Journal: Bulletin for Biblical Research
Volume: BBR 14:1 (NA 2004)
Article: 1 Timothy 2:9-15 Reconsidered (Again)
Author: Robert Walter Wall

BBR 14:1 (2004) p. 81

1 Timothy 2:9-15 Reconsidered (Again)

Robert W. Wall

Seattle Pacific University

The present study agrees that the theological motive of the Pastor’s instructions to Christian women (1 Tim 2:9-12, 15b) may be inferred from his midrash on Eve’s biblical story (1 Tim 2:13-15a; cf. Gen 1-4). In recalling the salient moments of Eve’s story, concluding with her childbirth as symbolic of a restored relationship with God (2:15a; cf. Gen 4:1-2; 1:2728), the Pastor illustrates God’s interest in saving women qua women to underwrite the choices a Christian woman makes about her public practices: her modesty proffers a persuasive defense of the gospel for those who think its claims lack cultural or personal purchase. This article concludes with a “hermeneutical postscript” that proposes a reading of this passage as Scripture and, so, formative of today’s Christian faith.

Key Words: Eve, women, midrash, canonical approach, virtue ethics, modesty, worship, pedagogy

Introduction

My interest in 1 Tim 2:9-15 is largely shaped by the struggles of women I have taught who have extraordinary gifts for Christian ministry but whose conservative faith traditions have demonized their sense of vocation and have even attempted to silence them by appealing to this one text as stipulating a biblical norm.1 In stating my interest pedagogically, I do not mean to diminish the importance of a variety of difficult exegetical decisions that face its interpreters. The decisions one makes about authorship and occasion, the precise meaning of odd

BBR 14:1 (2004) p. 82

words used, the nature of their syntactical and rhetorical relationship, and the performance of all parts of the composition within a canonical whole are all decisive elements in a critical description of the “plain meaning” of this passage.

Yet, I would observe that the long history of this text within the church indicates that its instruction for Christian women provoked little interest prior to the nineteenth century—presumably in response to social pressures that began to forge a woman’s public identity and her individual rights as a woman.2 The different instructions given to the Christian men (2:8) and women (2:9-15) of 1 Timothy, while idealized by their author according to contemporary myths for a mor...