Cheryl

Don,

“It is like these verses are a mirror, the interpretation shows more about the interpreter than about the text, as gaps get filled in based on the interpreter’s working assumptions.”

You are exactly right here.  We all have working assumptions and how we interpret certain texts is a big mirror to show these assumptions and sometimes eve our heart attitude.  I think sometimes it is just easier to take our assumptions and run with them than to push into the text to see past these assumptions.  For example if a person said to another person “You are not to smile” we can see this command in different ways.  Why are you not allowed to smile?  Is smiling a bad thing?  Smiling isn’t a bad thing so there must be something wrong with “you”.  This is where the assumptions can come in.  Maybe there is something wrong with you because you are the wrong color, or the wrong class or the wrong gender.  But maybe there is something else going on that we haven’t considered because we think there are only two options.  We think that either there is something wrong with smiling or there is something wrong with the person because they are told that they can’t smile.  But maybe, just maybe we have stopping thinking with two options when there is a third or fourth option that we haven’t considered.  Maybe it isn’t smiling that’s wrong or the person that is wrong by nature to smile, but maybe it is the circumstance where it is wrong for everyone to smile.  Maybe this instructing someone how to tell a person that their loved one has died.

Maybe 1 Timothy 2:12 is one of those cases.  Maybe it is okay to have Paul prohibiting two things because if a person is completely deceived there are several things that they must not do.  Sometimes I think we are afraid to say that a woman cannot teach, but I think that the prohibition would have been no different if it was a man who was deceived and a wife that was the one who was not deceived but who was allowing her husband to carry on in his error and teaching her things that are opposite of what she knows to be true.  Would Paul have said “I do not allow a man to teach or push his way onto a woman (or spiritually murder her by teaching her his error?)”  I think that he would have said that same things, but I think we would not have considered Paul stopping all men from teaching all women.  The reason we make this a general prohibition instead of a specific situation is because many of us have been raised to think that women are somehow less than a man.  So many of us immediately take the position that there must be something wrong with all women that make them not good enough to teach men.  When we come to the text with a preconceived notion that women are not good enough or the quality of their work is inferior to a man’s work, then we can read into the text an agreement with our internal values.

What I want to bring to the table is not to have to do anything about changing the two things that are prohibited into one negative thing, but allowing the context itself to determine the negative.  I want to propose that the negative meaning of the prohibition comes from the example that Paul gives for the reason for his prohibition.  Paul states that it is connected to the situation in the garden with the first marriage couple and the fact that one wasn’t deceived and the other one who was created second was deceived.  There is so much in that statement that needs to be explored but the very foundation is embedded in deception.  If the prohibition’s foundation is to be looked at through the lens of deception then we should be able to see that Paul’s prohibition has nothing to do with gender or with good teaching at all.  It has everything to do with spiritual death.  Someone who is spiritually dead is offering the “fruit” of what has caused their spiritual death to the person who they love but who is also the one who is still alive.

Don,
You said: “In Hebrew thought, a neither/nor contruction can refer to one thing. For example, when Jesus in Mat 6:20 where thieves neither break in nor steal”

I still don’t see this as one thing. There is a crime of breaking and entering. That is trespassing. You can do that without stealing. Or you can break in and steal which is two things.

You said: “This is another reason why the meaning of authentein is pivotal. We cannot be sure if it is one or two things.” I think we can be sure that it is two things unless the bible uses a similar wording that is clearly one thing. By law, breaking in is one crime and stealing is another. You can be guilty of only theft or only breaking in but you can also be guilty of both. I still don’t see it as one thing, but I may be dense. Perhaps I am a tough nut to crack or a “confounded skeptic” as I have been called.

You said: “If it is 2 things then didasko/teach has no direct object and is therefore unrestricted in scope, which we KNOW is not true in general as Paul in other places says for women to teach other women; so we KNOW there MUST be a scope limitation somewhere in the sentence, else there is a contradiction.”

I believe that there is a definite scope. I think that it is along the lines of “I do not allow my girls to kiss or hug boys.” Who are the girls not allowed to kiss? The word boys would be understood to go along with both “kiss” and “hug”. I think the same construction is found in “I do not allow a woman to teach or to authenteo a man”. Here “a man” would be one whom she is not allowed to teach or authenteo. It would also make sense that if she is deceived, that she should not teach women or children either. However from the sentence construction, I am convinced that she is only teaching one man privately and not everyone publicly. I am also convinced that the touchy issue of interfering in a marriage is why Paul make a special issue of commanding Timothy to get involved and to make sure that the woman learns and stops teaching. Most people would hesitate to instruct someone else’s wife when the husband is doing nothing to stop her. I believe that this is why Timothy needed a push by Paul.

