Cheryl Schatz

Lin,
Welcome to my blog! What an awesome testimony of the way to “do” marriage with respect and the willingness for both of you to give and take as you take baby steps in one direction or another to find out what works. Excellent!

I found the reference to the anaphoric that Dr. White was referencing. It is on pages 217-220 of Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics an Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament by Daniel B. Wallace.

It says:

The anaphoric article is the article denoting previous reference. (It derives its name from the Greek verb…”to bring back, to bring up.”) The first mention of the substantive is usually anarthrous because it is merely being introduced. But subsequent mentions of it use the article, for the article is now pointing back to the substantive previously mentioned. The anaphoric article has, by nature, then, a pointing force to it, reminding the reader of who or what was mentioned previously. It is the most common use of the article and the easiest usage to identify…Practically speaking, labeling an article as anaphoric requires that it have (sic) been introduced at most in the same book, preferably in a context not too far removed.

Dr. Wallace then uses John 4:9 (the Samaritan woman) as a reference back to the anarthrous woman from v 7 and says:

…the article is anaphoric, merely pointing out the fact that the woman mentioned earlier is still under discussion…

So Dr. Wallace agrees with Marg @18 that the Samaritan woman in John 4:9 is anaphoric referring back to the anarthrous woman in verse 7.

Hey gengwall, glad you are alive and well and a big hug to you during this very busy time of yours! Congrats on the upcoming wedding of your daughter and your soon-to-be son in law.

Thanks for asking, Craig, as I am sure many others have the same question. ESS stands for the Eternal Subordination of the Son. The view is that the Son has a “role” of subordination that predates the incarnation.

Frank,
You also have excellent comments!

Radiance,
You quoted:

*If seminaries and theology schools discriminate against women, women must found and start their own.
*If patriarchal churches are on the rise, egalitarian men and women must plant their own, do the most evangelism and reach out to the lost by giving them a new sense of what “church” looks like in practice.
* If women are dissatisfied with their frilly, dumbed-down Bible studies, they must start their own.
* Parents must raise their children to value Biblical equality and warn them of the dangers that befall the church and society whenever equality is not cherished, fought for, and preserved.

I agree with this advice to move ahead. We need to grow where we are planted and unfortunately we cannot always expect our brothers in Christ to open any spiritual doors for us. That is their responsibility. If they fail, that doesn’t mean that we are meant to fall behind too. Our Master is Christ and we obey Him foremost and His marching orders have already been given to us.

Radiance,

The greatest weakness of the CBMW apology demand is that no men were signatories. Perhaps I am prejudging, but I believe on that fact alone, prominent complementarian Evangelical leaders will dismiss the document as a mere “feminist rant.”

Unfortunately I think that is how CBMW will see the demand for an apology. Why do they even need to consider answering when there is no one “worthy” who is on their level who needs an answer. I suspect that they see women wanting the wrong interpretation corrected for the health of the body of Christ as mere pests biting at their ankles.

What do you think would happen if a godly group of men created a document to complement the women’s demand for apology letter? That would certainly get more attention and maybe even make the annoying little pests have an appear of a much taller opponent.

TL,

No matter what is being done, all are involved to some degree.

Exactly. Yet it seems like the comp camp is intent on dividing actions and setting up an authority structure that excludes one or more of the persons of the Trinity. This comp camp is busy like bees making God into an image of their hierarchical human pyramid. He is being used for a purpose rather than being accepted as the fully equal Trinitarian God as Scripture reveals outside the incarnation.

Hi Craig,
The issue of obedience is the sticking point on those words because when I hear them I want to make sure that the time frame of obedience is understood. The obedience comes after the Word becomes flesh. It is not part of who the Son is in the Trinity. He doesn’t need to be obedient to the Father in the Trinity since the will of the Word of God (the LORD of hosts) is exactly the same as the Father’s will. As far as “sending” I have a section in the Trinity DVD that shows that sending is not a sign of authority but a necessary action to show the connection of the human Son with God the Father.

