sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
So far as I can tell, those who have quoted the Bible and formulated an opinion have done so from a literalistic reading of the Bible. That is not the only way to read and interpret what scripture has to say to us, nor is it necessarily the "best" way. Sometimes a literalistic translation works, sometimes it doesn't.
Some stories in the Bible have to be looked at as just that -- stories. The Bible is full of myth, allegory, and metaphor. Best Biblical scholarship to date classifies the Adam and Eve story as allegory, not to be taken literalistically.
We have to remember that the culture of the writers was patriarchal, so the viewpoints expressed by the writer are going to be from the perspective of the culture in which they were steeped -- especially the OT.
In the NT, we see some clues that writers may be breaking free of these cultural stereotypes. Women are given more important roles in NT literature. Some are even touted as being in charge of certain early Christian assemblies, such as Priscia.
I don't think it's all that easy (or correct!) to read the Bible topically and then make a mysogenistic statement that puts down half of the human population. If women were commanded to keep silent, and not to be in authority over men, then common sense tells us to look deeper.
In Biblical culture, men embodied honor and women embodied shame. (It's still that way in many middle-eastern states.) Women, by cultural definition could not speak authoritatively to men, because they were not equal to men. But, in a society where equality is stressed, it just doesn't make sense to continue to make women fit into a cultural mold that is both temporally and geographically so far removed from our own.
The Biblical writers placed more "importance," as you say, on males, because that's the culture they lived in. If we read and interpret the scriptures through the lens of our own time and place, and in a non-literalistic way, there is much there that speaks very highly of women.
Some stories in the Bible have to be looked at as just that -- stories. The Bible is full of myth, allegory, and metaphor. Best Biblical scholarship to date classifies the Adam and Eve story as allegory, not to be taken literalistically.
We have to remember that the culture of the writers was patriarchal, so the viewpoints expressed by the writer are going to be from the perspective of the culture in which they were steeped -- especially the OT.
In the NT, we see some clues that writers may be breaking free of these cultural stereotypes. Women are given more important roles in NT literature. Some are even touted as being in charge of certain early Christian assemblies, such as Priscia.
I don't think it's all that easy (or correct!) to read the Bible topically and then make a mysogenistic statement that puts down half of the human population. If women were commanded to keep silent, and not to be in authority over men, then common sense tells us to look deeper.
In Biblical culture, men embodied honor and women embodied shame. (It's still that way in many middle-eastern states.) Women, by cultural definition could not speak authoritatively to men, because they were not equal to men. But, in a society where equality is stressed, it just doesn't make sense to continue to make women fit into a cultural mold that is both temporally and geographically so far removed from our own.
The Biblical writers placed more "importance," as you say, on males, because that's the culture they lived in. If we read and interpret the scriptures through the lens of our own time and place, and in a non-literalistic way, there is much there that speaks very highly of women.
