…Continued from Part B, how the New
Testament era is consistent with this Old Testament teaching and the conclusion…
We read in
Revelation 2:18-21 –
“18 And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The
words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are
like burnished bronze. 19 “‘I know your works, your love and faith and service
and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 20 But I
have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself
a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual
immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent,
but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.
The
similarities between this Jezebel here, and the Jezebel of Old Testament fame,
have led some to believe that this not a similar woman called Jezebel, but a Jezebel-like
woman, that is a woman with a Jezebel spirit. She is teaching pagan cultic
rituals, not dissimilar to the practices of Baal or Ashtaroth, and leading
these people into deep and horrible sin.
But notice
Jesus’ rebuke. He is angry that they “tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls
herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing” his servants. Some might
skip right to the third element of this rebuke, the “seduction to sexual
immorality” for the crux of this rebuke. But there are three elements of the
rebuke: 1) That she calls herself a prophetess, 2) that she is teaching, 3) and
that she is seducing them to practice sexual immorality and eat in pagan food
rituals.
This is
important to note, because the first two things Jesus has against this woman, are
that she is “assuming authority and teaching”. This should sound familiar,
because Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 – “11 Let a woman learn quietly with all
submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority
over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” Paul does not permit a woman to
teach or “assume”/“exercise” authority over a man. Jezebel is presuming to do
exactly what Paul had said that women should not do.
I need to pause
here and acknowledge that there are female prophets in the Bible, from Deborah,
to Anna, to Phillip’s daughters, we see women exercising this empowered gift of
the Holy Spirit in different parts of the Scripture. Prophecy and teaching can
overlap in Scripture, but they are not the same gift. Just because someone prophesies
does not mean they are a teacher and vice versa. Prophecy is often an ecstatic
gift, where the Holy Spirit overcomes a person and speaks through them in a
foretelling or forthtelling way. And no one, man or woman, has the right to say
God is limited in who he can speak through in this way. It is clear in
scripture he will speak through men, women, children, angels, donkeys and more,
at his discretion. It is also clear from Genesis 2 onwards that he expects men
to exercise authority and teach, not women.
Jezebel had
at least doubly broken the prohibition Paul made in this passage. It is
interesting when you hear preachers seek to explain away 1 Timothy 2:11-12, I
cannot remember ever hearing one of them connect their explanation to this
passage in Revelation 2. Paul wrote the letter of 1 Timothy to Timothy who was
in Ephesus, which is one of the brother churches of Thyatira, where Jezebel had
entrenched herself as the pagan priestess of this church. The culture here
would not have been very different to the culture in Ephesus. The kinds of gods
worshipped, the religious practices and the way people lived would have been
roughly the same. And there is no doubt that they would have known about this
letter from Paul. He founded the Ephesian church and it likely had a
patriarchate role in these seven churches. So, the relevance of this Revelation
passage to the Timothy passage is striking, and more so for the deliberate
avoidance you see among scholars and teachers of this passage.
It is
especially striking when you notice that Jezebel has not just doubly broken
this proscription, but triply. She presumed authority where she should not
have. She is teaching when she should not be as well. But what is the third
transgression? She was being sexually immoral and idolatrous in precisely the
way Paul said women should not, and in the way that ancient sex cults like
Asherah, or Aphrodite encouraged them to be.
Note, 1
Timothy 2:13-15 – “13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not
deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will
be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness,
with self-control.” How was the woman deceived? She partook of the fruit to
gain access to the divine mysteries that were offered to her by the serpent: the
forbidden knowledge. Some in Church history saw this as talking about sexual
sin[1],[2]
though it is not taken this way so often anymore. But it is idolatry, Eve
looked to the devil over God, and to herself over God as well. This is
idolatry, which is spiritual adultery. But note that Paul says a woman will be
saved via “childbearing - if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
This can
only be taken one of two ways. Either Paul is saying that women will be saved
by their works of having children, added to by faith, love, holiness and
self-control. In this reading the apostle of saved-by-faith-not-works would be
saying women are saved by their works. This does not fit with what we know
about Paul. Or, the better reading is really very simple; a faith filled
Christian woman is one who is focused on motherhood, and they are the kind of
mother whose faith, love, holiness and self-control are evident. In other
words, he is saying that a Christian woman looks like a woman who does not seek
to rule over men, but who learns submissively, and is faithfully focused on
motherhood. Radical right? Only in the last 170 years. But note, this is the
exact opposite of Jezebel.
