It’s Saturday…I have some time for yet another entry into my book analysis series of Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood. Let’s jump right in.
TWO: What if Biblical Womanhood Doesn’t Come from Paul?
Chapter 2 in Barr’s book covers exactly what the subtitle says. In it, Barr mentions that a lot of people have the impression that the Apostle Paul was pretty much a blatant misogynist—that is true, a lot people have that opinion. She argues, though, that a close reading of Paul’s letters, in fact, show the exact opposite—and that is also true. In fact, Barr argues that Paul, when read within that context of the Greco-Roman world, was probably intentionally subverting the cultural norms and opinions regarding women.
She highlights Aristotle’s view of women as typical of the Greco-Roman world—basically that women were considered imperfect and deformed men, and that real men should command, and those women (who are unequal to real men) should obey. Barr further points out that in Rome, “male headship was Roman law” (47). It wasn’t just a mindset—it was literally written into the law code. When seen against that backdrop, Paul’s comments about women (as in Ephesians 5) tell men they are to love their wives as their own bodies and sacrifice themselves for them—that sort of talk would have been mind-blowing and shocking to the Greco-Roman world.
Paul was living in that world, not ours; and he had to function within that world. We shouldn’t criticize him for not having an attitude of a 21st century American. Barr is correct, therefore, when she says, “They [Paul and the early Church] had to uphold the frame of Roman patriarchy as much as they could, but they also had to uphold the worth and dignity of each human being made in the image of God. Paul gave them blueprints to remix Roman patriarchy” (54).
Barr’s comments on I Corinthians 14:34-35 [Paul supposedly saying women shouldn’t be allowed to even speak in church, etc.] was also interesting. Basically, she argues that what Paul is doing in those verses is similar to what he is doing elsewhere in I Corinthians 6-7—namely, expressing an opposing view that he is going to correct the Corinthian church on. Although that interpretation is interesting, I still am swayed more by Gordon Fee’s argument that those verses are a later scribal gloss that is not part of the original letter.
In any case, Barr’s ultimate point is that when we read Paul, there are women in various positions of leadership all over the place. In Romans 16 alone he mentions Phoebe, Priscila, Mary, Junia, Tryphaena and Tryphosa, Persis, and Julia. Barr also points out that some translations purposely translated “Junia” as “Junias” because Paul mentions that both “Andronicus and Junia/Junias” are “great among the apostles. Some translators with a clear bias thought, “Hey, we can’t have ‘Junia’ be ‘great among the apostles’! Only men can be in positions of leadership! Let’s make that ‘Junias’—a man’s name!” The only problem is that “Junias” is not a real name found anywhere in the Greco-Roman world.
In addition to Paul, Barr points out that early Church Fathers like Origen and John Chrysostom praised women like Phoebe as being a female deacon. She also quotes Deniel Cere who says the following about the Catholic Church: “There has never been a tradition of formal doctrine teaching endorsing [marital] subordination within the Catholic tradition” (44). Barr is clear: the ancient Church didn’t have as many hang-ups about women as many in today’s church.
All that said, I have to quibble with her political comments at the beginning of the chapter that suggest the only reason Evangelical Christians supported Trump and not Hillary Clinton was because she was a woman, and that Elizabeth Warren fell under the “same gendered hatchet.” I beg to differ. No doubt that might have been a reason for some, the fact is that Hillary was a highly flawed candidate in many respects. As for Warren, she didn’t even make it out of the Democrat primaries—don’t be blaming Evangelicals for rejecting her, when she was clearly rejected by her fellow Democrats as a presidential candidate. Those political comments, in my opinion, detract from a very solid chapter.
THREE: Our Selective Medieval Memory
In Chapter 3, Barr tells more of her and her husband’s personal story regarding being fired from their church for their view on women in leadership. In some ways, given my personal story regarding how I was let go from my Biblical Worldview teaching position at a small Christian school over the issue of young earth creationism, I could partly identify with Barr. Getting whacked over an issue that shouldn’t be an issue really hurts and really is demoralizing. It certainly throws you for a loop.
The bulk of this chapter, though, is dedicated to highlighting countless women from the Medieval church who were very influential and praised. Her “thesis,” if you will, in this chapter is this: “Unlike modern evangelicals, medieval Christians remembered the female leaders of their past. Medieval churches, sermons, and devotional literature overflowed with valiant women from the early years of Christianity” (76). In this chapter, Barr mentions women like Margery Kempe, Saint Paula (who worked with Jerome to translate the Vulgate), Saint Margaret, Clotilda Genovefa of Paris, Brigit of Kildare, Julian of Norwich, and Hildegard of Bingen (a Benedictine abbess, composer, and preacher). Barr also discusses the way the Medieval church viewed Mary and Martha. Mary specifically was hailed as “the apostle to the apostles.”
