Gender Roles According to the Bible

[MaryLupin]

So who are all the women in the bible? (we'll stick with the current canonical form for ease it that's OK with everyone). Then let's analyze what their characteristics are and see what the range of behavior is for women and how those behaviors are treated - that is let's do a character analysis as if this was a text.

So there is a site that lists all the women of the bible. Under the alphabet there are 199 links to names and titles for all the women who appear in the current form of the bible. If everyone looks at a few of these and analyzes the characters' behavior then pretty soon we will have a pretty good idea of who these women are and what they have to say about this world view with respect to how women are thought of and valued.

So if we create a table with columns including A name of woman B place in bible she appears C traits D what happens to her will get a pretty good idea of who these people are.

How does that sound?

So, since it was my idea I'll start. (I actually have a chart started in Word to keep track of my and your entries. The first entries are attached here.)

So in the attached file below what is the first thing that leaps out at you?

[AngelEyes714]

Lol, Mary...I was going to do that anyway, but thanks for the invitation.

Its hard to just pick one, but there goes with everything I've found from the beginning of my post:

"The reason men are given authority is because more is expected out of us in terms of leadership - and that is a fundamental plrinciple of life: those with power get more responsibility. But if a man is loving his wife sacrificially, then he won't want to abuse the authority with which God has entrusted him."
~Redzepplin

This, along with another comment Red made about Adam's sin being rebellion, I would like to point out that he failed to lead and protect as well. Adam was standing next to Eve when she ate the fruit ("Then she handed it to Adam, who was with her.") I don't think men are given the place of leadership because they necessarily have the ability to (women have that ability as well, as evidence of the thousands of women in America who are leading families by themselves, because of an absent husband; mentally or physically).

I honestly think that men are given the responsibility to lead because it is what edifies them. When a man is actually able to stand up and lead with strength and love, I think that he has finally learned how to live.

I think women are told NOT to lead, and rather directly at that, because Paul is aware that they have a natural ability for it and WILL do so if no one stands up to lead. But I feel that Paul is telling us to let the men lead. For us, our strength is demonstrated in our ability to lay down our desire to lead so that the men around us can demonstrate their strength by leading. Both are difficult things if they are not your primary initiative.

Please don't take those comments as my saying that i think men are weak and poor leaders in general - I know that there are some...I just haven't seen many. Especially in the church, there seem to be men who think that being a good Christian man is being meek and mild, and I will not trust such a man to lead me ANYWHERE.

And for women, I think that there is a line clearly drawn where being submissive to our husbands and other men is no longer something we should be doing and Paul points that out to. "Men, love your wives, giving your life for them even as Christ gave his life for the church" - when men stop loving you (and start beating you and abusing you emotionally, physically, mentally), its time to stop being submissive and walk away. That is a man refusing to be a leader, and its time for us to take care of our own.

Would you mind pointing out where the Bible indicated that women were "weak?"
~ Redzepplin

usually hard to find "good women" apart from Mary, M-Magdalene, and Lazarus sisters. For example, who ate the apple and doomed men to original sin? Eve. Who gave away Sampson's secret? Delilah. Then there's Queen Vasti, Jezebel and the list goes on.

~Bakiryu

Oh the many ones...and by the way I would love to point out that Queen Vashti (from Esther) showed admirable strength and courage when she refused to be treated like an object in her husband's party. That is why she was no longer Queen. I'd like her to be my role model in how to stand up to men who will fondle women and order them around as if they are just plastic toys.

Don't mistake how women are treated for their actions as a justifiable response to the Bible's stance on women. There are consequences to every action and strength lies in knowing that there will be bad consequences to the right action and doing the right thing anyway.

Poor Eve, that discriminated against woman has suffered more to her name than any other woman on the planet. We blame her for all our pain and suffering and claim she's weak. Well tell me, how many girls who have lived a life of luxury (Paris Hilton, anyone, or any other girl who hates camping) are able to go out and face the consequences of their actions and work for a family with pain and suffering and no more bubble baths? She raised 3 strong men that we know of and a weak woman would not be able to do that.

Eve was strong minded and strong willed. She was weak in succumbing to the serpent's lies, but she faced her consequences as a woman with strength in her innate nature.

Again, don't use the poor actions that a woman did to claim she is weak. Strength isn't found in one action, but in a whole situation - and in a life.

David's biggest moment of weakness was what he did to Bathsheba. He succumbed to his weakness, and avoided the consequences by having her husband killed. Of course, ultimately the consequences found him, but he showed a lot of weakness in that entire situation.