The part about the Father did not die for our sins is correct. Yet the Father indwelt the human Son and never stopped indwelling Him even when He was dying. The Holy Spirit was the one poured out at Pentecost yet all of them indwell the believer in power.

So I have agreement with the statements with reservation about the time frame for the obedience of the Son.

I should add that just because one person of the Trinity chose to reveal Himself to man doesn’t mean that the other persons of the Trinity were not there personally creating. They act together. But each has freedom to express Himself individually.

Craig,
You have such interesting questions! I am glad that you keep asking for clarification as it is important to test out each view for consistency.

Here is what I see as an “individual way” regarding the act of creation. The LORD of Hosts as the Word of God walked with Adam (and later with Eve too) and He expressed His power as Creator to Adam by forming the animals in a way that was visible to the man. The Father is never said to have come to the earth or taken a form to show Himself as Creator. This means that each of the persons of God are free to express themselves as Creator in the individual way that they chose. The Word expressed Himself in a way that the Father is never expressed as Creator, yet the Word did the same things but in different individual ways.

Craig,
You said:

As you state at the end – ” Bruce Ware’s view is that only one leads as only one has the highest honor, the highest praise, etc. ” Therefore each person of the trinity is NOT FREE to do the same things in their own individual way.

This is exactly the case with Bruce Ware’s point of view and it is very well stated. You have hit the nail on the head. Bravo!

Ware’s point of view would be that the “harmony” would come into play because in a task each person of the Trinity must be doing different things because by the nature of their “place” in the Trinity only one person of the Trinity is allowed to lead. So when it comes to the “part” that the Father plays in the incarnation, the Father “sends” the Word because that is an expression of His “place” as leader of the Word. Anything the Spirit does is subordinate. Thus no matter what the Word does in the Trinity, according to Ware, by the nature of being a subordinate person He has no ability to express His personhood in the same way as the Father does because He is not the leader. His part in “harmony” is being a follower who expresses His godhood by following the Father’s orders. So the persons of the Trinity are limited in expression of their personhood by their “place” in the Trinity. The Word then could never do exactly as the Father does or He would be in the equal place of highest honor and Ware does not believe this.

This is not the view of the church councils or the early Christian writers who believed that the persons of the Trinity were equal in their essence. I honestly believe that Ware loves to express his view of the “differences” of the Trinity since he has found a way to justify his own “highest honor” as a male while claiming not to be a misogynist.

You are on the right track to figure out the unorthodox view of people like Bruce Ware. This view puts a limitation on two persons of the Trinity while giving full freedom of expression to only one. Well actually come to think of it that isn’t quite true. Ware also limits the Father in that the Father is NOT FREE to act in any way that would look like He submits to the Son. Therefore the Father’s limitation is that He must lead and He must receive the highest of everything thus He is not free to “lower” Himself to serve the Son in anyway that would look like submission. That apparently would demean the very position that the Father holds by His nature according to Ware. The Father just has to be on top.

Craig,
The question is what is “different” things? Two people can do the same task differently but that is not “different” things. When people work in unity they do the same things in their own way as they are persons with their own personality. They don’t have to do different things as Bruce Ware teaches. So for husband and wife, they can both lead and both teach, but they may do the job a bit differently because they are individuals with different personalities. But teaching is not withheld from one because only one is male.

So when I say that the persons that are God do the same things, each one is Savior, each one is Lord, creator, etc, but each person is free to do the same things in their own individual way. Bruce Ware’s view is that only one leads as only one has the highest honor, the highest praise, etc. Does that help to make it clearer?

Marg,
Your words were not contentious at all, but extremely gracious. As is often the case when someone questions a understanding that I have, I feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit to go deeper in this area and I may learn some things myself by listening. So I am going to do a post on this one verse where we can explore it to death (so to speak 😉 ) because I think that may be very valuable. I am not sure when the post will go up but hopefully it won’t take me more than a few days.

