Hen Scratches 12-07-07
1. Talmida at The Lesser of Two Weevils has some great posts. The only reason I haven't interacted more with her blog is that I am a little self-conscious discussing Hebrew in public. I do it, but only if I am quoting someone directly. I have no original thoughts on Hebrew.
This post made me cry. The sooner we realize that the Bible isn't talking about virginity when it mentions the "virtue" of a woman the better.
2. CT has a brilliant post on how men are not pregnant. Apparently some are confused. They don't realize that according to the dictionary they can be "expecting" but they can't be "pregnant". And a guy can't be "great with child" either. He might, however, be great with children. My grandfather was really great with children.
3. Mike Bird, Bryan L and Cheryl keep up the good work interacting with Denny Burk on women in ministry. And kudos to Denny Burk for not deleting them as others do. One little teeny question, how does Mark Driscoll have so much time to read women's magazines?
4. This really blows me away. I am humbled, truly. Apparently 40% ofBBB readers those who voted in the latest poll believe that wives should obey their husbands - and they still read this blog. But do you allow your wives to read this blog? (What - they aren't interested? wahhhh. sob sob - oops, sorry Lingamish, these are feelings, right, but they aren't one of those "unmentionable" feelings.)
5. And I am taking a class with Dr. Waltke who is very complementarian and a super nice guy. He was busy today so we'll get together next week. More questions, anyone?
6. One last note. There is an opening for a very optimistic certified engineer here.
This post made me cry. The sooner we realize that the Bible isn't talking about virginity when it mentions the "virtue" of a woman the better.
2. CT has a brilliant post on how men are not pregnant. Apparently some are confused. They don't realize that according to the dictionary they can be "expecting" but they can't be "pregnant". And a guy can't be "great with child" either. He might, however, be great with children. My grandfather was really great with children.
3. Mike Bird, Bryan L and Cheryl keep up the good work interacting with Denny Burk on women in ministry. And kudos to Denny Burk for not deleting them as others do. One little teeny question, how does Mark Driscoll have so much time to read women's magazines?
4. This really blows me away. I am humbled, truly. Apparently 40% of
5. And I am taking a class with Dr. Waltke who is very complementarian and a super nice guy. He was busy today so we'll get together next week. More questions, anyone?
6. One last note. There is an opening for a very optimistic certified engineer here.
posted by Suzanne McCarthy at 1:43 PM
12 Comments:
Apparently 40% of the BBB readers believe that wives should obey their husbands
Actually, no. I was not allowed to count as a voter in this poll because I didn't want to select any of the alternatives. See my comment on that post. There may have been others like me.
I didn't vote either.
The results of this survey were particularly depressing. The Bible "explicitly" says...too bad you can't require a chapter and verse. :-( :-( :-(
The term 'virtue' is kind of odd. It's used by classicists to translate the Greek 'arete', which I think would better be translated as "excellence". Those who see ethics as primarily evaluating character traits rather than actions call their view "virtue ethics", and thus it makes sense in that context to speak of the virtues. We do have a resurgence of that talk on the popular level with Bill Bennett's book also. But when most people hear the term, they think Victorian views on modesty and sexual purity.
I think this is an interesting case of scholars having one sense of things and the general public having another. Bible translators would do well to steer clear of 'virtue' for terms referring to good character. But I don't actually know a lot of examples in modern translations that do use the term for such words.
As for pregnancy, I've always considered it insulting to any woman has ever borne a child when men say "we're pregnant".
Thanks, Jeremy, I have that understanding too - that virtue means arete, but arete is hard to translate into English don't you think?
As to "pregnant" - I've never heard a man say that - I'm from the wrong generation, of course. But, women do like having someone to open the pickle jar for sure.(This is in the article.)
However, if a woman eats enough broccoli, she can open the pickle jar herself. What you do is take the wide blue elastic from the broccoli and put it around the pickle jar lid and turn - voilá - that is how this woman opens a pickle jar.
Thanks for kind words, Suzanne.
The wording of the poll was, "Click on any of the following that the Bible explicitly teaches" so when I voted I tried to select all the ones that I could think of a verse that explicitly said that, without doing any interpretation beyond the surface level. So, for instance, I said that "the Bible explicitly teaches" that women are to obey their husbands because of 1 Peter 3:5-6 where the surface interpretation seems to be that wives should submit to their husbands in the particular way that Sarah did, i.e. by obedience (Greek hupakouo), even though I don't think that the overall Biblical teaching on the subject is anything so simple as that.
I should note that I also said that the Bible explicitly teaches that men are to submit to their wives (and not only the other way around), in light of Ephesians 5:21.
Perhaps we should develop some kind of survey about (1) the surface meaning of certain relevant passages, like the two I just mentioned, and (2) the relevance to gender roles today in light of the total Biblical context. This, I think, would give you a better idea of what people really think.
I tried to vote for none of them because I don't accept that "submit" and (in context) "head" are even "explicitly" adequate translations for the Greek words in the verses which might be referred to here.
Peter - that's an interesting claim. You may be right about head, given what the English means in context, but I would be very curious as to what you think hupotasso is supposed to mean. The Nyland translation as "support" seems highly suspect to me. Further, it may be relevant that the word is originally a military term, and still crops up that way in Plutarch in the first century (if I recall correctly, Plutarch's "Life of Pompey" uses this word in the middle voice to say that Brutus joined Pompey's army - in the middle voice, it means "to place oneself under the (military) command of"). Paul is rather fond of military metaphors, so this may be relevant. Then again, if this is what Paul has in mind, then he is speaing metaphorically and I'm not clear on what the actual meaning he's getting at is. At any rate, I would like to know what you do with that word.
Kenny, I don't have a fixed understanding of hupotasso. But it can hardly mean "submit" in the normal hierarchical sense of the word because of the way it is used reflexively in Ephesians 5:21. Maybe it means a bit more than "support", but this verse shows that it does not mean "submit" in the military sense which is apparently understood by patriarchalists, and perhaps complementarians.
I absolutely agree that it cannot be understood literally in the military sense (though some complementarians do think that, and "patriarchalists" certainly do), for that very reason. I suspect that the military definition may be intended, but with a metaphorical interpretation (I'm not 100% sure of what that interpretation would be). I don't have BDAG3, but BDAG2 doesn't really have any other definition. (I don't remember seeing one in LSJ either, but Perseus isn't working just at the moment, so I can't double check.) Is there outside linguistic evidence I haven't seen that supports a different gloss, or are you relying purely on the context within Paul?
Kenny, I can see that this may be a metaphorical extension of the military usage, but if so it is not "explicit" and so I was right not to fill in the survey. The only external evidence I have is that quoted by Ann Nyland in her comments on Romans 13:1, which suggests that hupotasso would be used of the relationship between this comment and the post to which it is attached and which it supports.
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