Joseph A. P. Wilson - Was Paul Sexist?

[@mistyhaney5565]

I don't care if Paul was sexist, I care how people today use the text to validate being sexist. The problem is grounding what is acceptable behavior on the opinions stated in writings from 2000 years ago, anyone's writings from 2000 years ago. People should be held accountable for their behaviors not given a free pass to mistreat others because they claim to be following instructions.

[@historyforatheists9363]

Then I'm very glad I've been able to give you some good information to help you not give them a free pass on that. You're welcome.

[@ben-theamateurexegete6747]

This was great, Tim. Thanks for conducting the interview. I'm always allergic to interpolation hypotheses since they tend to be based on flimsy data. (Ahem, Mythicists.) Wilson's use of Quotation/Refutation is one I've known about since my evangelical days but didn't think to employ with this particular passage until I read through Wilson's paper. Fascinating stuff! I'll be including this in this month's Biblical Studies Carnival.

[@historyforatheists9363]

Glad you enjoyed the discussion Ben.

[@__.Sara.__]

I agree that it's interesting that some atheists and fundamentalists share the same misconceptions for different reasons! And wholeheartedly agreeing and passionately disagreeing with your guest at nearly the same time made for a fun experience 😅 Thank you for making this video! I love Paul and I loved hearing you discuss this! 💕

[@zimriel]

We find similar agreements between ISIS and "the counterjihad".

[@owlnyc666]

It appears that sexism and misogyny increased as Christianity evolved.

[@AnthroJoe]

YEP. No doubt it did, but very slowly indeed. The change did not happen overnight.

[@scottbignell]

Great conversation, guys. I had not heard of the "Q-R" hypothesis before this. I'd previously sided with the interpolation view, having heard Ehrman articulate it in one of his books. But I can see how the Q-R idea actually makes better sense of the manuscript ordering variation.

[@AnthroJoe]

The interpolation view has some very erudite supporters as well.

[@ecology1st]

This interview whether intending to or not shows exactly why anybody that follows a religion basically needs their head examined.

[@AnthroJoe]

Huh? Why? I am genuinely not being antagonistic brother. I don't care whether you are religious or not, but I am confused by why your would care so much about what other people think.

[@KorKhan89]

Looking forward to watching it later! Bart Ehrman and Megan Lewis did an interesting podcast on the topic a couple of months ago. Really interesting how women had an apparently active and respected role in the church at the time of Jesus and Paul, only for male-supremacist ideologies to prevail by the time of Pseudo-Paul’s writing of 1st Timothy.

[@KorKhan89]

@Bones18 It’s uncontroversial that Paul had a divine view of Jesus. What’s been long noted about 1&2 Timothy and Titus is that they speak out against women taking leading roles in the church, whereas Paul in his undisputed letters openly greets female community leaders. The “pastoral epistles” also seem anachronistic in other respects, such as in the church structures they present.

[@__.Sara.__]

Watching this again 😄 I love your channel so much!

[@davidnwatu2233]

Please where can I get this paper Dr Joe wrote on this subject matter?

[@AnthroJoe]

It is open access. I cannot post the link in a comment, but you will find it easily if you google this title: Wilson, J.A.P. Recasting Paul as a Chauvinist within the Western Text-Type Manuscript Tradition: Implications for the Authorship Debate on 1 Corinthians 14.34-35. Religions 2022, 13, 432.

[@miosignore7137]

About Paul, what is the conseus on the location of his shipwreck and if there's anything historical in the story of the snake bite. From what I read, Paul may have shipwrecked on the croatian island Mljet and suffered a dry bite from a Vipera ammodytes specimen there.

[@AnthroJoe]

I have no idea, but thank you for asking. Do you mind sharing your source for that recollection, if you recall?

[@miosignore7137]

​@@AnthroJoemh I fear I can't publish links. I first heard the hypothesis on Times of Malta by the way.

[@AnthroJoe]

KZbin does hide most of them@@miosignore7137. Thanks for mentioning that.

[@miosignore7137]

@@AnthroJoe yeah, the site has been behaving weirdly for years.

[@reginaldodonoghue9253]

Get a guest on to discuss bad atheist takes on the history of ‘Islam’, maybe Dr Joshua Little.

[@historyforatheists9363]

I hope to have Josh Little on soon.

[@swissrolex9180]

Hey Tim, could you do a video on the authenticity of 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16? This passage is included in Marcion's canon as per Tertullian, so it weakens a lot the hypothesis of interpolation, on the other hand it's hard to make sense of "the wrath of God coming upon the Jews at last", maybe Paul is mentioning an event that affected the Jews prior to the destruction of the temple? Hard to come to a satisfactory conclusion.

[@historyforatheists9363]

It’s not something I’ve looked at in detail. Maybe.

[@AnthroJoe]

I agree that one is very hard to come to a satisfactory conclusion on. And it is (ironically) one where the mythicists like to reject it because it refers to the death of the human Jesus. I think the manuscript evidence is not supportive of interpolation, but the nascent anti-Judaism combined with possible allusion to events after 70 CE are both suggestive of a later writer. This is a tricky passage which leaves me conflicted. Not sure I have enough to say about it to fill a whole video, but it is a good lesson in how interpolation arguments about Paul often hinge upon the biases of the scholar. I WANT it to be an interpolation because it seems out of character for Paul, but my own view of Paul might not be historically correct. Mythicists want it to be an interpolation for completely different reasons (i.e. as part of a general pattern of hostility toward Paul's passages which present a historical Jesus killed by historical Jews). Without manuscript evidence, it won't likely be resolved anytime soon.

[@buermann]

I appreciate how much the pagan-Easter-Yuletide stuff annoys you (have you done an episode on Zagmuk? That was always my favorite incarnation but the sources available to me have been hazy at best) while delighting in rightwing Christians inheriting their depthless misogyny from pagan sources. It's a terrific joke.

