[B-Greek] ASQENESTERWi SKEUEI in 1 Peter 3:7
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Jul 24 06:56:47 EDT 2009
On Jul 24, 2009, at 4:02 AM, Sarah Madden wrote:
> The best explanation My pastor explained this word by comparing a
> woman to
> an elegant china cup that can be broken if dropped. The china cup was
> created with intense fire and is just as useful a vessel as a
> pottery or tin
> cup, but it cannot be mistreated or it breaks and loses all
> functionality.
>
> Also, speaking from a woman's point of view, sometimes we just want
> someone
> to listen to us -- not to solve the problem at that point. The
> solution can
> come later. Just a thought to all you guys out there ...
Interesting. What's helpful about this analogy is that it preserves
the sense of SKEUOS as a utensil and adds to it an aesthetic
dimension: a beautiful utensil. I'm troubled, however, by the very
associations of utility and aesthetic excellence. I don't think the
analogy can be pushed very far; it seems to me, as did the original
notion of vulnerability as a positive value, just as much a modern
romantic, even Victorian conception of womanhood: a fragile work of
art that is also useful, an exquisite item to be kept in a cabinet and
brought out to serve coffee only to guests of quality. The nearest
ancient Greek analogy to this that oomes to my mind is Hesiod's
account of the mythic Pandora (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora --
this is one of the better Wikipedia articles, I'd say, reasonably
thorough and well-documented). Pandora is sent with her jar (PIQOS, a
ceramic vessel which became a "box" in later re-tellings of the myth)
to an all-male humanity as a punishment for the theft of fire from the
gods. The jar contains all the woes unleashed upon humanity and also
the one ambiguous, potentially good and potentially evil, gift: hope
(ELPIS). It requires little imagination to see that Pandora is
identical with the jar. It also requires little imagination to discern
the misogynistic perspective implicit in the story as an account of
the origin of evil. While there is no evidence that he is alluding to
the Pandora myth, Philo of Alexandria may possibly have known it as
well as he knew Platonic philosophy; Philo's interpretation of the
creation of Eve and of her seduction by the serpent in Genesis 3 is
set forth in Philo's De Opificio Mundi (Englished as "On the Creation"
-- C.D. Yonge's translation: http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book1.html)
. Philo's account of Eve offers one perspective on how the phrase
ASQENESTERON SKEUOS as a description of the essence of femininity
might have been understood by a contemporary of the author of 1 Peter.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 12:45 PM, <fullerming at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Also, vulnerability can be positive as in delicate and frail like a
>> flower
>> or a new born baby. I will look for such inferences when I get
>> home tonight
>> for ASQENESTERWi SKEUEI, but it seems reasonable.
>> --Fuller Ming, Jr.
>> Seminary Student,
>> CBS, Lanham Md.
>> (Currently no money or time so not taking classes)
>> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 at earthlink.net>
>>
>> Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:46:49
>> To: B-Greek<b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
>> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] ASQENESTERWi SKEUEI in 1 Peter 3:7 (was "Re:
>> Gal
>> 4.4"
>>
>>
>> Carl,
>>> The text in question is 1 Peter 3:7:
>>> Οἱ ἄνδρες ὁμοίως, συνοικοῦντες
>>> κατὰ
>>> γνῶσιν ὡς ἀσθενεστέρῳ σκεύει τῷ
>>> γυναικείῳ, ἀπονέμοντες τιμὴν ὡς
>>> καὶ συγκληρονόμοις χάριτος ζωῆς
>>> εἰς
>>> τὸ μὴ ἐγκόπτεσθαι τὰς προσευχὰς
>>> ὑμῶν.
>>> [hOI ANDRES hOMOIWS, SUNOIKOUNTES KATA GNWSIN hWS ASQENESTERWi
>>> SKEUEI
>>> TWi GUNAIKEIWi, APONEMONTES TIMHN hWS SUGKLHRONOMOIS ZWHS EIS TO MH
>>> EGKOPTESQAI TAS PROSEUCAS hUMWN.]
>>>
>>> I would understand hWS ASQENESTERWi SKEUEI TWi GUNAIKEIWi as
>>> construing with hOMOIWS, SUNOIKOUNTES, and APONEMONTES TIMHN as
>>> construing with hWS SUGKLHRONOMOIS ZWHS. On that understanding honor
>>> is not given because of the "greater infirmity/weakness" but because
>>> wives are "co-heirs of life."
>>>
>>> Mark said that he had done considerable research into the usage of
>>> the
>>> adjective ASQENHS at the Perseus site and had been particularly
>>> impressed by the association of "vulnerability" with the adjective.
>>> That makes perfectly good sense, but it is a leap, it seems to me,
>>> to
>>> attribute a positive value to vulnerability. The vulnerable need
>>> protection, of course, but how is vulnerability something to be
>>> valued
>>> in and of itself? Is that really what this text is saying?
>>>
>>
>> HH: My pastor preached on this text on Sunday, noting that one of the
>> worst things men can say to a woman in tears over something is:
>> "What is
>> wrong with you," or worse, "What is your problem?" It involves a
>> failure
>> to recognize that women were created differently than men, and
>> tears may
>> be the appropriate response from a woman in that situation. (He added
>> than 90% of the time "you," the husband, is the problem in such
>> cases).
>> So we live knowledgeably with our wives and show them honor by
>> recognizing their different make-up. The pastor suggested that the
>> fact
>> that the man asks the woman for marriage shows her basically weaker
>> position. The phrase "fellow heir of the grace of life" suggests
>> equality, but there is this God-ordained difference, this relative
>> weakness, that must be taken into account. If it is handled as a
>> legitimate difference, and not as a defect, we act knowledgeably and
>> honorably towards her.
>>
>> Yours,
>> Harold Holmyard
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