Paul & Women Revisited

Crossan (Sorry, him again) refers to an interesting text in Paul's letters - 1 Corinthians 9:5

Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife (Lit. sister wife), as do other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

What the heck is a 'sister wife'? Crossan argues that it is a female missionary who travels with a male missionary as if, for the world at large, she is his wife. The purpose of which is to provide protection for a traveling female missionary. Crossan goes on to speculate that when Jesus sent the 70 out in pairs, he sent them out as male and female to enable female ministry, but with male protection in a violent world.

If it were true it would certainly support our previous contention that women played an important part in Paul's ministry.

Women and Paul

On Monday last we looked at some of those NT texts that tell women to pipe down in church, be subservient and generally know their place.
What struck me?
Actually how much those words have riled me (note my restraint in use of language there!). Not just the actual words, I guess, also the way they have been and continue to be used to restrain/limit/oppress women in their thoughts, words and actions. (don't worry - ranting over.)
We learnt that current scholarship suggests that probably none of those particular texts were written by Paul.
What struck me?
This makes so much more sense of Paul's statements about equality in Christ and recognition of and work alongside women prominent in the early church - alluded to in letters he did write. If we are trying to persuade ourselves that all were written by one author it is difficult to understand the inconsistency.
So, that lets Paul off the hook. How about the real authors of these texts? And what do we do with them? - the texts, not the authors obviously. And why did nobody tell me this before? Hmmm . . .
Whilst this particular issue is one I can get a little (!) het up about, I think the underlying issue of the contexts and motivations of writers of different bits of the bible and how greater understanding of those things (or not) informs how the bible is read, interpreted and used today is the important message for me and is v interesting.
NB did this as a post rather than a comment, mainly because couldn't manage to comment - how do I do that anybody?

Paul & Women

We had a good evening last Monday, where I (the only male) dared to think I had something useful to say about women to 4 members of the fairer sex. For those who weren't there, I promise to jot down a few things that we talked about, but in the meantime, how about people who were there commenting on things that struck you or stood out?