A Historiographical Survey of Scholarship on Textual Variants Revealing an Anti-Feminist Tendency in the Greek Text of Acts Chapter XVII in Codex Bezae

Abstract

This paper will survey the historiography of the textual critical scholarship concerning the presence of an anti-feminist tendency in the text of Codex Bezae in Acts chapter xvii. I will present the arguments of the scholars chronologically, noting the changes in the character of the scholarship over time. I will argue that these changes occurred because of the increasing incorporation of feminist biblical hermeneutics into New Testament textual critical studies, as well as because of the growing scholarly awareness of anti-feminist sentiments within the early Christian movement and later, as the Church infrastructure became more hierarchical as it absorbed influence from the pre-existent Graeco-Roman culture and conformed to its structure.