You said: “But besides that, it is possible that it is one thing that is being discussed, not two, as in I do not permit a woman to teach nor do X; but we need to know what X is.”
I think it is very helpful for us to know what X is. But even without knowing what X is, I think that we can establish that it isn’t a good thing and it is not for all women.

It is just such a sad thing that people have used this passage to forbid women to speak in church, be a bible teacher in their home where men attend, give directions to a lost man on the street and on and on… So many men haven’t tried hard enough to think through this difficult passage so that their sisters in Christ are not stumbled or restricted. Yet for those men who have worked hard to think through the passage, I am so grateful for those who support women and risk being treated badly for doing so.

Lin,
I don’t know where all that ‘code’ came from.  Did you by any chance create the comment in another program and copy and paste?  I will see if I can fix it.

Don,
I have heard the interpretation before about the Gnostic teaching that woman authored the man. Although I do believe that it is possible that Paul could have somehow been referring to this teaching, I have doubts about it because of problems with the text. I myself do not subscribe to an egalitarian interpretation if I can see contradictions or holes in the argument. Here is where I see a problem and why I don’t hold to that view. If we understand Paul as saying that he does not allow two things (neither/nor) then it would be difficult in my mind to justify the interpretation that Paul is not allowing the teaching that woman authored the man because this is one thing (teaching) not two. Rather it appears that there are two things that are forbidden: 1. teaching 2. authenteo a man

It appears to me, unless I am wrong, that a right interpretation would have to include two things not one. Also it appears that the two things are either both a good thing or both a bad thing. Some argue that didasko is a good thing and not bad, so authenteo must also be a good thing. However we can see in Rev. 2:20 that teaching (didasko) has a negative connotation because Jezebel is “teaching” and “leading” men into error. In this case didasko definitely has a bad thing not a good thing. It also has a parallel to 1 Timothy 2:12 as there are two things that are both spoken of in a negative way.

Rev 2:20 ‘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.

Because of Revelation 2:20 we can be sure that both the teaching in 1 Timothy 2:12 and authenteo can be a negative thing.

You said:

“So, assuming authentein is negative, I see “authentein andros” as possibly meaning something like “authoring man” ala the Gnostic teaching of the woman being first created; that is, ‘andros” in 1 Tim 2:12 does not refer to a specific man living in Ephesus.”

If that is the case then the teaching is also not referring to a specific man. However this doesn’t fit the context unless I don’t quite get it. If I understand this interpretation correctly, you are saying that Paul is instructing the specific woman not to teach that the woman has authored the man. That would certainly fit if there was only one thing forbidden but it appears clear to me from the construction of the Greek that it is neither/nor which would mean there is neither this nor that which are two things. I don’t see how forbidding the teaching that a woman has authored the man to be two things. If you can make it two things, then I would certainly reconsider. Also the man is only said once so the teaching and the authenteo is both toward the same man. If authenteo a man isn’t about a specific man, then neither would be teaching a man. It just doesn’t add up but I can admit that perhaps I don’t understand the point fully.

When I come to scripture, I tend to be very precise believing that God didn’t say anything that he didn’t mean in context. Therefore if there is a precise word or precise piece of grammar, I want to understand it with the precision that it has been written. If I ignore that Paul is prohibiting two things and not one, then I would think that I would be ignoring part of the word to make my idea fit and that doesn’t seem right to me. I think my interpretation fits the context without ignoring any of the words or the grammar. If we say that Paul is stopping a specific woman from teaching or spiritually murdering (this is one meaning of authenteo while another would be to dominate him as to control him or force him to go along with her) a particular man with her error then this would fit the context of deception and error and it would allow there to be two things that are forbidden to this specific woman – two things that she is practicing.