Thanks for putting your finger on an area that can benefit from a closer look with a magnifying glass.

Marg,
You said:

BTW I think the anarthrous (without a definite article) woman in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 is most likely one woman. (The Samaritan woman at the well is also anarthrous in the Greek John 4:7, and she was definitely one particular woman. She did not represent all women from Samaria. Thus in English we say THE woman of Samaria.)

I agree!

By the way John 4:9 has the definite article, so John 4:7-9 is another example of the anaphoric use of the article.

Hi Marg,
Thanks for your comments!

I don’t believe that verse 15 is implying that the woman will be kept safe through giving birth to one child, or giving birth the one time.

Giving birth is a verb. It is difficult for us to get our head around that as our words for birth are verbs. Paul’s use of the word is very unique and I do not believe there is another example of this word in the New Testament that is a noun. And with a noun the definite article shows that it is a definite thing, not a representative of something like a representative birth.

I have heard a lot about different theories of the kind of false teaching that was in Ephesus. But the words that Paul uses in 1 Timothy 2:13 explain the reason for the prohibition rather than the false teaching. If the reason for the prohibition has something to do with the deception of the woman and the non-deception of the man that correlates with the man’s first creation, then I think we need to think more of a reason for the prohibition rather than what the false teaching was about. Is there not a way that Paul could have worded the post-prohibition to focus on the false teaching rather than just the issue of deception? It seems to me that he could have been clearer that it was a special deception (gnostic teaching) that caused the prohibition rather than just any old deception that is compared to learning. I think this because the emphasis is on Adam’s non-deception and I don’t think that any gnostic teaching can explain that. So we need to answer why Adam was not deceived in order to unravel the prohibition. If a gnostic teaching works in with that, then perhaps it could be worked into the solution as well. But the fact is that Adam’s non-deception was a big part of Paul’s reasoning and we need to ask ourselves why?

Bravo for finding John 4:7. That is a good example of “a woman” without the article that is about a specific woman. Kudos to you for that!!

Actually, I just sent an email to Dr. White. I may not agree with his reformed theology, but he does seem to have a desire for truth so I am interested to see if he is willing to admit the link.

Marg,

Moreover the woman would be be kept safe through childbirth

This part doesn’t work with the myth as it isn’t women having babies that fits Paul’s grammar for he used a noun and not a verb and it has the definite article so it isn’t many children but a definite One.

Lydia,
He is very patriarchal but it exactly fits so he would have a hard time denying it or he would have to reject his own example. One noun repeated with the repetition having the definite article. I doubt that he ever saw it in 1 Timothy 2 because it likely wasn’t a passage he wanted to unravel. But I would be interested in dialogging with him on the anaphoric use of the article. But he is a busy man and I think this subject has little value for him.

Kristen,
I also think it is good to not make Paul (and the Scripture!) say more than it says and it is wisdom to be careful. That is why I wanted to make sure that we weren’t giving a foothold to the comps who make Paul say waymore than he actually has said.

I still think it means that because Adam was created first, he had more learning (ie, experience) than Eve and thus was not deceived: hence the instruction that this woman needs to learn [before she can teach]. Is that your understanding too, Cheryl?

Absolutely! Yes, this is what I believe. Paul is contrasting knowledge with deception hence the need to learn to combat deception. I don’t believe that Paul was saying that she could never teach, but that her error needed to be taken care of first by learning correct doctrine and once she was truly in the faith with a correct understanding then she could be like all the rest who should progress to maturity.

I should add that sometimes our passionate debate is even more valuable for the unseen readers who never comment. While they may be silent here, they are important too.

Craig,

I was wondering if words like “believes…., is convinced….., must be….” is putting things more strongly than Gengwall is saying. I thought he was just putting forward another possible view to consider, that he could see some merit in.

