Summary of New Testament From a Jewish Point of View Class - July 31 and July 17, 2023

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We skipped studying together on Monday, July 24, 2023, since Jo Ann and Dan’s daughter’s 24th birthday was on July 23 and Jo Ann and Dan wanted to devote their entire Monday to Annabelle since she flew back from Israel to the USA on the 23rd.

This blog post summarizes what we have covered on July 31 and July 17.  Both summaries are written by Dan.   

It’s backwards but…..

I’m going to post July 31st’s summary first.  (Jo Ann, Dan, Steve, Karen, Odette, Merrill, Dave attended)

I Timothy chapter 2

Theme: Role of Women

This chapter is controversial because of its rigid restrictions on what women can do, beside having babies.

No one present in today’s conversation supported these restrictions, which include:

Women must dress not just modestly, but plainly. Evidently men were considered to be incapable of self control.
Women must learn in silence and humility.
Women are forbidden to teach.
Women are forbidden to have authority over men.
Women, again, are instructed to be quiet.

The reason given for these instructions was that because Eve was deceived by the serpent in the garden of Eden, but not Adam (!). 

The oddest statement is that “women will be saved through having children” provided they “persevere” in faith, etc. It does not explain if that means that women will be able to safely survive childbirth through their faith, or if having children is some sort of condition for salvation for women (?).

Those in our group who attend church said their churches sometimes had female pastors, and did not put restrictions on women. 

We had a significant discussion, comparing these instructions for women with the role of women in Orthodox Jewish shuls.
We discussed the virtues of having separate discussion groups for men and women. 

We discussed “cults”, and the simplicity of knowing what to do when one is in a cult: obey the cult leader. 

It was a pleasant, lively discussion. Thanks to all who attended.

July 17, 2023 Summary: 

I Timothy chapter 1

I refer to Paul in my summary, acknowledging that the writer may very well have been someone else.

A lot of our conversation revolved around what was meant in verse 4 by the term “myths”. Robin pointed out that this could refer to Jewish stories, from rabbinic sources. Paul also refers to those who would be “teachers of the law”, going on to say that the law was for gross sinners (murderers of parents, etc). It does not seem to encourage keeping to Jewish law to most people. He has a passage where he talks of what an awful sinner he himself was, and how he was pardoned because he had done it out of ignorance. 

The main theme of this chapter is a concern about false teachers who contradict the “faith”, which here appears to mean a creed, a set of beliefs.

On to chapter 2!

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