Is there a “Problem With Paul”? -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 01:4 (Oct 1996)
Article: Is there a “Problem With Paul”?
Author: Anonymous


Is there a “Problem With Paul”?

A review of Brian J. Dodd, The Problem with Paul (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1996) by Andreas J. Köstenberger

Brian Dodd, who serves as pastor of Antioch United Methodist Church in Antioch, California, and as an adjunct professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, asks the following questions of “problematic Paul”:

Was Paul a chauvinist?

Was he a prude?

Was he anti-Semitic?

Why did he condone slavery?

How might he have fared on the Oprah Winfrey Show?

Now the most pressing contemporary issue for some may, of course, be the final one, but for our purposes, it seems appropriate to focus on Dodd’s second chapter, entitled “The Male Chauvinist and the Modern Woman.” Here the author seeks to vindicate Paul against the charge that he was a male chauvinist. Sure enough, Paul emerges, not a sexist, but a “proto-feminist” (Dodd’s term).

Some of this may be a legitimate effort to interpret Paul’s views to a culture (end-of-twentieth-century North America) that is rapidly moving away from the biblical vision of manhood and womanhood. But, as will be seen, Dodd’s revisionist enterprise comes at the heavy price of questionable interpretive procedures and an extremely selective perusal of the available literature on the subject.

Question: what do the following examples have in common? (1) Dodd notes that Paul’s commendation of Phoebe in Romans 16:1–2 (“receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints”) “equals” that of Timothy in 1 Corinthians 4:17 and 16:10–11. Hence Phoebe’s and Timothy’s ministries should be considered equal as well. (2) Dodd observes that the same term, “coworker,” is used for both Priscilla and men such as Aquila, Apollos, Timothy, Mark, and Luke (e.g. Rom. 16:9, 21; 1 Cor. 3:9). Hence their ministries are the same. (3) Dodd observes that, when Paul calls Junia an “apostle” in Romans 16:7, this means that “Paul recognizes this highly authoritative status of this woman missionary.” According to Dodd, there is no difference between the ministries of Junia and Paul.

Answer: what these examples have in common, in short, is a serious disregard for context. In fact, Dodd is guilty of, not one, but at least two serious interpretive fallacies: first, his reasoning is an instance of a procedure called “...

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