Exactly. How can we not interpret and reinterpret an ancient text in the light of a) its context and b) the society we now live in.
You asked me to be more specific, dittany, so I'll take a couple of the passages you mentioned and go into a little bit more detail and try not to be too tedious.
- "As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." (I Corinthians 14:34-35)
Firstly, there is some confusion about this passage; it is not included in some of the early manuscripts and is almost an add on. It is strange because in 1 Cor 11 Paul obviously assumes that women will and do speak out in churches, referring to women praying and prophesying, so therefore there would seem to be a specific scenario that Paul is addressing here (if he indeed wrote these words which is uncertain), rather than issuing a blanket command. Looking into the context of this passage we find that most of this chapter is about building order in public worship, and thus it is addressing problems in the congregation the letter is addressed to. This goes back to what I referred to in my earlier post - public worship in Corinth would have been conducted in Greek, which most of the women (only knowing their local dialects) would not be able to grasp. Paul is not saying this is a good situation; he is merely dealing with the immediacy of what is happening. It seems that there would have been bored chatter and enquiring of husbands etc (however weird that seems to us) and general disruption.
Basically, the passage is addressing a particular problem at a particular time, and it is made obvious by many of Paul's other statements that this was not a general 'decree'.
Another one:
- "Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God?A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head" (I Corinthians 11:3-10).
Now I'm not going to go greatly in depth into the whole head covering thing, as most people know the contextual arguments (women who didn't cover their heads tended to be prostitutes, etc) but I will just look at the whole man as head of woman thing. Unfortunately this passage has been misused countless times through history to oppress women, whereas looking at it in context can give a more liberated angle on it, and show Paul not as a woman hater but as someone who really means 'there is no male or female, for all are one in Christ', as he says elsewhere.
There is some evidence that Paul in verse 3 is referring to the 'head' not as someone with ultimate power, but in the sense of a 'source', of a river for eg, which is substantiated somewhat by him referring to the creation story (woman coming from man etc.) So as God is the source of man, man is the source of woman (I always like to think of it as blokes couldn't survive on their own, so God made something stronger to keep them going ) - and not 'head' as in headship, derogatory power usage type of meaning. This is where diving into the context and also the original texts shines a different light on stuff.
I could go much further into this but would be too boring, and I am probably not making an awful lot of sense anyway. I could go into more of these passages if you like (I wouldn't touch ecclesiasticus though, I don't really tend to go for the apocryphal books and it does sound nasty!!)
The main point I want to make though is that I am fully convinced that as a woman I am equal to a man in God's sight, because I am fully convinced God is male and female.