), NJB (1985), ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), ch. 9.

NRSV (1989), NET (2005), NIV (2011), NAB (2011), and ESV (2016). The 3. See J. Ramsey Michaels, 1 Peter, WBC (Waco: Word, 2015), 167; NASB (1977) is a notable exception.

John H. Elliott, 1 Peter, AB (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 574.

15. Judg 9:54; 1 Sam 14:12–21, 31:4, 56; 2 Sam 23:27; 1 Chron 10:4–5, 11:39.

4. I am not the first to suggest this. See Nicholas T. Bott, “Sarah 16. In Acts 9:15, Paul becomes God’s instrument; in 1 Thess 4:4 the as the ‘Weaker Vessel’: Genesis 18 and 20 in 1 Peter’s Instructions to human body is referred to as a vessel; and in 2 Tim 2:21, people may Husbands in 1 Pet 3:7,” TJ 36 (2015): 243. serve as vessels who do good work.

5. I am not arguing that a participle cannot have an imperative

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force, or that all Greek participles must be translated as English participles. Rather, my point is about the structure, which is clear in Greek but veiled in most English translations.

6. M. Eugene Boring, 1 Peter, ANTC (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 127; Edmund Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter, Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1989), 134; Peter H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 122; Elliott, 1 Peter, 579–80; Daniel Keating, First and Second Peter, Jude, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 77; I.

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John Nugent teaches Bible and theology at Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing, Michigan. He holds an MDiv from Emmanuel Christian Seminary, a ThM from Duke Divinity School, and a PhD from Calvin Theological Seminary. He is well published, including the book, Endangered Gospel: How Fixing the World is Killing the Church (Cascade, 2016).

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Philemon in Light of Galatians 3:28 Nikki Holland

Paul’s letter to Philemon presents a real-world example of how Paul interacted with churches and individuals based on the unity he proclaims in Gal 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (NRSV). This article addresses Paul’s development of koinōnia (“fellowship,” “partnership,” “sharing”) in the church that meets in Philemon’s house, and how koinōnia supersedes the hierarches that were so prevalent in the NT world.1 First I discuss how Paul uses hierarchy in Philemon, focusing on how Paul subverts the system of slavery. Then I examine family relationships in this letter to demonstrate how Paul subverts expected power differentials between Gentiles and Jews and between men and women. Next, I look at the kind of power Paul exerts in his petition to Philemon, since he is not using his rank as an apostle to command his “dear friend and co-worker” (vv. 1, 9). Finally, I discuss koinōnia in Paul’s understanding of the church and its relationship to power structures, especially the hierarchy within the slave system. Although Paul recognizes (and potentially participates in) the various power relationships in this world, he believes that hierarchies are just that—of this world. Because his focus is on the next world, Paul is concerned with living in the Spirit—living in this world by the principles of the next world. He does so by superseding various kinds of earthly hierarchies with koinōnia, which he enacts in Philemon by announcing Onesimus as an active and equal participant in that koinōnia, by calling Gentiles his family members, and by addressing Apphia as having at least equal influence with the men in her church.

Hierarchy in Philemon Paul asks Philemon to receive his runaway slave,2 Onesimus, back as a beloved brother and even as Philemon would welcome the apostle himself. Not all scholars consider Paul’s request to be an example of egalitarian theology. Pieter J. J. Botha, for example, asserts that through his use of the language of slavery and kinship, Paul here demonstrates his participation in and approbation of the hierarchical systems of master over slave in the Greco-Roman world. Botha believes that, because Paul does not openly call for the end of slavery, this letter is mainly a matter of property management, and we should hold Paul accountable for not calling for an end to slavery.3 Botha believes that even the familial language Paul uses is meant to affirm Paul’s superior status as an apostle over the church that met in Philemon’s home—Paul’s authority would determine who is called a brother, while Paul’s position as a father, complete with all the rights and privileges of a paterfamilias, is implicit throughout the letter.

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lower status of Philemon, Apphia, Onesimus and the church that meets in their home?

No Longer Slave or Free Does Paul, a Roman citizen, participate in keeping Onesimus as a slave? He does not directly ask Philemon to manumit him4 and he does express the hope that Onesimus would be able to return to him to serve him. However, just as Paul asks Philemon to receive Onesimus as Paul’s representative (v. 17), which “effectively put[s] the slave (Onesimus) over and above his (other) master (Philemon) in the Church,” Paul “hopes that Onesimus will be able to serve him as Philemon’s representative.

Onesimus in this role is not a slave, but an ambassador for both of these men.”5 So rather than using his power as a citizen over Onesimus, Paul shares that power with him. It must be noted that “serve” here in v. 13 (“so that he might be of service to me” NRSV) is diakoneō rather than douleuō, a distinction which removes Paul’s reference to service from the realm of slavery.

Paul is not the only active party in this relationship. Ulrike Roth claims that Paul and Philemon are discussing Onesimus as a property asset in their koinōnia agreement,6 and Botha claims that “although the outcome of the rhetorical act [of Paul’s petition] is of direct interest to Onesimus, he exerts no influence, nor does he contribute any options.”7 Sung Uk Lim, on the other hand, focuses on Onesimus’s agency as the initiator of the situation that requires this letter in the first place. Lim suggests that Onesimus is the one who finds Paul in prison, and through his conversion and imitation of Paul (1 Cor 11:1), shows himself to be a “tactful character, able to maneuver the power relations between Paul and Philemon in order to undermine the authority of his master and, by implication, the imperial rule reflected in the system of slavery.”8 This view of Onesimus as an active participant in his relationship with Paul further blurs the lines of hierarchy as, through Onesimus’s initiative and Paul’s response, Philemon and Paul become not only citizens of the same empire, but brothers and father, and Onesimus becomes not only a slave but a son, brother, and, as we saw earlier, a representative of them both.

Paul lived in a particular context. While he states that it is better to be free (e.g., 1 Cor 7:23), he also lived in a world that could not imagine itself without slavery.9 He lived in a world where he could face serious legal repercussions for not returning a fugitive slave.10 He lived in a world where slaves were considered things rather than people.11 Within such a world, Paul was able to restore Onesimus’s humanity by recognizing his status in Christ, and he expected Philemon to accept that as well, by recognizing Onesimus as his beloved brother (v. 16).

Although Botha finds it “extremely problematic” that Paul does not acknowledge the violence inherent in slavery and call to an end of the suffering,12 I submit that Paul wrote this letter to acknowledge that very point! He recognizes that Onesimus

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is vulnerable to serious repercussions upon his return to Philemon;13 and (probably in response to Onesimus’s request) Paul is doing everything in his power to prevent that suffering.

For Paul and the early church, this world is passing away (1 John 2:17). The new world, the kingdom of heaven, is coming soon—Jesus says it is even already here.14 Paul’s entire focus is on pressing forward into the next life (Phil 3:13–14). His vision is to bring kingdom concepts into the structures of this world.