Jesus is
telling us that Jezebel is presuming authority, is seeking to teach men, and is
seducing his “servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed
to idols.” Eve was the first woman to eat in honour of a false idol. She was
the first Satanic Feminist in this sense. And this is why Per Faxneld is
showing us in his book Satanic Feminism that the inherent foundation of
feminism is to seek to make what Eve did in the garden an act of liberation -
she can have authority, she can teach, she is a sexually promiscuous agent –
when really it is an act of enslavement to a false deity.
The passages
in Timothy and Revelation we have just looked at are very clear, and very
simple to understand, as are all the others on this topic. But in a post
Satanic Feminist inversion of the world’s order they appear to many to be much
harder to understand. Not because they are not clear, but because they rub up
against our modern and post-modern beliefs about how things should be on the
gender front. There is no end to the propaganda about the equality of men and
women, and that men and women are interchangeable, and can do all of the same
things. How many movies do we see with a 140 pound wringing wet woman
dominating in combat five or six special forces trained soldiers in a few deft
moves? It is absurd. The propaganda is strong with our modern society on this
issue, and it clouds how many modern people think about these issues and can
cause people to just assume the Bible is presenting an outdated view.
But the
Bible is showing us that women teaching in a religious context is not a modern
idea, it is an ancient idea, the most ancient false religious idea really. It
finds its basis in the Serpent approaching the woman, whom he deceived, and not
the man. Why? Because good generals always attack at the most vulnerable point
in the lines, and the Devil is a superb general. It is simply ahistorical, and
unbiblical to say that the scriptures just said women could not teach because
of the culture of their day. The culture of their day, and many before and many
after are rich with examples of female priesthoods. Indeed, one of the ancient
symbols of Asherah was a woman standing or sitting near a tree with a serpent[3],
sound familiar? This idea is ancient.
Let’s look
at another example which relates directly to our passages so far. The letters
in Revelation 2 to 3 were given to seven churches, including the one we have
looked at, Thyatira, and the first one addressed, probably the oldest and most
influential of the churches in that region, Ephesus. This is important, because
we read in Acts 19 that Paul’s ministry in Ephesus was having an incredible
effect on the Cult of Artemis:
“23 About that time there arose no little disturbance
concerning the Way. 24 For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made
silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. 25
These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, ‘Men,
you know that from this business we have our wealth. 26 And you see and hear
that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and
turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.
27 And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute
but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as
nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all
Asia and the world worship’” 28 When they heard this they were enraged and were
crying out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:23-28).
Paul’s
ministry was so successful that he was drawing Greeks in Asia Minor away from
worship of idols like Artemis. The reason this is relevant to our discussion is
because Paul wrote his letter to Timothy in Ephesus (1 Tim. 1:3). As mentioned
above, the Church of Thyatira would have been influenced by this letter, and
others written by Paul, and the background of these letters is being written in
a culture which had no problem with women being involved in cultic religious
practices. For example, we read this about the cult of Artemis:
“The Arkteia festival was celebrated every four years and
involved a procession from the shrine of Artemis Brauronia on the acropolis of
Athens, 24.5 km WNW of the sanctuary. At the isolated sanctuary of Artemis at
Brauron, young Athenian girls approaching marriageable age formed groups
consecrated for a time to Artemis as arktoi, she-bears, and spent their time in
sacred dances, wearing honey-colored saffron robes, running races and making
sacrifice…The goddess Artemis was a danger to be propitiated by women during child-birth
and of the newborn: to her were dedicated the clothes of women who had
successfully borne a child;. The garments of women who died in childbirth were
dedicated to Iphigeneia at Brauron.”[4]
A female
deity, attended to by priestesses, not priests, and propitiated by women
seeking her in the moment of giving birth? You cannot get more matriarchal than
this. And in some ritual practices of the worship of Artemis, we can see how
far this matriarchy went: Artemis,
“recalls the Cretan ‘Lady of the Wild Things’, apparently the
supreme Nymph-goddess of archaic totem societies; and the ritual bath in which
Actaeon surprised her, like the horned hinds of her chariot…and the quails of
Ortygia…, seems more appropriate to the nymph than the maiden. Actaeon was, it
seems, a sacred king of the pre-Hellenic stag cult, torn to pieces at the end
of his reign of fifty months, namely half a Great Year; his co-king, or tanist,
reigning for the remainder. The nymph properly took her bath after, not before,
the murder. There are numerous parallels to this ritual custom in Irish and
Welsh myth, and as late as the first century AD a man dressed in a stag’s skin
was periodically chased and killed on the Acadian Mount Lycaeum (Plutarch:
Greek Questions 39).”[5]
To say, as
many do, that Paul was simply encouraging women to stay silent, so that the
Church would not appear scandalous before the culture of the day in Ephesus is
ridiculous on many levels.
