this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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Knowing the context of this passage is important. This passage is not God speaking to his people, it's the Apostle Paul telling Timothy how to run a church. It is not the Bible nor God saying women should be silent. Instead it is Paul telling Timothy that they should not preach in Timothy's ministry.
Some additional historical context, at the time where Timothy was going to minister, many pagan priestesses held gatherings where they would shout and show skin and attracted participants with sex and a show and Paul was telling Timothy that women and sex should not be the thing that draws in people whom he intended to minister too. He suggested they cover up and hide their heads and remain quiet and not be the focus of the moment because he should want to distance himself from what amounts to orgies in the area.
~former member of the church
This is.. not what the bible says. The bible doesn't suggest that the bible is the word of man and subject to interpretation or waffling. It says that women are lesser than men and should be subject to them and it says it very very clearly.
The bible is most definitely subject to interpretation based on the reason 95% of it is illegible without interpretation.
As far as I know, taking that thing literally is a very Protestant/Evangelical way of looking at it.
Like, I distinctly remember in catholic education at school (since that was at the time my "official" religion) the teacher mentioning this. As an example they mentioned Jesus allegedly walking on water. Was it a miracle actually performed? Maybe. More likely it's just a story made up to convey a message about Jesus since humans cannot physically walk on water and the act of walking on water alone is meaningless without interpretation.
You're missing my point entirely and focusing on one sentence. What I'm saying is that these letters were alleged to be intended for Timothy from Paul and when taken in context, provide a good few recommendations on how to conduct a ministry.
This specific passage is not a directive to all churches at all times or even to all women in all places. This passage is specific to the area of Ephesus where culturally, people fuck a lot. It's what they do and they are proud about it. Timothy was sent there to help a church which had struggled with the cultural sexuality and Paul says more or less "Those people are all horny, let's not put women in front of them and risk tempting them sexually." It was not to say "all women should hide away and shut up." Like it might seem outside of the passages context.
If this is so why is it such an article of faith for most of the next 2000 years that women not be allowed to serve as religious leaders. Your reading is just ahistorical. Ignores all other verses that clearly delineate the subservience of women and reasoning for same.
How other people chose to use the scripture is not within my control. I just wanted to point out the context. I also pointed out in my OP that I am a former member of the church.
Al the books in the new testament are named after the man who told the story or wrote the letters, so yes it does.
But those men were divinely inspired, right? After all that's what I, an atheist, keep hearing from apologists.
Divine inspiration is not God taking over the body of man to write some words down. Despite what atheist on the internet want you to believe, religious scholars are still scholars and do have quite a high bar for intelligent discussion.
Other Christians in this thread seem to think you're wrong and it's not even up for debate https://lemmy.world/post/38611837/20430136
That's not at all what that person said. Also I may be wrong but I think that person is making a joke.
I didn't say the book of Timothy was not Divine Inspiration. I said Divine Inspiration is not God taking over the body of a man to write his thoughts down for us. Instead, Divine Inspiration is more akin to teaching that have God's stamp of approval.
If you want an interesting topic to search around though, look into canonization of scripture. Churches all around the world have different books that are regarded as canon and divinely inspired. The Bible is not as straightforward as any church would have you believe.
In this case you're saying it, not hearing it.
You're a self-proclaimed atheist promoting the worst interpretations of the bible because that's what comfortable for you.
I'm not promoting anything, I'm sharing what I keep getting flung to my head
I think its pretty clear that the word of man is not just like their opinion its the inspiration of the divine. It's not really up for debate.
It's funny, it is in fact up for debate which texts are divinely inspired as all the major churches have different canonizations around the world. Lots of crossover obviously, but plenty of questions about what should and shouldn't be in the Bible.
It's pretty clear that none of the individual sects consider which texts to follow up for debate and they used to murder you for having a different opinion. It is pretty clear that any new found mental flexibility is both heretical and ahistorical
You should read up on the concept of the Canon. They are part of the New Testament, which is part of the Bible, which is Scripture. This is objective fact. There is no slinking away from that even if the words may disturb you.
No. It's subjective labeling far removed from facts.
Scripture does not mean word of god. It just means a bunch of dudes in 325 C.E. decided that they thought that should be considered truth.
So you're telling me we could have had a timeline where sunday's mass would essentially be a strip show?
So why are there directives on how to run a church in the official doctrine of this religion? If they're only meant to be relevant to Timothy, shouldn't they have been cut with the rest of the apocrypha?
Indeed, it is not apocryphal, but canon. It is part of scripture and god's word, regardless of who said it in the text.
Canon is still not god's word. At least not in christianity and judaism. Its still peoples' words except for a few sentences of the old testament or except for when Jesus is speaking in the gospels (who is still not the Father). Islam might be different.
B/c the religion was invented by people who run churches.
It seems pretty obvious from the context that the quote is about dis/allowing disruptions during church.
So then the correct interpretation is that women are not to speak over men, at least in matters within the domain of the faith? And as such the OP stands at face value, no?
Because the overall letters do actually inform how to run a church in context. I.e. don't use sex and sex appeal to attract attention for your church.
Ah, I read you as saying that the verse is to be taken as only relevant to Timothy. If it does indeed inform how to run Christian churches as part of the official Word, they should be followed, no?
