A version of something I posted on Facebook:
So this passed. I know some will disagree but I think there
were much better ways of resolving this sort of issue than this bill.
Sorry, but I'd rather not have my daughters shower with someone with
male equipment just because that person has some innate wish
they were born female. In my opinion, girls'/womens' restrooms were
made for the female sex and transgender females are admittedly not of
the female sex (hence the "transgender" label - although one could argue
about this if they've had a "sex-change" surgery). Proponents of this
bill, I think, are assuming that restrooms are segregated by socially
constructed gender role, in which case it would make sense to allow
socially female males to use female restrooms. But I think restrooms
are actually segregated by the equipment you currently have (that is, by
sex), which has nothing to do with which gender you identify with. In
which case allowing only the female sex in the restroom for the female
sex has nothing to do with transgender issues or discrimination against
such people. There are other ways to accommodate transgender people,
such as gender-neutral bathrooms or shower stalls, etc. that do not
violate persons' privacy rights in regards to the opposite sex.
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Friday, August 30, 2013
Saturday, November 5, 2011
More on Ephesians 5 and Principles of Interpretation and Application of Scripture
It's commonplace for Christians to take the Bible as speaking directly to them - to individualize and personalize whatever is written and read it as addressed particularly to me in my current context (however wide or narrow I may take that). In this, Christians have a lot in common with the early Rabbis (and later ones, I believe) and certainly with certain strands in Paul and the rest of the New Testament. How we read in this way and how we take into account the fact that the human authors of the Bible did not, generally, have me in particular as their direct addressee, will differ, however. In what way we take the Bible to be addressed to me in particular is very important and has ramifications for the theological and ethical interpretation of the Bible. In my opinion, the Bible is addressed to me in particular in that the Holy Spirit uses the Bible to speak to me - words that were not originally addressed to me and perhaps with a different meaning are reused by the divine activity within me to address me in my particular situation. This, I think, retains both the freedom of God to speak to my current situation in Scripture while also retaining the integrity of the Scripture's original meaning. A lot of people, however, do maintain this sort of distinction in practice and treat Scripture as if in its original meaning it was speaking directly to me personally.
Another problem is to confuse description and prescription. Pastors must often appeal to this distinction when our favorite Bible saint obviously acts not-so-saintly, but otherwise the distinction unfortunately tends to get ignored. That the early church is described in Acts as doing things a certain way (or not doing it, as the case may be), for instance, does not tell us necessarily whether that is how we are to do things - i.e., description is not prescription. Telling us that something is happening a certain way (or will happen or did happen) is not the same as telling us that things should be thus and so or that we should do such and such.
The Ephesians 5 passage on wives and husbands, which I discussed in my last post, is a nice case to look at in regards to both the above problems. This passage, as hinted at in the other post, is a flashpoint in the gender wars going on in Evangelicalism today. On one side are the Egalitarians, who uphold things like women's ordination and functional equality in the home (anti-patriarchal, in other words). On the other are the Complementarians, who (at least for some of them) are against women's ordination and uphold things like patriarchal household structure as a Scriptural norm to be followed.
Ephesians 5, I maintain, is actually a difficult passage to use for either side, despite its current wide use. As argued previously, it first of all does not contain a single command for wives to submit - it merely says that they are or will do so (in other words, it describes but does not prescribe submission). But what about the whole "the husband is head of the wife" thing? Well, there's a big debate here over the meaning of "head" in Greek (kephale), which some Egalitarians argue always or almost always lacks any connotation of hierarchy (unlike the word for "head" in Latin, Hebrew, or English, all of which have exactly that connotation). Let's set that debate aside, however, and simply assume for the moment that the Greek word has the same meaning as the English one and here indicates a position of leadership or power over the household. What then?
Well, notice that the language here is actually on its surface at least descriptive, not prescriptive. Paul says, "the husband is the head of the wife as Christ of the church," but does not say "the husband should be the head of the wife as Christ of the church." That does not mean Paul did not think the latter or did not mean for us to believe it, just that he did not go out and write it, which makes it more difficult to argue that this is some kind of norm for the Christian family just from this passage. What Paul says, however, is also consistent with the thinking that, though the husband is head of the wife, that is not how things should be and that such an arrangement should be avoided where possible (ceterus paribus, of course).
Note also that we ought to avoid the problem noted in the first paragraph of this post. Paul uses the present tense to describe male headship. But, of course, Paul wrote in the first century, not the twenty-first! Which means, Paul is not even necessarily describing the current state of things but rather the way things were in the first century (and perhaps in an even smaller context than that even - he probably did not have in mind Native American societies, for instance, in his description - though, on the other hand, he may indeed have intended his description universally - unfortunately the text is not specific enough to tell for sure). In first century Asia Minor, his intended addressee, the male was indeed the head of the household. Both Jewish and Gentile cultures here were thoroughly patriarchal, after all. It is a mistake, then, to see a translation like "The husband is head of the wife" and automatically assume that Paul is saying this about our current time. Maybe he meant it as an eternal truth, but maybe not - the text does not obviously specify the former, in any case. At the very least, Paul is making an observation about the state of affairs in their cultures, but it's not easy to go beyond that. Even if, then, Paul did in fact mean male headship to be prescriptive rather than merely descriptive, that would not tell us directly whether or not it is prescriptive for us today (rather than being so only for those cultures to which Paul was directly speaking).