All that said, I had to wince when she mentioned that Saint Paula “abandoned her children for the higher purpose of following God’s call on her life” and left three of her children alone on the shore, crying (79). I’m sorry, I don’t care if you’re a man or woman, abandoning your children will never be a praiseworthy thing, even if you have a hand in translating the Vulgate.
Despite highlighting the accepted roles of women in the medieval church and contrasting them with the current views of women in many modern conservative churches (which I think is a valid argument), Barr then turns around and still criticizes the medieval church and claims that “the medieval world grafted their imported Roman patriarchy onto the gospel of Jesus” (87). She continues, “…even though it accepted women’s roles as leaders, [the Medieval church] was nonetheless uncomfortable with women actively serving in these roles” (90).
Of course, the culprit of this…was men and their sexual hang-ups. On this point, I felt her argument wasn’t really convincing. She gives what I feel is a broadbrushed claim that medieval Christianity argued sin was transmitted through sex, and that sexual activity was viewed as impure—and that was the reason that led to having celibate, unmarried priests—Priests should be men who hadn’t been “polluted by the sexual impurity of women.” I don’t think that is 100% accurate.
Yes, there were many in the early and medieval church who had a very negative attitude toward sex. And yes, ever since Augustine, “original sin” was linked with sex and the passions stirred up during sex (i.e. if there was passion involved, you were literally “conceived in sin”). That view, though, isn’t necessarily what led to celibate priests in the Catholic Church. That view led to a whole lot of people—men and women alike—taking vows of celibacy and joining monastic orders. The monastic tradition in both the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, though, wasn’t just about “thinking sex is bad.” It was about renouncing worldliness and possessions, etc. It was about controlling one’s passions and devoting oneself to Christ. To simply reduce that to “they thought sex was impure” is a bit much.
The thing that led to celibate priests in the Catholic church [in the Orthodox tradition, priests are still allowed to marry] had more to do with the trappings of political power. Barr briefly mentions this. Basically, after Constantine moved the capital of the empire to Constantinople, western Europe became a backwater for quite some time fell apart. Since the bishop of Rome (i.e. the Pope) was the only patriarch in the West, he, along with his ecclesiastical structure, ended up being instrumental in rebuilding western Europe—and that involved being involved in the dirty world of politics.
Given that situation, as Barr points out, many times secular lords and powerful families ended up having too much sway in church affairs. The result is that many clerical and ecclesiastical positions ended up being treated in the same way inherited titles were treated. Simply put, secular leaders gained power in church affairs, and that corrupted the whole thing. It was Pope Gregory VII (the same guy who gave us the Gregorian chants!) in the 11th century who initiated major reforms in the Catholic Church. In order to stop having ecclesiastical positions be treated like inherited titles, he said that priests would no longer be allowed to marry—they had to be celibate. That was his way of dealing with that kind of corruption. As Barr states, “If priests couldn’t marry, and if priests could be assigned to clerical positions only by other clergy, rather than by rich noblemen, it would greatly diminish secular control over the church” (93).
And that is the historical reason for why Catholic priests are not allowed to get married. I don’t think it had anything to do with trying to keep women out of positions of church power. And so, when Barr, speaking of medieval Christianity, says, “Women had led in Christian history, and women could continue to lead—but it would be harder and mostly not in official positions. And the reason for this seemed to have less to do with women themselves and more to do with protecting the power of men, especially men in the church” (95), I’m not so sure chapter 3 has really made that case.
Barr herself acknowledges that there were scores of women who were extremely influential—teachers, abbesses, nuns, etc. If she is going to argue that it was power-hungry men who forced women out of positions like being popes and bishops, then she first has to show that there were women popes and bishops early on. Historically-speaking, though, there weren’t. That’s a topic that I’ll probably directly address at the end of this series.
As it stands, chapters 2-3 clearly make the case that throughout the early Church and medieval Church, women carried religious influence, and were teachers and leaders in various capacities, and that is something that many modern, conservative Evangelical-type churches now (wrongly) fight against. And that is a powerful argument indeed. I just think Barr gets a bit “over her skis” by claiming the medieval Church wouldn’t allow women in “official positions.” I’m pretty sure all the medieval women nuns, teachers, abbesses, etc. would disagree with the notion that their positions were “official positions” in the Church.
In any case, let’s see if I can knock out chapters 4-5 tomorrow!
Typo: Saint Paul?? when referring to a woman.
I have read that mandatory priestly celibacy in the Western church had a reason that legal inheritance would be broken, so while a priest might have illegitimate children, they could not inherit legally when the priest died. This meant the church got the goods associated with the priest or higher.
I prefer handling 1 Cor 14 as a quote from believing Jews at Corinth, since it apparently refers to the Mishnah and not the Tanakh.