So yes, Paul recognizes the institution of slavery and uses that language. But for Paul, slavery among Christians is the outer shell of social hierarchy filled with the Spirit of the kingdom of heaven. “Onesimus, once converted, remains a slave under the rules of the ‘old’ world . . . whilst becoming an equal under the rules of the new world.”15 And he can be these things simultaneously just as the kingdom of heaven is simultaneously here and coming. Paul knows he cannot eliminate slavery. But he does everything he can to eliminate the violence and suffering of slavery within his churches by presenting Christian slaves like Onesimus as brothers with their masters. Paul asks Philemon to welcome Onesimus the slave the same way he would welcome Paul the apostle, their spiritual father. Paul completely upsets the ranks of the hierarchy of slavery.

No Longer Greek or Jew, No Longer Male and Female This letter is like a modern birth announcement. Paul has given birth to a son,16 and he is introducing Onesimus to Philemon and the church in his home as a new member of the family.

Paul calls Timothy, Onesimus, and Philemon brothers, he calls Onesimus his child, he calls himself a father, and he calls Apphia a sister. He is speaking about this church as if it were a family.

It is commonly thought that this church was in Asia Minor,17 and that the people who comprised the church were Gentiles, including Philemon, Apphia, and Onesimus.18 We first learn in Acts 10 that Jewish Christians are now able to share meals with

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Gentiles, and in Acts 15 we read that some Jewish Christians believed that Gentiles were not Christians unless they had also become Jews; but Paul tells the council at Jerusalem that God “has made no distinction between them [Gentiles] and us [Jews]” (Acts 15:9). In Philemon, Paul is going beyond seeing Gentile Christians as saved—he is calling them his own family! There is no difference between Greeks and Jews in Paul’s churches.

The Greco-Roman family was governed by strictly tiered hierarchy with the father on top, then the mother, then sons, then daughters. But we do not see these lines of power reflected in the letter to Philemon. Rather, Paul is simultaneously a father and a brother—and he makes an appeal (rather than a mandate) to his brother Philemon, who, as a brother also to Onesimus and a man who owes himself to Paul, is also Paul’s son. He asks Philemon to welcome (his brother) Onesimus as if he were their father, Paul. Apphia, a sister, a woman, is listed before Archippus, a man, in Paul’s greeting, a feature so peculiar in that time period that even hundreds of years later scholars were still trying to explain it. For example, Jerome (AD 342–420) explained Apphia’s precedence in Paul’s list by saying, “This is what the apostle says when writing to the Galatians, that in the faith of Christ it makes no difference whether someone is a Gentile or a Jew, man or woman, slave or free. Likewise, this becomes clear in this passage . . . Apphia . . . does not seem to be ranked by her sex, but by her merit.”19 Not much is known about Apphia. Scholars suggest she could be the wife of Philemon or Archippus or Philemon’s sister or even daughter.20 It is possible that she is a partner in a missionary team21 or perhaps she is simply a leader in the church that meets in Philemon’s home. What we do know is that she is greeted before Archippus, whom Paul had given a special job to do (Col 4:17). This positioning mirrors the precedence that Priscilla had before Aquila four out of the six times the couple are mentioned in the NT, though such ordering is quite rare.22

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In the letter’s ancient context, that Apphia preceded Archippus probably meant that she had greater influence in the church leadership. Ross S. Kraemer even argues, “That Paul explicitly names Apphia suggests that he seeks her consent to his request concerning . . . Onesimus, and therefore acknowledges her influential role in this church.”23 So we see that in Paul’s family, a sister is given at least equal influence with her brothers and, by extension, her father.

There is additional evidence that Paul is reimagining the family as having a flat power structure, in the Greek word Paul uses when he calls Onesimus his “child,” rather than his “son,” in v. 10: The notion of rank is completely absent here. . . .

Onesimus is Paul’s child (teknon); he is not his son (huios). The former connotes relationship, intimacy and minority, without the authoritarian dimension of the father-son relationship associated with the latter, especially as it was defined in Roman family life under the law and custom of the principate.24 This church is indeed a family—but it is certainly not one that adheres to any identifiable hierarchy. Paul is not using the language of family to remind Philemon of his power as a father.

He is using the language of family to remind Philemon that they are equal in Christ and united in love, Greek and Jew, male and female, and that Onesimus has joined the family as a brother— even as Paul’s own heart (v. 12).

You are all One in Christ Jesus Paul’s Power to Influence We have seen that Paul subverts expectations of hierarchical power within this letter to Philemon. Let us now consider what power Paul is using in his appeal to Philemon. According to Timothy A. Brookins, Paul is making use of the ancient notion of auctoritas power.25 In the time of the NT church, there were two concepts of power: potestas, which is the right to command (which Paul would have had as an apostle), and auctoritas, which is the desire to influence and call to participation. The first is a power which is taken by leaders; the second is a power which is ascribed to leaders by their followers. Paul’s persuasive tactic is an excellent example of auctoritas power: he renounces his right to command as an apostle and he instead emphasizes his age, imprisonment for the sake of Christ, and role as a spiritual father. By doing so, Paul hopes to increase Philemon’s desire to obey his brother Paul.

In vv. 5, 7 and 9, Paul goes beyond the standard boundaries of auctoritas and invokes love as a reason for Philemon to grant his request on Onesimus’s behalf,26 much as Jesus does: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15 NRSV).

Jesus is not interested in forcing us to obey his commands to love God and love each other. Rather he renounced his rights and glory and descended to earth where he suffered even to death on our behalf (Phil 2:5–11). Because of his love for us and our love for him, we desire to obey his commands. This is the

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sort of relationship Paul is calling Philemon into. “Paul is not looking to establish new patron-client relations between himself and Philemon, but is seeking to establish a new criterion that transcends the Greco-Roman patronage system with entirely new relations made possible through Christ.”27 Paul is leaving behind the patterns of this world and pressing forward toward the patterns of the world to come.

What are these new relations that the church can experience in Christ? Koinōnia.

Koinōnia in Philemon Philemon is structured as a chiasm, a literary device featuring inverted parallelism. Thus, many of the concepts Paul introduces in the first half of the book lay the foundation for the points he makes in the second half of the book.28 The letter’s main point, Paul’s petition, appears as a chiastic pair. Near the beginning of the letter, Paul writes: “I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ” (v. 6 NRSV). Then later in the letter, Paul makes his request: “So if you consider me your partner, welcome him [Onesimus] as you would welcome me” (v. 17 NRSV). Though these two sentences do not seem like a close pair in English, the word that is translated “sharing” is koinōnia and the word translated “partner” is its cognate, koinōnon.

The root of these words is koin-, which means “common” (for example, the NT is written in Koinē Greek, a language “common” to various cultures). Words from this root can, for example, refer to business partnerships, farm tax sharing, marriage relationships, civic associations, collegial associations, cultic associations, community, and shared tombs.29 Koinōnia, the most common noun form of this word family, is an action noun (consider, for example, the English word “handoff”).30 Koinōnia is the “manifestation of the relationships that exist between people who share together in a common thing.”31 Of the twenty-one times that koinōnia is used in the NT, Paul accounts for thirteen of those instances,32 and he develops an understanding of Christian koinōnia that expresses “our unity with one another and with God in Christ33 . . . [and the] identification and solidarity—of God with us. . . . The koinōnia we have with Christ is mutual. We are in him, and he is in us.”34 But this is not an ethereal concept that has no bearing on everyday life. Rather, “it is in the nature of the koinōnia God gives us . . . that the most profound dimensions of koinōnia are to be found in the utterly ordinary exercise of it”35—and that expression of spiritual koinōnia within the use of the ordinary structures of the world is exactly what we see in Philemon. It is koinōnia that allows Paul to call Gentiles his family. It is koinōnia that allows Apphia to participate fully in the leadership of her church. It is koinōnia that allows Onesimus to reestablish his relationship with Philemon.

