feminist highlights: {fe}male 'man{ninne}' & FUN?!
PAUL's
"backsliding" feminism:
~*~
"backsliding" feminism:
~*~
~*~
AS
I have been
arguing throughout
Paul was motivated
by a Hellenistic desire for the One
which among other things produced an ideal
of a universal human essence
beyond difference and
hierarchy
THIS
universal humanity
however
was predicated [and still is]
on the dualism of the flesh and the spirit
such that while the body is particular
marked through practice as Jew or Greek
and through anatomy
as male or female
the spirit is
universal!
THE
strongest expression
of this Pauline cultural criticism is Galatians
and especially 3:28-29
1 Corinthians, on the other hand,
has been read and used within much Christian practive
as a powerful defense of a cultural
conservatism
MAKING
1 Corinthians
THE hermeneutical key to Paul
has had fateful cultural consequences,
although to be sure SUCH a reading has also been
underpinned
I have been
claiming throughout
that the major motivating force
behind Paul's ministry
was a profound vision of a humanity
undivided by ethnos,
class, and sex
IF
Paul took
"NO Jew or Greek"
AS seriously as all of Galatians attests
that he clearly did, HOW could he possibly
- unless he is incoherent or a hypocrate -
NOT have taken "no male and female"
with EQUAL seriousness?
The task
of my reading here,
among other things,
is to articulate a coherent reading of Paul
as a social AND cultural critic,
i.e., reading Galatians very seriously
while ALSO making sense of
Corinthians!
~*~
I am, of course,
not the FIRST critic to attempt
this task.
In her justly famous
feminist reconstruction of Christian origins,
In Memory of Her, Elizabeth Schuessler Fiorenza reproduces an "apocryphal" female epistle of Phoebe,
written by one of Fiorenza's
students.
THIS
document contains the following
lines:
'THE second story
is one I would like to discuss with Paul
who lately seems so concerned with putting women back in "their proper places."'
HE is SO taken up with giving a good impression to the pagans
that he is reverting to his rabbinic prejudices I think.
AS IF the proper place of woman was in the home bearing children -
"woman is the glory of man" indeed!
Surely with HIS background
HE would know where GENESIS
puts woman:
"in the image of G D {s}he {THEY} created them;
male and female {s}he {THEY} created them."
WHAT a strange 'man' {s}he is!
In his
letter to us
he so firmly emphasized the equality of woman and man in marriage;
in the SAME letter he raged on and on
about hairstyles in the
assembly ...
And, even MORE pointed,
are these words from his letter to our Galatian
neighbours:
"FOR as many of you
as were baptized into Christ
have PUT ON Christ!
THERE IS NEITHER Jew NOR Greek,
there is NEITHER slave NOR free,
there is neither MALE nor FEMALE,
FOR you are ALL ONE in
Christ Jesus."
I DO fear
that SOME people hear,
NOT these words of Paul which SO clearly reflect the ATTITUDE and TEACHING of Yehoshua haMashiach our Wisdom
but hear instead his returns to the past
before he received the freedom
of the Spirit.
I shudder to think
that some time in the future
a leader of one of the churches will say,
"Gentiles, slaves and women CANNOT become part of the ministry of the Word because YEHOSHUA did not entrust the apostolic charge
to them?!"
When I
said THAT to PAUL,
he laughed uproariously and exclaimed,
"Phoebe you are a peron with the strangest notions!
IF any of my letters DO survive,
ONLY womeone BEWITCHED will fail to see the difference between my preaching of the Good News and my ramblings about cultural problems and situations. People from another age will EASILY disregard the cultural trappings and get to the HEART
of the message!"
If only THAT distinction
were as clear to the rest of us as it is
to PAUL!'
AS
I have been
arguing throughout
Paul was motivated
by a Hellenistic desire for the One
which among other things produced an ideal
of a universal human essence
beyond difference and
hierarchy
THIS
universal humanity
however
was predicated [and still is]
on the dualism of the flesh and the spirit
such that while the body is particular
marked through practice as Jew or Greek
and through anatomy
as male or female
the spirit is
universal!
THE
strongest expression
of this Pauline cultural criticism is Galatians
and especially 3:28-29
1 Corinthians, on the other hand,
has been read and used within much Christian practive
as a powerful defense of a cultural
conservatism
MAKING
1 Corinthians
THE hermeneutical key to Paul
has had fateful cultural consequences,
although to be sure SUCH a reading has also been
underpinned
I have been
claiming throughout
that the major motivating force
behind Paul's ministry
was a profound vision of a humanity
undivided by ethnos,
class, and sex
IF
Paul took
"NO Jew or Greek"
AS seriously as all of Galatians attests
that he clearly did, HOW could he possibly
- unless he is incoherent or a hypocrate -
NOT have taken "no male and female"
with EQUAL seriousness?
The task
of my reading here,
among other things,
is to articulate a coherent reading of Paul
as a social AND cultural critic,
i.e., reading Galatians very seriously
while ALSO making sense of
Corinthians!
~*~
I am, of course,
not the FIRST critic to attempt
this task.
In her justly famous
feminist reconstruction of Christian origins,
In Memory of Her, Elizabeth Schuessler Fiorenza reproduces an "apocryphal" female epistle of Phoebe,
written by one of Fiorenza's
students.
THIS
document contains the following
lines:
'THE second story
is one I would like to discuss with Paul
who lately seems so concerned with putting women back in "their proper places."'
HE is SO taken up with giving a good impression to the pagans
that he is reverting to his rabbinic prejudices I think.
AS IF the proper place of woman was in the home bearing children -
"woman is the glory of man" indeed!
Surely with HIS background
HE would know where GENESIS
puts woman:
"in the image of G D {s}he {THEY} created them;
male and female {s}he {THEY} created them."
WHAT a strange 'man' {s}he is!
In his
letter to us
he so firmly emphasized the equality of woman and man in marriage;
in the SAME letter he raged on and on
about hairstyles in the
assembly ...
And, even MORE pointed,
are these words from his letter to our Galatian
neighbours:
"FOR as many of you
as were baptized into Christ
have PUT ON Christ!
THERE IS NEITHER Jew NOR Greek,
there is NEITHER slave NOR free,
there is neither MALE nor FEMALE,
FOR you are ALL ONE in
Christ Jesus."
I DO fear
that SOME people hear,
NOT these words of Paul which SO clearly reflect the ATTITUDE and TEACHING of Yehoshua haMashiach our Wisdom
but hear instead his returns to the past
before he received the freedom
of the Spirit.
I shudder to think
that some time in the future
a leader of one of the churches will say,
"Gentiles, slaves and women CANNOT become part of the ministry of the Word because YEHOSHUA did not entrust the apostolic charge
to them?!"
When I
said THAT to PAUL,
he laughed uproariously and exclaimed,
"Phoebe you are a peron with the strangest notions!
IF any of my letters DO survive,
ONLY womeone BEWITCHED will fail to see the difference between my preaching of the Good News and my ramblings about cultural problems and situations. People from another age will EASILY disregard the cultural trappings and get to the HEART
of the message!"
If only THAT distinction
were as clear to the rest of us as it is
to PAUL!'
04 aug 2005
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donderdag 04 augustus 2005 19:48
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