Firstly, the
Greeks of Asian Minor, really in any era, had no problem with women playing a
leading role in religious rites and practice, as long as the particular cult
and god/goddess called for it. There was a diversity of gods, with a diversity
of religious rites, and a new cult which allowed women to teach would not have
cause many Greeks to even think twice about it, especially worshippers of
Artemis, who were willing to submit to rights performed by young female
priestesses. Secondly, Paul did not limit the Church to only doing things which
would not offend the Greeks, or Jews. His encouragement for masters to treat
their slaves like brothers in Christ would have been jarring for the Roman and
Greek culture of the era. This was an era where slaves’ bodies were the
repository for anything their masters wished them to be. Thirdly, Paul tells us
directly that his reason is theological, not cultural.
Paul tells
us,
“11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I
do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she
is to remain quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not
deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Timothy
2:11-14).
His reasons
track back to Genesis 2 and 3, and consider the order of creation and the fact
that the woman was deceived, not the man. I think this is a big point for Paul.
Because he makes a similar case elsewhere:
“11 I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do
bear with me! 2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to
one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 3 But I am afraid that
as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led
astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes and
proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a
different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel
from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. 5 Indeed, I
consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. 6 Even if
I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we
have made this plain to you in all things…
…12 And what I do I will continue to do, in order to
undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted
mission they work on the same terms as we do. 13 For such men are false
apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 And
no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is
no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of
righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds” (2 Cor. 11:1-6,
12-15).
Eve’s
deception is an important aspect of Paul’s Christian worldview, which he
applies to his theology of what a biblical teacher is, who can teach, and what
a false teacher is. His teaching in 1 Timothy about who can teach, and his
teaching in 2 Corinthians about how to spot a false teacher are intrinsically dependent
on how Satan deceived Eve. These are not incidental or cultural teachings on
Paul’s account. They are applications of biblical truth anchored in the proper
order taught in the pre-fall and early fall world and reinforced all the way
through the Bible.
Nowhere does
Paul blame the fall on Eve, rather he blames it on Adam (cf. Romans 5). Yet he
acknowledges that Eve was the one who was deceived first, so why is she not to
blame? Because the man was created first and should have protected the proper
order by rebuking the serpent and his wife. Instead, he allowed both the
serpent and his wife to dominate him, which caused the fall,
“12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one
man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not
counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even
over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type
of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:12-14).
The origin
of the sinfulness of mankind is traced back to the first man, even though he
was not the first to sin. Why? Because the Bible teaches a patriarchal order:
God the father – God the son - man – woman – children. This is not my
summation, it is Paul’s: 1 Corinthians 11:2-3 – “2 Now I
commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions
even as I delivered them to you. 3 But I want you to understand that the
head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of
Christ is God.” We have already addressed this patriarchal order in previous
articles, but it needs repeating: this is the Christian perspective.
Egalitarianism is an extra-biblical interpolation that denies the correct
biblical order.
This is not
a minor point, it is not a cultural contextual point. What Paul is doing is
very deliberate and important: he is teaching us how to structure our churches,
families, and indeed society, in such a way that it limits the damage the evil
one can do. No, he is not, and I am not, saying that the devil cannot work very
wickedly through men. Of course he can, and he has. But attacking through women
who subvert or dominate their men is a particularly successful strategy that
the Devil uses. This cannot be denied. It is not a coincidence that the West
has become more godless, more pagan, and less honouring of traditional marriage
and morals, since it has officially overturned the biblical patriarchal order.
You can
accuse me of being hopelessly outdated in my views, but again see what Paul
said, “Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the
traditions even as I delivered them to you” and then he proceeds to remind them
of the correct order he has taught them to maintain in their churches and
homes. This order is supported by 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2, Ephesians 5 to
6, Colossians 3, and other passages. And it is reiterated often in scripture how
much damage can be done if this order is ignored. Paul’s position is clear, and
simple to understand.
However, if
you accept that the Bible teaches equality, then you have to say it supports
feminism, and you have to find a way to circumnavigate all these texts. Which
is precisely what much of the modern Church does, to its own chagrin. There is
however a better way to understand them.
The better
way to understand them is very simply that they are anti-feminist. This is very
different to anti-women. The Bible is pro-women and very uplifting of women.
