Abstract
This essay focuses on one aspect of the debate regarding the ordination of women by analyzing and challenging interpretations and translations of specific biblical passages that have often been used to argue against the ordination of women. It provides reflections on only one aspect of a much broader discussion that even members of denominations that have long ordained women should not ignore.
For some denominations in the United States controversy over the ordination of women was settled a long time ago. They no longer entertain (and very likely no longer receive) proposals to revisit the issue. Nevertheless, some individual congregations within those denominations continue to resist calling or receiving a female pastor. And, of course, for many denominations the ordination of women has never been allowed and most likely will not be allowed any time soon. Women’s ordination, then, continues to be an issue that divides the church.
Debate over the ordination of women includes a surprisingly wide range of Christian doctrines and church practices: the doctrines of creation and sin, the transforming power of redemption, and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit along with the practice of baptism, 1 the meaning of ordination itself, 2 and the interpretation of Scripture all contribute to the debate. 3 This essay focuses on only one aspect of the debate by analyzing and challenging interpretations (and translations) of a few specific biblical passages that have often been used to argue against the ordination of women. 4 It provides reflections, therefore, on only one aspect of a much broader discussion—a discussion that members of denominations that have long ordained women should not ignore.
In spite of distinctly different features of the texts examined here, they hold one thing in common when used in the affirmation or rejection of women’s ordination: they address the issue of authority. One needs to ask of each text whether it supports a hierarchical relationship between men and women, whereby men are meant to exercise authority over women, who hold a subordinate position (and who, by extension, cannot maintain the authority of an ordained pastor), or whether each text supports a more egalitarian view in terms of men’s and women’s authority and power. What follows will examine the creation stories in Genesis, Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel, the unfair charges against the Samaritan woman, and two texts that have been incorrectly translated to the detriment of women’s leadership in the church: 1 Timothy 2:12 and Romans 16:7. The essay concludes with brief references to some additional female characters in the Bible and reflections on “the daughters of Mary.”
God’s good creation: Genesis 1–3
When used as part of the Christian Bible, the two creation stories in Genesis have proven to be a rich source for the church’s understanding of male and female, and the authority each carries in relation to the other. Some Christians have argued that either by virtue of creation or because of the fall, the creation stories teach us that women are to be subject to men and cannot assume offices of leadership in the church, most especially that of ordained pastor or priest. Others believe that the creation stories depict as normative the equal partnership of men and women—equal not only in value, but also in authority. 5 A number of important theological themes arise from the church’s reading of the creation stories that, in turn, inform one’s understanding of whether women are subordinate to men. Issues to be addressed here are: whether both men and women were created equally in the image of God, whether Adam has authority over Eve who was created as his helper and whom he named, whether Eve is responsible for humanity’s fall into sin, and whether Eve’s punishment along with Adam’s can be transformed by the power of salvation.
The imago Dei
Little attention needs to be given to defending the claim that Adam and Eve were created equally in the image of God. When God says, “Let us make humankind in our own image,” the biblical text states in the next verses, “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:26–27). While one can dispute the meaning of the imago Dei, the biblical text makes no distinction between male and female being made in God’s image. As John Calvin claimed, “it cannot be denied, that the woman also, though in the second degree, was created in the image of God, whence it follows, that what was said in the creation of the man belongs to the female sex.” 6 Nevertheless, as Calvin’s qualifying phrase “in the second degree” indicates, a great deal hinges on what one believes “equally created in the image of God” means. While Calvin dismissed what he calls the “vulgar proverb” that says woman was a “necessary evil,” he nevertheless believed that because woman was created second and created to be man’s helper, she is subordinate in power to the man, an argument held by many others who resist giving women the authority that comes with ordination. 7
A close examination of the creation stories demonstrates that the order of creation (Adam came first), the material from which each was created (Adam from the ground, and Eve from Adam), that Adam named Eve, and the notion that Eve is identified as Adam’s “helper” do not, in fact, mean Eve was created subordinate. Furthermore, one cannot rightly claim that Eve is responsible for sin coming into the world and, hence, unworthy or incapable of carrying the responsibilities and authority that come with ordination. Finally, one can argue that the new creation that comes with redemption reverses the punishment that the biblical story says made women subordinate to men: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen 3:16).
Order of creation
In the first creation story, men and women were created at the same time. No order is mentioned. Being created last presents human beings as the crown of creation rather than indicating they have less authority than that which was created before them. Furthermore, no distinction is made regarding whether male or female will exercise dominion: “Let them have dominion” indicates they were created with equal authority to govern and take care of the earth. Nothing in the second creation story indicates that being created second made Eve inferior or subordinate to Adam.