Take some of the other passages in the same series: Paul commands children to obey parents and slaves their masters. In the first instance, we think this is still a good arrangement and prescriptive generally across the board. In the second, nowadays, we tend to think that it addresses situations where slavery is socially accepted but is compatible with thinking slavery to be wrong. Similarly, the wife passage may be taken either in the same way as the children passage or in the same way as the slave passage - is female submission to male headship an eternal arrangement or just a way to deal with an unjust situation which is systemic in a particular culture (in this case, patriarchal dominance)?
Another problem is to confuse description and prescription. Pastors must often appeal to this distinction when our favorite Bible saint obviously acts not-so-saintly, but otherwise the distinction unfortunately tends to get ignored. That the early church is described in Acts as doing things a certain way (or not doing it, as the case may be), for instance, does not tell us necessarily whether that is how we are to do things - i.e., description is not prescription. Telling us that something is happening a certain way (or will happen or did happen) is not the same as telling us that things should be thus and so or that we should do such and such.
The Ephesians 5 passage on wives and husbands, which I discussed in my last post, is a nice case to look at in regards to both the above problems. This passage, as hinted at in the other post, is a flashpoint in the gender wars going on in Evangelicalism today. On one side are the Egalitarians, who uphold things like women's ordination and functional equality in the home (anti-patriarchal, in other words). On the other are the Complementarians, who (at least for some of them) are against women's ordination and uphold things like patriarchal household structure as a Scriptural norm to be followed.
Ephesians 5, I maintain, is actually a difficult passage to use for either side, despite its current wide use. As argued previously, it first of all does not contain a single command for wives to submit - it merely says that they are or will do so (in other words, it describes but does not prescribe submission). But what about the whole "the husband is head of the wife" thing? Well, there's a big debate here over the meaning of "head" in Greek (kephale), which some Egalitarians argue always or almost always lacks any connotation of hierarchy (unlike the word for "head" in Latin, Hebrew, or English, all of which have exactly that connotation). Let's set that debate aside, however, and simply assume for the moment that the Greek word has the same meaning as the English one and here indicates a position of leadership or power over the household. What then?
Well, notice that the language here is actually on its surface at least descriptive, not prescriptive. Paul says, "the husband is the head of the wife as Christ of the church," but does not say "the husband should be the head of the wife as Christ of the church." That does not mean Paul did not think the latter or did not mean for us to believe it, just that he did not go out and write it, which makes it more difficult to argue that this is some kind of norm for the Christian family just from this passage. What Paul says, however, is also consistent with the thinking that, though the husband is head of the wife, that is not how things should be and that such an arrangement should be avoided where possible (ceterus paribus, of course).
Note also that we ought to avoid the problem noted in the first paragraph of this post. Paul uses the present tense to describe male headship. But, of course, Paul wrote in the first century, not the twenty-first! Which means, Paul is not even necessarily describing the current state of things but rather the way things were in the first century (and perhaps in an even smaller context than that even - he probably did not have in mind Native American societies, for instance, in his description - though, on the other hand, he may indeed have intended his description universally - unfortunately the text is not specific enough to tell for sure). In first century Asia Minor, his intended addressee, the male was indeed the head of the household. Both Jewish and Gentile cultures here were thoroughly patriarchal, after all. It is a mistake, then, to see a translation like "The husband is head of the wife" and automatically assume that Paul is saying this about our current time. Maybe he meant it as an eternal truth, but maybe not - the text does not obviously specify the former, in any case. At the very least, Paul is making an observation about the state of affairs in their cultures, but it's not easy to go beyond that. Even if, then, Paul did in fact mean male headship to be prescriptive rather than merely descriptive, that would not tell us directly whether or not it is prescriptive for us today (rather than being so only for those cultures to which Paul was directly speaking).
Take some of the other passages in the same series: Paul commands children to obey parents and slaves their masters. In the first instance, we think this is still a good arrangement and prescriptive generally across the board. In the second, nowadays, we tend to think that it addresses situations where slavery is socially accepted but is compatible with thinking slavery to be wrong. Similarly, the wife passage may be taken either in the same way as the children passage or in the same way as the slave passage - is female submission to male headship an eternal arrangement or just a way to deal with an unjust situation which is systemic in a particular culture (in this case, patriarchal dominance)?
Friday, October 7, 2011
Ephesians 5 Contains No Command for Wives to Submit - Or, Why Things are Often More Interesting in the Original Greek
With all of my Greek studies, I've gotten to the point where I don't really like translations all that much any more (although it has increased my appreciation of the KJV somewhat, ironically). While I still primarily use the NIV for personal reading, for instance, I would never use it for more in-depth study. It's translations of Romans and Galatians, for instance, are particularly horrid and completely distort the sense of the Greek, reading into it things that either are not there or even completely changing the meaning in an unwarranted fashion. More literal translations tend to be better but not necessarily - the NASB's version of Song of Songs, for instance, misreads crucial sections of the Hebrew so that the Wisdom sub-genre of the Song is nearly lost, resulting in a very inferior version.
