Tuesday, October 23, 2007

• They Shall Be Saved Through Childbearing (Towards an Egalitarian Ecclesia Post 3/6)

  Currently Listening Away From The Sun By 3 Doors Down see related

  For most scholars, dealing with this passage is like trying to fold a fitted sheet – no matter how you manipulate it, it still doesn’t look right. The most they can hope for is to jumble together some cockeyed story and throw it in the closet hoping their guests won’t see the mess.*

  This final verse in our pericope has taken a beating with the various interpretations – none of them offering anything theologically, contextually, or practically helpful. Most scholars would rather ignore the verse altogether. However, read in light of the Artemis Cult, it makes perfect theological and practical sense.

  The usual interpretation – that is, taking the def. art. in front of ‘childbearing’ as specifying a specific childbearing, namely that of Mary’s deliverance of Christ, has nothing necessarily wrong with it. Both Egalitarians and Complementarians claim this as a legitimate interpretation. However, I do question it for this reason: Paul NEVER speaks of Christ’s birth anywhere else, and if this is going to be the only time he does so – why would he leave it so ambiguous? Just seems a bit odd to me. This doesn’t eliminate this interpretation as valid; rather it just poses a problematic question related to its oddity.

  Now:

  As noted previously, many Ephesian women considered the goddess Artemis superior to her brother Apollo because she preceded him in birth. This fact gave her female followers the ability to challenge the male dominance of Ephesus and rise above patriarchy (I know it’s an anachronistic term, but still helpful).

  After her own birth, she helped her mother (Leto) in the delivery of her brother Apollo. For this action she became known as the goddess that assisted women in childbirth. Unfortunately, though, she killed many of these women, and this caused women to fear her as well as need her.

  When Paul counters the Artemis cult in I Timothy 2 and replaces it with Hebraic narratives, he barbs Artemis in the process. Artemis couldn’t be trusted to save women. These women ‘will be saved,’ but not by Artemis. God (implied in the divine passive referred to later), by means of the Christian virtues he lists in this passage, will liberate these women.

  The Genesis narrative offers no solutions to pain in childbirth; it only gives the origins thereof. Paul can use it to point to the problem, but cannot offer a solution. So Paul leaves Genesis and relies on Christian praxis for this liberation. (I know the dichotomy is a bit anachronistic, but I think it’s helpful at this point.)

  By turning to Christian praxis, Paul can maintain that these women will be ‘saved’ (the Gk. word can mean ‘save’ ‘liberate’ ‘kept from harm’) through childbearing. This comes about “if” they appropriate a few specifically Christian virtues: faith, love, holiness, and modesty.**

  The verb “will be saved” is a Gk. future passive indicative. This passive form is known as the ‘Divine Passive’ – suggesting that it is not the virtues that save, but divine action by means of the virtues. The salvation is contingent upon the virtues, but is enacted by God.

  She will be saved “through childbearing” according to our English text. The Greek preposition here can also mean ‘during’ or ‘throughout.’ Thus, Paul may be speaking of being saved from the pain and possible death that arises during childbirth.

  Following this, the listed Christian virtues actually transcend the punishment for the woman’s original sin. Christ’s death purchased salvation for sinners. In this act, He reverses the curses of the human sinfulness and institutes a community that is supposed to reflect pre-sin conditions, eliminating male patriarchy and pain in childbirth (the two punishments for the woman which just so happen to be the subjects of our pericope).

  As women, through the appropriation of these virtues, return to the condition of the original community, they experience liberation from the original punishments. In other words, there is a reversal of the dominant world system of sin and a return to the original created order. Paul calls for a complete reversal, not only of our mythologies, but also of the way we order the world and see our community as a ‘new creation.’

  SUMMARY: Sure, in their current sinful bodies, these women will still experience pain. But Paul offers a promise of hope. He barbs Artemis – where as Artemis may or may not save a woman in childbirth, Christ, through these virtues, offers these women hope of a future salvation (“they WILL be saved”) and a restoration of the created order within the community of faith – providing them present salvation from the original consequences of sin. They are being saved (both socially and spiritually) and will be saved (both socially and spiritually). He eliminates the fear of male dominance (as the first punishment) and death (the second punishment) in Christ and Christian virtues. Even though he is placing the original sin on the woman – he is liberating her from that sin through Christian virtues; something Artemis could have never done.

  Ok: I’m sure there are some holes in my argument. Point them out so I can reflect on them. I’m still thinking through this issue and how this text works.

  * Yep, I was doing laundry when I came up with this simile

  ** I don’t’ think these are strictly FEMALE Christian virtues. In fact, men are commanded to have these virtues in other place in the scripture. But in light of the female dominance in this community, Paul wants to emphasize these specific virtues and direct them at the women.

  • 2:00 PM
  • 75 views
  • 2 eprops
  • 1 comment