Material of creation
In the second story, after Adam is created, he seeks a suitable partner. While the animals come close to providing him companionship, he needs a partner who is more nearly like him than they. That Eve was made from Adam means that even though the animals were created from the same soil as Adam (and their common origin makes them closely related to him), Eve comes from Adam and is, therefore, of the same kind. As the one whom Adam describes as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23), Eve provides the companionship he needs. There is no biblical evidence for claiming that because Adam was created from the ground, while Eve was created from him, Adam becomes the source of all humanity as Susan Foh claims. 8 One could just as easily say the ground is the source of all humanity or that Eve, who is later called “the mother of all who live” (Gen 3:20), could be the subject of such a claim. Contrary to any of these claims, however, the biblical text clearly tells us that God is the source of humanity and, in fact, of all that is.
Helper
Some readers of the Hebrew text, like Calvin, have maintained that because woman is Adam’s “helper,” she is subject to his authority. Underlying this claim, however, is a misunderstanding of the Hebrew word for helper (‘zr), which does not, in fact, indicate subordination. A number of passages use the verb in relation to God. Exodus 18:4, for instance, uses the same word to say, “the God of my father was my help.” Obviously, no subordination is intended by the word ‘zr when ascribed to God and none can be assumed to apply to Eve.
Adam names Eve
Although it is often argued that in naming Eve, Adam exercises authority over her, this claim is not borne out by the text. Adam did not name the animals so he could exercise authority over them, but because he was seeking to identify an appropriate companion. When they prove not to be suitable, and Adam is presented with the woman, he later names her Eve, “because she was the mother of all who live” (Gen 3:20)—not so he could exert authority over her.
All have sinned
Throughout the church’s history Eve has sometimes been blamed for bringing sin into the world. Perhaps the best-known quotation regarding Eve’s responsibility for sin came from one of the early church fathers, Tertullian: And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert—that is, death—even the Son of God had to die.
9
This claim, however, has not gone unchallenged. Prominent theological voices have insisted on what the biblical story surely says: humanity fell into sin. Arguments for blaming Eve are often based on the serpent choosing the weaker of the two. Hence, Luther claimed the serpent, whom he identified as Satan, “attacks the weak part of the human nature, Eve the woman, not Adam the man.” 10 The argument, however, that the woman is the weaker character in the story quickly falls apart. As women have long observed, it took the devil himself to tempt the woman, while it only took a woman to tempt the man. If, as Luther maintained, Satan “did not dare assail” Adam for fear the attempt would be useless, how was the woman able to persuade him? Is she presumed to be more powerful than Satan? If Eve was the weaker one, and hence more vulnerable to temptation, how could the weaker sex have persuaded the stronger one to follow her into sin? Who, after all, was the weaker of the two? Furthermore, when Paul insists that in Adam all die (1 Cor 15:22), the woman is not even invoked as a metaphor for human sinfulness. The Hebrew word ’adam means humankind; the story of the fall is the story of how all are equally sinful before God—not women more sinful or more responsible for sin than men. It is telling that while the first witnesses to the resurrection were women and the first to disbelieve the resurrection were men, the church has never held that these doubting disciples indicate that men in general are more responsible for a lack of faith than women—even though the imbalance between men and women in church membership could justify such a claim. Both the Old and New Testaments understand that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).
Salvation as new creation
Martin Luther’s insistence that men and women were created to have dominion over the earth together has been described as “one of the strongest egalitarian readings of Genesis 1–3 in the history of Christian thought” up to that time. 11 Unfortunately, Luther also believed that the fall into sin forever tipped the scales, so that even salvation in Christ does not challenge the subordination of women, which was meted out as punishment for sin. One has to ask, however, why God’s redemption of the world in Jesus Christ does not have the transformative power to redeem the relationship between men and women.
