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Title: When Women Were Priests : Women's Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in by Karen J. Torjesen ISBN: 0-06-068661-8 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 15 April, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: This book recovers the truth in spite of sexist social norms
Comment: Contrary to what another reviewer has said, women were leaders in the early church. Stating this fact is not a revision to be in line with social norms, in fact, it flies in the face of what most mainline Christians seem to want to believe. The reason he has never read about some "movement" in the early church to have women leaders is that no movement was necessary, since women were leaders from the beginning of Christianity until the religion was changed to fit Roman norms. This book only suggests that we change it back to the way it was in the first few centuries. This is not revisionist, it is reconstructionist. If people do not think women should have any voice, power, or leadership under Christianity, then they are practicing the Roman version, not the true egalitarian religion that Christianity started out as. Before Rome institutionalized Christianity, the Christians stood in opposition to the Roman social norms. Then Constantine co-opted the religion and the Romans gradually adapted Christianity to fit their society. The mainline Christianity of today reflects this Hellenization of the original religion. Our society is comfortable with this less-than-healthy corruption of Jesus' teachings because our society suffers some of the same social ills as ancient Rome. This book suggests a restoration of Christianity that is healthier and more true than the Constantinian version. Another, better known book that also deals with this subject matter is In Memory of Her by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza. If you find When Women Were Preists to be too unclear or unacademic, Schussler Fiorenza's book should be more satisfying as it is very academic.
Rating: 4
Summary: Reclaiming the past
Comment: Karen Jo Torjesen's book, 'When Women Were Priests' examines the subject of women in the early Christian movement, and particularly the role of women in the leadership positions in the church. Torjesen, a leading expert on women in ancient Christianity, is on faculty at Claremont Graduate School.
As women have attained rights to ordination in various denominations (Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist) and even other religions (the first woman to be ordained a rabbi in the United States took place in 1972), increasingly scholars have come to re-examine the role of women in the early church, and have been arguing with mounting evidence and persuasiveness that this is not a new phenomenon, but rather a recapturing of women's roles that have periodically existed in both Jewish and Christian communities.
The question of the gender of a priest (the requirement by Roman Catholics, as in the Vatican's 1976 Declaration on the Question of Admitting Women to the Priesthood that priests be in the bodily image of Christ, for example) brings into question sexuality and the common perception of women by society. When Barbara Harris was consecrated at the first female bishop in the Episcopal Church (USA) in 1989, Time magazine made a reference to her red nail polish--as if this has anything to do with her qualifications; but of course, it has everything to do with the way people perceive the issue.
Torjesen examines multiple sources of ancient data to show evidence that women were preachers, prophets, pastors and patrons in the early Christian movement. Some of these can be found in the Bible itself. The tradition of women as prophets actually dates back to Jewish times: Deborah was a judge, and Miriam, the sister of Moses, is described as a prophet in one of the oldest parts of the Torah, the song of Miriam (in Exodus). Various art works depict women in liturgical stances or settings, behind a table (presumably presiding) or with arms outstretched in liturgical praise fashion. Of course, one gospel account speaks of Mary Magdalene being the first person to see the risen Christ, and being charged to tell the others of the miracle, hence becoming 'Apostle to the Apostles'. Indeed, the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Mary each show a rivalry between Mary and Peter for pre-eminence among the apostles, with Jesus coming down on Mary's side.
Various Pauline letters another other extra-testamentary writings show a strong female presence among the leaders of communities and house-churches--Junia is hailed by Paul as 'foremost of the apostles' (Romans 16:7); synagogue and grave archaeology have turned up inscriptions such as Sophia of Gortyn, elder and head of the synagogue of Kisamos lies here. Where Christians emulated the synagogue style of worship and organisation, naturally women's leadership would have been carried over too. Of course, in house-church traditions the role of women's leadership is understood, as women's dominance of household affairs is well-known and documented throughout the Roman Empire at the time of Christianity's first expansions. Indeed, one second-century critic of Christianity, Celsus, dismissed it as 'a woman's movement'.
Torjesen's better chapters are the early ones which talk about history and evidence; her later chapters on theology, biology (?) and society are interesting, but less valuable from a critical-scholarship standpoint. Each section, however, is generously documented with notes and sources, and the book would be valuable if only for the extensive notations. Happily, this book is much more than that--clear and energetic in writing, controversial but well-explained and well-defended, Torjesen makes her case well and adds valuable material for the defensive of women's leadership in churches today, and much for those who maintain more traditional mores to think about. In essence, if one can't refute the arguments here (and I am not saying they cannot be refuted--merely that they must be engaged, not dismissed), one must examine the basis for holding the exclusive-male-leadership belief.
Rating: 1
Summary: Revising the truth to fit societal norms
Comment: This book infers that there was a time in the history of the church when women were accepted or on their way to being accepted as leaders in the Christian church. The author claims this phenomenon was suppressed around the time the church became the official religion of the Roman Empire (became widely accepted and institutionalized). I have a few major objections to this approach and these conclusions, if you will indulge me.
1. The authors put a lot of emphasis on the non-New Testament history of the first few centuries in drawing their conclusions. This part of history is relatively less well-attested and documented than the history New Testament itself, which they disdain. They are well content to pick out obscure references and build a case, while denying the historicity of the New Testament. They prefer to see the Bible as a misty, unverifiable document, picking and choosing and reinterpreting selective passages to their taste--that is, those that support their conclusions.
2. Other points of view are not represented in this book, other than the here and there whisper of a straw man ready to be knocked down.
3. In my reading of church history, and admittedly I have only a master's degree, there was never a significant movement for accepting women as pastors, priests, bishops, episcopoi, elders; for more than nineteen centuries because it contradicts the clear reading of scripture: "In the church I do not allow a woman to exercise authority over a man." It is only with the filtering into the church of the feminist movement that we have seen a call for this. This smacks of revisionism. Call it what it is: feminist social theory and a rejection of traditional Christian morality and doctrine. Don't dress it up as if the church was supposed to be this way all along.
4. There are books that intelligently and evenly argue for women as leaders in the church, and though I disagree with those as well, one would be better served to read a book like, "Women in the Church," by Grenz than this sensationalist title.
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