Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature

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Journal of Biblical Literature
resisted by Christian endurance of that force: the body, pain, injury, and even
death were signifiers that were reappropriated by some Christian women to
mean power rather than defeat and assimilation. Weakness and humiliation on
one side of the cultural boundary were reinterpreted as strength and honor on
the other. This reconstruction by Christian leaders of the meaning of suffering
in situations of persecution very likely informed the self-understanding of the
author of 1 Peter and the women in the communities he addressed.
But those first-century discourses are not our discourses. Today in most of
the European-American sphere of influence there is no valuation of slavery or
servanthood, no positive model by which to understand that experience. Communitywide
persecution of Christians such as the women of 1 Peter faced is
rare; the abuse of Christian women comes more often at the hands of their
Christian husbands. 86 Although many contemporary Christian women must
make choices at the boundaries of belief and secular culture, the boundary
today entails much less personal danger. Thus, the Petrine author’s exhortation
to the women and slaves to “accept authority” in the face of conflict should not
be used to edify modern victims of abuse. 87
Most feminist exegetes of 1 Peter are correct that it is not a liberating text.
Patriarchal attitudes are maintained, and women are perceived in stereotypical
ways. Women are seemingly encouraged to suffer, and no one offers a thisworldly
solution to sexism and abuse. But there are small, subversive openings
we can infer from the text: the women operated bravely on the margins, negotiating
between their commitment to the Christian community and their non-
Christian families and masters; the Petrine text encouraged them to practice
passive, nonviolent disobedience, which included a rejection of some of their
socially demanded household roles; and the silence that was encouraged in
their households was not necessarily reduplicated in the Christian community,
of which they are held up as Christomorphic representatives because of their
disobedience and suffering in a situation of persecution.
86 Even in the communities where Christians are persecuted, they are so informed and influenced
by the discourses of religious freedom, bodily integrity, human rights, and this-worldly liberation,
that the valorization of suffering is rarely taken seriously. Sharyn Dowd writes that 1 Peter
was written at a time when the victims of abuse had no options (“1 Peter,” 463). Carolyn Osiek and
David Balch argue that slaves were “in the vulnerable position of having no recourse when abused.
Their conformity to the suffering Christ, therefore, is meant to be comfort and encouragement in
suffering that they are powerless to avoid, not a legitimation of the oppression of slavery” (Families
in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches [Family, Religion, and Culture;
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997], cited in Glancy, Slavery, 149).
87 Glancy’s statement regarding the application of this text to slavery can apply to women in
general: “For slaveholders in any historical epoch to cite this text to foster the submission of their
slaves is therefore egregious, since the author implies that the slaveholders’ treatment of their
slaves is unjust and will ultimately be judged harshly by God” (Slavery, 150).