From a strictly practical perspective, we have allowed advances in science and technology to lessen the effects of what Genesis identifies as the result of punishment: hence, most Christians do not foreswear the use of tools that lessen the toil of work (Gen 3:17) or the use of modern medicine to address pain in childbirth (Gen 3:16). Why would we not be able to lessen the imbalance in authority between men and women as well (Gen 3:16)? From a theological perspective there is an even stronger argument for correcting the imbalance of power between men and women. Most churches affirm that our salvation in Christ is not solely for the purpose of guaranteeing our place in heaven, but for our regeneration, which means being reborn into a new creation in this world. Why do we support the reversal of punishment in the cases of easing the burden of labor and easing the pain of childbirth, yet argue that women’s subordination to men remains God’s will and cannot be reversed even with salvation? As David Willis insists, “the equal ordination of women and men to the ministry of Word and sacrament is an effective sign of the new creation in Christ.” 12
The Samaritan woman (John 4:4–30, 39–42)
The story that has often been called “the woman at the well” in John presents Jesus breaking several cultural expectations. Returning to Jerusalem, he chose to go through Samaria instead of taking the longer route around the territory of Israel’s enemies, the Samaritans. Furthermore, he spoke in public to a woman whom he did not know and, worse, he spoke in public to a Samaritan woman, something forbidden by Jewish law. When he asked the woman for a sip of water from her jar, he crossed another cultural boundary, because Jews and Samaritans did not share utensils for eating and drinking. As Jesus engaged the woman at the well in conversation, he treated her with respect.
But what Jesus did in relation to this woman, church tradition has not been able to do. Few figures in the Bible have been as unfairly maligned as the Samaritan woman. Christians have pointed their finger at her in judgment and derision. According to tradition, she was an adulteress, who had casually run through five husbands and now sinfully lived with a man to whom she was not married. The church has also accused her of becoming evasive when Jesus mentioned her marital status by changing the subject, talking about the ways Jews and Samaritans worship. And tradition claims, “she just didn’t get it.” Jesus was talking about salvation, while she kept referring to the kind of water that quenches physical thirst. So the church has made fun of her.
But these accusations against the woman at the well are not borne out by the text itself or the culture in which the story takes place. The woman could not, in fact, have “run through” five husbands, because she had no power to divorce them. They, however, had the power to abandon and divorce her. She could have been divorced by five different husbands, or it is possible she was widowed five times, in which case the brother of each husband was obligated to marry her. Perhaps there were no brothers left. It is also possible that the man she now lived with consented to take care of her, but refused to marry her. Significantly, whatever the reason behind her marital history, which has brought the church’s judgment upon her, that history does not concern Jesus at all. 13
Also, the text does not suggest that she was trying to evade Jesus’ statements. When Jesus tells her of her personal life, she believes he is a prophet and asks him serious questions about worshiping God. It is not true that “she just doesn’t get it” when she keeps talking about quenching literal thirst, while Jesus is talking about salvation. After all, Jesus began the conversation by asking for a real drink of water: “Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’” (John 4:7). His words about living water are confusing or at least initially elusive, even to some contemporary readers of the text.
Rather than ridicule and criticize the Samaritan woman, we need to acknowledge that the text does not present her as an adulteress. We could even anachronistically say she was a theologian, because she engaged Jesus in serious theological matters. Furthermore, many Samaritans believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony. But the church has wanted to keep her in her place, to accuse her of sins she did not commit, and to make fun of her supposed lack of understanding. This text does not directly speak to the authority of men and women. It does, however, present a story of a woman who fits the pattern of a disciple, moving from viewing Jesus with suspicion, to believing that Jesus was a prophet, to recognizing him as the messiah. Could it be that tradition has overlooked the positive transformation of this woman, as well as maligned her for sins her culture would not have allowed her to commit, simply because she was a woman?
Mary (Luke 1:26–38)
Mary the mother of Jesus, who is revered by Roman Catholics and, unfortunately, ignored by Protestants except at Christmas and sometimes Easter, is often described by Catholics and Protestants as the ideal woman of faith. Her immediate submission to Gabriel’s claim that she has been chosen by God has been used to present the perfect image of a woman submitting to God’s will. Also, her virginity has been extolled to such an extent that church tradition has sometimes presented her as a “perpetual virgin,” presumably because sexual intimacy and perfection in faith are at odds with one another. While an ideal is by definition impossible to reach, the fact is, as both virgin and mother, Mary becomes the quintessential impossible ideal for women to follow. 14
When, however, one reads this text in light of other call stories in the Bible, Mary’s words to Gabriel, “I am willing to be used of the Lord. Let it happen to me as you have said” (Luke 1:37), are not unusually submissive. Rather, Luke’s description of Mary’s encounter with the angel offers a call story like others we find in Scripture. While some who are called by God give reluctant responses, such as Moses who begs, “Please send someone else” (Exod 4:13), others respond with an immediate acceptance, such as Samuel who says, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam 3:10), or the disciples who immediately set down their nets and followed Jesus (Matt 4:20). Why is Mary considered any more submissive than Samuel or the disciples?