In v. 6, Paul prays that Philemon’s koinōnia in his faith will become effective when he perceives all the good that might be done. The word translated as “effective” emphasizes “activity and productivity.”36 It can also be translated as “active,”

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“powerful,” or “productive.” Paul is praying that Philemon’s koinōnia (his sharing together with others in the faith of Jesus Christ) will produce action when he hears all the good that can be done for Christ. Then in v. 17, Paul reminds Philemon about this concept of active participation in his faith by calling him koinōnon—“partner,” “co-sharer” in the faith. Paul is suggesting that Philemon’s participation together in the faith (with Paul, Apphia, and now Onesimus) might be actively demonstrated by accepting his slave not only as a beloved brother (v. 16), but as Paul’s very representative!

Not only is Paul reminding Philemon that he is a koinōnon, this letter is his announcement that Onesimus is a koinōnon as well! Onesimus is now an active participant in the sharing together in a common faith with Philemon (and the church that meets in their home). Roth claims that Paul is writing to Philemon in order to manage Onesimus as an asset that Philemon is contributing to their shared faith community. But Onesimus is not an asset! He is a brother, a son, an ambassador of Paul who has even helped Tychicus (Col 4:7–9) carry news and a letter to the church in Colossae, which is likely the same church that meets in Philemon’s home.37 Paul has effectively obliterated any sense of hierarchy within the church’s experience of koinōnia. He has filled in the valleys and made the mountains low (Isa 40:4, Luke 3:5). In Paul’s church, Jesus has brought slaves, Gentiles, and women from the margins into the center of the church to take their place next to the free Jewish men.

Conclusion Although Paul uses the language of worldly hierarchies, he follows the example of Jesus Christ. Paul lays down his authority, just as Jesus laid down his glory. Like Jesus, Paul humbles himself before Philemon and appeals to him on the basis of love. And he is asking Philemon to do the same thing—to lay down his authority as a Roman slave owner and consider the interests of his slave above his own (Phil 2:3–4). Paul transcends the hierarchy, and instead reminds Philemon that as Christians all three men—as well as Apphia and the church that meets in their home—are mutual participants in the love of Christ; and Philemon can take faithful action by acting like Jesus Christ and treating his slave as he would treat his spiritual father, to whom he owes his very self (v. 19). Paul ignores the earthly demands of hierarchy in order to press into the spiritual koinōnia of the kingdom of heaven.

While Paul does believe it is better to be free and affirms Christian slaves as freed men and women belonging to the Lord (1 Cor 7:22–24), Paul does not directly ask for Onesimus’s manumission.38 However, Paul has superseded the hierarchies of this world with the koinōnia of the next world to such a degree that Onesimus is a full and equal partner with his “master,” like Philemon with Paul and Apphia with Archippus. Although the people living in the Greco-Roman world might not have been able to imagine a world in which slavery does not exist, Paul’s churches leave the hierarchy of slavery behind as part of the world that is passing away, along with ethnic division and

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gender hierarchy. Paul removes the power differential from Philemon and Onesimus’s relationship (in their church), and he replaces that differential with koinōnia by asking Philemon to receive Onesimus as if he were Paul. Within the koinōnia of their faith, slaves and masters, Greeks and Jews, men and women, beloved brothers and sisters in Christ—equal heirs in the gifts of salvation—can enjoy equal status together within the church.39

Notes 1. Koinōnia (and Onesimus’s role in that koinōnia) is a concept developed below.

2. Some scholars posit that Onesimus was not a runaway slave, but that he had sought Paul out to address a grievance against Philemon (e.g., Bernardo Cho, “Subverting Slavery: Philemon, Onesimus, and Paul’s Gospel of Reconciliation,” EvQ 86, no. 2 [April 2014]: 101). Some scholars even consider that Onesimus was not a slave but Philemon’s estranged brother, and that this letter is Paul’s attempt to encourage solidarity between Onesimus and Philemon and the church that met in his home (e.g., Allen Dwight Callahan, “The Letter to Philemon,” in A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings, ed. Fernando F. Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah [London: T & T Clark, 2009]).

3. Pieter J. J. Botha, “Hierarchy and Obedience: The Legacy of the Letter to Philemon,” in Philemon in Perspective, ed. D. Francois Tolmie (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2010), 260.

4. There were sometimes restrictions regarding whether a slave could be manumitted at all. Alan Watson, Roman Slave Law (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 23–34, 52, 66.

5. Ulrike Roth, “Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus: a Christian Design for Mastery,” ZNW 105, no. 1 (2014): 124.

6. Roth, “Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus,” 106–9.

7. Botha, “Hierarchy and Obedience,” 261.

8. Sung Uk Lim, “The Otherness of Onesimus: Re-reading Paul’s Letter to Philemon from the Margins,” ThTo 73, no. 3 (2016): 225.

9. “To expect that Paul would request Philemon to pioneer an abolition of slavery of sorts seems quite anachronistic—neither the slave revolts of the second century BCE nor the Stoics envisaged the termination of the institution of slavery.” Cho, “Subverting Slavery,” 110.

10. Cho, “Subverting Slavery,” 106.

11. See Watson, Roman Slave Law. 12. Botha, “Hierarchy and Obedience,” 283.

13. Cho, “Subverting Slavery,” 105.

14. 2 Thess 3:6–13 suggests that the church in Thessalonica was so looking forward to the return of Jesus that they had even stopped working.

15. Roth, “Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus,” 126.

16. Paul speaks of his churches and the people in them as his children and compares himself to a woman in labor in Gal 4:19.

17. Ross S. Kraemer, “Apphia,” in Women in Scripture: a Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/ Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament, ed. Toni Craven, Ross S. Kraemer, and Carol L. Meyers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 53.

18. Most Roman slaves were thought of as property. See Bonnie Bowman Thurston, Judith Ryan, and Daniel J. Harrington, Philippians and Philemon (Collegeville: Liturgical, 2005), 170.

19. Jerome, St. Jerome’s Commentaries on Galatians, Titus, and Philemon, ed. Thomas P. Scheck (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 363. Note also that Jerome thought it possible that

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Archippus was the bishop of Philemon’s church (p. 360) and was at least an “apostolic man.”

20. Kraemer, “Apphia,” 52; Nicholas R. Quient, “Was Apphia an Early Christian Leader? An Investigation and Proposal Regarding the Identity of the Woman in Philemon 1:2,” Priscilla Papers 31, no. 2 (Spring 2017): 10–13.

21. Kraemer, “Apphia,” 53.

22. vanThanh Nguyen, “Migrants as Missionaries: The Case of Priscilla and Aquila,” Mission Studies 30, no. 2 (2013): 200.