"If the bible isn't discriminating against women why aren't there women priests? Or women in church?"
~Bakiryu

Have you heard of Deborah? She wasn't a priestess, but she had more authority than most men did in Israel for a period of time. She was a Judge - and the judges were the rulers in a pre-monarchic Israel. So I guess, you could say she was part of a very small congress where the congress was the only establishment ruling the country at the time. And let me tell you, i don't think women haven't changed so much in the last 2000 - 3000 years that they could've stomached slaughtering lambs for sacrifice in a Jewish temple.

And why there "shouldn't" be women leading in church (as I suspect you mean) is mentioned above =p

[NikolaiI]

Um, I think it's wrong to say that women shouldn't be leaders, in church or elsewhere, and I can't say more than that for its politics.

I don't know a whole lot about the persecution of women, but I have an idea that it used to be terrible. There used to be a rule you couldn't beat your wife with a stick bigger than your thumb. Women couldn't vote.

I mean, there were just so many instances of men beating the crap out of women, and no, I am NOT going to give you WEBSITES that tell you this, I know it is true; Christians of the past have been SAVAGE towards women, as well as Muslims, and I am not even going to compare the two. Women are supposed to obey their husband, and if not they get beaten. So why do you support this idea that they are supposed to obey? I think you need to consider the reasons and merit of this argument before you reply. I mean take a minute, or a day, to think about it, rather than rattling off the first thing that comes to mind that will support your ideas.

[AngelEyes714]

Um, I think it's wrong to say that women shouldn't be leaders, in church or elsewhere, and I can't say more than that for its politics.

I don't know a whole lot about the persecution of women, but I have an idea that it used to be terrible. There used to be a rule you couldn't beat your wife with a stick bigger than your thumb. Women couldn't vote.

I mean, there were just so many instances of men beating the crap out of women, and no, I am NOT going to give you WEBSITES that tell you this, I know it is true; Christians of the past have been SAVAGE towards women, as well as Muslims, and I am not even going to compare the two. Women are supposed to obey their husband, and if not they get beaten. So why do you support this idea that they are supposed to obey? I think you need to consider the reasons and merit of this argument before you reply. I mean take a minute, or a day, to think about it, rather than rattling off the first thing that comes to mind that will support your ideas.

The first thing that comes to mind that supports my ideas is that Women being beaten is not BIBLICAL. Women being loved the way Christ loved the church is BIBLICAL.

Also, you might have missed this part of my argument (and I don't blame you because it was rather long):
"And for women, I think that there is a line clearly drawn where being submissive to our husbands and other men is no longer something we should be doing and Paul points that out to. "Men, love your wives, giving your life for them even as Christ gave his life for the church" - when men stop loving you (and start beating you and abusing you emotionally, physically, mentally), its time to stop being submissive and walk away. That is a man refusing to be a leader, and its time for us to take care of our own."

Like Queen Vashti did.

The original question was:
1) what do YOU think the BIBLICAL stance on gender roles is.
2) How biblical do you think the way genders have been treated in the past IS
3) How biblical do you think the roles we have given to genders is TODAY

I'm not justifying how women have been treated in the past. I, personally, think women have been treated in a very pathetic way in the past and that it WASN'T biblical (as much as the men of that day would claim it was). However, on the other side of the same token, I feel that women are treating MEN in a rather pathetic way NOW. And I don't think that the current gender roles being touted by feminists and being followed by meek men is BIBLICAL either. I want to hear what people think IS biblical as far as gender roles are concerned (for men AND women...not just women).

Have past cultures twisted and manipulated the biblical views on gender roles to support a patriarchal society? Was the bible supporting the atrocities done to women in history? Are women now completely disregarding what the bible has to say on those views due to history and its claims of biblical support? Is it possible that the biblical views of gender roles can be freeing for both men AND women if followed as it is written in the Bible? And are women, in their bitterness, destroying the role of men in society? And is it Biblical?

[earthboar]

The counterpart to YHVH (Yahweh) is the Shekinah, who is not only the presence of God, but also the Heavenly or Sabbath Bride:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekhin..._Sabbath_Bride

Carl Jung, from Answer to Job. Ch. XIV:
"And just as the heiros gamos unites Yahweh with Sophia (Shekinah in the Cabala), thus restoring the original pleromatic state, so the parallel description of God and city points to their common nature: They are originally one, a single hermaphroditic being..."

Wisdom (Greek: Sophia) is repeatedly referred to in the feminine form in scripture.