As for being the ideal woman, the most significant aspect of Mary’s virginity has tended be ignored. As Christopher Morse has argued, we have reduced the virgin birth to a gynecological matter, overlooking the most significant aspect of the biblical story. First, we move too quickly from the creedal claim that Jesus was born, which is an anti-Docetic affirmation. 15 Furthermore, Mary’s virginity affirms that no patriarchal power contributed to the conception of the Savior. Morse points out that Sojourner Truth was keenly aware of the significance of Mary’s virginity when, in response to a male clergyman who said women cannot have equal rights with men because Christ was a man rather than a woman, she replied, “Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him.” 16 As Morse argues, the affirmation that “Jesus Christ ‘was conceived by the Holy Spirit,’ entails the refusal to believe that male prowess, sexual or otherwise, is the source and cause of salvation.” 17 Male dominance is challenged by the virgin birth. Regarding the issue of women’s authority in relation to men’s, one needs to question why the church has tended to describe Mary as submissive and insisted that she is a model of faith for women. Male figures in the Bible are also described as submissive as both men and women are called to submit themselves to God’s Word.
Junia: Outstanding among the apostles (Rom 16:7)
In Romans 16:7, Paul identifies Andronicus and Junia (a man and woman) as “outstanding among the apostles.” For seven centuries, the Greek used in biblical manuscripts didn’t use accents, but when they did become common practice, Junia was, without exception, identified as a female name. 18 All patristic writers understood Junia to refer to a woman. Theologians as diverse as Origen, John Chrysostom, Jerome, and Peter Abelard assumed as a matter of course that the partner of Andronicus, whom Paul identifies as an outstanding apostle, is a woman named Junia. In the 4th century John Chrysostom wrote that being “an apostle is something great.” But, he adds, “how great the wisdom of this woman must have been that she was even deemed worthy of the title of apostle.” 19
According to Bernadette Brooten, “no commentator on the text until Aegidius of Rome (1245–1316) took the name to be masculine,” because the notion that a woman could be described as an apostle became too much to bear, and the female name “Junia” was translated into a masculine form, Junias. As Brooten argues, “Because a woman could not have been an apostle, the woman who is here called apostle could not have been a woman.” 20 Never mind that while the female name “Junia” occurs over 250 times in sources outside the Bible, the supposed male version of the name, Junias, cannot be found anywhere. There is undeniably a certain subjectivity involved in all efforts at translation. But here the assumption that women could not—and should not—assume leadership roles in biblical times or now, led to a completely unjustified change in the well-established female apostle, Junia, to a make-believe male character, Junias.
Women shall keep silent (1 Tim 2:11ff.)
Another example of biased translations working to the detriment of women is found in this highly problematic text: “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission.” The Greek word, hesuchia, which is translated as “silence,” should more accurately be translated as “to settle down or stop agitating.” Interestingly, the word is given such a translation when used in reference to the church (1 Tim 2:2 is translated “live peaceful and quiet lives”) and when used to refer to men (2 Thess 3:12 is translated, “settle down and earn the bread they eat”). Only when the Bible uses hesuchia to refer to women do the translators render it as “silence.” Hence, in reference to women, 1 Tim 2:11 is translated, “Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness” instead of “Let a woman settle down and submit to instruction.” 21
Thomas Oden, a highly respected theologian, who has had little patience with feminist theology, says he approached this text with dread. Not only did he discover the word does not say “silence,” he finds positive affirmations for what the text means for women without relegating them to a submissive, voiceless presence in church today. “Long before the English translators rendered this flatly ‘silence,’” Oden writes, “John Chrysostom understood clearly that ‘he is speaking of quietness’… a particular virtue.” 22 He also points out that the same posture in public worship that is here expected of women is elsewhere expected of men as in, for instance, Acts 22:1, 1 Thess 4:11, and Titus 2:2. Other aspects of 1 Timothy’s advice to women can be given plausible contextual explanations, while the exclusive translation of hesuchia as silence for women demonstrates a more recent cultural bias against women. Oden concludes his insightful reflections by insisting, “there is no warrant here for relegating women to subordinate or dehumanizing social roles.” 23
Conclusion: Mary’s daughters
Both Old and New Testaments describe a number of women as having assumed leadership roles. While Deborah is the only female judge mentioned in Scripture, indicating that judges were almost always men, Judges does, nevertheless, indicate that a woman could be a judge (Judges 4 and 5). Jesus says Mary chose “the better portion” when she sat with the disciples to listen to Jesus rather than join Martha who worked in the kitchen (Luke 10:38–42). Paul not only refers to a woman apostle when he praises Junia, he mentions other women who were in leadership roles. Phoebe is referred to as a deacon and a benefactor (Rom 16:1–2), Prisca and her husband Aquila worked with Paul and together “explained the way of the Lord” to Apollos (Acts 18:26), and as mentioned above, the Easter story says women were the first witnesses at the tomb, and they believed, while men, who heard their account, did not believe. Some think it strange that their male descendants merit consideration for the ordained ministry, while women—just by virtue of being women—do not.
