4: SAYING THAT PAUL WAS WRONG 45Al Wolters point out how surprising it is to find that a Christian
Reformed author thinks that Paul’s use of the Old Testament is incorrect.^5
Boomsma disagrees with Paul’s reasoning in 1 Timothy 2:12-14,
where Paul says,
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man;
rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve;
and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and
became a transgressor.Although Paul is referring to Genesis 2 when he says, “For Adam was
formed first, then Eve,” Boomsma says, “there is nothing in Genesis 2
that teaches woman’s subordination to man.”^6 He says, “The apostle’s
argument from Genesis 2 is without support in the text.”^7 But then he
says, “This is not to say that Paul was in error when he adduces his argu-
ment from Genesis.”^8 Why not? Because he used an interpretation that
was currently accepted in his day, and it was useful for his argument:
How, then, shall we account for the apostle’s appeal to the Genesis data
in 1 Timothy 2:13-14? We have observed that Paul’s use of Genesis
2:17-24 is based upon the text as it was interpreted in his day.... As
to his second argument, drawn from Genesis 3:1-7, 16, it was again evi-
dent that his application of the text reflected the contemporary under-
standing of Eve’s role in the fall and its consequences for women.^9But Boomsma then goes on to say this was “an unacceptable argument
for disallowing women full equality in the church,” and adds, “Paul
adopts the reading and understanding of the Genesis material that was
(^5) Thomas Schreiner, “An Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:9-15: A Dialogue with Scholarship,”
in Women in the Church: A Fresh Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, ed. Andreas Köstenberger,
Thomas Schreiner, and H. Scott Baldwin (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995), 107, with ref-
erence to Clarence Boomsma, Male and Female, One in Christ: New Testament Teaching on
Women in Office (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1993). In a review of Boomsma’s book, Al
Wolters writes, “I do not believe that anyone else in the Reformed tradition has ever dared to
suggest that the scriptural argumentation of an apostle is clearly mistaken and unacceptable”
(Al Wolters, review of Clarence Boomsma, Male and Female, One in Christ, in Calvin
Theological Journal 29 [1994]: 285).
(^6) Boomsma, Male and Female, 60.
(^7) Ibid., 58.
(^8) Ibid., 59.
(^9) Ibid., 81.