1 Enoch:
42: 1-3 "Wisdom could not find a place in which she could not dwell;
but a place was found for her in the heavens.
Then Wisdom went out to dwell with the children of the people,
but she found no dwelling place.
So Wisdom returned to her place
and she settled permanently among the angels.
Then iniquity went out of her rooms,
and found whom she did not expect.
And she dwelt with them like rain in a desert,
like dew on a thirsty land."

From the Apocrypha, The Wisdom of Sirach:
8: There is but one who is wise, a very terrible one;
Seated upon his throne;
9: The Lord himself created her;
He saw her and counted her,
And poured her out upon all that he made...
...
14: To fear the Lord is the source of wisdom,
And she was created with the faithful in the womb.

From The Apocryphon of John:
"She (the first) power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory among the realms, the glory of revelation, she glorified and praised the virgin spirit, for because of the spirit she had come forth."
...
"She is the first thought, the image of the spirit. She became the universal womb, for she precedes everything."

The Gospel of Mary:
Peter said to Mary, "Sister, we know the Savior loved you more than any other woman. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, which you know but we do not, because we have not heard them."



I take it they don't teach you this stuff in Sunday School any more? -earthboar

I know that throughout the ages, the roles of genders have been put into a very firm place and has only relatively recently been shaken up.

But how biblical is the old role of genders and the new role of genders?

What do you think the Bible has to say about Gender roles?

[MaryLupin]

I honestly think that men are given the responsibility to lead because it is what edifies them. When a man is actually able to stand up and lead with strength and love, I think that he has finally learned how to live.

So men were given the task of leadership because they can’t do it well? Well that explains things!

I think women are told NOT to lead, and rather directly at that, because Paul is aware that they have a natural ability for…

I believe that you think this but Pauline scholarship shows that his attitude toward women may have had more to do with pagan competition. Have you read Elaine Pagels? Try Adam, Eve and the Serpent. It’s really interesting.

Please don't take those comments as my saying that i think men are weak and poor leaders in general - I know that there are some...I just haven't seen many. Especially in the church, there seem to be men who think that being a good Christian man is being meek and mild, and I will not trust such a man to lead me ANYWHERE.

Don’t believe in the “turn the other cheek” thing?

I knew a young woman once, a young beautiful, 20 something, blond friend. She went to hear a lecture one day given by a man who thought much like you seem to. He believed that he should lead and she should follow. He was very beautiful too by the way. I suspect a number of women had followed him around. This young friend asked me what I thought about it. She said she liked the idea. She could feel protected and helped and she wouldn’t have to worry about making rent and … well you get the idea. I didn’t answer her directly. Instead I asked her a question. I asked her “do you think he would have asked you to follow him if you were ugly, or old or disabled?” She looked startled and after a bit said “no.” So I asked “will you still want to follow him when he directs you to leave because you have gotten old or ugly or disabled?” She was about to speak and I waved my hand to stop her. “I don’t want to know. I just want you to know.” I never spoke to her again about the beautiful man who wanted her to give up her will to him.

And for women, I think that there is a line clearly drawn where being submissive to our husbands and other men is no longer something we should be doing and Paul points that out to. "Men, love your wives, giving your life for them even as Christ gave his life for the church" - when men stop loving you (and start beating you and abusing you emotionally, physically, mentally), its time to stop being submissive and walk away. That is a man refusing to be a leader, and its time for us to take care of our own.

Well I am glad you still know you can leave if he starts acting like too much of a jerk. But here’s the thing, if you leave when he is no longer acting as you would like then he isn’t really leading you anywhere. You have just agreed to go along for the ride as far as you want it to go. What he is doing is acting a part you have scripted for him. And what you are doing is hiding your power behind a guise of submission.

Vashti (from Esther) showed admirable strength and courage when she refused to be treated like an object in her husband's party. That is why she was no longer Queen. I'd like her to be my role model in how to stand up to men who will fondle women and order them around as if they are just plastic toys.

Good again. But do you see that the result of her disobedience was disempowerment? This is a pretty strong message, an argument for submission if you like. The reason the king wanted to show her off was her beauty. Not for her mind, or for her capacity to rule but for her body. Another strong message. The Princes’ fear is that contagion of disobedience will spread. This is why it says, “17 For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women, so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes, when it shall be reported, The king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not. 18 Likewise shall the ladies of Persia and Media say this day unto all the king's princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen. Thus shall there arise too much contempt and wrath.” And of course the King replaces her with Esther. (I should have added uppity to ugly, old and disabled as reasons to replace the one who has followed you.) Esther being the one who had Haman’s 10 sons hung and pretty much directly responsible for the death of 75,000 people. So I’m not sure if Vashti’s uppitiness was such a big deal.

