Suzanne points to a post from Emerson and Sarah Eggerich that on the one hand supports the idea that there is a relative difference in men and women in which women are the "weaker vessel" in 1 Peter 3:7. The assertion continues to make the rather absurd claim that this idea is correspondent to contemporary ideas of social equality between male and female genders. This attempt to reconcile a framework that defines the social roles of women and men in the ancient Near and Middle East is striking in its level of dishonesty and error with the text and its appropriate application to contemporary social structures. I offer a few quotes that illustrate key flaws followed by brief comment.
"Because of the description of the wife as "weaker" some feminists dismiss the legitimacy of the Bible. To them, the Bible errors. The Bible deviates from truth when implying a husband is the stronger sex."
1) The idea even that inerrancy implies immutability of how the text ought to be lived is ignorantly naive. The history of the church bears this out as the center shifted from near-east Jew, to medieval scholastic, to American revivalist and now a distinctly Asian flavored center we have only begun to accept and analyze. Because we have the freedom to reject flawed social structures from that time and place and replace them with social structures that might indeed be more fitting with the witness of the Gospel (and indeed as a human race have done so perhaps thousands of times over) does not entail a wholesale rejection of the Bible. Thus we can even argue the text is inerrant, even if we reject certain structures to which the text bears witness. Slavery is a clear example as is the equal treatment of people of color.
"In using the word "weaker" he is making a comparative statement not a qualitative statement"…"To Peter the wife is weaker to her husband in only two areas. In the first area, when the husband refuses to live with his wife in an understanding way since she is a woman"…"In the second area, when the husband refuses to honor his wife as a fellow heir the grace of life since she is a woman."
2) This is a bizarre explanation. It fails to describe what either strength or weakness are here in favor of explaining the treatment of the husband toward the wife in terms of understanding and honor. The assertion further does not explain what weaker v. stronger actually means except that it is a comparative term. The fact that this is a comparative phrase is obvious that making the statement is tautological at best. It is a comparative statement that is fundamentally qualitative.
So what quality of the human person does "strength" imply? To answer this they would have to agree that it is a clear inequality compared to how post-enlightened cultures understand sexual equality in social structures. Husbands in unequal relationship can still honor and "understand" their wives without treating them as equals. You can honor and understand the social role of the wife perfectly well as a child bearer and homemaker without allowing her the freedom of conscience to partake in any other social role. to call that consistent with feminism misses the entire logic of feminism even in its most conservative dispositions (e.g. feminism is foremost about equality of freedom of conscience with respect to social roles).
"God's Word parallels the concerns of most feminists yet some of these feminists wrongly interpreted the apostle Peter's phrase "weaker vessel" and rejected the orthodox faith. Sadly, some evangelicals aligned themselves with the secular feminists to such an extent that these evangelicals only read Jesus and avoided the apostles Paul and Peter who they believe hold to chauvinistic views. Fortunately, when some of these folks hear what I just wrote, they change their opinion of Peter. They realize Peter espoused two major tenets of feminism before the feminists!"
3) Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is indeed an irrational and uncritical appraisal of the text. It is uncritical because it makes assumptions on many items rooted in a generalization that if one case applies, then all cases must apply. So this is one place of agreement. As for the comparison with these texts to modern feminism, it is another attempt to soften the blow and leads to patent dishonesty. It is more respectable to say that this passage supports the idea that men and women at the time and place of the Bible in general were indeed not equal members of society based on prescriptive social roles.
The logical next step is to either accept this as a stable means of organizing social norms today or rejecting it. Rejecting it does not entail a rejection of "the bible" in as much as rejecting keeping kosher would be rejecting the idea that Jesus saves us from sin. Accepting it is at least a logical outcome of being honest with the text. But producing the lie that this is the same thing as modern feminism discredits their assertion right off since the comparison is flat wrong.
I would rather disagree wholeheartedly with someone who is consistent than agree in part with a position that is inherently irrational as the claims made here. The Eggerichs present a classic bait and switch tactic to get a high tension position to reconcile with a position that is fundamentally opposed to it. They either need to accept the tension their assertion creates and live with it, or reduce it to the point of total reconciliation with the position with which it creates that tension. Rather, they choose a middle way to soften the blow which comes out as a naive lie.
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