In any case, looking at the (in)famous "wives and husbands" passage in Ephesians 5, a favorite at weddings (well, more conservative ones at least), one finds something somewhat different from what winds up in most English translations. Most treat verse 21 as a command for everyone to submit to one another and then move on in 22 to a command for wives to submit to husbands, and then a rule to the effect that this is how things ought to be in verse 24. The thing is, in the Greek none of these commands, "should"s or "ought"s show up in the Greek. Sure, "submit" words show up, but none are in the Imperative mood - which is what is used in Greek to make commands (there are no modal or "ought" words either).
What is found instead is a full complex sentence in verse 18, ending with a command to be filled with the Spirit. What follows in 19-21 are a string of phrases built around a series of participles (think "-ing" words like "singing" or "submitting"). The ESV has a fairly decent literal translation of 19-21:
19addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Verse 21, then, contains a participle, not an imperative. All these phrases are attached to a clause with an imperative, yes ("be filled with the Spirit" in verse 18), but the participles here are probably best seen as describing the results of what is said in that clause rather than, say, what it consists in. 19-21, then, are telling us what happens as a result of the Ephesians being filled with the Spirit. They are not commanded to submit to each other in 21, then, but the submission is portrayed as a natural byproduct of being Spirit-filled.
Now we turn to verse 22, which normally gets stated in English as "Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord". In Greek, however, what it literally says is "Wives to your husbands as to the Lord". It is common in Greek to leave out a word from a sentence or phrase if it has already been used in the previous one and this is what is happening here - this apparently verb-less expression is actually picking up its verbal element from the previous verse. And the verbal element from the previous verse, while a form of the verb for "submit", is not in the imperative form. So it's not a command. Instead, it is a participle - one that was explaining the result of being filled with the Spirit. So this is saying how things are or will be, not how they ought to be let alone commanding them to be that way.
In verse 24 we have something similar - another verse usually translated as a command in English (e.g., "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands"). But in fact, the Greek has literally "but as the church submits to Christ so also wives to husbands in everything". The second half of that sentence "so also wives to husbands in everything" lacks a verbal element but again picks it up from the previous bit. But the previous verbal element, though again a form of "submit", is not in the Imperative. It is not a command, but a statement of what is in fact happening - the church is submitting to Christ. So again, we have a case of explaining what is going on rather than a command that wives are required to follow.
All in all, then, the Greek syntax seems to bar this passage from being used straightforwardly for any view of women's roles in life. There are, of course, other passages in the Bible that could be used by either side in that debate, but I don't think a very good case could be made for whatever side you take based on this particular one.
In any case, looking at the (in)famous "wives and husbands" passage in Ephesians 5, a favorite at weddings (well, more conservative ones at least), one finds something somewhat different from what winds up in most English translations. Most treat verse 21 as a command for everyone to submit to one another and then move on in 22 to a command for wives to submit to husbands, and then a rule to the effect that this is how things ought to be in verse 24. The thing is, in the Greek none of these commands, "should"s or "ought"s show up in the Greek. Sure, "submit" words show up, but none are in the Imperative mood - which is what is used in Greek to make commands (there are no modal or "ought" words either).
What is found instead is a full complex sentence in verse 18, ending with a command to be filled with the Spirit. What follows in 19-21 are a string of phrases built around a series of participles (think "-ing" words like "singing" or "submitting"). The ESV has a fairly decent literal translation of 19-21:
19addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Verse 21, then, contains a participle, not an imperative. All these phrases are attached to a clause with an imperative, yes ("be filled with the Spirit" in verse 18), but the participles here are probably best seen as describing the results of what is said in that clause rather than, say, what it consists in. 19-21, then, are telling us what happens as a result of the Ephesians being filled with the Spirit. They are not commanded to submit to each other in 21, then, but the submission is portrayed as a natural byproduct of being Spirit-filled.
Now we turn to verse 22, which normally gets stated in English as "Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord". In Greek, however, what it literally says is "Wives to your husbands as to the Lord". It is common in Greek to leave out a word from a sentence or phrase if it has already been used in the previous one and this is what is happening here - this apparently verb-less expression is actually picking up its verbal element from the previous verse. And the verbal element from the previous verse, while a form of the verb for "submit", is not in the imperative form. So it's not a command. Instead, it is a participle - one that was explaining the result of being filled with the Spirit. So this is saying how things are or will be, not how they ought to be let alone commanding them to be that way.
In verse 24 we have something similar - another verse usually translated as a command in English (e.g., "Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands"). But in fact, the Greek has literally "but as the church submits to Christ so also wives to husbands in everything". The second half of that sentence "so also wives to husbands in everything" lacks a verbal element but again picks it up from the previous bit. But the previous verbal element, though again a form of "submit", is not in the Imperative. It is not a command, but a statement of what is in fact happening - the church is submitting to Christ. So again, we have a case of explaining what is going on rather than a command that wives are required to follow.