Don't mistake how women are treated for their actions as a justifiable response to the Bible's stance on women. There are consequences to every action and strength lies in knowing that there will be bad consequences to the right action and doing the right thing anyway.

I think that people should be judged by their behavior and so should characters in a text. If the text has women who are known primarily (if not solely) by their relationship to men then that is what the book promotes. Vashti refused her husband’s “right” to display her and she was replaced. Esther machinated, had people killed and she was rewarded as the savior of the Jews and a fine example of a woman. That is also what the book promotes.

Poor Eve, that discriminated against woman has suffered more to her name than any other woman on the planet. We blame her for all our pain and suffering and claim she's weak. Well tell me, how many girls who have lived a life of luxury (Paris Hilton, anyone, or any other girl who hates camping) are able to go out and face the consequences of their actions and work for a family with pain and suffering and no more bubble baths? She raised 3 strong men that we know of and a weak woman would not be able to do that.

No women I know claim she was weak because she had to bear her children in pain. What complaints I have heard have more to do with having eaten of the apple of knowledge she still didn’t know any better than to trust a jealous overlord to act reasonably. Still, levity aside, she didn’t really have to face the consequences, she was driven out of the garden. She didn’t have a choice about what happened next. No birth control in sight and who was she to say no to Adam’s “request” for conjugal rights?

Eve was strong minded and strong willed. She was weak in succumbing to the serpent's lies, but she faced her consequences as a woman with strength in her innate nature.

What were the content of the “lies?” That god was not of a forgiving nature, that no matter what she did he would always love her? I wonder what she thought as god’s minion drove her from her home?

Again, don't use the poor actions that a woman did to claim she is weak. Strength isn't found in one action, but in a whole situation - and in a life.

Life is the sum of one’s actions.

Have you heard of Deborah? She wasn't a priestess, but she had more authority than most men did in Israel for a period of time. She was a Judge - and the judges were the rulers in a pre-monarchic Israel. So I guess, you could say she was part of a very small congress where the congress was the only establishment ruling the country at the time. And let me tell you, i don't think women haven't changed so much in the last 2000 - 3000 years that they could've stomached slaughtering lambs for sacrifice in a Jewish temple.

Women do far, far worse than slaughter lambs. We allow our children to be slaughtered as the martial sacrifice for men’s inability to lead us into peace. We allow the animals of our world to be farmed, tortured and eaten. We allow people to be punished for believing in the “wrong” things. We allow others to lead us when it is each and every one of us’ responsibility to take action. We allow the men of the churches to drive up fear and hatred of those who differ from us. We allow our children to be raised in such a way as to incapable of compassion, to become torturers in military jails, to willingly kill for things at best dimly understood. All in the name of following the “true” leader. I rather think it might be time for women to try another method.

And why there "shouldn't" be women leading in church (as I suspect you mean) is mentioned above =p

Have you read The Milgram Experimentsor the Stanford Prison Experiments?

With respect to the attached file - I have just added a few more names. I am simply going down the list. Each and every one so far is known for her relationship to a man, as a wife, a widow, a daughter or a mother of a man. And their reward for all their devotion? Well, start looking at what happens to them. This is not a system I want guiding my daughter's life. I'd rather she had the opportunity to become the one who is known for mental prowess, or for wisdom, or for any number of other personality attributes. It beats being known as an appendage that behaved well. I suspect it beats living it as well.

The List of Women in the Bible

The counterpart to YHVH (Yahweh) is the Shekinah, who is not only the presence of God, but also the Heavenly or Sabbath Bride...I take it they don't teach you this stuff in Sunday School any more? -earthboar

Nice. And then there was Lilith. I respected her.

[earthboar]

Nice. And then there was Lilith. I respected her.

I wanted to mention Lilith in my previous post, but she was something of an anomaly. However, Lilith was associated with the very Shekinah I mentioned earlier, the Empress, the Queen of the Garden of Eden. Look at the Empress card in your Rider-Waite Tarot deck, and there she is! Lilith, as legend had it, was the indomitable first bride of Adam, before Eve came along. The original Hebrew text of Isaiah uses her name, but for some reason it was translated as "screech owl" in the King James Version:

Isaiah 34:14 "The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island and the satyr shall cry to his fellow the screech owl (Hebrew: lilith) also shall rest there and find for herself a place of rest"

...Lilith was called a demon of the night. She is associated with the succubus and nocturnal emissions in men. If you have ever heard the screech of the screech owl, and believe me, I have, you would certainly think it was the screaming of a demon, or a woman being murdered. That tiny bird, no more than eight inches tall has quite a set of lungs.

