Wimmin!

A discussion started over at the Church for Men Boards about the scriptural basis (or lack of one) for female pastors. Actually, I'm surprised the conversation has gone on as long as it has without it coming up before.

Right now I'm leading to the point that if prophets had authority over people, then it was at some point acceptable in scripture for women to hold authority, as there is direction for how female prophets should behave.

However, one point that I don't think I've ever seen raised is on the cultural/historical side, paralleling the whole "Eve, not Adam, was deceived first" idea. In the NT church, many of the early leaders would've been Jews. And in the Jewish culture, girls didn't get the scriptural education that boys did. Likewise, in the Greek culture, rhetoric and oratory were highly valued - but only taught to boys.

The clear parallel to Eve and Adam is that (if you're looking at the narrative as a literalist) Eve was not there when God told Adam about the two trees. We see evidence of this when she talks to the serpent and gets the command wrong!

Therefore, one possibility for the restriction on women in authority is a concern about false or incorrect doctrine.

I haven't seen this suggested anywhere else, though, so I'm not sure if I'm looking in the wrong places, or if it's been dismissed - are there problems I'm not seeing? Anyway.