23. Kraemer, “Apphia,” 53.

24. Callahan, “The Letter to Philemon,” 334.

25. Timothy A. Brookins, “I Rather Appeal to Auctoritas: Roman Conceptualizations of Power and Paul’s Appeal to Philemon,” CBQ 77, no. 2 (April 2015): 302–21.

26. Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 198.

27. Thurston, et al., Philippians and Philemon, 190.

28. Thurston, et al., Philippians and Philemon, 182.

29. For an in-depth discussion of this word family in ancient documentation, see Julien M. Ogereau, “A Survey of κοινωνία and its Cognates in Documentary Sources,” NovT 57, no. 3 (2015): 275–94.

30. Jeffrey J. Kloha, “Koinonia and Life Together in the New Testament,” Concordia Journal 38, no. 1 (2012): 23.

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31. Kloha, “Koinonia and Life Together,” 26.

32. Roth, “Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus,” 104.

33.Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, “Koinōnia: The Gift We Hold Together,” The Mennonite Quarterly Review (July 2012), 347.

34. Yoder Neufeld, “The Gift We Hold Together,” 344.

35. Yoder Neufeld, “The Gift We Hold Together,” 347.

36. Ernest D. Martin, Colossians, Philemon (Scottdale: Herald, 1993), 254.

37. Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, 186.

38. It is possible that Paul’s confidence that Philemon would do “even more” in v. 21 refers to manumission.

39. There is a possibility that the Onesimus of Philemon is the same Onesimus who later became the bishop of Ephesus (Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, 186), which would indicate that Philemon did eventually free Onesimus.

NIKKI HOLLAND is a graduate of Northern Arizona University and is working towards an MDiv at Earlham School of Religion.

She is a founding member of a house church in Merida, Mexico.

This article was among the winners of the student paper competition at CBE International’s 2017 conference in Orlando, Florida.

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Imagining a Feminine God: Gendered Imagery in the Bible Abigail Dolan

In Scripture, God is identified using many names and titles, such as God (elohim, theos), Lord (adonai, kurios), YHWH, and descriptors such as “Rock,” “Comforter,” and “Light of the World.” Upon first glance, these words seem fairly neutral in their gendering of God. However, English frequently assigns masculine pronouns to God. God becomes a “he.” This use of masculine pronouns is common in Scripture as well, especially when the context includes a grammatically masculine name, title, or metaphor for God. In many modern churches, only masculine language for God is deemed acceptable. This restriction is historically and, more importantly, biblically unfounded. The language we use to define, explain, and identify God shapes the way we understand God. By having an essentially masculine view of God, we blind ourselves to other ways we may connect to God and understand God. This not only distorts our image of God, but a purely masculine view also negatively affects the way we interact with one another— most prominently, how the church interacts with women. By broadening our God-language to include feminine imagery, we expand the ways in which we can connect to God; this can begin to rectify a distorted view of God and to change the damaging ways the church has engaged with women.

Biblical Language for God In order to better understand God-language, it is important to discern the ways in which gender is identified, both in biblical languages and in English. Our manner of referring to God can be linguistically divided into two groups: grammatical and lexical.

Grammatical identifiers are features that use gender-specific parts of speech, such as gendered pronouns, articles, or verbs.

In English, these gender designators are limited to singular pronouns such as “he,” “she,” and “herself.” However, the biblical languages utilize far more gendered designators, and Greek, unlike Hebrew or Aramaic, has gender neutral identifiers as well.

Hebrew and Aramaic have gender-specific forms of pronouns, suffixes, adjectives, participles, and verbs. Greek has genderspecific forms of pronouns, adjectives, participles, and articles.

In contrast, lexical gender identification uses words, as opposed to forms of or parts of words, that have a meaning specifically related to gender, such as “father” or “give birth.” Such language implies gender but does not always refer to a person who is the same gender as the lexical identifier implies. Cases where the subject’s natural gender or grammatical gender, or both, do not match the lexical language (including cases in which the subject has no gender) are called cross-gender imagery.

In biblical languages, the grammatical features are largely independent of the occurrence of lexical cross-gender imagery.

Concerning lexical gender, when referring to God using a metaphor that has a sex, such as a person (e.g., a king) or animal (e.g., a hen),1 one must be careful about transferring gender assumptions from the metaphor to God. Concerning

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grammatical gender, Gail Ramshaw-Schmidt notes that, “in languages with grammatical gender there is no actual significance in gender designation” since inanimate objects are assigned a grammatical gender as well.2 Thus a table being gendered female, for example, does not indicate sex. Rather it is a construct of the language. Therefore, in God-language, the gender of the divine should not be assumed on the basis of grammatical gender since God is not human.3 In fact, God must by nature be gender-transcendent. For God, not being human (see, e.g., Num 23:19), and being beyond human understanding (see, e.g., Isa 55:8–9; Rom 11:33–36) cannot be contained in human language or categories such as gender.4

Symbolic Language The only way humans can talk about God is through symbolic language. Emmanuel Kaniyamparampil explains, “The limitations of human language . . . demand the use of symbols and images.

Symbols have the capacity to open up various new realms of meaning,”5 and invisible realities become more accessible to human understanding through the use of observable symbols.

Rather than define an infinite God, symbols help connect humanity to the divine through knowable imagery. Even a title as fundamental as “God the Father” does not describe the essence of God, but is metaphorical language “indicating only a relation of origin.”6 The language we use to describe God does not change God, but it does affect the way we understand and interact with God. When we limit our symbols, we lessen the aspects of God that can be revealed to us. Our ability to understand the fullness of God shrinks or swells with our language.

This symbolic language can be organized into two categories: metaphorical and analogical. Metaphorical God-language makes a statement about what God is and what God is not.

All metaphoric language must be contradictory. In her essay “The Gender of God,” Ramshaw-Schmidt uses the example of “rock” from the Psalms to demonstrate the antithetical nature of metaphoric language: “God is a rock: but of course God is not a rock.”7 The same is true of anthropomorphic metaphors, a kind of metaphoric language in which God is described with human characteristics. God can be called a man, a woman, or a whole people, but in actuality God is not any of these symbols.

While metaphoric language draws a comparison, analogy is more explicit. Analogical language, however, will always represent God incompletely. Neither can analogical language be negated.

For example, one can say “God is good” but cannot contradict the statement by saying “But God is not actually good.” Nevertheless, there is an understanding that the word “good” does not fully encompass God nor fully explain what one means when one says “God is good.”8 Understanding the nature and function of symbolic Godlanguage helps facilitate acceptance of unfamiliar God imagery.

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It also makes apparent when the language Christians use inhibits a full representation of God. In the Bible, numerous examples of cross-gender imagery and feminine representations of divinity are largely ignored today.