All in all, then, the Greek syntax seems to bar this passage from being used straightforwardly for any view of women's roles in life. There are, of course, other passages in the Bible that could be used by either side in that debate, but I don't think a very good case could be made for whatever side you take based on this particular one.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Warren on the Purpose-Driven Life: A Short Historical Write-Up
Rick Warren is undoubtedly one of the United States’ most influential pastors and one of the public faces of mainstream Evangelicalism. He and his church have had a huge impact on congregations across the country – and now across the world – through their ministries, in particular through the book The Purpose Driven Life and the small group curriculum/church extravaganza that it is designed to be paired with. The main goal of the book is to engage people in the task of living out God’s purposes for them on this earth in place of some other purpose or purposes that might be pursued instead. It aims to inculcate a sense of direction and of purpose that can be lived into and used to order the various priorities, desires, and goals one might have in day-to-day living that vie for volitional control within one’s mind or will. An orderly, energized, focused life is the ideal goal to be imperfectly pursued in a process of spiritual self-formation.
There are, of course, criticisms one could make of the book. It definitely is not meant to address every person in every circumstance where they might be at and does not show any awareness how particular uses of language may alienate some female readers, as it has in fact done in at least some instances. Nor does it do a perfect job with its use of (often very paraphrastic translations of) Scripture, though at least some of that can be chalked up to audience and format, which does not allow an in depth exegesis of particular verses in their contexts and a subsequent exposition based on this. At least from a critical view, of course, some of the uses of the Scriptures do not really support or say what he is using them to support or say. In Warren’s defense, however, it is hard to find a pastor who does not fall into this from time to time, particularly when speaking on such a popular level. There are certainly pastors who are also very good exegetes, but they are a minority and I do not think we should expect pastors to all be so (though that would be very nice indeed), since not all are given such gifts or talents. It does do a good job of portraying the sort of unsophisticated use of the Scriptures that we can work to improve and show by both example and explicit teaching how to go beyond.
As a kind of how-to manual for self-formation, of course, people are likely to criticize it for not being something else they would rather have. Such books, for instance, always have the danger of being too self-focused, a danger that Warren admirably does in fact try to ameliorate with his constant call to focus on God and others and to live as a member of a community of faith, though this is admittedly at times lost in a focus on one’s own self-interests (the rewards one can get, for instance, from God for being faithful). This, of course, is just a symptom of American Christians’ often not-so-successful struggle to get out of the bonds of individualism and self-focus that are practically bred into Americans and into their perceptions of religion and the Christian life. We want to know how something will benefit us and how it relates to us and focus on ourselves as the center and focus of our own spirituality or religious path. Religion is a consumer affair, like everything else in our culture.
This brings me to one of my biggest pet peeves about this book and about American (and much other) Christianity as well, which is the focus in parts on “going to heaven” when we die as if that was the great hope for Christians. Rather than the cosmic vision of the bodily resurrection of God’s people and the concomitant restoration of all of creation, the earth and the physical universe included, such as one finds in places like Romans 8 and in pieces all throughout the New Testament, we are given a limp, bland, self-centered picture of getting to go as a single solitary individual to a disembodied heaven away from the earth when I die. Christian eschatology has nearly dropped out of the picture, replaced with a kind of Platonist placebo. Such views, however, are common in the individualistic churches we find here in the West. “Going to heaven”, where this is understood as personal, individualistic persistence as a disembodied spirit in an immaterial realm separated from the physical universe, is seen as the great hope and goal of the Christian faith. This has usurped the classical and biblical view of our great hope as being the renewal of all things, including the resurrection of our own bodies, the hallowing of the physical, and heaven descended to earth. The cosmic, physical, redemptive gospel has become a personal, immaterial, escapist fantasy. This almost Gnostic flight from the historically and physically-oriented view of our destiny is something we ought to continue to work to correct in our churches.
The individualism of the book, particularly as it has infected its eschatology, is the main think I would correct in this book as I find it most irksome. The book as a whole, however, has much to say to many people, whether or not it falls short in all the ways listed here – what book does not fall short in many ways or fail to do everything one might want it to do? It offers hope and direction for a more real and deep relationship with God, realizing one’s divine purpose in life, and fleeing from self-serving goals and externally- or self-imposed purposes in favor of the purposes of our life that have been ordained by God, who is the center and anchor of all things.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Reformation for Women: A Short Historical Write-Up
During the time of the Reformation, there was a definite strain within the religious climate which seemed to have definitely negative views towards sex, even within the confines of marriage, and the body in general. This was particularly troublesome for women, as they tended to be associated with the bodily side of the dichotomy between body and mind or spirit and hence also with sex and sin as well. In part, this may have been a holdover from certain Gnostic influences which crept into the church, viewing the body and bodily matters as bad. But it also may be in part a result of the Stoic influence on the church (which is readily visible in, for instance, Boethius, whose work became very influential in the Middle Ages), emphasizing escape from the sufferings of the world through detachment from desires and happiness being found in what was internal and inviolable alone.
Add to these influences the monastic, ascetic strain in Christianity which, when Christianity became popular and filled with nominal believers, sought to display a greater devotion and higher degree of being set apart through extreme asceticism and self-denial. Reactions against pagan sexual excess probably had their fair share of influence as well. Given all of these influences, it is not surprising that many church leaders, who followed in the footsteps of these very influences and in principle followed a highly ascetic ideal, should at times display highly negative attitudes towards the body, sex, and, by extension, women.
