Why Scholars Think the Most Anti-Woman Bible Verses Were Added Later

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

While there is no shortage of contentious Bible verses, the passages that appear to restrict the role of women have proven to be both contentious and enduring in modern theology. In fact, verses commanding women to submit to male authority have shaped Christian theology and cultural attitudes for centuries. But what if some of the Bible's most frequently cited anti-woman passages weren’t part of the original texts in the first place?

In this article, I’ll investigate why scholars think the most anti-woman Bible verses were added later by examining several of the best-known examples of such verses. Together, they reveal how the history of the biblical text is more complex than many readers realize—and why so many scholars believe some of the Bible's most anti-woman verses reflect later developments in the church rather than the earliest Christian message.

Textual Variants in the Bible

In the ancient world in which the Old and New Testaments were composed and compiled, scroll/book production was a long, difficult, complicated endeavor. Writing materials were expensive, and the process of writing something by hand was long and painstaking. The process of copying those original writings by hand was just as arduous, and because humans are fallible, many variants arose from one copy to the next—sometimes accidentally and sometimes with a deliberate purpose in mind. In fact, Bart Ehrman notes that “there are more variant readings in the manuscripts of the New Testament than there are words in the New Testament.”

How much do these variants affect Christian doctrine? That depends on the specific topic. In the realm of the status of women, there are several variants, including interpolations, changes in word order, and even forgeries in the name of a trusted authority, which have long affected how Christians have viewed the place of women in the church. Let’s begin with a change that, while it may seem insignificant, had a significant effect on how some modern Christians view the ability of women to take on the authority of apostles.

Romans 16:7: Junia Becomes Junias

The last chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans contains several personal greetings from Paul to specific people. This was a common convention of letter-writing in the 1st century, where the closing of the letter contained salutations to particular individuals, a final wish for health or peace, and a brief farewell. However, one greeting would prove controversial in later translations. The original text said

Why is this specific greeting significant? In Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene, Bart Ehrman notes that while we don’t know anything else about these two people, “we do know that one of them was a woman and that she was an apostle and a pre-eminent one at that.” This was not in doubt for much of biblical history. However, Ehrman notes that

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In other words, some English Bibles, unable to believe, apparently, that a woman could be granted the title of “apostle,” changed the name from female to male. How do we know that Junia was a woman in Paul’s original writing?

First, while Junia was a fairly common woman’s name in the 1st-century Roman Empire, Junias was not a common man’s name. In fact, Michael Heiser writes that

In addition, Heiser notes that grammatically speaking, “The accusative form Iounian found in Romans 16:7 matches the standard inflection for the female name Junia.”

Furthermore, we have explicit references to Junia as a woman by ancient readers of this passage. For instance, 4th-century bishop John Chrysostom wrote specifically about how impressive the woman Junia must have been in her faith:

Given all this evidence and more, Eldon Jay Epp writes in his book Junia the First Woman Apostle that the conclusion that Junia was indeed a woman apostle is virtually indisputable, proving that in the early church, there was little to no opposition to women’s leadership.

First Corinthians 14:34–35: Should Women Be Silent in Church?

First Corinthians 14:34–35 have been controversial for a long time for obvious reasons:

On their own, these verses appear to be straightforward examples of early church misogyny. However, since scholars universally agree that 1 Corinthians was actually written by Paul, the question becomes whether he wrote this passage as well. Many scholars have insisted that the passage was not written by Paul but is an interpolation by a later scribe. What is the evidence for this conclusion?

First, Bart Ehrman notes that this passage is a bit too similar to 1 Tim 2:11–15, which was probably not written by Paul.

While the conclusion is still debated, most scholars say that 1 Timothy was not written by Paul but by an author (or forger) in Paul’s name long after his death. It thus reflected a later view of women in the church. In fact, Ehrman writes that the passage from 1 Corinthians is

Furthermore, the passage interrupts the flow of Paul’s argument about prophesying in the church. Verses 29–34 address prophecy, and the same topic continues from verse 36 on. In fact, if you read 1 Corinthians 14 without verses 34–35, the whole passage makes far more rhetorical sense.