Feminine Imagery for God In the OT, God is predominantly described using masculine grammatical language. However, there are a number of cases where God is described lexically using female imagery. The following are a few examples: Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, “carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child, to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors”? (Num 11:12 NRSV) As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. (Isa 66:13 NRSV) You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you; you forgot the God who gave you birth. (Deut 32:18 NRSV) Notably, all of these examples of OT cross-gender imagery use the image of God as a mother. Each of these uses, however, is distinct and adds nuance to the picture of God being like a mother. Numbers 11:12 touches on female creative power and the life-giving element of motherhood. Isaiah 66:13 depicts God as a mother in a comforting sense, which is perhaps more familiar to many modern Christians. Deuteronomy 32:18 is an especially interesting passage regarding cross-gender imagery; this passage imagines God as both mother and father in the same thought.9 The truths of God as mother and God as father, God as feminine and God as masculine, are held in tension. In acknowledging that tension, a further truth about God can be affirmed—that gender hierarchy does not derive from God’s character.

Although less common, there are a few instances of crossgender imagery in the NT as well. The phrase “born of God” is used in 1 John 4:7, which is a lexically feminine image. Additionally, 1 Pet 2:2–3 states, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk so that by it you may grow into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (NRSV). Describing Christians as newborn babies craving milk, with the Lord being the source of the spiritual milk, clearly suggests breastfeeding. This passage can therefore be interpreted as an image of God as a mother.10 The above examples demonstrate how God is lexically given feminine attributes in the Bible. In these images, however, God maintains some masculine characterization. In contrast, there are some Christian traditions where aspects of God are personified, or characterized, as feminine.

In the ancient Syriac Christian tradition, for example, the Holy Spirit is characterized as feminine. This feminine characterization has its roots in Hebrew grammar. The Hebrew word for “spirit” is ruakh, which is grammatically feminine.

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identity. Additionally, a primary action of the Holy Spirit, “to hover” (rakhaf ), is also conjugated as grammatically feminine.

Further, the act of hovering has a connotation of the action of a mother bird.11 Rakhaf is used in Deut 32:11 to describe the way God cares for the Israelites in the desert. This same verb is in Gen 1:2, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters,” which is where Syriac Christians first make the connection to the Holy Spirit.12 Similarly, a feminine Wisdom figure is prominent in Proverbs.13 However, unlike other examples of female imagery in the Bible, Wisdom (Hebrew hokhmah, Greek sophia) is described as working with God, rather than as a metaphor to describe a characteristic of God. In Prov 8, Wisdom speaks: The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. . . . When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above . . . I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race. And now, my children, listen to me: happy are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. . . . For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord; but those who miss me injure themselves; all who hate me love death. (Prov 8:22–36 NRSV) Though it is not clear in English, the grammar of this passage in Hebrew is feminine and describes a feminine persona. Sophia is described as being created by God and present at the creation of the world. This female embodiment of divine creative force can be found in the visions and writings of Saint Hildegard of Bingen, a renowned medieval mystic and theologian. Hildegard’s visions of the female form do not simply ascribe feminine characteristics to the Divine, but are multi-symbolic representatives of the Divine Being.14 The most significant symbol Hildegard uses is Wisdom. In one vision she describes that the “sweeping wings of Wisdom surround and sanctify the cosmic power of life itself,” demonstrating the unity between the created universe and the Divine, represented here as Sophia from Proverbs.15 Wisdom is not merely like a woman in the way that some OT passages describe God, Divine Wisdom is imagined as an actual woman.

Additionally, this image of Wisdom is often connected to Christ as Logos, or the Word.16 The opening statement of the Gospel of John shows the Word, revealed in 1:14 to be Christ,17 as present with God in Creation.

“The Word” in John’s prologue is the Greek word Logos.

Early orthodox theologians, such as Justin Martyr and Augustine, use Sophia, Sapientia (Latin for “wisdom”) and Logos interchangeably, even specifically identifying Christ as Sophia in some cases. For example, Athanasius, a bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, in the fourth century, writes “The Wisdom [Sophia]

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things is for women to be submissive. Humankind is to be is the Word [Logos] . . . and this Word is Christ,” in his work, submissive to the will of God; when God is male and human Orations Against the Arians.18 Athanasius explicitly connects is female in this power hierarchy then the same must be true the female Wisdom symbol with Christ, who lived on the on the earth. Women in general must earth as a man. The Bible presents this Women are created in the image of God, then be submissive to men in general beautiful imagery of Jesus, incarnate just as men are. Both men and women because that is the natural order. as a man, being connected to this rich reflect the Divine equally and fully; Consequently, only acknowledging symbol of a divine feminine figure. neither men nor women are lacking God-as-male imagery weakens women’s Cynthia Snavely writes, “The living because they are not the other sex. connection with the Divine. Exclusive Christ is not limited to male or female God-as-male language, whether intended form, as was the historical Jesus.”19 The to be taken literally or not, implies that women are lesser. In other eternal presence of Christ in the life of Christians is not bound words, because God is male, men are somehow more reflective of by human gender categorization, but, because Christ is God, the Divine than women are. transcends the limitations of male or female.

However, women are created in the image of God, just as men Ramifications for the Church are (Gen 1:27). Both men and women reflect the Divine equally By and large, the modern church has lost its balance of masculine and fully; neither men nor women are lacking because they are and feminine language to talk about God. Frequently, God is not the other sex. What logically follows is that God cannot only referred to as a male figure, and this limiting language is be only represented in one gender if both reflect God equally. defended. For example, the Christian Reformed Church in North Therefore, to diminish half of humankind created in the image America asserts that only masculine names may be used for God of God is to blind ourselves to divine realities that we might and any feminine imagery must be used explicitly in its biblical otherwise engage or that may be revealed. A selection from context.20 Not only does this mindset ignore the function of Ramshaw-Schmidt’s article, “De Divinis Nominibus: The Gender symbolic God-language, it assumes that God must exist within of God,” summarizes my argument for wider God-language: the human gender binary. On the contrary, God, not being Theological sensitivity in explicating analogical human, and being beyond human understanding, cannot be language frees us from distortions and helps point contained in human language. to the glory of God. If we would grant often in our To simplify the infinite and transcendent existence of a speech that “he” is wholly inadequate as a personal distinctly non-human God to a single label is not only inaccurate, pronoun in referring to God, much of our difficulty but damaging. Intentionally expanding the language and imagery would be lessened. Instead, we hear vociferous churches and Christians use to talk about God does not change defense of this masculine designation, as if it were the essence of who God is. For example, to choose to call God in some way true.22 “mother” does nothing to alter God. Nor does expanding our When the church lacks sensitivity to the symbolic nature of Godlanguage further limit or define God. Rather, to continue this language, it crafts God in its own image. In this case, that image is example, to call God “mother” opens a new door of connection male. By acknowledging that language about God is metaphoric with God. Essentially everyone has a mother or mother figure or analogical, these tightly held, partial imaginings of God are whose relationship they can draw from in this God-symbol. easier to let go of, and, as a result, the church opens itself to Additionally, many people are mothers and can connect to God fuller symbolism. In other words, “opening up God language will on a maternal level. Thus, this example of God as Mother has combat the incipient idolatry in one’s traditional speech.”23 demonstrated a way in which feminine imagery, already present To combat this idolatry and to acknowledge the genderin the Bible, can be used in a beautiful way that further connects transcendence of God, some churches, to varying degrees, have the human experience to the Divine. opted for entirely gender-neutral God-language. Nevertheless, In contrast, when churches hold so tightly to the God-aschurch life and language are still dominated by male imagery. male image, it become distorted and negatively affects the way Additionally, since the common understanding is simply that Christians interact with one another, particularly with women.

God is male with some traditionally feminine attributes, genderPower distortions occur when “male monotheism constructs neutral language does nothing to rectify this bias. Gender-neutral the human side of the God-human love relationship as language does not recognize that male has become the default female.”21 One example of this dynamic is evident in Christian image. A complex library that includes feminine language and interpretations of Song of Solomon. Sometimes Christians imagery is necessary to repair the modern, lacking image of God read this poem as a metaphor of the love between God and the in many churches. church, with the church as the bride. The NT imagery of the church as the Bride of Christ plays into this as well. This GodConclusion as-male imagery translates into earthly interactions between In summation, God is not bound by the confines of human men and women. As a result, women are forced into a position language, let alone grammatical structures. Rather, God is inferior to that of men in the church. An additional implication infinite, transcendent, and not human. Indeed, God created of the God-as-male belief system is that the natural order of

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gender. God can only be talked about using symbolism, and even then this language is incomplete. Unfortunately, human grammar and tradition have distorted the gender-transcendent image of God in the modern church. God is commonly seen as solely masculine and even male; the rich feminine imagery of the Bible and of the early church is missing or, at best, minimized.

This imbalance distorts the view of women in the church and can cause them to be treated as spiritual inferiors, rather than as equal image-bearers of God. Broadening God-language has the potential to begin changing the toxic gender hierarchy in the church. Incorporating feminine imagery into the church’s Godlanguage will help men and women together form a fuller, richer, and more biblical imagining of God and one another.

Notes 1. E.g., “hen” (ornis) in Luke 13:34 and Matt 23:37 is both female in sex and feminine in grammatical gender.

2. Gail Ramshaw-Schmidt, “De Divinis Nominibus: The Gender of God,” Worship 56, no. 2 (1982): 123.

3. This is, of course, not including the historical Jesus as God incarnate. Jesus was male while living on the earth. However, as I will discuss later in this paper, since Christ is God, the eternal Christ is also gender transcendent.

4. “God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind” (Num 23:19a NRSV); “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord” (Isa 55:8 NRSV); “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

(Rom 11:33 NRSV).

5. Emmanuel Kaniyamparampil, “Feminine-Maternal Images of the Spirit in Early Syriac Tradition,” Letter & Spirit 3 (2007): 169.

6. Shirley Isaac, “God-Language and Gender: Some Trinitarian Reflections,” Direction 29, no. 2 (2000): 172.

7. Ramshaw-Schmidt, “De Divinis Nominibus,” 120.

8. Ramshaw-Schmidt, “De Divinis Nominibus,” 121.

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9. The NIV demonstrates this more clearly, saying “who fathered you,” as opposed to “who bore you” in the NRSV. 10. Albert M. Wolters, “Cross-Gender Imagery in the Bible,” BBR 8 (1998): 225–26. See also J. D. Miller, “Can the ‘Father of Lights’ Give Birth?” Priscilla Papers 19, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 5–7.

11. Kaniyamparampil, “Feminine-Maternal Images,” 170–71.

12. Kaniyamparampil notes that another probable connection of “hovering” and the Spirit is made in the NT during “the Spirit-dove’s appearance over the waters of the Jordan at Christ’s baptism.” “FeminineMaternal Images,” 171.

13. See further Glenn Pemberton, “Daughter Divine: Proverbs’ Woman of Wisdom,” Priscilla Papers 32, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 14–20.

14. Barbara Newman, “St. Hildegard of Bingen: Visions of the Feminine Divine,” 14th-Century English Mystics Newsletter 7, no. 2 (1981): 79–80.

15. Barbara L. Grant, “Hildegard and Wisdom,” 14th-Century English Mystics Newsletter 7, no. 1 (1981): 8–19.

16. Isaac, “God-Language and Gender,” 174.

17. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us . . .” (NRSV).

18. Cynthia A. Snavely, “God Language: Expanding Language, Expanding Concept,” Journal of Religious & Theological Information 6, no. 1 (Jan 2003): 60.

19. Snavely, “God Language,” 60.

20. Snavely, “God Language,” 65–66.

21. Rosemary Radford Ruether, “Why Do Men Need the Goddess?

Male Creation of Female Religious Symbols,” Di 44 (2005): 234.

22. Ramshaw-Schmidt, “De Divinis Nominibus,” 122.

23. Ramshaw-Schmidt, “De Divinis Nominibus,” 121.

ABIGAIL DOLAN is a senior at Oklahoma Christian University and will graduate with a BA in Bible in 2019.

Following graduation, she plans to attend seminary and continue her education in biblical studies. This article was among the winners of the student paper competition at CBE International’s 2017 conference in Orlando, Florida.

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Book Review

Patterns of Ministry among the First Christians

by Kevin Giles (Cascade, 2017) Michaela Miller

In this second edition of Patterns of Ministry among the First Christians, Kevin Giles states that his primary goal is to provide a detailed study of the historical development and characteristics of Christian leadership that is accessible to a wide range of readers (viii). Accordingly, Giles avoids technical language that might hinder non-specialists. Additions to the 1991 edition include multiple digressions which will be of interest to readers of Priscilla Papers, as well as a closing chapter devoted to ordination. While Giles provides a general discussion of church leadership, this review will focus primarily on his comments concerning women and their leadership activities.

Giles begins the book by outlining some of his own presuppositions and primary sources. In ch. 2, he carefully examines Jesus’s instructions concerning the type of leadership that should be present among his followers, as well as Jesus’s own example and interactions. Giles notes Jesus’s interaction with and esteem for women throughout his earthly ministry, exemplified by his conversation with the Samaritan woman of John 4 (22).

Following ch. 2 is an excursus entitled “Jesus and Women” (26–32). Giles expands his discussion of Jesus’s interactions with women, especially noting that Jesus had female disciples (unlike Jewish rabbis). He also observes that Jesus’s teaching on marriage and divorce was especially radical in his social context, pointing his hearers toward the original ideal of equality between men and women (27–28). Giles goes on to point out four especially pertinent examples of Jesus’s positive interactions with women, including the woman who spoke from the crowd in Luke 11, the Samaritan woman of John 4, Mary and Martha, and the woman who anointed Jesus in Mark 14 (28–30).

In ch. 3, Giles shifts his attention to Paul and what his letters tell us about early Christian leadership. This chapter contains an excursus on women leaders in Paul’s early and undisputed letters (41–50). Giles focuses predominately on the women who are listed among Paul’s coworkers in Rom 16, including Phoebe, Priscilla, Junia, and others. He carefully examines the case of Junia the apostle and responds to the various arguments made by those who attempt to rob her of her apostleship (45–46).

Chapters 4 and 5 concern bishops and deacons, respectively.