All of this, of course, was in tension with the anti-Gnostic position of the church on the goodness of the material creation, the goodness of the body and sex, and the view that body and mind alike displayed sin (one finds such attitudes in Augustine, for instance, who argued that sex was part of God’s good, pre-Fall creation intent for humankind). One can see some of the Reformers such as Luther making a return to re-emphasize these historic views over and against the overly ascetic, monastic strain dominating the religious hierarchical scene. Sex, body, and marriage are all seen as good things created by God, part of his very good created order.
Things were obviously still not all roses, however. Female sexuality could still often be seen as especially dangerous in comparison to male, the idea being that females, often even unwittingly, lead otherwise pious men astray into sexual sin. The problem here seems to be a combination of a double standard coupled with male abdication of responsibility in their own sexual lives (passing the buck, as it were, onto the women much as Adam did with Eve). The men were not so bad since, after all, it was the women’s fault!
There was an even greater double standard in relation to sexual relationships outside of marriage. Males were not, in society, frowned on as much as women were they to engage in such relations. Women, meanwhile, could be considered “damaged goods” and exceedingly wicked. A number of factors probably contribute to this, including the desire to ensure the legitimacy of male heirs which attaches directly to female but not to male sexual expression as well as the fact that the males were in charge and hence were more likely to give themselves or other men a free pass in this arena than to do the same outside of their own gender group.
If we filter out the double standards and scapegoating, however, it seems like overall that folks like Luther actually achieved, in theory at least, a rather nice balance between the goodness of sex and the body, on the one hand, and, on the other, the realization that, like all human desires, sexual ones can be corrupted by sin and ought to be pursued within their proper, God-given bounds. In the past fifty years, we have seen a much greater emphasis on the former but also, with the sexual revolution, a loss in many areas of the church of the latter. In the rush to be rid of sexism, patriarchy, double standards, and so on, it seems that many church leaders and laity have thrown out the sexual discipline baby with the patriarchal, overly ascetic bathwater.
The balance has been lost (if we ever fully had it), some in response overreacting in the opposite direction, making sex again a taboo, others embracing sex yet casting off restraint, with sex and sexuality becoming almost an idol, thus contributing to the increase in our society of things like pornography and radical sexual expression, sexual peer pressure, the sexualization of younger and younger girls, the breakdown of family relations and the rise in the number of broken homes and “deadbeat dads”, the increase in the incidence of STDs along with teenage pregnancies and abortions, and so on.
The historic balance the church has always struggled with and yet has in one form or another always been committed to, seems to be the goodness of sex and body (and women!) but with the ethical view that sexual relations have a proper place within certain confines. Either one without the other, it could be argued (though obviously many will disagree) is not a happy thing. Though we may argue about which by itself is worse (some more Fundamentalist groups might argue that it is better to have the latter by itself than the former), it would be better to retain that balance between the goodness of a thing along with a recognition of moral constraints on it which is so essential to ethical thinking in general, let alone religious.
Add to these influences the monastic, ascetic strain in Christianity which, when Christianity became popular and filled with nominal believers, sought to display a greater devotion and higher degree of being set apart through extreme asceticism and self-denial. Reactions against pagan sexual excess probably had their fair share of influence as well. Given all of these influences, it is not surprising that many church leaders, who followed in the footsteps of these very influences and in principle followed a highly ascetic ideal, should at times display highly negative attitudes towards the body, sex, and, by extension, women.
All of this, of course, was in tension with the anti-Gnostic position of the church on the goodness of the material creation, the goodness of the body and sex, and the view that body and mind alike displayed sin (one finds such attitudes in Augustine, for instance, who argued that sex was part of God’s good, pre-Fall creation intent for humankind). One can see some of the Reformers such as Luther making a return to re-emphasize these historic views over and against the overly ascetic, monastic strain dominating the religious hierarchical scene. Sex, body, and marriage are all seen as good things created by God, part of his very good created order.
Things were obviously still not all roses, however. Female sexuality could still often be seen as especially dangerous in comparison to male, the idea being that females, often even unwittingly, lead otherwise pious men astray into sexual sin. The problem here seems to be a combination of a double standard coupled with male abdication of responsibility in their own sexual lives (passing the buck, as it were, onto the women much as Adam did with Eve). The men were not so bad since, after all, it was the women’s fault!
There was an even greater double standard in relation to sexual relationships outside of marriage. Males were not, in society, frowned on as much as women were they to engage in such relations. Women, meanwhile, could be considered “damaged goods” and exceedingly wicked. A number of factors probably contribute to this, including the desire to ensure the legitimacy of male heirs which attaches directly to female but not to male sexual expression as well as the fact that the males were in charge and hence were more likely to give themselves or other men a free pass in this arena than to do the same outside of their own gender group.
If we filter out the double standards and scapegoating, however, it seems like overall that folks like Luther actually achieved, in theory at least, a rather nice balance between the goodness of sex and the body, on the one hand, and, on the other, the realization that, like all human desires, sexual ones can be corrupted by sin and ought to be pursued within their proper, God-given bounds. In the past fifty years, we have seen a much greater emphasis on the former but also, with the sexual revolution, a loss in many areas of the church of the latter. In the rush to be rid of sexism, patriarchy, double standards, and so on, it seems that many church leaders and laity have thrown out the sexual discipline baby with the patriarchal, overly ascetic bathwater.
