Osiek and Balch on Household Codes

In a previous post I note Craig Keener's take on household codes in antiquity and his interpretation of Ephesians 5.21-33. Keener clearly highlights the discontinuity between the secular Haustafeln and Ephesians 5.

Carolyn Osiek and David L. Balch, in Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (1997), do just the opposite: they seek and find continuity between the codes of the Greeks and Romans and those in the Colossians and Ephesians, while finding much discontinuity between the authentic Pauline letters and those that are pseudonymous. To highlight these points I want to provide several quotes from their study. While the words of this first quote are particularly directed at Colossians 3.18-4.1, they are relevant for Ephesians 5:

Colossians is probably the earliest deutero-Pauline letter written in Paul's name. In great contrast to the leadership of women and their active participation in the worship of early Pauline assemblies, this pseudonymous letter assimilates Pauline household values to Aristotelian politics. The structure of the household code in 3:18-4:1 with its (1) three pairs, (2) related reciprocally, (3) emphasizing three domestic groups' (wives, children, slaves) subordination to the paterfamilias in his three roles (husband, father, master -- the same male) is ultimately dependent on Aristotle's sociological description and philosophical/political justification of Greek domestic life. "The primary and smallest parts of the household are master and slave, and husband and wife, father and children...There is also a department...called the art of getting wealth." [Aristotle, Pol. I 1253b 7-8, 12-14] Aristotle is primarily concerned to order the relationship between each of these pairs as that between ruler and subordinate, the same primary concern reflected centuries later when the deutero-Pauline letters emphasize these three pairs of relationships, a domestic political structure absent from the earlier, authentic Pauline letters. (119)

About a paragraph later, they continue:

This structured domestic code [as found in Colossians] has its origin in Aristotle, but the ethic was reinforced by Emperor Augustus. According to Dio Cassius, Octavian called on his soldiers "to conquer and rule all mankind, to allow no woman to make herself equal to a man." [Dio Cassius, Roman History 50.28.3]...Further, Augustus's politics former the social psychology of the time; the competition, hierarchy, and patriarchy of Roman imperial society were internalized by individuals and groups. (119)

Later they describe the time period of the deutero-Pauline literature and the sociological realities thereof:

As eschatological urgency wanes and the church acculturates socially, the social reversals that Jesus and Paul's eschatological thought had hoped for disappear... (120).

Lastly, writing now specifically about Ephesians 5.21-33, they state:

As Colossians expands the slave/master exhortations, so Ephesians emphasizes the wife/husband pair, which the author interprets in light of Christ's relationship to the church, cementing the inferior position of the wife christologically. (121)

As I believe has been fairly obvious, Osiek and Balch forcefully express that Colossians and Ephesians come more into line with Aristotelian thought, whereas Jesus and Paul had granted more freedom and equality to wives, children, and slaves. I, however, think that the case has been overstated because there is plenty of room in Ephesians 5.21-33 to see not only significant discontinuity with the Greco-Roman household codes but also an important weakening of wifely submission and husbandly authority.

I believe that Keener would respond Osiek and Balch in this way:

While such a view [as theirs] has some evidence to support it, it rests on two hypotheses requiring proof: first, that the latter canonical Pauline writings are not genuine, and second, a particular reading of these letters...[Regarding the latter point:] The text of Ephesians itself actually does not support the contention that its writer has become more chauvinistic than the Paul of the earlier letters. (Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, "Man and Woman," [1993] 587-588)

I sympathize with Keener extensively. I have argued elsewhere that to read Ephesians 5 as a support for imposing strict subordination on wives is not supported by the imagery used there.

To conclude, while I appreciate Osiek and Balch's work and I am happy that they pointed me to some good primary source material on this subject, I think that they fail to allow the author of Ephesians to say what he was trying to say: namely, that husbands and wives should each put the interests of the other before that of their own.

One last thing, thanks to Chris and Tim for linking to my last post!

Click here to read other posts that I have written on this issue.

Craig Keener on Ephesians 5

After writing three posts on this subject already, I would have to be crazy to write another one...right? The answer is a hardy "YES!" The reason for this post are the thoughtful comments that Chris Spinks made to my last post, which you can read here. He rightly notes the following: "I think the whole discussion of metaphors would be much stronger if we looked at the role of husbands and wives in the first century." I am in complete agreement with Chris on this. He continued by pointing out that the injunctions to wives would not have been that shocking to the reader of Ephesians, but that those to the husbands most certainly would have. The latter statement seems self evident, but somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I have a vague recollection of a professor somewhere saying that Paul's words to women were quite freeing too.

So in light of Chris's comments and my poor memory, I turned to the ever-trustworthy Dictionary of Paul and His Letters. I perused several of the articles, including "Marriage and Divorce, Adultery and Incest," "Households and Household Codes," and "Ephesians, Letter to the." However, the most beneficial article had to be "Man and Woman," which was written by Craig S. Keener (583-592). I found it to be especially helpful with regard to Chris' injunction for me to exam the first-century roles of husbands and wives.

