“I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”
1 Timothy 2:12-14, NRSVUE
When people abuse God’s word people get hurt. Indeed, the ripple effects reach far into the future. Take the verse above—especially the part I’ve italicized. As Philip Towner, author of one of the foremost commentaries on 1 Timothy, notes:
“What might seem (to some of us) to be a rather reasonable and apt illustration of women being deceived by false teachers is plumbed for more fundamental truth. What results is an assertion of the inherent gullibility of women, and, by extrapolation, a ‘created’ inaptitude for teaching, appreciating, and formulating doctrine…”
NICNT (Eerdmans, 2006), 231.
“Created inaptitude”… really? Yeah, things can get really ugly. Rigid, literal, hierarchical approaches to this passage root Paul’s command in verse 12—which had unique and complex cultural reasons behind it (a topic for another day)—in two “fundamental truths”:
- The creational order: Adam was created first, not Eve.
- The deception of Eve: Eve was deceived; Adam sinned by choice.
These two “fundamental truths” then get concrete poured around them so that they’re no longer just a “pointed retelling of the Genesis story in answer to a current distortion of it,” but two immovable historical facts. And, the reasoning continues, if these two facts can’t change because they’re anchored in history, then this also holds true for Paul’s command that women “keep silent” and not “have authority over a man.” The concluding, timeless application is that women should keep a low profile, stay in “helper” roles as male sidekicks (at least in the church), remembering—in the worst versions of this hierarchical take—that God created them intellectually inferior and more gullible than men.
Again, this twisted misuse of scripture is extremely damaging. As a real-life example, consider this recent FB post from my friend, Alli Nielsen, a great writer and one of the editors of my last two books:
A few months ago my therapist told me people never “unlearn” things – we can only learn more things that are different.
When I was a teen, an adult woman gave me a book called “So Much More,” written by two teen girls, that claimed women inherently lack the intelligence, reasoning capacity, and spiritual fortitude for college and a career. Women are made by God to exclusively stay home and raise families – anything else is rebellion. It re-packaged the message I’d already heard thousands of times, from so many more “qualified” adults in positions of religious authority.
I’ve learned a lot of different things since then. I’ve worked with and for some of the most incredible, intelligent, skilled, brilliant women. In the last decade, it is predominantly women who have challenged me spiritually and mentally; who have mentored me professionally; and who have entered into the most nuanced explorations of ethics and justice with me.
But come moments of intense uncertainty, like this ongoing job hunt, and that book and everything it embodies comes back. It’s not just, “What if six months goes by and I still can’t get a job?” Or “Does anyone want these skills?” It’s, “Do I even have the brain development for this?” “Am I predisposed to failure based on my gender?” “Is this my cosmic bitch-slap for accepting a paycheck?”
I know I’m not alone – I’m not the only woman whose childhood was filled with religiously-motivated messages of intellectual inferiority: with soul-crushingly narrow lies of what is “acceptable” for a woman.
The intrusive thoughts have gotten less frequent and less overpowering as I’ve learned other things to counteract them; but they’ll never fully go away because they were drilled into me in my most formative years by people I trusted.
Please don’t fill the children’s minds with lies they’ll fight (or worse, not fight) to overcome the rest of their lives. And if you’ve already lied to the children, please go make it right. Own your mistake and the impact it’s had, beg their forgiveness, and show you’re fighting the lies now.