|
|
|
|
WOMEN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
A HISTORY OF AND
REFLECTION ON MY COURSE OF 34 YEARS
Dr. David M. Scholer
I could not have
realized in 1972 that my ecclesiastical and professional
commitment to women in ministry, already established, would lead
to one of the most important and consuming professional and
personal aspects of my life as a New Testament professor,
churchman, and advocate for a position I came to see as part of
my commitment to the gospel.
History
I introduced my then
new course, “Women and Ministry in the New Testament,” at
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1972. Although I cannot
document this, I think it was the first such course offered in
any seminary in the USA. I taught the course four more times at
Gordon-Conwell: 1974, 1979, 1980 and 1981. Since there were few
women in seminary in 1972, the course began with mostly men
enrolled; over the years at Gordon-Conwell the registration grew
and increasingly included more women in the course.
In 1981, I went to
Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. During my seven years
there I taught my course twice: 1982 and 1988 (I was Dean of the
Seminary, so my teaching was limited at that time).
It was during my
time at Northern Baptist that I began to teach my course as a
visiting professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. In this
capacity I offered my course at Fuller five times: 1986, 1988,
1990, 1991 (in the Northern California extension), and 1992.
In 1988, I went to
North Park Theological Seminary and North Park College (a joint
appointment). It was at North Park that I changed the name of
the course to “Women, the Bible, and the Church,” in order to
emphasize that this New Testament course had a focus on its
implications for the contemporary church. In my six years at
North Park, I taught my course six times; twice in the College
(1989 and 1992), three times in the Seminary (1989, 1990, and
1993 – all three times team-taught with my wife, Jeannette F.
Scholer), and one time as a joint College and Seminary course
(1994).
During my time at
North Park, I also taught the course once at Whitley College,
the Baptist Seminary of Victoria, in Melbourne, Australia.
In 1994, I came to
Fuller Theological Seminary. By the end of 2006 I will have
taught my course ten times since 1994: 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998
(in the Northern California extension), 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003,
and twice in 2006.
Reflections
One of the most
obvious changes over the years is the increase in the number of
women taking this course (as the number of women in seminaries
has risen). But, in the last decade or more, when the number of
women at Fuller has leveled off (it varies among the three
schools), 80% of the students taking my course are women. The
20% who are men seem to appreciate the course deeply (and are
appreciated by the women in the class), but to date we have not
been able to get the male enrollment higher than 20%.
Another set of
significant changes has to do with the social contexts of our
culture. In the 1970s and into the 1980s, the tensions in the
evangelical community over the place of women in the church’s
ministry were very high and often strongly contentious. That
climate meant that the course was sometimes a “battleground”
between and among different factions of students. Although there
is still very strong resistance to the full participation of
women in ministry in many quarters, the “divide” between the
positions has settled into a type of “peaceful coexistence.”
Further, students who reject my approach to the topic are less
likely these days to take my course. As a result, most students
(although not all) in my course enter with a basic agreement or
tendency to agree with my position, but in most cases have never
thought deeply about the biblical and theological support for
their positions or how to “defend” their positions among their
friends, families, and church environments.
I have also become
increasingly convinced over the years that the social context of
the oppression of and violence against women has deeply
affected, often indirectly, the discussion of the biblical texts
about men and women. Thus, I now have written on sexual abuse
and the Bible and bring this data into the classroom for lecture
and discussion. It is very significant, especially since many of
my women students have been victims of sexual abuse within
families and within the church. It is a considerable part of my
course now (but was not in the early years) to talk about this
and the whole range of discriminations against women in our
culture (and other cultures; here at Fuller I have women in
class from many countries of the world) and how these factors
influence the way that we read and interpret the biblical texts
about women. This is a point that makes Traditionalists and
Complementarians “worry” about the biblical faithfulness of
Egalitarians, but this is a misunderstanding of how our social
locations affect the ways in which we read and interpret the
Bible.
