Does The Bible Present Women as Foolish and Flighty?

I came across an interesting article in Christianity Today, the (more or less) official magazine of Evangelical Christianity. It is entitled: "Woman As Folly" by Jana Chapman Gates. In the article, Gates mentions a Bible study that she and her husband attended. They were given a handout with the following Scripture passages:

Gen. 3:17— Then to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife … "

Deut. 13:6— If … the wife you cherish … entice you secretly, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods … "

Job 2:10— He said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks … "

Prov. 9:13— The woman of folly is boisterous; she is naïve, and she knows nothing.

2 Tim. 3:6— … captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses.

She gives her reaction upon reading the handout:

The speaker on the DVD said these verses showed that women should appreciate the desire of men to analyze and provide counsel. But I had a hard time moving beyond the underlying premise, at least as I heard it: Women are foolish. Granted, a verse or two appeared on the following page about how a prudent wife is from the Lord, but that didn't counterbalance the overarching impression that women are at worst, shrewish, at best, naïve. When we began to discuss the lesson, I was more than a little surprised to realize my opinion wasn't the consensus view.

"I think men are more aware than women of their tendency to sin," one of the men suggested. "Maybe they can use this wisdom to help guide their wives."

I couldn't believe this was being discussed as a legitimate idea. I wanted to ask if he really thought that women are blinder than men to their own foibles. Instead, I stared ahead and tried to think of a constructive response.

In the balance of the article, Gates argues that the Bible-study leader was misguided and actually misinterpreted the texts of Scripture.

I think she is engaged in wishful thinking, however. The Bible definitely presents women as inferior to men, or as Peter terms it, "the weaker vessel" (1 Peter 3:7). The woman is thought to be more easily deceived (1 Tim. 2:14) and thus not worthy of the leadership role in the Church (1 Tim. 3:1-2). The woman was created "for" the man (1 Cor. 11:8-9) and she is not to usurp his authority (1 Tim. 2:12). She is to be subject to her husband  in everything (Eph. 5:24).

In the Old Testament, it is even worse. The woman is considered to be the property of her father or husband (Exod. 20:17; 21:7). She has no rights. She cannot divorce her husband. If she is raped and does not cry out loud enough, it is her fault (Deut. 22:24). The list goes on and on.

As Simone de Beauvoir pointed out:

Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jews, Mohammedans and Christians among others, man is master by divine right; the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse towards revolt in the downtrodden female (The Second Sex 1974, p. 691).

The Bible Keeps Women Down

Al Mohler, the President of the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the world, has an interesting article on his website entitled: "Hard to Believe? Biblical Authority and Evangelical Feminism." Mohler makes reference to an article in the 2010 edition of Sojourner's magazine by Anne Eggebroten entitled: "The Persistence of Patriarchy." It seems that Eggebroten, who teaches Religion at California State University (Northridge) paid a visit recently to Mohler's good buddy's church, John MacArthur's Grace Community Church in Southern California. MacArthur, of course, is one of the best known leaders of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. His church is a "mega-church;" he has authored numerous books, and has his own school (The Master's College and Seminary). Molher calls MacArthur "one of the most respected and influential preachers of our times, with perhaps the most widely-disseminated ministry of exposition in the history of the Christian church."

So, what did Eggebroten find in her visit to MacArthur's little empire? “God is male, all the pastors, deacons, and elders are male, and women are taught to live in submission to men.” She should have expected as much because she had already visited the church's website. There, I had listened to Anna Sanders lecture women on how to live in submission to their husbands. “We need to beat down our desire to be right and have our own way,” she had said, citing John Piper, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, and Martha Peace—all authors published in the last decade. “It’s his way, his rights, his expectations, and his plans. … Be a helper.” Eggebroten ran into a woman with a degree from the school where she teaches. She asked the lady: “Is women’s submission to their husbands stressed in this church?” The answer, of course, was yes.

Molher calls Eggebroten on the carpet for being surprised at what she found. He says:

Anne Eggebroten’s article represents what I call a “National Geographic moment” — an example of someone discovering the obvious and thinking it exotic and strange. It is like a reporter returning from travel to far country to explain the strange tribe of people she found there — evangelical Christians believing what the Christian church has for 2,000 years believed the Bible to teach and require. So . . . what is so exotic?

I actually agree with Mohler. Why should anyone be surprised that a church that takes the Bible as literally the Word of God would put women down? The Bible clearly does that and so anyone who wishes to follow the Bible will also do that. Eggebroten says:

Here’s the question: Is God permanently committed to the kinds of social hierarchy that existed in the first and second millennium B.C.E. and continued until recently, when education and voting were opened to women? Or does the vision of Paul in Galatians 3:28—“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”—take precedence?

Mohler rightly calls her on "sloppy exegesis" here. He says:

In Galatians 3:28 Paul is clearly speaking of salvation — not of service in the church. Paul is declaring to believers the great good news that “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” [verse 26]. He concludes by affirming, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” [verse 29]. To read Galatians 3:28 the way Eggebroten reads the verse, you would have to believe that the Apostle Paul was in direct contradiction with himself, when he restricts the teaching office to men in letters such as 1 Timothy and Titus.

The reality is, as Mohler says, Paul is not contradicting the overall teaching of the Bible on women. It does actually reflect the "the kinds of social hierarchy that existed in the first and second millennium B.C.E. and continued until recently." Eggebroten would like to find a change in perspective on this subject from Paul but she is misguided. In addition to the passages that Mohler cites, Paul also told women to be silent in the church and learn from their husbands (I Cor. 14:34-35) as well as implying that women are more easily deceived than men and need to allow their husbands to make important decisions while they concentrate on motherhood (I Tim. 2:12-15). This was the role of women in ancient cultures (and today in fundamentalist churches) and so, one should not be surprised to find the Bible supporting it.

Mohler is correct when he says: Paul is not liberating the Church from the Bible. In the end, that is the real issue. There are Christians who would demand to be liberated from the Bible? Now that is what really should be shocking. That is why I think liberal Christianity also fails. It wants to try to reinterpret the Bible to agree with modern culture and it is simply not possible without tearing out huge sections of the Scripture. The Bible, reflecting the culture in which it was written, reduces women to an inferior position to men. If one believes the Bible is the Word of God, then one must follow this teaching.