The Naughty Verses on
Women
I should
probably explain the word “naughty” in this connection. It comes from my appropriation of Thomas
Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions. In this epochal book,
Kuhn talks about how paradigms—ways of processing reality—try to persist
regardless of the data. “Normal science”
in its normal operating mode tries to perpetuate its current way of looking at
things.
The problem
is of course that there is often data that doesn’t fit as well with the
prevailing paradigm of the moment. Kuhn
suggests that this data has in it the seeds of paradigm change, change that
will be vigorously resisted by the prevailing paradigm but that may, in the
end, win. For Kuhn, such developments
are not about truth or falsity. They are
simply social changes.
I am a
little more optimistic than Kuhn, but I have dubbed data that doesn’t fit with
the prevailing paradigm “naughty data.”
We find such data in the Bible no matter what theological perspective we
bring to the text. Some verses will fit
with our Baptist, Wesleyan, Catholic, etc. paradigm well, while other verses
will not fit as well. I have dubbed
verses that don’t fit into our interpretive paradigm as well, “naughty verses.”
Here are
some of my writings on the naughty verses of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1
Timothy 2:12-15: