Although I agree that there are problems in translating from one language to another (I was fairly fluent in Spanish and Italian), there is a much larger problem with the Bible. That is that the Bible is riddled with errors due to the fact that "man had his hand in the Bible". This is true in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
I do believe the words of Jesus but Paul got many things wrong. It would be my guess that his ability to be a Jew to Jews and a Roman to Romans had something to do with this. Either that or there was more than one writer of the letters attributed to him.
Mark 7:14-16
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
Acts 15:19-20
19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.”
Matthew 23:8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.”
Philippians 1:1-2
1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons:
2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
As of Paul, the idea that Christians are all brothers and sisters was dispensed with for the purpose of the early church controlling Christianity. I could speak of the early Christians who were considered heretics because they would not bow to the Roman Church. Politics was being played even at this early time.
Then, the Hebrew Scriptures, the OT to Christians, also have many problems because man made up many of the rules. That is what Jesus was teaching. He taught what was from God and what was from men, not God.
Jesus understood that women were as important as men. He had many female disciples. Mary Magdalene was one of His closest disciples. She would have been an apostle if men would have allowed it. Unfortunately, ancient Israel was a patriarchal society. I know that God, as a spirit, does not have a sex. God does not favor men over women.
And although there could have been mistranslations from Greek to English in the New Testament, the same is not true for the Old Testament because the Hebrew scriptures have been painstakingly copied for millennium. So, whenever I wish to see the direct translation from Hebrew, I go to a Jewish website to see what the correct translation is.
In "The Complete Tanakh (Tanach) - Hebrew Bible" at Chabad.org, an example is Genesis 1:26 - 1:27.
Bereshit (Genesis) - Chapter 1
26 And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heaven and over the animals and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep upon the earth."
כווַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ:
27 And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
כזוַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים | אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם:
If I go to the NIV at Biblegateway, I find this translation.
Genesis 1:26-27
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
My point is that there may be some mistranslations but Paul also spoke of women as equal at some points but under the control of men at other times.
Galatians 3:27-29
27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Romans 16:1-3
16 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. 2 I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.
3 Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 3:1-3
3 Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.
Notice that Paul says that overseers have wives in the above passage. So, he already believed that only men should be overseers even though he commended Phoebe as a deacon.
1 Corinthians 14:34 Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.
1 Corinthians 7:4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.
Paul setup the situation that we now have in many churches where men are the head of the church and women are not allowed to preach. This is not from God but from men.
I am not writing this to go against your writing but as an opportunity to speak the truth to those who may not be aware of any of this. No, God did not place men over women. Men placed themselves over women. God is equal opportunity with every type of person.