Based on the conclusion that the earliest bishops were leaders of house churches, Giles argues that we must conclude that women were bishops in the early churches (63–64). He discusses various women who appear to be leaders of such house churches, including Lydia, Chloe, and Phoebe. In ch. 5, Giles claims that the women referenced in 1 Tim 3:11 are themselves deacons. He also notes post-biblical references to female deacons as early as the second century AD and throughout the fourth through sixth centuries AD (86, 91). In ch. 6, which centers on elders,

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Giles briefly states that several early Christian writings mention women elders and some even forbid them, indicating that female elders were indeed a reality in the early church (117).

Giles turns his attention to apostleship in ch. 7, first making the case that the term “apostle” does not refer exclusively to the original twelve apostles. After establishing and defending this interpretation, he argues for female apostleship based on the understanding of an “apostle” as “one who is sent” (139–40). This chapter concludes with an excursus containing seven responses to the argument that only men could be apostles because the Twelve were male (145–48). Giles ends this digression with the humorous comment that if this logic is followed, then, in light of the men appointed to care for the Hellenistic widows in Acts 6, perhaps only men should be allowed to work in church kitchens (148).

In ch. 8, which focuses upon prophecy, Giles offers a brief discussion of the various prophetesses in the OT and their actions (153). Moving to the NT, he comments that while 1 Cor 11 is exegetically perplexing, it does assume that both men and women participated in prophecy in the Corinthian church (161).

Chapter 9 offers an overview of teachers in the early church, stating that, based on the NT, women were clearly involved in teaching (186–87). He draws on the examples of the Samaritan woman of John 4 and Priscilla, and also claims that the prohibition of women teaching in 1 Tim 2:12 implies that they were previously free to do so (187).

Of final interest to readers of Priscilla Papers, Giles includes an excursus on 1 Tim 2:12. He begins by noting the dangers of crafting theology around a single text, then provides a summary of three competing interpretations of this passage (195–206). He concludes by offering several supporting points for the egalitarian interpretation, which understands this text as a response to a specific and exceptional situation in Ephesus (207–14).

In this book, Giles offers a thorough and practical analysis of early church leadership, especially regarding women’s participation.

While readers may notice a number of typographical errors, these mistakes do not diminish the substance of this helpful work. Giles provides an accessible and easily understandable study of this important topic from an egalitarian perspective.

MICHAELA MILLER is a graduate of Milligan College and a student at Emmanuel Christian Seminary, both in eastern Tennessee. She is preparing to join the ministry of Pioneer Bible Translators.

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Book Review

Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction

by Rosemarie Tong and Tina Fernandes Botts (Westview, 2018) Jamin Hübner

The terms “feminism” and “feminist” are thrown around quite a bit these days. But the referent is rarely obvious. For some, feminists are men and women who want generic equality between the sexes. For others, feminists are extreme political, female leftists who angrily propose laws to penalize a whole range of social inequalities—whether in public or private spheres. For still others, feminism is an academic ideology that is currently trendy, especially at universities, which may overlap with pro-LGBTQ and/or Neo-Marxist projects. The list could go on. At the very least, it is clear that feminists and feminism can be viewed positively, negatively, and everything in between, depending on context.

To help sort through the fog, Rosemarie Tong and Tina Fernandes Botts, both professors of philosophy, recently finished the fifth edition of a standard work on the subject, Feminist Thought. This edition involves some re-arrangement of content, slight revisions, and the addition of ch. 10, “Third-Wave and Queer Feminisms.” The book helped me to refine my thoughts on the topic and to better understand the diversity of feminist perspectives.1 The research, organization, and style of writing are clear and straightforward, resulting in an outstanding introduction to a remarkably sophisticated and complex subject.

For many readers, the table of contents will reveal this sophistication, as each of the ten chapters represents a different variety of feminism (as well as subsets):

8. Ecofeminism a. Nature b. Spiritual c. Transformative d. Global e. Vegetarian f. Environmental 9. Existentialist, Poststructural, and Postmodern Feminisms 10. Third-Wave and Queer Feminisms

7. Care-Focused

Some of these categories are generally accepted among feminist scholars, while some are the authors’ unique attempt at synthesizing a number of complex strands into a (hopefully) helpful group. While the organization might give the impression of being encyclopedic, the book does not feel cumbersome.

Though each chapter exhibits condensed, academic prose, the authors manage to keep the attention of their readers. Most of the chapters highlight key figures to each movement/category, and helpfully guide readers through some of the important works— what they have contributed, the influence they have had, and how they connect with ideas covered elsewhere in the volume.

The raw diversity of perspectives is a feature of feminism the authors are not afraid to confront. Some varieties of feminism dignify motherhood, heterosexuality, marriage, and criticize pornography, while other varieties critique motherhood, marriage, heterosexuality, and legitimize pornography. Similar division cuts through topics like the roles which homosexuality, race, and economic status have to play in the feminist enterprise, the meaning of gender, property rights (and rights in general), and the role of the state. The authors are careful to present each position as objectively as possible, and only rarely identify their own inclinations (e.g., 259). They avoid totalizing any ideas of feminism in their conclusions, which is both fortunate (since it avoids presumptuousness) and unfortunate (since it leaves readers with little sense of “basic feminism” and little hope for unity/collective action).

Two criticisms arise from my reading. First, there is virtually no discussion of the role of religious thought in any version of feminism. This is unfortunate because it is misleading for a book that specifically focuses on “thought” (ideologies, philosophies, theologies, etc.) as opposed to history, contemporary culture, or other facets of exploration. Many feminist movements in the late 1700s and 1800s were explicitly energized by a re-reading of religious texts (not least, the Bible), changing theologies, and religious institutions, as well as by new access to women’s education in the broader liberal arts and humanities fields, which include theological and religious studies. One cannot

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1. Liberal Feminism a. First-Wave b. Second-Wave c. Third-Wave 2. Radical Feminism a. Radical Cultural b. Radical Libertarian 3. Marxist and Socialist Feminism 4. Women-of-Color Feminism(s) in the United States 5. Women-of-Color Feminism(s) on the World Stage a. Global b. Postcolonial c. Transnational 6. Psychoanalytic Feminism a. Classical b. Contemporary c. French

ecofeminism in ch. 8). If there is another edition, the authors honestly read some of the early feminist figures covered in might at least note the critiques of Marxist thought by twentieththe book—such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Sojourner Truth century female intellectuals such as Dorothy Sayers, Ayn Rand, (note her life-changing conversion to Christianity), Elizabeth Rose Wilder, and Isabel Paterson, as well as specific critiques of Cady Stanton (author of The Woman’s Bible), Lucretia Mott Marxist-socialist feminism by libertarian/ (a Quaker preacher)—not to mention the One cannot honestly read some anarchist feminists,4 and implement insight many others not covered (the Grimke sisters, Katharine Bushnell, Catherine Booth, of the early feminist figures from contemporary non-Marxist economists, Amanda Berry Smith, Pandita Ramabai, without coming to grips with feminist and non-feminist.

