• new year’s resolution #1 - to read academic works when I can’t get to sleep #
• New Years Resolution #2 - Habitual exersize #
• New Years Resolution #3 - Finish and sucessfully defend my thesis #

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• just ran into an old friend from the bank, who had moved to NC, had no idea he was back in town - very cool #
• got 6 offers of things to do tonight from various people! awesome and arg at the same time! #
• gonna have a small [left 4 dead] party at my house after the common meal tomorrow… YES! #
• just accidentally checked out a 55-65 year old woman’s butt…. #
• off to hu-hott for a famn good lunch #
• likes frak vs frick or fudge; is wondering about famn over damn… #
• however, I loves me some “gorram” from Firefly. #
• just started playing Left 4 Dead. http://raptr.com/hundiejo #

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• the CV is done - now working on my personal statements #
• playing the lotr conquest demo with jake #
• LOVES {lord of the rings, Conquest} #

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The following is an exchange between myself and my cousin Quintin:

Honzo: You should come over with Hank after church tomorrow and play some Left 4 Dead.

Quintin: sounds episode V, i’m helping out dad install mom and Dad’s surround sound, if we finish the project i will be there

Honzo: Now that is some "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”!

Quintin: i guess that’s something i’ll be googeing googleing…

Honzo: add in a picard, it’ll help.

I heard you like tangents, so we put tangents in your tangents!

• just started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. http://raptr.com/hundiejo #

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• just started playing Left 4 Dead. http://raptr.com/hundiejo #
• yeah! for getting sick! at least it is just a head cold and not the flu that everyone else got #
• oh man, loving “it is always sunny in phily” #
• poor meredith - 3 months of pregnant sickness, then a week of the flu, and now the poor thing has a nasty head cold #
• get a cold…. nap… now can’t sleep - YES! #

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Paul of Tarsus vexes his interpreters with respect to women. At times he is the champion of modern feminist, at others he locks women back into their cages from which they had been liberated by Jesus. [1]   On the whole, his genuine letters appear to be radically egalitarian compared to the temporally and geographically adjacent cultures and it is clear that he worked closely with women leaders in the Church. [2]   However, his most influential early interpreters, the writers of the Pauline letters [3] and early Church fathers, are progressively patriarchal compared to the same cultures. The easiest and most commonly appealed to explanation of this shift is enculturation. The pressure of Greco-Roman culture which was steeped in patriarchal logic was so great that it was impossible for the egalitarian bubble erected by Jesus and maintained by Paul to be free from pagan diffusion of gender roles. As such, we have the adoption of Roman household codes in the Pastorals [4] and persecution of egalitarian Pauline traditions by the Church fathers. [5]

This neat divide between the egalitarian Paul and patriarchal later interpreters breaks down towards the end of 1 Corinthians. In chapter eleven of this letter to the Christian assembly in Corinth, Paul advises the Christians on matters of public worship, including matters of women prophesying. During this discussion, Paul makes series of clear statements concerning ontological priority of the genders, [6] the epitome of which is “And I want you to know that Christ is the head of all men, and man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ.” [7]   This statement is in stark contrast with the baptismal formula quoted by Paul in his letter to the assembly in Galatia: “Neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female is among [you all], for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” [8] It is however, much more in line with statements made in the Pastorals, such as 1 Timothy 2:12-14: “But I neither permit a woman to teach nor have authority over a man, but to be in stillness.” [9]   Prima facie, Paul is being blatantly inconsistent here.

In the next post, I will further explore problems with this text, including the bizarre reference to “διὰ τοὺς ἀγγέλους” or “due to the angels” in verse 10, and offer up my hypothesis for setting the problems.

Here is the text of the passage in question:1 Corinthians 11:1-22

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you.

Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.  In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.

In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. 18In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not!

