Hi there, thanks for the notes. Two questions? Where does Paul tell wives to "honor their husbands"? I'm having trouble finding that. It leads me to wonder if I've missed the possibility that women are to venerate men as divine beings.

Also, what do you imagine "fornication" to be, by the way? Please note in Jewish law a married man can have sex with any non-married woman, including slaves, prostitutes and concubines.

Since you kindly brought it up, let's look at 1 Cor 9:5: "Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?" (ESV)

That's how it's presented to Christians, but the phrase translated "believing wife" is something more like "sister woman." It is found in manuscript history with extensive variations: "woman sister," "sisters women," "sisters." "sister little woman."

I'm working off the scholar John Granger Cook's 2008 study of the verse.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298648484_1_Cor_95_The_Women_of_the_Apostles

He considers the phrase "sister woman" to be Paul's most likely expression. Is this a man's wife? It seems far more likely to be a woman working the female side as a Christian missionary team. Paul is clarifying that a missionary team requires a man and a woman. This is in keeping with Jesus' instructions in Mark 6:7, where literal male-female marriage is not in view. Note Joan Taylor's "Two by Two" paper.

https://www.academia.edu/11587682/Two_by_Two_The_Ark_etypal_Language_of_Marks_Apostolic_Pairings

We have no reason to think that Peter's invisible, unnamed wife was anything but a non-Christian Jewish woman. If Peter is traveling with a 'sister', this would be *another* woman who is Christian.

In the same way, Paul is not arguing for being able to take along his own personal wife—since he appears not to have one—but rather, a female or a missionary pair. God is to be represented as a male-female team but this does not require their personal nuptials.