If you are new to church you would be forgiven for believing he is given the churches attitude towards him. Paul’s writings are taught in church with the same reverence as the gospels, his every word treated as undisputable fact, to question this will get you the same reaction from many Christians as questioning Jesus’ divinity. Why is this the case? Paul was not a disciple of Jesus’, as far as we know he never met him or heard him speak, yet it is his writing far more than any other apostles that carries weight within the Christian church, even when his teachings contradict Jesus or other parts of the Bible.
Which I hear you say?
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[a] she must be quiet.” 1 Timothy 2:12
There’s no justification for this statement, Jesus nor any of the other apostles stated a teaching such as this, quite the contrary, Jesus was a defender of women’s rights at time when women were oppressed within a religious extremist culture. Furthermore in contradicts many parts of the Bible. There have been numerous women mentioned in the Bible in leaderships and prophetic positions, such as Deborah.
“4 Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. 5 She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided.” Judges 4:4-5
One issue we need to consider with Paul’s teaching is, it’s possible not all the letters attributed to him were written by him, 6 have been questioned as being legitimately his – inc Timothy:
The problem with these letters is, there’s only one of them. The thing that gives the gospels there validity is: there was numerous versions written by different people all saying approximately the same message, so we know that this is what Jesus taught. Paul’s letters can not be validated the same way.
Another point we need bear in mind is: all apostles are ordinary humans with ordinary frailties, this is indicated by the number of times Jesus chastised Peter, the very apostle on whom He planned to build this church (despite it ultimately being built more on Paul). And this didn’t end with the death of Jesus and gift of the Spirit, for Paul’s disagreement with Peter is documented in Galatians 2:11-14.
“14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?”
Apostles were human, they had opinions, not all of these may have been correct, some may have been right for time but not for all time. Paul even admitted this in 1 Corinthian 7 with comments like “I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy”.
In view of that, we need to remember who Paul was. Paul was, before he became a Christian, a religious extremist. He was a Pharisees, a group that was legalistic and misogynistic at their core. Obviously Paul changed significantly after his conversion, but ingrained attitudes don’t all instantly disappear after becoming a Christian. It’s illogical to think that Paul, as a Pharisee and a Roman, did not possess ingrained sexist attitudes towards women – that carried through after his conversion – that had not Christian basis, and unfortunately he has then gone on to teach these sexist and puritan beliefs as facts to the Christian church, at the Romans that established the church after his death happily took these teachings as gospel, because the Roman culture Paul was born into and a member of was extremely misogynistic (see: What Role Did Women Play in Ancient Rome?). And one thing that became obvious to me on my last visit to Rome, that Roman church – from their sculptures to the way they believe in and treat Saints to the way they treat women – is a blend of Judeo based Christianity and ancient Roman mythology/culture.
It seems also seems obvious to me that Paul would never recognise this fault about himself. All of Paul’s writings left me with the believe that he was a man that had a high opinion of his moral character and beliefs. Paul justified himself throughout his writings (eg 1 Corinthians 7 “who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy”, 1 Corinthians 9 and 2 Corinthians 11), he clearly had an high opinion of the infallibility of his views and moral compass. No where in his writings that have been included in the Bible did he say “I may have been wrong” about any opinion he taught since becoming a Christian (though this may have been intentional – to admit fault as a leader can erode confidence in your followers).
Ultimately a Christian is saved through faith in Jesus Christ and by following his teachings, which were primarily about treating others with love and charity, not about following strict religious observances or oppression of yourself or others based on their sex, race or religion. Sexism is also not justified in the Bible, neither the 10 commandments nor any of Jesus’ teachings are sexist in anyway, nor could they be used to justify oppression of women (which is probably why many churches prefer the writings of Paul).