The balance has been lost (if we ever fully had it), some in response overreacting in the opposite direction, making sex again a taboo, others embracing sex yet casting off restraint, with sex and sexuality becoming almost an idol, thus contributing to the increase in our society of things like pornography and radical sexual expression, sexual peer pressure, the sexualization of younger and younger girls, the breakdown of family relations and the rise in the number of broken homes and “deadbeat dads”, the increase in the incidence of STDs along with teenage pregnancies and abortions, and so on.
The historic balance the church has always struggled with and yet has in one form or another always been committed to, seems to be the goodness of sex and body (and women!) but with the ethical view that sexual relations have a proper place within certain confines. Either one without the other, it could be argued (though obviously many will disagree) is not a happy thing. Though we may argue about which by itself is worse (some more Fundamentalist groups might argue that it is better to have the latter by itself than the former), it would be better to retain that balance between the goodness of a thing along with a recognition of moral constraints on it which is so essential to ethical thinking in general, let alone religious.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Some Random Song of Song Notes
"Deleted Scenes" (for various reasons) from a 45+ page paper I wrote for my Wisdom/Writings class during the Fall semester at the GTU (hopefully, without the wider context, they still make sense - note that the footnote links don't quite work very well at the moment):
The strongest and most pervasive intertextual allusion modern commentators have seen appears to be with the story of Creation and Fall in Genesis 2-3 (some even going so far as saying the Song is a kind of commentary on it), the Song of Songs representing for man and woman a kind of Return to the Garden where, for instance, the Curse does not show itself and the broken, now power-oriented relationship between male and female in Genesis 3:16 is at least in abeyance and the man and woman relate at least with each other, within their relationship if not in society, as equals – the survival of Paradise through love.[1] Indeed, the garden in the Song (here including nature in general) represents a kind of place of uninterrupted, unblemished intimacy and joy for the lovers (See Song of Songs 1:15-17; 2:1-7, 8-17;
*****
With regard to sexual norms, it seems that in the biblical tradition the norms are very strict on what is sexually appropriate and this is seen by many as reflective of the strict norms in wider Israelite society – at least in regards to the sexual behavior of women (men in the ancient world, as now, were often given considerably more social leeway when it comes to sexual behavior). Importantly, in a patriarchal society, strict sexual norms confining sex to marriage (at the very least, for women) help to instill confidence in the legitimacy of any offspring, particularly male heirs. In addition, though we cannot be sure, of course, how people always behaved in ancient Israelite society,[2] it does seem that human love was often seen as divinely ordained, part of the created order[3] and to be pursued within the proper confines of that order, the wisdom and broader biblical traditions seeing these proper confines within the context of marriage.[4]
With regards to marriage itself, there is some speculation about possible cultural practices based on the evidence we have. The mother’s house and bedroom are related to marriage and perhaps the bringing of the groom there as well (as in 3:4), and there is some evidence it may have been a common practice for the bride to get ready with the groom waiting outside, a scene which we saw earlier in Section II.[5] In addition, we have good reason to believe that, given the patriarchal nature of ancient Near Eastern society, women in a marriage were in social status not wholly unlike the property of their husbands. Marriage in this sort of society was generally, whatever else it may have been, a socioeconomic institution with the husband at its head and the family and its possessions and earnings under his direct control, with one of the primary duties of the wife being the bearing of children which would in turn enhance the family (and hence the husband), maintaining the family property. It ought not to be surprising, then, if, in a work focusing on mutual, “egalitarian” love for its own sake (as we will see, some argue the Song is just such a work), marriage is not always directly mentioned since this could very well drag with it socioeconomic connotations that might distract from the examination of love itself.
*****
Given everything we have seen this far, we can see the Song as at times presenting a kind of reversal of the Curse of Genesis 3, the original exile, and the concomitant shattering of the relationships between man and woman, human and nature, and human and God – Creation is whole again. In ideal human love, intimacy between man and woman is at least partially healed, power plays are gone, and a kind of equality pervades the relationship. Gone is the struggle for power that is foretold in Genesis 3:16. As Murphy says, desire “can only nourish a love that is freely given and returned, a partnership that acknowledges the joy of being possessed by the beloved as well as the need to possess.”[6] The fracture between man and woman is at last, if only fleetingly, undone.[7]
The mutual enmity between human beings and the land or nature which one finds in Genesis 3:15, 17-19 is also undone as the woman becomes the land and the lovers find themselves and nature in their enjoyments as a harmonious unity. Love between man and woman is restored, as is love between human and land or nature (particularly, the
The relationship with God that was broken in the Fall, however, also receives a partial restoration in the Song. The woman as land and the echoes from the Bible of God’s longing for Israel (including the slippage between Israel and its land in the Bible already mentioned) point, for Davis, to the thesis that “[t]he Song is a lyrical evocation of the unbreakable three-way relationship among the people of Israel, the land of Israel, and the God of Israel, the unbreakable connection which Torah establishes, and over which the Prophets agonize.”[10] Here, unlike elsewhere in the Bible, God’s people return his love and longing in an equal way at last – in contrast to previous times, the vineyard of God’s people is now for God and God alone.[11] The one-sided relationship of God loving humankind has, in the garden, become a mutual enjoyment of seeking and finding.