[Redzeppelin]

I think that we ought to consider a few things:

1. We assume (via the lens of history) that our current "equality" is an improvement. In certain ways, absolutely so; in other ways, I'm not so certain.

2. If we assume the Bible to be the product of Divine Inspiration, then I think we ought to seriously reflect on why God chose to configure men and women relationally as He did. Again, as I have said many times, to discuss the Bible as a humanly inspired and executed work is a virtually pointless exercise because it claims divine authority, and to ignore that is to undermine the entire authority of the work. If we assume that's a lie, then there's no reason to believe that anything it says carries any authority whatsoever. In literary criticism, this problem is demonstrated by the unreliable first person narrator (think Huck Finn or Holden Caufield: they both are admitted liars: how far do/can we trust their version of events?).

3. If the Bible is merely the product of men, then its proscriptions for male/female relationships can be disregarded as simply a cultural practice.

4. But, if the Bible is the inspired word of God, then we must deal with the fact that an all-powerful, all-knowing being (and the designer and engineer of our genders) made it clear how we worked best together. We may not like that suggestion - and part of that dislike may be logically grounded in the fact that neither men nor women behave very well towards each other.

I often wonder if the commands to "submit to husband's authority" for women and to "love wives sacrificially" for the men are not God's way of correcting some of the damages that sin has done to human relationships. Seriously, if men loved their wives sacrificially (no easier for modern men, by the way, than submission is for the modern woman), would submitting to such a man's leadership be so bad? Would a man hesitate to sacrificially love a woman who respected his leadership?

But, ultimately, if you're going to reject God's vision of how genders work together best, than you must either reject the God of the Bible or reject the authority of His Word. But you can't reject either and still claim to believe in the Christian vision of God. That's not a cake you can have and eat at the same time.

[earthboar]

2. If we assume the Bible to be the product of Divine Inspiration, then I think we ought to seriously reflect on why God chose to configure men and women relationally as He did. Again, as I have said many times, to discuss the Bible as a humanly inspired and executed work is a virtually pointless exercise because it claims divine authority, and to ignore that is to undermine the entire authority of the work.

The problem with divine inspiration is that it is expressed through the perspective of humans who are a product of their technology and cultural norms. Which came first, the class distinction or the divinely inspired writing? The culture did, of course. The prophet grew up in his or her culture, leanred it, then wrote something.

My contention is that discussion of the Bible as a humanly inspired work is valid. It is literature, it is partial history, it is an imperfect reflection on the development of western Civilization, and, by the way, reflects the development of God. That's right, another way of looking at the Bible is that it shows how humankind crafted God in their image.

A slave owner might not even recognize that there is an opposite, equally valid position on the ownership of another human being. This propensity to reflect ethnocentric norm essentially corrupts a religious text.

[Redzeppelin]

The problem with divine inspiration is that it is expressed through the perspective of humans who are a product of their technology and cultural norms. Which came first, the class distinction or the divinely inspired writing? The culture did, of course. The prophet grew up in his or her culture, leanred it, then wrote something.

My contention is that discussion of the Bible as a humanly inspired work is valid. It is literature, it is partial history, it is an imperfect reflection on the development of western Civilization, and, by the way, reflects the development of God. That's right, another way of looking at the Bible is that it shows how humankind crafted God in their image.

A slave owner might not even recognize that there is an opposite, equally valid position on the ownership of another human being. This propensity to reflect ethnocentric norm essentially corrupts a religious text.

Fair enough; I overstate my case (as usual); you can discuss the Bible as you have indicated - but my response would be this: if God intends for His Word to be relevant for centuries to come (for He must certainly have known when inspiring the writers how long and by whom the text would be read) then He must make sure that culture - while impossible to fully extricate from the text - must not be confused with God. I believe that God transcends culture; as such, His instructions as to how men and women should relate to each other go beyond ancient Semetic/Hellenistic culture.

[NikolaiI]

I have a reply here, but after writing it here I thought it would be better suited as a blog post, so if you're interested it's there. My earlier post probably wasn't for the forum thread either.

[AngelEyes714]

Came across an interesting piece of writing today on this concerning Phoebe in the church of Cenchrea.

1 Timothy 2:11,12 says that women should be kept "silent", but did you know that that word has been translated as peaceful, quiet, and rested in other places in the bible?

In other words, Paul is saying that women should be kept from anxiety and unwise activity.

There's a book about women's role in relationships that says that a woman's true beauty is found when she is at rest, when she is full of peace.

Could these be linked?