[@owlnyc666]

The narrator says NO! When did it become sexist? Who was the driver?

[@AnthroJoe]

The need to assimilate drove it. It wasn't one person driving it. The more numerous the Hellenistic converts, the more Hellenistic (and therefore sexist) it became.

[@jasonpush8100]

Why do modern translations have it say "or" rather than "what"?

[@historyforatheists9363]

Joe explains this in the interview. The Greek conjunction Ἢ can be interpreted either way.

[@AnthroJoe]

It is difficult to say precisely why sensibilities of translators change in different eras.

[@Kuudere-Kun]

What is Wilson's opinion on Romans 1:18-32 being a quotation the rest of the Epistle is refuting? I like the theory that Junia is the same person as Joanna from Luke.

[@AnthroJoe]

I also like that theory, which has recently been revisited near the end of a book by James McGrath, _What Jesus Learned From Women_ . I am not familiar enough with the scholarly argument for the QR case regarding Rom 1.18-32 to have a decisive position. I do see how the language could suggest it, but it would be an unprecedentedly large quotation, so I would want to absorb what specialists have said on the topic before I form an opinion. Do you happen to know of any scholar who supports or opposes that argument has published? I would be interested.

[@Kuudere-Kun]

@@AnthroJoe I had book marked an article on Academia called After The Image and Likness of Philo ROmans 1. 18 32 but it seems to be a broken link now. There's also GOd, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul by Jonathan A. Linebaugh.

[@AnthroJoe]

@@Kuudere-Kun Thank you! I will track them down when I have time.

[@Kuudere-Kun]

@@AnthroJoe Your welcome.

[@Avis48]

Very interesting video. Thanks!

[@owlnyc666]

Paul, The First Jew For Jesus! Paul a Jewish Christian bring the good news to pagan gentiles? Noahide?

[@aiwendilciunio]

While I thouroughly enjoyed your other videos, this guest seems off, especially in the later part of the video, where he covers areas I have a little more expertise with. 'Bishop Theodora' in the Zeno's Chapel in Rome identifies her specifically as the mother of Pope Paschal I in a different place in the same chapel, which she, by the way, funded for herself. The fact that someone changed the name later is a completely different matter. There is no evidence that in the 9th century, nor before that, there were any ordained women priests, let alone bishops. The title Episcopa is to be understood as an honorary title, not a literal one. Secondly, the mosaic of the Theotokos in the Lateran Baptistery is not 'hidden' or 'covered' by a later renaissance painting. Had they wanted to hide it they would have just done so, and the mosaic is easily accesible for anyone to see. Furthermore, the Theotokos is standing in the Oranta pose, which is the oldest depiction of Virgin Mary we know of, and has been used especially in the apse. It is NOT used to signify a priestly role of a woman at all, it is a gesture of prayer. The iconographic type displayed on the mosaic is also one the most established in the iconography. The pallium is an unusual accessory for the Theotokos to wear, but it may as well mean that She is the head of the Church. All in all, an interesting episode, but in the latter part it uses very dubious and frankly, a little conspiratory ideas. I thought you were supposed to ground your material in history..

[@EsraKummer]

Thank you for your answer/clarifications. Regarding your last sentence: if a statement is not in the very area of expertise, it is quite difficult in a conversation to disagree. Is Tim always right? No. Does he have an opinion? Yes. On the other hand, he seems like a guy (read his blog) who really does his homework.

[@OsaSapere]

Not only that, there's also a lie by omission of the very important context that many women in these early churches were rich patrons, that therefore he absolutely couldn't afford to dismiss, offend or demean in any way.

[@AnthroJoe]

The fact that Theodora was a rich woman and a Pope's mother is neither here nor there. It is not a completely different matter that someone masculinized her name with different colored tesserae. That is material evidence for the shift in attitudes about the fact of her existence. She was not some isolated individual in this regard. The feminine use of "Bishop" in inscriptions goes back centuries earlier, and the revision of mosaics to reflect changing norms is documented in other cases as well. The Oranta pose (which is a liturgical pose) is only part of the concern with Mary in that Lateran mosaic. The pallium is NOT unusual for Mary in art of this age. There are numerous examples of women with symbols of Eucharistic authority in early Christian art. The issue you ignore the tiles in the pallium's red cross which indicate papal rank (I mistakenly said it was gold in the video) and which were also replaced with neutral white ones in the restoration, demoting her from papal rank. And the Baroque altar was added in just the right place to obscure the view of the mosaic from the congregant's perspective. Furthermore, the Catholic church only banned the depiction of Mary with priestly garments in 1916, precisely when the archaeological evidence for women leaders in the early church was first being published in scholarly literature, and when women leaders in other Christian denominations were at the forefront of the women's suffrage movement in Western nations. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is merely the fact that the religion is a reflection of the political controversies in the surrounding culture. You might be interested in this discussion of the breadth of early liturgical iconography showing women in high liturgical roles. The earliest Christian liturgical art is gender-parallel (with women and men making similar gestures and possessing similar eucharistic paraphernalia and symbolic objects and garments, side by side at the altars). Oxford UP has recently made this survey (linked below) open access. Kateusz, Ally, and Luca Badini Confalonieri, 'Women Church Leaders in and around Fifth-century Rome', in Joan E. Taylor, and Ilaria L. E. Ramelli (eds), Patterns of Women's Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford, 2021; online edn, Oxford Academic, 18 Mar. 2021), Thank you for your interest. Peace! academic.oup.com/book/39653/chapter/339631027?login=false#__prclt=DxhU465m

[@henkvandergaast3948]

Thanx.. enjoyed it thoroughly