Indeed, early Christianity did not explode in massive numbers among women in
Rome for no reason. It created a whole new way for them to see themselves, and
for society to see them as well. It lifted their bodies to being more than sex
objects, or being objectified in slavery, or in ritualistic sex worship, and
ancient pornographic art, it honoured their rights to learn directly from their
Lord, something which Judaism did not do to the same degree, and it highlighted
just how honourable and necessary motherhood is. So, the Bible’s view is not
anti-women, but rather anti-everything that feminism is. Because at its heart,
feminism is a destabilizing force. All movements of equality are; whether
feminism, or socialism, or Marxism (which is just socialism in its most radical
form). Whereas the Bible is inherently supportive of order and hierarchy.
Indeed,
let’s do a quick thought experiment: what would a completely egalitarian
society look like, one where every single individual had the exact same power,
the exact same rights, the exact same command, the exact same prestige and
influence? It might sound glorious, but then add to this society the known
characteristics of human nature. What would you get? Anarchy. Absolute anarchy.
Even heaven has a king, and high angels and rulers. An absolutely anarchist
state would be hell, as Chaucer says,
“For well you know that men call "honour" the
reverence that man gives to man; but in Hell is no honour or reverence. For
indeed no more reverence shall be done there to a king than to a knave. As to
which God says, by the Prophet Jeremiah: "They that scorn me shall be
scorned." "Honour" is also called great lordship; but there no
man shall serve another, save to his harm and torment.”[6]
And later
again he says,
“And Job, also, says: "Death, without any order."
And though it be that God has created all things in right order, and nothing at
all without order, but all things are ordered and numbered; yet, nevertheless,
they that are damned have no order, nor hold to any order.[7]
There is
such thing as the wrong kind of order, tyranny of the authoritarian. But it is
not so much about getting a balance, as having the right order, the right
patriarchy, the right kind of leadership of both quality and structure.
This is why
feminists themselves, honest feminists who are just following their ideology,
and not seeking to infuse the Christian religion with its teachings, recognize
“the term "Christian feminist" is an oxymoron.”[8]
This is why saying
that the Bible is just reflecting the culture of its day, when it comes to
gender roles, is inherently dishonest. The Bible presents a consistent vision
of gender, with men as leaders, providers and warriors and women as supporters,
nurturers, child-bearers, that, in the very least possible timeframe, covers several
thousand years of human history, across vastly different cultures, and several
different regions of the ancient Near East, and parts of Europe and Africa. If
you say it reflects the culture of the day, I say, which culture? There are
hundreds to choose from, and thousands of years to choose from as well. Indeed,
this consistent perspective on gender roles remained remarkably consistent
right across the Christian world, up until about the middle of the nineteenth
century.
What a
remarkable coincidence, then, that Christians just started to realize that the
Bible had been feminist all along, just in time for the feminist movement to
take off. It would be dishonest of me to say that there were not real Christian
women who were engaged in the suffragette movement. Indeed, there were some who
even considered fighting for the right to vote and advocating for feminism to
be different goals. But it is equally dishonest to say that feminism came out of
a fresh understanding of the correct teachings of the Bible, because it didn’t.
It was initiated by an external force that sought to tame the Bible and usurp
Western civilisation to its agenda. And credit where credit is due, it worked,
sadly.
So, with all
that has now been said, we can say unequivocally that feminism was not inspired
by Christianity. It is rather the antithesis of Christianity, a competitor,
that would see the Church bow to it, as the mythical El once did to Asherah.
List of References -
[1] "And
as regards Adam and Eve we must maintain that before the fall they were virgins
in Paradise: but after they sinned, and were cast out of Paradise, they were
immediately married." - St Jerome (c. 320-420) source: http://www.godrules.net/articles/earlychurch-on-sex.htm
[2] Justin Glenn, “Pandora and Eve: Sex
as the Root of All Evil.” The Classical World, Nov., 1977, Vol. 71, No.
3 (Nov., 1977), pp. 179-185, Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
on behalf of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States; p180.
[3] Wilson,
Andrew, “The Sexual Interpretation of the Human Fall”. Reprinted from:
Unification Theology in Comparative Perspectives, edited by Anthony J.
Guerra - (New York: Unification
Theological Seminary, 1988), 51-70; p5.
[4] Brauron,
Wikipedia, accessed 8/07/2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brauron#Cult_of_Artemis_Brauronia
[5] McLeish,
Kenneth 2003, The Greek Myths, Folio Society, Barcelona; pp.87-88.
[6] Chaucer,
Geoffrey, The Canterbury Tales: FREE Hamlet By William Shakespeare (JKL
Classics - Active TOC, Active Footnotes ,Illustrated) (p. 478). JKL Classics.
Kindle Edition.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Elliot,
Cath 2008, “I’m not praying”, The Guardian, accessed 8/07/2021, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/19/gender.religion.
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