The naturalness of this interpretation arises from, among other things, the slipperiness of the text and the symbolic complexity of the garden and other images in the Song, with its multiple layers of meaning, echoes of the Bible as well as Near Eastern mythic and sacred language, the status of the lovers as types and hence of standing in for any male-female lovers whatsoever, and the ancient view of humankind as female in comparison to God as male. All of these conspire to draw God into the warp and woof of the text, nearly silent and at first hidden behind the scenes, both present and absent as the man himself so often is, possessed of a freedom in love and movement not possessed by the woman[12] but giving himself in all his allusiveness to her nonetheless.
While it may be going too far to say that the Song on its own possesses an allegorical meaning (we, as part of reader-centered interpretation, may yet assign such) where the man always represents God (or humans) and the woman always represents Israel or humanity (or the land), the Song certainly seems, given the evidence, to invoke such relationships and speak allusively of male-female love in terms of divine-human love or love of the land. The ideal male-female love relationship is presented as a lot like ideal divine-human love, not a strange thought given what we saw in the work of Carr in Section III. There is a kind of mutual possession and inviolate commitment in ideal human love that parallels the divine (one can see this, for instance, in 2:16a, “My lover is mine and I am his”, which sounds a lot like “You will be my people and I will be your God”).[13] And like divine love, ideal love between a man and a woman is self-giving and gracious, as one can see in 3:1-5 and 5:2-8, where the woman takes risks and confidently enters the dangers of the city for the sake of her beloved. As
*****
Given what we have seen so far, the contention of some modern commentators that the Song is a celebration of sexual pleasure begins to feel rather shallow. Instead, what I would contend, based on the interpretive work so far, is that the Song of Songs focuses on persons, not simply sexual or sensual gratification or even love by themselves and that it is by doing this that the Song teaches us about love. We see this in the expressions of mutuality, equality, exclusivity, self-sacrifice and commitment that have been mentioned from time to time throughout this paper (which can be seen in verses such as
At least some commentators seem, however, to be thinking of the woman in the Song as a child of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, styled as a countercultural and sexually “liberated” person subverting the stuffy, repressive sexual mores which oppressively restrict the proper domain of sex to the confines of marriage. What we have instead is personal sexual gratification, unfettered by society and its rules. The focus on sex itself thus has a tendency to go hand-in-hand with a view of sex in the Song as unrestricted by standard sexual norms. Imagery of virginity or marriage, when noticed at all, are seen as symbolic, ironic, or used in a sexually subversive manner. So Exum, who says, “There is no indication that the man and woman are married”[16], and, “Although the Song may occasionally allude to marriage […] the lovers are not a bride and groom, nor do they behave like a betrothed couple.”[17]
Sometimes this sort of subversive reading might be plausible with regard to, say, aspects of ancient gender roles (as can be seen in discussions above relating to Genesis), but this may be a stretch with regards to sexual restrictions throughout the Song. In my readings, not much direct evidence was given by these commentators that the couple in the Song is engaging in extramarital sexual relations – this is generally taken for granted as obvious. One can discern a few, generally undeveloped lines of support that are offered, however:
1. The Song does not say or insinuate that the lovers are married.[18]
2. If the lovers are unmarried in one part of the Song, they must be unmarried later too.[19]
3. The woman is treated badly (by her brothers and the watchmen, in particular) in the Song since she is sexually active outside of marriage.[20]
4. There is an element of secrecy or furtiveness to the relationship sometimes.[21]
5. For women, to be equal requires being unmarried and to be married is to be nothing more than property and “essentially breeders” – by contrast there is no submission in the Song.[22]
I will deal with each of these in order.
Regarding Statement 1, to think that just because it does not say or hint that the man and woman are married that they therefore are unmarried is to forget the genre of the Song. Even if they are determinately unmarried in one piece of a passage, it does not necessarily follow that they are in the next piece, even if the passage does not go out and say that they are now married. To defend this, one would have to rely on Statement 2. In order to use Statement 2, though, one must first establish that there is a point at which the couple is in fact unmarried in the Song. Even given this, however, it is not clear that one can make this sort of argument, given the lack of strict narrative logic in the Song. Just because something occurs later in the text of the Song does not mean it occurs later in time (indeed, the Song does not seem to have any determinate, global earlier-later temporal relations between what is portrayed in all of its sections).
Where the Song does not directly address whether the man are woman are married or not, it is as wrong to ask “Are they married?” as it is to ask “How tall are they?” or “What color hair does he have?” If the Song has not made that determination one way or the other in some section, it is indeterminate and, given the status of the two lovers as types meant to apply to any and all lovers, it is up to the reader to apply these types to real life, determinate people or situations. Not only that, but given the shifting roles and blurring between day dream, fantasy, and reality, as well as the highly symbolic nature of the Song and lack of strict temporal and narrative progression, saying that the two are determinately engaging in extramarital sexual relations (even in contexts where they elsewhere do not seem to be portrayed as behaving as one would expect a married or betrothed couple in that society to act) seems, barring the success of the other arguments to be examined, to be reaching beyond the text.
