Paul et les questions qui fâchent

Comment ; " Paul et les questions qui fâchent "; B. Standaert                                                                                                                                                        

Reading the Bible through the eye of critical women incites them to what has become in their analysis " a hermeneutics of distrust." Many texts in the NT and OT including 1 Corinthians by apostle Paul can be used for sexist purposes to build a normative system in which man is privileged. The beginning was already laid in the Genesis story by presenting woman as the first apostate and seductress. In the law of the OT, a raped virgin is a disgrace to her brothers. In the situation of a married woman, rape and adultery are tried equally and she must undergo painful and humiliating rituals. Women from foreign tribes arouse even more fear. Ethnicity and sexism mix in the nightly seduction by Ruth, the Moabite. The representation of the pinnacle of evil and depravity in Christianity is symbolized by the Great Whore of Babylon. Degradation, becoming, nakedness await her, and she will disappear like a medieval witch into the embers of a purifying fire.  - Yes indeed there are female prophets but they remain an exception !

Sexism may not be a synonym for misogyny, but it is a source for implicit and explicit forms of discrimination that keep popping up in paternalistic systems. 

The message of Love ; asking the man to love his wife like Christ is of course a counter element but the problem is that a lot of men have undergone an entirely different conditioning. The unconscious thoughts and beliefs about woman affects their general attitude and become visible and palpable in the most instinctive and irrational reactions. Fear, loathing and envy feeds the need to control her and the pertinent rejection of intimacy and sexuality is the flip side the same fear. After centuries of prayer and overflowing libraries of Scripture, this is still burning in church circles and, in my opinion at least, is food for thought ...