Posted by Oldtimer on September 07, 2004 at 23:32:09
In Reply to: Re: Women in History posted by Perry on September 07, 2004 at 18:01:37:
Interesting that you should say, "Anyway, it's quite incredible to see the way in which literature, including the Bible, has been used through the centuries to "keep women in their place."
I think a careful reading of the New Testament, going back to the Greek, shows that the writers wanted women to reach a place of equality. Sure, the OT shows women in a subservient place but that reflected Jewish patriarchial ideas (borrowed from the world around them)more than God's intention. It's not a strong of argument to say that because something WAS some way, that that's the way God intended it to be. Some laws were given, as Jesus said, "because of the hardness of their hearts...but from the beginning it was not so."
In the New Testament an often mis-translated verse is "Let the women keep silence in the churches". There's a small Greek word here they often translate "or", but that really means, "absurd! ridiculous!" So the correct translation would read more like:
"Should women keep silent in the churches? Ridiculous!"
Because after all how can they keep silent if they are to prophesy?
Studies have been done on the subject of women in the New Testament, examining all the commonly-quoted verses used to keep them in subjection, and these studies overturn the commonly accepted notions. Just because women were subservient in the OT doesn't mean that they weren't liberated in the New Testament.