1Corinthians 11 (page 2)

PSacramento

Isacc,

One wonders how this letter was found and in what condition it was in...perhaps it was fragmented and needed to be "pasted togehter"...

isaacaustin

Good points there PSac. I have read both those commentaries and a few others that seem to agree it is about woman covering their heads. I do not agree with those commentaries views.

Since reading non JW bibles, I've discovered they turn a lot of things around to suit them. I'm rather ashamed sometimes that I really thought other religious people were just being nasty or mislead by Satan when they said that the NWT is a piece of crap and mistranslated.

It is, it's a piece of crap Bible re-written to make Witness teachings seem more valid. Self serving bunch of arseholes, as usual.

Terry

Without the participation of women there would be no religion in the world.

They are the motor.

If you study the history of early christianity, it was women who were primarily instrumental in convincing their husbands of the superiority of Christianity as a way of life.

Women given to emperors and kings to form bonds between countries and nations had the ear of their husbands in case after case. In much the same way that Esther was said to have exercised influence over Ahashuerus in saving the Jews from extermination, so too christianized wives

swayed their potentate husbands time and again.

What was the clincher for women? The non-violence, the caretaking, the concern for personal well-being and the love.

No other religion seem to concern itself with anything other than paying tribute in empty ritual.

Women in the Roman empire were sick of having their sons and husbands conscripted into war after war. They were hungry for a God that GAVE rather than took. Jesus' message seemed to be what they were starved for.

Women were property to men for the most part.

A wife who was the daughter of an important or wealthy father was given a place of importance in running a household. These influential wives

were surrogates for their husbands in social networking. After all, Rome functioned by a system of influence-peddling and nepotism.

A Christian wife who ran a household might influence many hundreds of persons in her charge!

I think it becomes clear that women with such power and influence might be thought threatening to messianic jews accustomed to more conventional arrangements with the man as the sole authority.

What Paul grapples with time after time in his ministry is the MINDSET of Jews as they transition from the "old ways" of Judaism into the neo-christian pagan way of doing things.

Men had to check their egos constantly and their tendency to cling to tradition and the commonly held notion of superiority of men to women.

The crackpot reason for men being above women is given and it is hilarious! Men were created first!

How incredibly childish!! I WAS HERE FIRST!

So......you have to put a napkin on your head or else the angels will think you are more important than me!

PSacramento

I agree Mindmelda, however, there are a few authorised verison that seem to give the same impression and I am truly curious as to what Paul truly meant here.

littlebird

When I was a jw, and I was confronted by someone that the wt changed the bible, I would give them the speech that all we did was restore Jehovah's name. They go through alot of scripture twisting to make their teachings fit. I wish I had been more bible savy before I became a witness, I may have never signed up.

mindmelda

I think I occasionally find Paul unappealing when he reverts to traditional patriarchal Jewish customs and thinking in regards to women. LOL

I don't think the Bible wrote down the history of the Jews so we could mindlessly repeat their mistakes or the ignorance they displayed because of the times they lived in, along with all the other more positive things we learn from them.

I think we're supposed to learn that the Bronze Age was a crappy and violent time to live in and who would want to live like that, I ask you? I'm glad I don't.

Just because it was the custom of most men of this time in that part of the world to treat women as property, slaves, and deny them privileges we now think of as ordinary doesn't mean that we're wrong for NOT doing it. It means THEY were wrong and less civlized. People in the Bible were wrong about a lot of things. Why wouldn't they be, people can only behave as well as they know how.

People like to think that the Bible and Christianity hasn't always been a civilizing influence, and true, it's had it's bad moments, but over all, I think it's done some good in that respect. After all, it's become a large part of first world thinking and culture and we are somewhat more civilized than we were during the time of the Romans...just a teensy bit.

alamb

Reminds me of what someone said once, "I think Paul was imprisoned for his own safety."

1Corinthians 11

Share this