Kön och bibeltolkning : En undersökning av hur Nya testamentets brevtexter om kvinnors underordning tolkats i bibelvetenskapliga kommentarer under 1900-talet

Sammanfattning: In this thesis I study how the New testament texts about women’s subordination have been interpreted in exegetical literature during the twentieth century. The New testament texts I refer to as the texts about women’s subordination are: 1 Cor. 11:2–16, 1 Cor. 14:33–40, Eph. 5:21–6:9, Col. 3:18–4:1, 1 Tim. 2:8–3:15, Tit. 2:1–10 and 1 Peter 2:11–3:9. The material I analyze is exegetical commentaries, but also other material that reflects the exegetical debate about the subordination texts. The material is both Swedish and international. The purpose of this study is threefold: First, to examine and analyze how the New testament texts about women’s subordination have been interpreted in exegetical literature during the last 60 years. Secondly, to discern whether women’s subordination function as a hermeneutical category in the interpretations of the texts. And thirdly, to – with the conclusions of the investigation pursued and my analytical tools and theoretical considerations as points of departure – discuss and propose criteria for interpretation of biblical texts.With the term women’s subordination as a hermeneutical category I mean that women’s subordination can be viewed as a structure, or a motive, that influences the texts as well as the interpretation. This hermeneutical category functions in a way that women become “the Others” in texts and interpretations. To theoretically discuss the meaning of woman/women as “the Other/Others” I, for example, examine the work of Simone de Beauvoir. In the material I find patterns for interpretation. One of these patterns is that subordination is interpreted as an expression of love and a response to love. I propose four criteria for the critical exegetical work and one criterion for biblical interpretation in a broader sense. United Nations declaration of the Human Rights from 1948 and the convention on women from 1979, expresses the equal value and freedom of every human being – woman or man.United Nations declaration of Human Rights may function as a criterion in biblical interpretation, a criterion that destabilize women’s subordination as a hermeneutical category and avoids the reproduction and production of androcentrism.