In fact, the status of the Song as wisdom, its intertextual relations with other biblical works, and its general cultural setting all seem to argue against seeing the couple as definitely unmarried. And contrary to the assertion in 1, the Song does give plenty of hints and nods to marriage. The motif of the groom calling outside to his bride who is inside which we find in 2:8-17 (and perhaps in chapter 5), the wedding procession in 3:6-11 immediately followed here in 4:1-5:1 by the man calling the woman his bride, the mother’s house as related to marriage which we find in 3:4 and 8:2, and – apart from these – multiple cases of images of virginity or chastity seemingly affirmed[23] all seem to speak against scholars such as Exum who must, oddly enough, maintain that all of this is mere imagery while at the same time taking anything that can be interpreted to support extramarital sex literally. This is not to say that the couple is always in the Song definitely married when they achieve sexual union (which itself is subject to shifting, given the multiple layers of meaning and dream-reality slipperiness), just that they are not definitely unmarried.
Statement 3 is perhaps the most interesting one, but here again we must remember not to take the Song too literally – why take it as almost woodenly literal, again, mainly in those bizarre episodes such as the beating by the watchmen in 5:7, but not in those places where marriage is mentioned or alluded to? The nature of the Song (and the abrupt shift in 5:8 as if nothing really happened – hardly evidence that 5:7 is meant to be taken as a literal report of a real encounter) seems to go against this.[24] The role of the watchmen, instead, seems to be a facet of the role of the city as the “real world” of opposition, sacrifice, and fallenness.
Statement 4 does not give any real evidence at all, since it is unclear where, apart from symbolic role playing, we see any language of secrecy. Even if there was, that would not imply that the couple was unmarried since real, married couples can and do make use of the same playful language and we have not been given any evidence to think that married couples in ancient times would not have done so as well. There may also be a connection to the City/Garden contrast explored earlier, but that would need further development which I will not explore here.
For Statement 5, even leaving aside the question of whether it is really being fair to the marriage institution, we have been given no decisive reason to think that the author of Song of Songs saw things that way in any case. The Song may undermine the extreme patriarchy of ancient society, but that does not mean that it – like many today – intends to throw the marriage commitment baby out with the ancient patriarchal bathwater. In any case, it is certainly false that there is no submission in the Song – on the contrary, what we find is mutual submission and mutual possession of one to and by the other. Statement 5, though, is still somewhat useful in that it does anticipate some of the reasons given in Section III as to why the Song of Songs might avoid always using explicit marriage language all throughout.
[1] Exum, Song of Songs, 25.
[2] Exum, Song of Songs, 79.
[3] Exum, Song of Songs, 25; Carr, “Gender,” 241; Munro, Spikenard, 14.
[4] Exum makes this argument in a few places in her Song of Songs.
[5] Exum, “Ten Things,” 30-32; Pope, Song of Songs, 326.
[6] Munro, Spikenard, 14.
[7] Ostriker, “Holy of Holies,” 44, 49-50.
[8] For some examples and discussion of some of these images, see Garrett, Song of Songs, 261; Longman, Song of Songs, 155, 218; Pope, Song of Songs, 683;
[9] Dealing with the theme of the brothers would go beyond the focus texts of this paper, but their symbolic value, which is perhaps related to sexual or social control, need not be taken as implying any impropriety on the part of the woman. The texts in the previous note have some relevance to this question – as does, ironically, Exum, Song of Songs, 106!
[10] Murphy, Song of Songs, 102.
[11] Longman, Song of Songs, 65-66; Murphy, Song of Songs, 102-103; Ostriker, “Holy of Holies,” 45.
[12] Davis, Proverbs, 235-236. See also the extended discussions in Davis, “Romance.”
[13] With Exum, Song of Songs, 128-130; Fox, Egyptian Love Songs; Garrett, “Song of Songs,” 160-161; and Murphy, Song of Songs, 141, I see
[14] Davis, “Romance,” 540.
[15] Davis, “Romance,” 542; Davis, Proverbs, 234, 245;
[16] On the social freedom of the man in ancient society as reflected in the Song and in comparison with the corresponding relative lack of freedom for women, see Exum, J. Cheryl, “Ten Things Every Feminist Should Know about the Song of Songs,” in The Song of Songs: Feminist Companion to the Bible (Second Series), ed. A. Brenner and C. Fontaine (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 30; Exum Song of Songs, 25.
[17] Longman, Song of Songs, 125.
[18] Davis, Proverbs, 233.
[19] Murphy, Song of Songs, 197.
[20] See Fox, “Egyptian Love Songs,” 313-315.
[21] For this in the wisdom literature, see Keel, Song of Songs, 31.
[22] Garrett, “Song of Songs,” 103, 154-155; Longman, Song of Songs, 60; Murphy, Song of Songs, 97-101.
[23] Longman, Song of Songs, 131; Pope, Song of Songs, 392.
[24] Trible, Phyllis, “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,” Journal of the
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)