> Paul, strangely enough has become one of my
> hero’s of faith.

My views toward Brother Paul also have moderated with time, particularly as I began to understand more about the context of his teachings.

> The women were uneducated and often
> cloistered in the Greek model, and developed
> worship involving drunken and ecstatic state
> in their worship of Artimus... These were the > women coming into the church, illiterate,
> separated and a tune to frenzied worship.

Sounds a eerily like Zerby & her company of witches.

> They were
> expounding even to the Diaspora Jewish
> community that women/Eve were in the
> position of origin and source of wisdom from
> the serpent. Paul states unequivocally that
> Adam is the kephale source (not
> BOSS) of Eve. He was re-establishing
> creation order, not saying who was boss.

This is where I have a problem with Paul's pre-scientific metaphysics. Either I don't understand the Greek philosophical concept of "source," or the way I currently understand it, I can't accept it. What does it mean to say Adam is the source of Eve?

> But Paul had no problem with Pricilla
> speaking; the educated Jewess from Rome who
> had a church in her home and who, with her
> husband, taught Apollos. Paul had no problem
> with Phoebe, who in the Greek is not called
> a “servant” but “deacon” of the Church of
> Cenchrea; the same word used for Timothy.

The same word is also used in the Gospel of John, where we see Mary ministering at the Shabbos table to the community of faith.

> When you take a few verses out of
> context it can be distorted quickly as
> Tertullian did in the 3rd century.

Seems to me you're well acquainted with the historical research on the patriarchal influence over the development of the early church.

Thanks for the links and references. Whenever I have the heart to look into this subject again, I'd like to review the protestant & evangelical scholarship. As a group, these churches have come a lot further than the catholics, who seem to have chiseled the male domination thing in stone.