Hair & Dress in Imperial Russia

Sun Oct 19 15:36:35 UTC 2008

Perhaps we are moving too far afield, but Paul was certainly not loath 
to use women to proclaim the gospel.  Consider his relationships with 
Prisca (and Aquila), Lydia, and other women  in his travels.  These were 
certainly important to the achievement of his mission, and there is no 
evidence I know of that Paul tried to limit specific women's  
transmission of the gospel message.

HH

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:
> Dear Moshe Taube,
>
> Irony aside, let me reply: Nope, not joking.  First, I do disapprove 
> of sexism.  Second, the evidence for sexism is there.  Despite the 
> egalitarian stance ("There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no 
> longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female..." - 
> Galatians 3:28), Paul also indicates a preference for the 
> subordination of women to men, e.g.,
> ". . . the husband is the head of his wife" (1 Corinthians 11:3).
> "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord" 
> (Colossians 3:18).
> "Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.  For the 
> husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the 
> church, the body of which he is the Savior" (Ephesians 5:22-23).
> And so on (I ignore the issue of whether Paul wrote these and various 
> other relevant passages, for there are many textological problems 
> concerning "Pauline" and "deutero-Pauline" texts).
> The Oxford edition of the NRSV comments on the passage in Colossians: 
> "This passage idealizes the first-century patriarchial family as 
> appropriate for a community dedicated to Christ as Lord. . . ."  So, 
> to answer your question - "As opposed to whom?" - I reply: as opposed 
> to a (non-ironic) 21st-century enlightened feminist.  In other words, 
> Paul was a normal sexist in his own sexist culture, and from our 
> perspective many centuries later we can perceive that sexism.  If, 
> furthermore, we adopt an evolutionary/Darwinian stance which takes 
> sexual selection and other selective pressures into consideration, it 
> becomes possible to understand why sexism has been the norm in late 
> Hominid development generally (about which I published a book, SIGNS 
> OF THE FLESH, 1985/1992).
>
> On "doksa andros": I was comparing the Synodal Russian with Paul's 
> Greek original (sorry, I do not read Hebrew).  I think you very well 
> may be right about a subtext in Proverbs 12:4 ("A good wife is the 
> crown of her husband. . . " - NRSV).  You have to get from "stefanos" 
> in the Septuagint to "doksa" in Paul, and "stefanos" has clear 
> overtones of glory (as when it refers to laurels won or a crown 
> conferred as a public honor - Liddell and Scott dictionary).
>
> With regards to the list,
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
>
>
> On Oct 16, 2008, at 12:04 PM, Moshe Taube wrote:
>
>> Paul a sexist? As opposed to whom? You must be joking. We're talking 
>> about a Jew who 2000 years ago founded Christianity as an organized 
>> religion in the Eastern Mediterranean. Surely he was as progressive 
>> and enlightened as any other guy at that time and in that area.
>> Just a small remark on "doksa andros". Let's not forget that if we're 
>> looking for sources of inspiration for Paul's phraseology, we have to 
>> look at his Scripture, i.e. the Old Testament, and there I would say 
>> the closest expression is in Proverbs 12.4, which Paul surely knew in 
>> the original (for our evangelical friends: I do not mean KJV) אֵשֶׁת־חַיִל 
>> עֲטֶרֶת בַּעְלָהּ - 'A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.' , LXX: γυνὴ 
>> ἀνδρεία στέφανος τῷ ἀνδρὶ αὐτῆς. Now 'atereth lit. 'crown', but 
>> figuratively also 'ornament, honour, glory'  appears several times in 
>> the OT in conjunction with and sometimes as synonym of תִּפְאָרֶת 
>> tif'ereth, which is glossed  as 'ornamentum, decus, gloria', and is 
>> very readily rendered by doksa. Cf,  Exodus 28:2 לְכָבֹוד וּלְתִפְאָרֶת εἰς 
>> τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν. Could this have been the source of inspiration?
>>
>> Moshe Taube
>>
>> On Oct 16, 2008, at 8:26 AM, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:
>>
>>> Dear colleagues,
>>> Slavianskie drevnosti is indeed an important and rich source, and 
>>> does have the limitations mentioned by Will Ryan.  The reference to 
>>> Corinthians is quite interesting, and adds some historical and 
>>> cross-cultural perspective.  Paul is thoroughly sexist: a man is but 
>>> the image and glory of God ("obraz i slava Bozhiia" in the Synodal 
>>> trans of texts going back to "eikon kai doksa Theou"), while a woman 
>>> is but the glory of a man ("slava muzha" rendering "doksa andros").  
>>> Probably "doksa" is better rendered "reflection" (Oxford NRSV).  So 
>>> a woman is but the reflection of a reflection.  What a woman has, 
>>> however, in addition to her "glory"/"reflection" is her "authority 
>>> on her head" ("znak vlasti nad neiu," rendering the "eksousian" she 
>>> should have on her head) - i.e., her hair.  NRSV gives "a woman 
>>> ought to have a symbol of authority on her head" (I Cor. 11:10), 
>>> meaning roughly, she ought to have the freedom of choice regarding 
>>> her head.  So Paul seems to want to have it both ways: women should 
>>> be subordinate to men, but they are equal too.  The passage is 
>>> obscure, and fascinating.  The OXFORD BIBLE COMMENTARY (2001, pp. 
>>> 1125-1126) provides some insights, as well as the relevant 
>>> historical literature on head-covering in the Graeco-Roman world.  
>>> Apparently worship in Corinth was, shall we say, pretty free and 
>>> easy, and this provoked Paul.  Later Tertullian chimed in with a 
>>> piece on the veiling of virgins.
>>>
>>> The reason for going into this is that the biblical text has (for 
>>> me) the same ambivalent feel about the hair on a woman's head which 
>>> is expressed in those sad Russian peasant prenuptial bath songs.  In 
>>> the "bania" the bride-to-be laments the loss of her "krasota" 
>>> (stress on first syllable) and her "volia."  These are not merely 
>>> "beauty" and "freedom," but items of headgear which will be lost 
>>> when the girl effectively enters into a relationship of "nevolia" 
>>> with the husband who will have the right to abuse her for the rest 
>>> of her life.  See my SLAVE SOUL OF RUSSIA (1995, 193-201).
>>>
>>> Regards to the list,
>>>
>>> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
>>> UC Davis
>>>
>>> http://Rancour-Laferriere.com
>>>
>>>
>
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