Further, I have in
my course substantially increased attention to the roles that
women have played in the church throughout history. Although
this does not determine the exegetical meaning of texts, it does
open our eyes to the way texts have been interpreted and gives
us insights on how we might and should read texts. Also, I have
increasingly emphasized the number of writings, by men and
especially by women, before 1900 that have defended the full
participation of women in ministry. By showing how deeply the
roots of the Egalitarian position are embedded in biblical and
church history, this “answers,” to a genuine degree, the
oft-repeated charge that Egalitarians today are simply an aspect
of the modern feminist movement.
I have also
increased the emphasis in my course on hermeneutics. In general,
I have argued that nothing in the New Testament itself tells us
which is the most important or “controlling” text on women in
ministry. Rather, this decision becomes a hermeneutical one,
attempting to assess the context of each passage and its role in
biblical teaching and seeking a balance of all (not simply a
selective group of) texts. Further, one needs hermeneutical
skills to assess the cultural contexts of passages written in
first-century culture, in which, generally speaking, women were
considered inferior, subordinate, not worthy of education, and
suited only to domestic responsibilities. I have developed and
published over the years guidelines for assessing cultural
relativity in New Testament texts (on all issues, not just women
in ministry). I have received much criticism here from those
opposed to full participation for women. They often grant that
some texts are culturally relative, but rarely define which ones
and why. Without clear guidelines, one is controlled by larger
theological conclusions, than by the evidences of texts in their
first-century settings.
I have also changed
the organization of the New Testament texts since I first taught
the course. Initially, “controlled” by the debate at the time
(when all seemed to rest on 1 Timothy 2), I began my course
there. After treating 1 Timothy 2, I then divided texts into
what I called the “negative” and “positive” texts, putting 1
Corinthians 11 in the negative category. As time went by, and I
reflected more deeply on what I was doing, it came to me very
strongly that there was no good reason to start with 1 Timothy
2; that this was an agenda set by the Traditionalists, not by
the New Testament. In time, I have come to organize the course
with attention to Jesus and women first, then women in Acts, and
then Paul’s affirmation of women in Galatians 3, 1 Corinthians
7, 1 Corinthians 11 (realizing that verses 5, 10 and 11-12 made
this a “positive” text), and Paul’s women coworkers. Then I deal
with only two texts which appear to limit women’s ministry—1
Corinthians 14, which must be reconciled with 1 Corinthians 11,
and then 1 Timothy 2, which is really a very problematic text (I
have written extensively on this as have many other Egalitarian
scholars). I should say that at the beginning of the course, I
also deal extensively with Genesis 1-3, which is foundational,
and give a very brief review of women in Israel’s history.
I also now spend
considerable time in my course on women in both Second Temple
Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures. We go through about fifty
primary texts in class, which gives students a reasonable
grounding in the cultural realities for women of the first
century of the Common
Era and how most men perceived them.
This is an essential component of exegetical and hermeneutical
work on the New Testament. I also have students read the primary
text collections of early Christian literature and the comments
of the Church Fathers on women as collected by E. A. Clark and
P. C. Miller.
One particular issue
to which I have given increasing attention is the oft-repeated
Jewish charge that Christian feminism is a new form of
anti-Semitism, by making Jesus the Christian hero who liberates
women from oppressive Judaism. I have, thus, given attention to
the accomplishments and positive roles of women in Second Temple
Judaism before I cover the negative views of men toward women.
Further, I have argued (in print) that Jesus is a hero to both
Jews and Christians. I have received kind words for the
positions I have taken here.
It always sounds
self-serving for the teacher of such a course to talk about its
influence, but it is probably appropriate to say that students
report regularly that the course has had an extensive,
wide-ranging, and life-changing influence on more persons beyond
what I might have anticipated. Every week of my life I hear from
students and former students whose lives were helped and changed
by this course. I am humbled, but deeply pleased. I do feel that
this is a calling I have received from God, to which I have
sought to be faithful in every way possible. Part of that
history is the long-term encouragement I have received within
and from Christians for Biblical Equality, with whom I have been
associated virtually from the beginning.
It is my hope
and prayer that I will be able to teach my course a few more
times in my life and that its influence will continue to bear
fruit.
|