Or is the argument that they only inform overall sect marketing strategy, just as Leviticus should only pertain if you're to enter a church? (As it was God's commands for Israelites to be in the presence of God)
(Let's set aside the discussion on how to interpret context, as each denomination seem to have their own and seldom any actual historical methodology in how to form that context.)
The verse is meant to be taken, as with all things in literature, in context, to be applied to how to conduct a ministry. This passage is to say that if your ministry is in a place that sexualizes women culturally and that is a distraction for your congregation, do not sexualize women in a way that would distract them from your message. It is applicable to people other than Timothy, but the letter alleges to be written for Timothy in Ephesus originally.
Now you're just re-asserting your point.
Let's not talk in circles and just end this interaction here.
That is disingenous, because the Pauline epistles are definitely part of canonical bible scripture in almost all denominations, and has been used as such by Christians as well in the past.
It's more disingenuous to take quotes out of context.
And no christian has any obligation to bow down to paul. They're not paulians.
I'm a strong atheist but I really hate when people cherry pick bible verses to support an argument either for or against.
It's stupid when Christians do it and it's stupid when we do it.
It's not even that it's a bad argument technique, which it is, it's something exclusively done in bad faith to attempt to dunk on someone who isn't going to interpret it that way anyway.
By the time people are pulling out Bible verses the entire exchange has turned into a dick measuring contest from which nothing will be gained.
It's not a bad argument technique to pull out the actual primary document and examine it. You can take small portions of a document in a fair minded fashion and examine it without deliberately being misleading or taking it out of context.
"You can take small portions of a document in a fair minded fashion and examine it without deliberately being misleading or taking it out of context."
This is literally what's happening here though, there's a whole ass comment explaining this quote is out of context that I responded to originally.
The explanation is bubkis historical re-imagining like when the media sane washes the babble that comes out of Trump's mouth. He'll spend 15 minutes babbling about how he thinks magnets work and they report hurr durr somewhere in there he said lower taxes.
It is not historical reimagining to explain what the context of this letter is. Timothy was sent to Ephesus to help the church there which was struggling with the people due to the church's opposing position on several things that were culturally relevant to the Ephesians, like sex, monogamy, and prostitution. Paul, allegedly, wrote the Timothy letters to him at this time with this context in mind.
You aren't being fair minded about it or examining it in context.
That's unfortunately most interactions I've had on reddit and Lemmy.
I think most people just want to comment to be right about something rather than communicate anything valuable.
It's sad because they aren't curious about nuance and polarize it instantly. So it's impossible to reorient to those more interesting qualities. Doing so is a rhetorical mistake. So we're left with not leaving a comment or engaging in an unnecessarily polarized discussion.
every christian believes they live by the bible, which they fortunately don't, actually
also faith is supported by the existence ilof the "perfect", god-inspired text, if we can show it is neither, we shake the foundations that religion relies on
"if we can show it is neither"
Not to be a dick but you fundamentally don't understand religious people because ignoring what's obviously in front of you is the core "faith" these people talk endlessly about.
You can't logically disprove religion because it's not a logical phenomenon.
You're arguing with someone's personal interpretation of the Bible when you argue the Bible with religious people, they have no objectivity to leverage.
That's why I really don't like using Bible quotes, it's just indulging in delusion to attempt to disprove delusion.
You rarely convince christians or any other sort of fanatic you argue with them for the peanut gallery to create a pervasive sense that among smart people its a joke so that a few people should ultimately decide to laugh instead of being the butt of it.
It is on the overall working. Religious nones are a growing group and atheism is slightly more acceptable. Once nearly all were Christians. We are down to 62% of the pop and the youngest gen is 48%.
I'm not saying it will work on everyone, but the fewer "supporting" arguments people have, the more questions they will not be able to reflexively dismiss
and i'm basing this on myself, i used to be fairly religious, although i was on a "we don't know what god really is, and the bible is not fully literal" level, so i didn't have a problem with texts like this
In your own words, what is faith?
In mine:
There's no shot at converting these people because they already decided the outcome of any logical argument put before them.
To them each incongruous fact is just a weird shaped puzzle piece that'll fit their world view no matter how contrived.
It's why cult deprogramming is so incredibly difficult.
That is hard to believe and sound more like a post hoc rationalisation. Did you get this context from a good source, or was it a partial one, like a christian minister?
Ancient Ephesus was known for its cultural sexual deviancy. That's not particularly in dispute. It's kinda the whole reason Paul sent Timothy there in the first place. The church there was struggling because of its position on sex and monogamous marriage. That position was in opposition to the culture of sexual deviancy. Timothy was sent to help the church there. Paul, allegedly, wrote the Timothy letters to help guide Timothy.
Much of this is in question for actual historical accuracy, but that's the proposed reason for the letters to Timothy in the Bible. Even if fictional, that's the context of the letters.
Most modern scholars consider this epistle to have been written after Paul's death, although a small and declining number of scholars still argue for Pauline authorship.
Since it claims to be written by Paul it ought to be called a forgery.
That is basically the entirety of the bible though.
Wasn't practische the whole of the current Bible version written in something like 300 C.E.? The older books that have been found, like the Dead Sea Scrolls havent made it into the bible.
No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible
Though I just noticed that you said "version". As I understand there ARE some changes that could have been that late. Like the insertion of the story containing "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (the woman taken in adultery), and the Johannine comma (a small comment expounding on the trinity).