You may be right. I have been so busy the last while that I get to read the comments in bits and pieces and often not in order that they were written so sometimes I read a comment that was written earlier that I did not see before. I did not read the comment of gengwall’s about a possible view right away. It did seem to me that he was against the view that “a woman” was only the woman from verse 14 and that he was then giving a possibility for the interpretation of “a woman” since another view was needed if she couldn’t be solely the woman in verse 14. I am sure that when gengwall has his time away and comes back he will be able to correct wherever I misunderstood him thinking that he was in disagreement with me. If we were on the same page then I was passionately arguing my view for nothing I suppose. But then passionate argumentation is what this blog is about as long as it is respectful of the other person. The commenters here have been amazing in their respectful discussions.

@4 Craig,
You asked:

Are you saying that I can now say that in Greek whenever a noun without a definite article is followed by the same noun with the definite article, it always means that the first noun must be read as “the ……” So there is no doubt that it is “the woman” rather than “a woman”?

Yes. Dr. White is arguing this same point in James 2:14 where he is saying that it is the way that it must be read because of the anaphoric use of the article. He argues this way against the Roman Catholic view of the verse to prove that both instances of faith must necessarily have the definite article.

As far as I knew the context was the key to the interpretation of “a woman” and with the definite article in verse 14 and with the passage taken as a whole including the future results of her salvation in verse 15 which is about one “she”, the weight of the context solidified the conclusion that verses 11 & 12 are about one woman. However I was unaware of the anaphoric use of the article until yesterday. Now I am convinced that it is not just the context that removes any doubt but the exact grammar. Dr. White did not give any exceptions to the anaphoric use of the article and my research on the anaphoric use did not show any exception either so I think it is pretty much a slam dunk.

By the way the clip that I got from Dr. White was on from his Alpha and Omega Ministries web cast today, August 3rd 2010 here http://www.aomin.org/podcasts/20100803.mp3

All I can say is that God is good! He brings things to me and all I can say is Wow! I could never find these things on my own. I give all the credit to God who knows the answers when I don’t.

Kristen,
“Teach” and “authentein” are both connected to deception. I do not believe that authentein describes the kind of teaching, but that authentein and teaching in this case are both verbs that are showing how deception was being expressed.

For example look at the parallel to Rev. 2:20-

Revelation 2:20 (NAS) ‘But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

Here we see the same construction where two verbs are joined together by a conjunction. Now Jezebel was not teaching in a leading way as if it was okay for her to teach but just not in a leading way. She was teaching immorality and leading in immorality.

God is not saying in Rev. 2:20 that all women are not allowed to teach or lead a congregation. He is saying that the immorality that is expressed in her teaching and immorality was a sin. I believe that Rev. 2:20 has the very same connection to sinful error as 1 Timothy 2:12. The only difference is that the term “authentein” is so unusual a term that it is found only in this verse (1 Timothy 2:12) in the entire Bible so we cannot completely put our finger on what was being forbidden other than the term always has a negative identity in secular sources and the prohibition that includes “authentein” is connected to deception.

Now as far as the challenge that gengwall gave me regarding why Paul would use the term “woman” without the definite article first before he introduced “the” woman in 1 Timothy 2:14, I have found the answer. It is a linguistic term called an anaphoric reference and I just made a new article explaining this here http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2010/08/03/a-woman-anaphoric/

I hope this helps.

Radiance,
I too am amazed that gender specific male conferences are on things that are not male specific like the gospel. To keep women out of these meetings. But the gospel and doctrine does not apply just to men. You were very articulate on your comments, and I thank you for sharing!

Great comments Radiance, and welcome to my blog!

TL,

It is not a woman and all men, but rather a woman and a man. With or without the ‘a’, we can see the shift is deliberate and continues until verse 15.

That is what convinced me – the unity from verses 11 – 15 with the deliberate shift between verse 10-11. And the “gotcha” to the deceiver through the seed of the deceived really was icing on the cake. Paul saw the positive and that really touches me especially as he had described himself as the worst sinner.

Also there is no indefinite article in Greek so our English “a” woman is just “woman” in Greek.

Thanks for your comments!