A Clash Between Paideia and Pneuma? Ecstatic Women Prophets and Theological Education in the Second-century Church

The second half of the second century saw the development of a more hierarchical institutionalized church and of a theology of the Holy Spirit (Pneuma) reflecting this development. A driver of this development was a higher educational level among church leaders and Christians participating in theological discourse. In fact, ‘higher education’ (paideia) became a guiding value of Christian living, including for the study and interpretation of Scripture and for theology and church leadership. Yet the same period also saw a new wave of ‘inspired’, ‘pneumatic prophecy’, later known as ‘Montanism’, which was perceived as a threat in an increasingly institutionalized church and attacked and suppressed. This article sees a paradox here, and asks how Pneuma could be promoted as a source of Christian leadership under the banner of paideia, when the Spirit (Pneuma) at work in the ‘New Prophecy’ was perceived as such a threat. One area of investigation which may provide answers to this question is the controversial role women played both as educated participants in theological discourse and leading figures in the Montanist movement.

Female Prophetic Traditions in the Old Testament

This article explores the tradition of female prophets in the Old Testament utilizing Isaiah’s woman (Isa. 8.1-4) as a case study. First, it discusses the general evidence for a female prophetic tradition in the Old Testament, locating it in the broader ancient Near East context. It then focuses on examples of women prophets within the Old Testament to demonstrate the role of female prophets in shaping national life and politics despite the gender limitations of women in ancient Israelite society. Following this broader discussion, a case study of Isaiah’s wife is presented to explore her function and role as a prophet. In particular, the role of hannevi’ah as a possible mother within the prophetic guild is examined. Finally, the implications for the Pentecostal community are considered, focusing on retrieving the role of prophetic mothers to function alongside prophetic fathers.

Women Prophets in the Old Testament: Implications for Christian Women in Contemporary Southeastern Nigeria

There is a close relationship between the traditional Igbo-African culture and its treatment of women and the traditional Jewish culture and the status of women therein. This article examines the implications that the life, ministry, actions and inactions, of women prophets in the Old Testament hold for Christian women in contemporary Southeastern Nigeria where the Igbos live. Despite the obvious difference in time and clime, it is discovered, among other things, that the life and ministry of these women prophets challenge present-day Igbo Christian women to be much more courageous and self-confident, to raise their moral bars, to speak out all the more, to participate more actively in the political leadership of their region and the nation at large, to be much more committed to the Word of God, to be given, as women of fewer words but of mighty deeds, to a much more prophetic witnessing anywhere they find themselves.

Between Hipparchian Cynicism and Priscillian Montanism: Some Notes on Tatian, or. 3.6

Tatian’s Oration to the Greeks (or.) contains a list of twelve ancient Greek philosophers whom Tatian berates for their arrogant stupidity (or. 2.1-3.7). In this list can be found a brief note (or. 3.6) in which Tatian singles out the Cynic Crates of Thebes (ca. 368/5-ca. 288/5 BC) and asks who would want to be a witness at his “dog-marriage” (κυνογαµία) or not reject the arrogant “tongue-madness” (γλωσσοµανία) “of people like him” rather than “seeking that which is truly worth pursuing.” This paper aims at contributing to an improved understanding of this sentence and in particular of the two words, κυνογαµία and γλωσσοµανία. For this purpose it looks 1) at Crates’ background, in particular his marriage with Hipparchia of Maroneia, and 2) at the wider context in which Tatian is writing, in particular the phenomenon of early Christian ecstatic prophecy personified by the leading Montanist women prophets Priscilla and Maximilla.

Paul, Plutarch and the Gender Dynamics of Prophecy

This article compares two first-century authors, Paul and Plutarch, on the mechanics of inspiration and the role of gender in the prophetic process. Paul's First Corinthians and Plutarch's Delphic Dialogues (De Pythiae oraculis and De defectu oraculorum) were written by men who were observers of and commentators on the religious phenomenon of prophecy – that is, the communication of divine messages through human speakers. They also make statements about women that indicate that gender influenced their perceptions of prophecy. When these authors discuss prophecy at the conceptual level, gender does not affect their arguments, but when they turn to actual women prophets, they introduce ideas about gender and sex that shape their views of the prophetic process and the women who prophesy.

How Soon Is (This Apocalypse) Now? Queer Velocities after a Corinthian Already and a Pauline Not Yet

Joseph A. Marchal,’s chapter examines the unexpected value of two ancient apocalyptic perspectives for rearranging queer approaches to temporality, affect, history, and the bible. Carolyn Dinshaw’s imaginative conceptualization of a “touch across time” provides a frame for staging this anachronistic juxtaposition between the first and twentieth century. Thus, after surveying key insights from queer theorists of temporality like Elizabeth Freeman, Lee Edelman, and José Esteban Muñoz, this chapter turns to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, an exchange stuffed with alternative futures of the past. While Paul insists upon one apocalyptic vision of “not yet,” his letter indicates that the Corinthian women prophets lived and moved out of an alternative, if overlapping apocalyptic vision in their “already.” Both ancient parties engage in contingent varieties of temporal drag and of a critique of reproductive futurity, but the prophetic females are proceeding at a different velocity. Their prayer, prophecy, and withdrawal from social expectations around sex, marriage, and children register significant changes in a relatively short period of time. Greater attention to these changes provides a prophetic sort of apocalyptic praxis, long marginalized and dismissed, yet potentially resonating, if not exactly corresponding, to other more recent orientations to temporality, activism, and urgency in a time like now.