In subsection 3, "Paul* and Wives' Submission," Keener begins by pointing out that "Women nowhere [in the first century] enjoyed the social freedom recognized as their right today" (587). He then cites several examples of patriarchal language in Sirach, the Mishnah, Josephus, Philo, and Plutarch. Keener offers a helpful summary: "The wife's quiet submission was viewed as one of her greatest virtues throughout Greco-Roman antiquity (e.g., Sir 26.14-16, 30.19; Greek marriage contracts)" (587).

He then continues by stating that men in Greek society usually married in their thirties to girls "just entering puberty" (587). The result of this age differential was that husbands did not often few their wives as intellectually stimulating. However, "the situation was not this dismal throughout the Empire of Paul's day, and tomb inscriptions testify to an abundance of genuine love between husbands and wives" (587). However, the social setting of ancient males was not an easy thing to overcome: "the very structures of ancient society militated against husbands perceiving their wives as potential equals" (587).

These "structures of ancient society" are often expressed in what have come to be called household codes, of which Ephesians 5-6 is an example (German: Haustafeln). These codes have been in circulation from at least the time of Aristotle and serve to instruct "their male readers how to govern wives and other members of the household properly" (587). During the first two centuries the Romans found reasons to look down upon Eastern religions such as that of the Judeans and the cult of Isis. The Romans apparently thought that these groups were misleading women converts, which brought about "severe reprisals from the government (Tacitus Ann. 2.85; Josephus Ant. 18.3.4 §§ 64-80)" (587). This pressure resulted in these Eastern groups writing their own household codes in order "to prove that they were not subversive to tradition Roman family values after all" (587).

Turning his discussion now to Ephesians 5.22-33, Keener elucidates upon the fullest expression of the Pauline Haustafeln. Like many others of his day, Paul included a household code that adhered to the three-tier structure of Roman subservients: wives, children, and slaves. Paul also continued the social norm by calling on these groups to submit to the male householder. However, "Paul significantly adapts the list" (588). He calls for the head of the household to also submit "and the distinction between his view and the more usual ancient injunction that the householder govern should have been clear to ancient readers" (588). Keener offers four examples of how Paul's household code was different than the common one extant in Roman culture.

First, as is often pointed out, this Hastafeln starts out in an odd way -- with a call for mutual submission (5.21). This idea, "if pressed literally, goes beyond virtually all other extant writers from antiquity" (588).

Second, "the duties are listed as reciprocal duties" (588). According to Keener, most household codes only include instruction to the paterfamilias about how to govern his subservients; Paul included instructions to wives, children, and slaves. In fact, the householder is not told how to govern at all, but is instead told only to love his wife, etc. "This is hardly the language of the common household code...The wife, children, and slaves are to regulate the own submission voluntarily" (588).

Third, Paul does not list the duties that come with submission. This could have allowed an ancient reader "to read a wife's submission as meaning all that it could mean in that culture--which...involves considerably more subordination that any modern Christian interpreters would apply to women today" (588). Interestingly, Paul does provide some insight into what he means by "submit" -- in 5.33 the wife is told to "respect" her husband, thus weakenening wifely submission considerably. In fact, "Paul's view of women's subordination even in this social situation could not be much weaker than it is" (588).

Fourth, Keener notes that the "as to the Lord" qualification provided by Paul is decisive. This sort of submission was certainly not the kind that was widely practiced in the ancient world; however, "Paul does call on wives and slaves in his culture to submit in some sense" (588). This does not mean, therefore, that Paul approved of the patriarchal structures of his day -- quite the opposite. Paul's household code was nothing like that of the prevailing culture.

Keener concludes with the following claim: "Indeed, given Paul's weak definition of the wife's submission as "respect" (Eph 5.33; see above), it appears that Paul advocated her submission in only a limited manner even for his own social situation" (588).

Thus, it not only appears that the statements in Ephesians 5 to the husband were revolutionary, but that all of Ephesians 5:21-33 would have been shocking to ancient ears. Moreover, I think that it is important to note that Keener did not choose to translate hupatassō as anything other than "submit." He did, however, conclude that the definition of submission was highly qualified by the context provided by Ephesians 5-6, particularly the choice of the word "respect" in 5.33.

I wish now that I had done this sort of investigation prior to my previous posts on submission. Perhaps I have been guilty of not doing "the careful work of faithful exegesis," to quote myself. Either way, I do feel that much of what I found in Keener supports my ideas about Ephesians 5: specifically the preservation of the word "submit" and the reciprocal relationship that is in view there.


* - The authorship of Ephesians is highly debated. However, Keener consistently refers to Ephesians' author as Paul and for simplicity's sake I will do likewise in my summary of his thoughts.

Click here to read other post that I have written on this issue.