[Pablo Rafael]

It really seems of no importance to me WHO the authors of various portions of the Bible were. What I feel is important is that God speaks through the words that he has preserved and passed down to us. It is pretty certain that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible (at least not all of them, especially the events that took place after his death.) There was probably more than one author of Isaiah.

Paul may or may not have written all that is attributed to him. It doesn't really matter to the message. The epistles of the New Testament and the book of Acts are remarkable in the fact that they seek to bring women into the active life of the church. The Greek culture was very oppressive to women, more so than the Hebrew culture even. In the historical context the New Testament writings are indeed cutting edge liberalism. (I am starting to sound like I agree with u-dog again. I hate when that happens!) From our viewpoint the writings might seem to encourage oppression of women, but I think the opposite is the case.

An analogy from American history. It was President Grant that set up the Indian Reservations and worked toward moving the Native Americans onto those reservations. We might look at his actions and see them as inhumane, degrading and racist. But in the context of the day, he was the first president that had a policy of moving the Native Americans rather than killing them off. His policies were a giant step forward compared to those of his predecessors. However, we can't say that forcibly moving people onto reservations at the present time is fair and compasionate. The cultural situation is different. The spirit of Grant's policies, not the letter is what is important to realize and put into practice. I think the same might be said for Paul's writings. God message given through Paul is not oppressive to women but a giant step toward including women fully in the life of the church. However, we should be following the spirit of that message, not adhering to regulations that today go counter to the original spirit of the writings. (This paragraph has not come out as clearly as the idea was in my head. Hopefully my reasoning makes some sense.)

Pablo