http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-dominic-crossan/historical-paul-gender_b_921319.html
"On the mid-Aegean coast of Turkey, half-way up the northern slope of the Bülbüldag and high above the excavations of ancient Ephesus, is a long, narrow shrine-cave. ..Three characters are identified by name on that fresco. Paul is seated in the middle addressing Thecla to viewer left. She is a virgin -- hence unveiled -- but house-bound -- hence nubile. An elegantly veiled matron, her mother Theoclia, is to viewer right. Both the right hands of Paul and of Theoclia are raised in identical authoritative teaching gestures. Since Paul lacks any halo, my inexpert opinion would date that fresco to the 400s. "
"Patriarchy. One controversy is represented by Theoclia to Paul's left. As noted above, her right hand was originally raised in a teaching gesture every bit as authoritative as that of Paul. But it was later both gouged out and burned off. Furthermore, since only her eyes are obliterated, that erasure was not just general iconoclasm but individual assault. She is represented, in other words, as a woman teaching with authority whose image is then effaced with prejudice. This is simply a visual image of that reactionary post-Pauline and anti-Pauline command that "no woman [is] to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent" (1 Timothy 2:12). "
"That is not, of course, the view of the historical Paul whose letter to the Christian communities of Rome was delivered -- that is, read and explained -- by a woman named Phoebe, an administrator of a house-church near Corinth (Romans 16:1-2). Neither is it the position of the historical Paul who described the woman Junia as "prominent among the apostles" (Romans 16:7) -- an "apostle" is somebody "sent" by God with authority to found new Christian communities. .."
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