|
|
 Click for larger picture ______________________________________________________________
"When Dogmas Die" Book reviewAbout five years ago I noticed that the traditional interpretation of Ephesians 5 seemed divorced from the rest of the Bible for how could a man command his wife if love does not seek its own, as 1 Corinthians 13 tells us? And then there were of course Deborah, Miriam, Phoebe, Priscilla, Junia, and the prophesying and praying women of 1 Cor 11, whose existence conflicted with both the dogma and praxis of the church. Neither complementarists nor egalitarians were able to provide solid answers that would remove the many contradictions and problems, for although egalitarians had many great and convincing arguments, 1 Timothy 2 seemed an insurmountable obstacle for full equality. Convinced that the truth was out there, I set out to find the root of the problem armed with more than an average amount of audacity. Four years later I found the answer I had sought: a deliberate translation error in the Latin translation, the Vulgate, in the fifth century changed the meaning of Genesis 3.16 for generations to come and became instrumental in changing Genesis 2.18-24 in the thirteenth century. As a result of the latter change, the New Testament was re-interpreted to accommodate the new interpretation: key passages such as 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2 were given new meanings, and words such as kephale (head) and hypotasso (submit) were interpreted according to their Latin equivalents instead of retaining their original Greek meanings. For over seven hundred years the church upheld the woman’s subjection as a created order until in the 1980s egalitarian theologians successfully challenged the false interpretation of Genesis 3.16. Without Genesis 3.16 as God’s mandate and due to the disappearance of the inferior woman with the demise of Aristotle’s philosophy - the basis of the twofold subjection - complementarism lost its foundation and had to position itself behind 1 Timothy 2 as its last defense. But how solid is a one chapter theology? It is about as sturdy as a house of cards wherefore the supporting arguments tend to be emotional rather than logical. The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood published Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in 1991 in order to defend their theological position which maintains the man was given authority over the woman. When Dogmas Die outlines the many exegetical and logical errors which are now being used to defend complementarism since Genesis 3.16 can no longer be used to argue for the sole guilt of Eve as the foundation for the perpetual punishment on all women in the form of servile subjection.
Excerpt from Chapter 9The twofold subjection of Thomas Aquinas altered the translation and interpretation of 1 Corinthians perhaps more than any other chapter in the Bible; consequently it is considered one of the most difficult chapters to interpret. Thomas R. Schreiner writes in his essay Head Coverings, Prophecies and the Trinity, ”The difficulties with this text could lead one to say that it should not be used to establish any doctrine or teaching on the role relationship of men and women.” Although he is correct in rejecting the proposition that we should not use the chapter, he rejects also the interpretation of the chapter which removes the inherent difficulties. As the woman’s subjection as a created order was challenged, 1 Corinthians 11 was re-interpreted to reflect the change, or, rather, the return to the theology of the early church. Instead of rule and submission, the text was viewed as teaching the interdependency of men and women based on their equality as a created order. Because 1 Corinthians 11 is one of the cornerstones of complementarian theology, the re-interpretation has not been accepted largely due to the false interpretation of the word kephale found in verse 3.
Schreiner neglects the connection of eikoon (“image”) and kephale (“head”) in verse 7 because he gives kephale the incorrect meaning “authority over.” “A beginning” and “a first principle,” the meanings Chrysostom gave kephale in his homily are synonymous to an archetype of which the other person is an image, “for images are the forms of their archetypes.” According to Origen, “The true God, then, is ‘The God,’ and those who are formed after Him are gods, images, as it were, of Him the prototype. But the archetypal image, again, of all these images is the Word of God, who was in the beginning, and who by being with God is at all times God.” Gregory of Nyssa explained, “[T]hen all the Cause beyond, which is God over all, is found through Our Lord, Who is the Cause of all things; nor, indeed, is it possible to gain an exact knowledge of the Archetypal Good, except as it appears in the (visible) image of that invisible.” In other words, the archetype is the source of the image, which possesses the characteristics of its source. According to Gregory of Nazianzen, the same attributes that are found in the archetype must also be found in the image. However, the image is not an identical copy of the archetype, as described by Theorodet (d. 458) in a dialogue between Eranistes and Orthodoxus.
A copy is called a “shadow” in the New Testament (Heb. 8:5). For example, the Law was a shadow of Christ, whom Paul portrays as the body or true substance (Col. 2:17). A shadow is the opposite of an image (Heb. 10:1) for whereas the copy is temporary and is destroyed when the substance is provided (Heb. 10:9) an image co-exists with the archetype, its source. Thus, as the image of the Father, the Son is similar to the Father in essence and power, but He is not the identical to the Father, for He is not unbegotten. The man is in the image of God in the inner person, but he is enclosed in a body, whereas God is a spirit. The woman is also in the image of God in the inner person for she is a human being, but her body is in the image of the first man, wherefore it is different from his.
Ordering
|