Furthermore, the The Oxford Bible Commentary notes that the theory that this is a later interpolation

It seems, then, that while Paul himself acknowledged the importance of women apostles and leaders in early church communities, later authors did not agree and sought to gain authority for their more repressive views by writing in Paul’s name.

First Corinthians 16:19: Reversed Name Order of Prisca and Aquila

In the last chapter of 1 Corinthians, in the midst of the personal greetings sections, we see this simple reference by Paul:

Aquila and Prisca were a married couple Paul knew (Acts 18:2–3, Romans 16:3–4), so this greeting seems simple enough. However, one detail eludes most of us when we read this passage: the names Aquila, a man’s name and Prisca, a woman’s name have been reversed. How do we know this and why would such a thing happen?

In a fascinating article, Richard Fellows writes that, first of all, “1st Corinthians 16:19 is the only place in the New Testament where Prisca is listed after her husband, Aquila, in our earliest surviving manuscripts.” In addition, Fellows notes that “Luke lists Priscilla (the diminutive form of Prisca) and Aquila twice (Acts 18:18, 26), and on both occasions, he places Priscilla first. Paul likewise names Prisca ahead of Aquila at Rom. 16.3.”

In other words, in every other case in the New Testament where the couple is mentioned, Prisca (or Priscilla) is mentioned first. This likely indicates that Prisca was seen as a more prominent church leader than her husband. It would therefore be odd for Paul to reverse the order of the names he used in other letters and which was found in non-Pauline books as well.

Moreover, in the abovementioned John Chrysostom's First Homily on the Greeting to Priscilla and Aquila we see this reference:

As Fellows notes, “John Chrysostom’s comments illustrate the importance of name order and show that his manuscripts named Priscilla first at Acts 18:26, as well as Rom. 16:3.”

Based on this evidence, and the fact that the interpolation of 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 occur in the same book, Fellows concludes that “the interpolator probably created a textual variant at 14:37 and transposed Prisca and Aquila at 16:19 so that a woman would not host a church. Textual variants at 16:19 in the Western manuscripts are explicable if Prisca originally preceded Aquila here, as she does elsewhere. Second Timothy 4:19 is an early witness to Prisca’s precedence in 1 Corinthians.”

Household Codes: Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Timothy

While there are seven letters of Paul that virtually every scholar agrees are authentic—Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon authorship of the other six letters claiming to be written by him are heavily disputed. Among these are Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Timothy. What do these letters say about the status of women in the church?

Bart Ehrman writes that this lowly status, in marriage and in the church, does not fit with Paul’s other references to women’s role in the church:

This and other textual evidence, including an analysis of vocabulary and writing style, indicates to a majority of scholars that Paul did not write those three books. Instead, later church leaders, wishing to invoke Paul’s authority in order to validate their opinions, wrote their letters in Paul’s name, forever lending Paul’s stamp of approval to ideas which, according to his undisputed letters, he would probably not have endorsed.

Conclusion: Christian Women in the First Few Centuries of Christianity

The undisputed Pauline letters provide substantial evidence that women exercised important leadership roles in some early Christian communities. On the other hand, many scholars argue that later Christian writings and church structures reflect increasing restrictions on women's authority. We’ve discovered above why scholars think the most anti-woman Bible verses were added later

Let’s remember how individual Christian communities began. Unlike in later centuries, there were no specialized church buildings in the 1st century. Churches met in people’s houses. This seems to have been true of all Paul’s churches, for instance, as we know from his own writings. How did this affect the status of women in those churches?

As Bart Ehrman notes, “in the Roman world, matters of the household were principally handled by women… If Paul’s churches met in private homes—that is, in the worlds in which women held some degree of jurisdiction—it is small wonder that women often exercised authority in his churches. And small wonder that men often allowed them to do so. This was the woman’s domain.”

However, as the wider church grew and became more and more public, Ehrman notes that “People thoroughly imbued with the ancient ideology of gender naturally found it difficult to avoid injecting into the church the perspectives that they brought with them when they converted.”

Men were in charge of public activities, and so with a larger, more institutionalized public church, women’s leadership roles began to fade. Women’s roles became more and more restricted until they were not allowed to teach or be leaders in churches at all. Unfortunately, as Ehrman writes, “The Roman ideology of gender relations became Christianized.”