What may a woman do?
The single most asked question of this collection online. It is asked as though the answer were one sentence, and the collection contains a woman judging the nation, a woman authenticating scripture, and a letter forbidding women to teach.
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IIIc. 700-587 BCEJudges · Chapter 4
4 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, judged Israel at that time.
5 She lived under Deborah’s palm tree between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
Deborah holds the two offices the collection takes most seriously — prophet and judge — and the nation comes up to her for judgement. Nothing in the chapter treats this as needing an explanation.
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IIIc. 700-587 BCE2 Kings · Chapter 22
13 “Go inquire of Yahweh for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found; for great is Yahweh’s wrath that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not listened to the words of this book, to do according to all that which is written concerning us.”
14 So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter); and they talked with her.
A scroll is found in the temple and the king needs to know whether it is authentic. The high priest and the royal officials take it to Huldah, and her verdict is what settles it. The nearest thing in the Hebrew Bible to a canon decision is made by a woman.
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VIc. 400-200 BCEJoel · Chapter 2
28 “It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions.
29 And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days, I will pour out my Spirit.
The promise that prophecy will not be restricted by age, status or sex. Quoted at Pentecost in Acts 2 as the text that explains what is happening.
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IXc. 50-110 CEGalatians · Chapter 3
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
From the earliest layer of Paul's letters, and probably older than the letter itself — the phrasing is widely read as a baptismal formula Paul is quoting rather than composing.
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IXc. 50-110 CE1 Corinthians · Chapter 11
5 But every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered dishonors her head. For it is one and the same thing as if she were shaved.
The subject here is head covering, and the argument assumes the practice it is regulating: women pray and prophesy in the assembly, and the question is only what they wear while doing it.
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IXc. 50-110 CE1 Corinthians · Chapter 14
34 Let the wives be quiet in the assemblies, for it has not been permitted for them to be talking except in submission, as the law also says,
35 if they desire to learn anything. “Let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a wife to be talking in the assembly.”
Three chapters later in the same letter, the flat opposite. Some manuscripts print these two verses in a different place, which is one of the reasons a number of scholars argue they are a later insertion — an argument about the manuscripts, not a way round the text.
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IXc. 50-110 CERomans · Chapter 16
1 I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the assembly that is at Cenchreae,
2 that you receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and that you assist her in whatever matter she may need from you, for she herself also has been a helper of many, and of my own self.
7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and my fellow prisoners, who are notable among the apostles, who were also in Christ before me.
The practice, in the greetings, where nobody is arguing. Phoebe is called a diakonos of the assembly at Cenchreae — rendered 'servant' here and 'deacon' elsewhere, and the same word is 'deacon' when a man holds it. Junia is a woman, and is called notable among the apostles; her name was printed as a man's, Junias, in a long line of modern editions.
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IXc. 50-110 CE1 Timothy · Chapter 2
11 Let a woman learn in quietness with full submission.
12 But I don’t permit a woman to teach, nor to exercise authority over a man, but to be in quietness.
The verse the question is usually really about. It is one sentence, in the first person, in a letter about how a settled church should be organised — which is part of why its date and authorship are disputed.
Two of the sharpest stops are in the same letter, which is the fact most often left out: the writer who assumes women prophesying in chapter 11 is the writer who requires silence in chapter 14, and both belong to the earliest layer of the New Testament. The last stop is not from that layer. This volume dates 1 Timothy to 90-110 CE in its critical column and to Paul's lifetime in its traditional one, with the reasons and citations for both on the work's own page, and the difference between those two datings is most of the modern argument. Read either way, the collection did not speak with one voice about this while it was being written.
The passages above are the text, reproduced exactly and checked against the same files the reader uses; every reference is verified when the site is built. The commentary between them is editorial, written for this volume.