Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities.

Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities. By Bruce Winter. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2003. xvii and 236 pages. Paper. $26.00.

Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7. By Will Deming. Second ed. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2004. xxii and 271 pages. Paper. $28.00.

Deming's work, first published as volume 83 in the Monograph Series of New Testament Studies in 1995, is now available at a much more reasonable price and in a slightly revised edition. He argues that Paul was in favor of celibacy but not asceticism. He begins by reviewing scholarship on 1 Corinthians 7, then examines the Stoic-Cynic debate on marriage in a long and valuable chapter (pp. 47-104). He then turns to Paul's language in 1 Corinthians 7. Marriage is a social obligation for the Stoics, and Paul recognizes this to a degree. But it can also draw the Christian away from Christ. Paul's views of marriage, celibacy, and the remarriage of widows reflect the language of that Stoic-Cynic debate (pp. 105-206). Deming concludes that Paul approves of marriage but prefers celibacy, though not for ascetic reasons. Two valuable appendices provide the Greek text and translation of Antipater of Tarsus, On marriage (SVF 3.254. 23-257.10, from John Stobaeus 4.507.6-512.7 W-H.), and [Ocellus Lucanus] On the nature of the universe 43. This is a valuable resource for reading 1 Corinthians.

Winter's book both pleases and disappoints. His starting point is a brief Excursus, "The 'New Woman': Representation and Reality," by Natalie Kampen and Elaine Fantham, in Women in the Classical World, by Elaine Fantham, Helene Peet Foley, Natalie Boymel Kampen, Sarah B. Pomeroy, and H. Alan Shapiro (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 280-93). The preface to the work describes the excursus as follows: "[They] are devised to present special or 'deviant' aspects of women in the ancient world: for example,... the 'new woman' represented by the love poetry of the late Republic and Augustan Age, emancipated and outside respectable society."

Winter has published a series of books and articles that locate Paul's thought in its Greco-Roman context: Philo and Paul among the Sophists: Alexandrian and Corinthian Responses to a Julio-Claudian Movement (2d ed., 2002); After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (2001); Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (1993)--all published by Eerdmans. They all are very helpful because they anchor Paul in the social and cultural world of the first century. I picked up this latest work with great anticipation. And was somewhat disappointed.

The appendix on the "new woman" is based largely on Roman love poetry and satirical poetry. But are Catullus, Ovid, Juvenal, and Martial representative of the bulk of Roman society--and of society in the Greek east? Certainly the views of Musonius Rufus and Plutarch, along with much epigraphic evidence, would give a different picture. Thus I find Winter's interpretation of 1 Cor 11:2-16 as reflecting Paul's reaction to these "new women" ingenious but unpersuasive. Where is the evidence that the Corinthian Christian women were drawn to this lifestyle? Roman women (and men) regularly drew the toga or other garment up over their head when functioning in religious rites. See the statue of Caesar Augustus found in the Julian basilica at Corinth, as well as the head of Nero.

Winter is on much firmer ground in his interpretation of the directives in 1 Tim 2:9-11, 1 Tim 5:11-15, and Titus 2:3-5. These passages certainly urge modest behavior in line with Plutarch and other moral philosophers.

These are two significant books on women in Paul, both interpreting Pauline texts in their first-century Greco-Roman world. They are helpful in understanding texts in the Pauline corpus, evidence of how deeply early Christians were imbedded in the social world around them. Both deserve wide, careful, and critical reading.