Ethical Readings of Elna Mouton: Exploring Gender, Household Code, and Ethos in New Testament Writings

Elna Mouton has done extensive research on the household codes in the New Testament against the background of Christian African women’s experiences and their callings. She offers perspectives that may suggest an opposing view from that of the New Testament, namely attitudes toward household life that are more healing and wholesome. This viewpoint includes transcending traditional and/or stereotypically gendered understandings of households and the roles individuals are expected to fulfill. Moreover, it depicts earthly households as God’s household where mutual care and liberation take place—thus not merely a social unit that serves to order the practicalities of day-to-day life. In this chapter, I will provide an overview of Mouton’s work on the household codes, taking as my vantage point her monograph entitled, Reading a New Testament Document Ethically (SBL, 2002), which forms the framework of her ethical readings of the Letter to the Ephesians. Such an approach seeks to articulate the type of overarching hermeneutical ethos she proposes for engaging with the household texts.