1. For a discussion of Jesus’ treatment of women, see Elisabeth Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 10th (Herder & Herder, 1994), Part II. [↩]
2. The term Church will refer to what Paul calls the “body of Christ” and local Churches will be referred to as assemblies. For a discussion on real women in the genuine Pauline letters, see Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Reading Real Women Through the Undisputed Letters of Paul,” in Women and Christian Origins, ed. Ross Shepard Kraemer and Mary Rose D’Angelo (Oxford University Press, USA, 1999), 199-220. [↩]
3. This list includes both the deuteropauline and pastoral letters [↩]
4. Dennis Ronald MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon, 1st ed (Westminster John Knox Press, 1983), 78-80. [↩]
5. Tertullian, On Baptism. in Ross Shepard Kraemer, Women’s Religions in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004), 261 [↩]
6. While Paul is describing sex here not gender, this helpful modern distinction is not directly applicable to Greco-Roman discourse. This will be addressed in detail later in the paper. [↩]
7. “Θέλω δὲ ὑμᾶς εἶδέναι῾ὅτι παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἡ κεφαλὴ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν, κεφαλὴ δὲ γυναικὸς ὁ ἀνὴρ, κεφαλὴ δὲ ψοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ θεὸς” - 1 Corinthians 11:3. [↩]
8. “ οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἑλλην, οὐκ ἔνι δοῦλος οὐδὲ ε}λευθεροη, οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν δαὶ θῆλυ· πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἶς ἐσιε ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ” – Galatians 3:28. [↩]
9. “διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρόσ, ἀνδρός, ἀλλʼ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ.” -1 Timothy 2:12-14 . [↩]

• responding to all the emails over the last week or so #
• back to columbia, the land of sustainable internet #
• need to put a CV together…. #
• just started playing Dead Space. http://raptr.com/hundiejo #
• just started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. http://raptr.com/hundiejo #

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• played left 4 dead with casey last night - loved it #
• meredith and I are off to eat with my sisters and their husbands at what passes in versailles as a mexican rest #
• sat internet is better than dialup, but often frustrating… #
• last night in versailles - everyone can get to sleep but me - restless, bored, and tired. #

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• “left 4 dead” - very fun #
• actually have a banshee for a nephew #

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• reveling in the fact that god acted his love towards us by sending Jesus, who is the Christ. #

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• in versailles - good family, good times #

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Violence is bad, but what exactly is violence?  Is it there mere application of physical force? Is it physical harm? Is it intentional physical harm? Must the intended recipient actually be harmed? Let me throw this out there:

An action is violent when it intentionally does something that denies the image of God present in a person.

What do you think?  For you nonChristians, what would you change and why?

• Done. Taking the rest of the week off #
• just started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. http://raptr.com/hundiejo #
• just started playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. http://raptr.com/hundiejo #
• The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. http://snipr.com/929xp #
• wonders what Return of the Jedi would have been like with the World Devastator instead of the Death Star II #
• dawkins the “literalist” http://snipr.com/92ae9 #
• is sad that people often cop out by said that they are sad about some theological, political, or otherwise important point that another has #
• just started playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. http://raptr.com/hundiejo #

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• last little bit o grading… then I am done! for a week. #
• get to the gym, man! #
• just started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. http://raptr.com/hundiejo #

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Edgar, over at the Christian Alert, is asking for help for a lesson he is preparing:

I’ll be teaching a Christian apologetics lesson to our high school ministry sometime in February.  To supplement the lesson, I am hoping to talk about some of the reasons people leave the Church, stop attending, and/or stop believing.

What reasons have you heard?

Those of you that have insight, either as observers, people who have left, or people who have thought of leaving; why do young people (or anyone) leave the Church?

This is my first real day off in a long time.  I woke up at 1:30pm (after playing CoD4 with Jake till 2AM), milled around, took care of a sick Meredith (poor thing), watched some Star Wars with her, played some more CoD4 with Jake (always good to talk with him), and found some more header images for the site.

Most of them are Ultimates stuff, but I am starting to go through Fear Agent and some others.

Had never watched the show before, but I might start.  The clip actually does not do the show justice.  Each of the hilarities have either better set-ups or endings. 

Also, I don’t give a rat’s behind who’s traditions we have co-opted!  Don’t people know that rituals and traditions are only vessels of meaning?  We emptied the European pagan traditions and refilled them with distinctively Christian meaning.  As long as one is aware of this, I have no problem with this or Easter.