These complaints do not negate what the et al.) without coming to grips with the the theological convictions that drove their own actions. book achieves. Indeed, the authors should be theological convictions that drove their own commended for their bravery in providing actions. One exception is a brief and negative frank (but not mean-spirited) critiques at the end of each chapter. discussion of Mary Daly’s thought (45–46). There is also no As a whole, Feminist Thought is a thoroughly-researched and discussion of influential contemporary feminist theologians, concise treatment of a notoriously controversial and complex religious scholars, or pastoral figures (e.g., Rosemary Ruether, subject. Readers have professors Tong and Botts to thank for Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Sally McFague, Anne Clifford, their tireless work on this extremely helpful volume. I highly Elizabeth Johnson, et al.). recommend Feminist Thought if for no other reason than to At the very least, this lack of integration with the history put the brakes on judgment regarding what “feminist” might of feminism may give readers a skewed impression of some mean in today’s highly fragmented and tribalistic culture. It “feminist thought.” It seems the book unconsciously commits the will also be particularly valuable for those who want a generally all-too-common fallacies in modernist scholarship of assuming balanced, easy-to read, well-informed, one-stop treatment of the possibility of (a) the ability to isolate one’s religious thoughts/ feminist thought. convictions from a person’s general character, being, and notable actions (a sort of Neo-Kantian compartmentalization), (b) Notes assuming that theology plays a secondary and/or insignificant role 1. Both my graduate and doctoral work included significant study compared to all other influences, and (c) a failure to understand of feminism in Christian ecclesiology, but were mostly limited to one’s perspective in the history of ideas. Granted, implementing American evangelical contexts. religious discourse, debate, and literature would expand the 2.

There are books, after all, that address this specific intersection. volume significantly (making it a bit unwieldy for a course See Rita Gross, Feminism and Religion (Boston: Beacon, 1996). textbook).2 But such implementation would show how integral 3. It is sometimes unclear whether the “criticism” portions of the theological thought really is to feminism. If Tong and Botts find book are documented feminist criticisms or criticisms that exist “out religion and theology so easily separable from “thought,” perhaps there” (or possibly, merely criticisms by the authors). the next edition of the book might at least indicate how and why 4. E.g., the work of Sharon Presley (Executive Director of the they believe this to be the case, and how such a delineation might Association of Libertarian Feminists), Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Mikayla affect readers’ perceptions about feminism, both in general and Novak, and Helen Dale. As noted by Presley on Libertarianism.org, in certain subsets. Alternately, an eleventh chapter on religious “If feminists want to reject ‘all forms of oppression as a whole,’ then feminism that implements scholarship from Islam, Buddhism, from a libertarian feminist perspective, advocating ending patriarchy by using coercive government is inconsistent with that goal. We see Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, etc., might do the trick. coercive government as just another form of patriarchy. Whether a Second, economic criticism regarding Marxist-socialist government of mostly men, as we have now, or even a government of feminist thought is lacking. Given the authors’ presentation, women and men equally divided does not change the nature of such it appears there is little to complain about when it comes to government. It is inherently coercive.” Presley, “How is Libertarian the economic aspects of Marxist-socialist feminisms. This is Feminism Different from Other Feminisms?” Libertarianism.org (Jan somewhat odd because, as far as the book is concerned, the 6, 2015), https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/how-is-libertarianMarxist-socialist framework is primarily oriented in economic feminism-different-other-feminisms. Cf. Jamin Hübner, “Christian terms. But, Marx’s nineteenth-century economic thought Libertarianism: An Introduction and Signposts for the Road Ahead,” hinges on a number of outdated theories regarding the nature The Christian Libertarian Review 1 (2018): 55, and Reason Papers 18 of entrepreneurship, money, the requirements of knowledge and (Fall 1993), which is themed around feminism. calculation power required of the state, and the labor theory of value (which is, for all practical purposes, the equivalent of geocentrism in contemporary astronomy). In other words, the first JAMIN HüBNER is a graduate of Dordt College and kind of criticism directed towards Marxist-socialist ideas would Reformed Theological Seminary, and he holds the ThD naturally be economic criticism. But the authors provide none.3 from the University of South Africa. He teaches at John There are only two short critiques on other issues—somewhat Witherspoon College in South Dakota’s Black Hills. He is well related to economic theory, but really only serving to sidestep published and is a member of the Priscilla Papers Peer Review Team. the big elephants. (Contrast with six criticisms directed toward 30 • Priscilla Papers

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CBE International CBE International (CBE) is a nonprofit organization of Christian men and women who believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of men and women of all ethnic groups, all economic classes, and all age groups, based on the teachings of Scriptures such as Galatians 3:28.

Mission Statement CBE exists to promote biblical justice and community by educating Christians that the Bible calls women and men to share authority equally in service and leadership in the home, church, and world.

Statement of Faith • We believe in one God, creator and sustainer of the universe, eternally existing as three persons equal in power and glory.

• We believe in the full deity and the full humanity of Jesus Christ.

• We believe that eternal salvation and restored relationships are only possible through faith in Jesus Christ who died for us, rose from the dead, and is coming again. This salvation is offered to all people.

• We believe the Holy Spirit equips us for service and sanctifies us from sin.

• We believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, is reliable, and is the final authority for faith and practice.

• We believe that women and men are equally created in God’s image and given equal authority and stewardship of God’s creation.

• We believe that men and women are equally responsible for and distorted by sin, resulting in shattered relationships with God, self, and others.

Core Values • Scripture is our authoritative guide for faith, life, and practice.

• Patriarchy (male dominance) is not a biblical ideal but a result of sin.

• Patriarchy is an abuse of power, taking from females what God has given them: their dignity, and freedom, their leadership, and often their very lives.

• While the Bible reflects patriarchal culture, the Bible does not teach patriarchy in human relationships.

• Christ’s redemptive work frees all people from patriarchy, cbeinternational.org

calling women and men to share authority equally in service and leadership.

• God’s design for relationships includes faithful marriage between a man and a woman, celibate singleness and mutual submission in Christian community.

• The unrestricted use of women’s gifts is integral to the work of the Holy Spirit and essential for the advancement of the gospel in the world.

• Followers of Christ are to oppose injustice and patriarchal teachings and practices that marginalize and abuse females and males.

Envisioned Future CBE envisions a future where all believers are freed to exercise their gifts for God’s glory and purposes, with the full support of their Christian communities.

CBE Membership To celebrate 30 years of ministry, CBE is pleased to make available, for free, every Priscilla Papers article ever published. In addition, find the full archive of CBE’s magazine, Mutuality, and hundreds of book reviews and recordings of lectures given by world-renowned scholars like N.T. Wright, Gordon Fee, and more!

Find it all at www.cbeinternational.org.

CBE Board of Reference Miriam Adeney, Myron S. Augsburger, Raymond J. Bakke, Michael Bird, Esme Bowers, Paul Chilcote, Havilah Dharamraj, Gordon D. Fee, J. Lee Grady, Joel B. Green, David Joel Hamilton, Fatuma Hashi, Roberta Hestenes, Richard Howell, Craig S. Keener, Tara B. Leach, Gricel Medina, Joy Moore, LaDonna Osborn, Jane Overstreet, Philip B. Payne, John E. Phelan Jr., Ron Pierce, Kay F. Rader, Paul A. Rader, Ronald J. Sider, Aída Besançon Spencer, William David Spencer, John Stackhouse, Todd Still, Ruth A. Tucker, Cynthia Long Westfall, Cecilia Yau.

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