Finally, Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the only biblical figure who was present at both the birth and the death of Jesus. In a poem titled “Did the Woman Say?” Frances Croake Frank wonders if Mary cried, “this is my body, this my blood,” as she held her newborn son and then again when she held her dead son’s body. 24 The poet concludes, “Well that she said it to him then, / For dry old men, / Brocaded robes belying barrenness, / Ordain that she not say it for him now.” Why, if Eve was made equally in the image of God, if all humanity are equally sinful and in need of salvation, and if salvation transforms the structures of sin, are women refused ordination today? Why, if women were the first to witness the resurrection and to believe, while men were the first to doubt, are women deemed ill-equipped just by virtue of their sex, to preside at the communion table? And why, if the only character in the Bible who witnessed both the birth and the death of Jesus was none other than a woman, Mary, are none of Mary’s daughters given leave to witness to him now in the same way men can be ordained to do?
Footnotes
1
See James F. Kay, “Becoming Visible: Baptism, Women, and the Church,” in Women, Gender, and Christian Community, ed. Jane Dempsey Douglass and James F. Kay (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 92–103.
2
In his essay “Women’s Ordination: Can the Church Be Catholic Without It?” David Willis addresses the meaning of ordination and claims that women’s ordination is a sign of the new creation. See Douglass and Kay, 82–91.
3
See Margaret Fell, “Women’s Speaking: Justified, Proved & Allowed of by the Scriptures,” in Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender, ed. Kristen E. Kvam, Linda S. Schearing, and Valarie H. Ziegler (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1999), 282–87. Fell, who is sometimes referred to as the “mother of Quakerism” lived in England from 1614 to 1702. Also, Craig S. Keener gives a defense of the ordination of women as an evangelical Christian: “Was Paul for or against Women in Ministry?” 
.
4
Susan T. Foh provides familiar arguments against women’s ordination in “The Head of the Woman is the Man,” in Eve and Adam, 391–401.
5
This is Lisa Sowle Cahill’s argument in an older, but highly insightful, book, Between the Sexes: Foundations for a Christian Ethic of Sexuality (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1985), 45.
6
John Calvin, “Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis,” quoted in Eve and Adam, 277.
7
Ibid.
8
Foh, “The Head of the Woman is the Man,” 392.
10
Martin Luther, “Lectures on Genesis,” found in Eve and Adam, 270. Genesis, of course, does not use the word “Satan,” only “the serpent.” This essay assumes the identification of the snake with the serpent because such identification is consistent with the narrative presented in the text.
11
Eve and Adam, 276–80 (253).
12
Willis, “Women’s Ordination,” 89.
13
Gail O’Day, “Commentary on the Gospel of John,” in The New Interpreters Bible: Luke–John, vol. 9 (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1996), 567. A great deal of the argument presented here relies on O’Day’s commentary.
14
See my essay, “Mary, the Servant of the Lord: Christian Vocation at the Manger and the Cross,” in Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary, ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Cynthia L. Rigby (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 59–70.
15
Christopher Morse, Not Every Spirit: A Dogmatics of Christian Disbelief (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International), 1994, 152–53.
16
Quoted in Morse, Not Every Spirit, 153.
17
Ibid., 152–53.
18
19
Quoted in Brooten, “Junia.”
20
Quoted in Epp, The First Woman Apostle, 59.
21
For an excellent interpretation of 1 Tim 2:9–15, see Thomas C. Oden, Frist and Second Timothy and Titus (Louisville, KY: John Knox, 1989), 92–102.
22
Oden, Frist and Second Timothy and Titus, 96.
23
Ibid., 102.
24
Quoted by Susan A. Ross, “Theology in Feminist Perspective,” Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspectives, ed. Catherine Mowry Lacugna (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1993), 185–83.