The lengths people go to in order to make the Bible not say what it so obviously says Tarting up patriarchal Scriptures to appear enlightened and in harmony with twenty-first century views on women sounds desperate - kind of like trying to defend a violent man's behaviour by playing around with the meaning of words. Why would you want to do that?
Why would we want to do that Steve2? It's rather like Cofty's excellent thread on blood transfusions where he showed in ancient Israel blood was not sacred in itself but in its sacrificial value to remove human sins and therefore there should be no ban on blood to save life because nobody dies when they donate blood.
Over many pages this was proved from scripture, using ideas that the JWs have just missed, or deliberately overlooked, e.g. animals that were already dead could be eaten even though they were full of blood, it being impossible to bleed an animal after it's been dead only a few minutes.
Precisely in this manner those of us who have been abused by this religion have been showing that in ancient Israel Deborah was a judge and prophetess, holding two of the highest jobs in the land. In early Christian times Phoebe was a deacon. Philips's four daughter's were prophetesses and so on.
Just as with blood issue threads we find it necessary to point out the inconsistency of the JWs in cherry picking the scriptures that suit them to prove their doctrines and missing glaring facts that women in Bible times were not silent at all.
Most of the other Protestant churches have taken these scriptures on board and decided that from a twenty-first century point of view Paul was inconsistent with many Bible accounts of the work of women and therefore they've appointed women priests in their churches. What I believe Old Navy was asking in his OP was, why haven't JWs done the same?
We may well ask!