I do admit that I am not infallible but I have never seen another interpretation that didn’t have holes in it. If the holes I see have an explanation for them that fits the text, I will gladly reconsider.
My belief is not based on an egalitarian agenda and I think this can be proved by my rejecting as many egalitarian arguments as I do complementarian ones. I am just very interested in getting to the bottom line of what Paul meant and I do believe that God meant us to understand Paul. Granted, I do think it takes a lot of work to understand Paul. I think one of the problems is that we all have come to the passage with our own preconceived notions of what the text says. In my desire to be faithful to the text, I have rejected every interpretation that does not fit with verse 15 and also all interpretations that do not consider all of the words in verse 12. So at this point, I have to say that Paul is prohibiting two things unless I can be shown how the Greek proves that Paul is only stopping one thing. It doesn’t appear to me that Paul is stopping abusive teaching which would make authenteo an adverb instead of an action. I think that without allowing emotion to get into our interpretation, we can see that Paul is disallowing two things. My interpretation fits this wording and it fits verse 15 perfectly.

If my interpretation has any holes, I haven’t seen them nor has anyone pointed out what actually were real holes. If someone has an hole to point out to me, I would love to see it. I mean that very honestly because for someone to hold onto a false understanding isn’t helpful nor wise. I hold onto my interpretation because of the inspired words in the text, not in spite of them.
Having said that, I always appreciate reading other people’s thoughts. I also like finding out why people think their interpretation might fit with the context. This is how iron sharpens iron and it is very helpful to me and I am sure to everyone who reads this blog.

Don, you have a very succinct way of putting truth into a logical format that really drives home the point. Your list of deceived/deliberate sinner/deceiver was so clear and very helpful to see it listed that way. Thank you!

Don,
Your list of the 3 types of sinners in the garden was just excellent.  It is also interesting that people like Matt Slick say that God doesn’t make a distinction regarding one’s motives, yet the list you give shows a definite distinction regarding how God treated the 3.  God cursed the serpent who was the deliberate deceiver.  Neither the man nor the woman was cursed although the serpent and the ground were.  Although the man and the woman got the same punishment – they both died because of eating the fruit – it was the man who received God’s actions against him as he was kicked out of the garden.  The women was not kicked out of the garden although she went willingly as she desired the man.  So we have the deliberate sinner receiving expulsion from the garden and the deceived woman receiving the greatest mercy.  She received God’s promise that the Messiah would come through her seed.

The problem I see here is that “she will be saved…” is connected to “if they”.  How can her salvation or her sanctification be connected to generically everyone else and what they do?  However if “she will be saved…” “if they” is connected to the “a woman” and “a man” we can see him helping her to come out of her deception and it makes sense that a husband’s intimate connection with his wife would make him vital to her exit from deception.  It doesn’t make sense to me that every Christian’s actions have anything to do with a specific woman in Ephesus so it would be hard for me to see this application.  I am willing to be convinced of an alternative view if there is a view that fits the context without contradiction.  I believe that “a woman” as “she” and “a woman and a man” as they fits Paul’s concern about her salvation and the words that Paul’s uses for what needs to be done to bring her to truth are the exact same words as Paul had already used in chapter 1 when he said that some had left these things aside to follow error.

I love hearing other’s thoughts too.  It helps one to be stretched biblically!

That is great detective work.  Of course it makes sense.  He was looking at the English “a woman” instead of the actual Greek word so he would miss a place that “wife” is listed.  That shows faulty research on Matt’s part.

Don,
That is a powerful example!  I see Paul as being very respectful and many times he did not name names.

Let me be the first to answer.  The answer is “none”.

Genesis 4:25.  You can see it in the Hebrew here http://scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/gen4.pdf that it was Eve who named Seth.

Don,
This is very helpful.  There is so much in the scripture that is a reference to Jesus and there are times that we need to go to the original instead of the translation to see these things.  This has been good reminder to all of us.

Don,
Thank you for your wise words!

Don,
That is a great word about “trustworthy statement” of 1 Timothy 3:1 actually meaning in Greek the true word.  Yes, Jesus is referred to as the Logos (word) and he is the trustworthy word.  In him the ideal is faithfulness.  One may be passionate for the truth but be deceived in their ignorance, but through learning the truth, they then may become one of the ones who is a trustworthy witness because of Christ.  Good thoughts!

Don,
Yes, this is exactly what I do.  I show why the context points to a prohibition on false teaching and I point out the inspired words that are related to one single woman – an individual who has been in the group of deceived teachers but who is being allowed to teach her husband her error.  If this was easy to refute, Matt would have refuted it by now.  The fact is that there are clear and logical reasons to believe as I do and no compelling reason to reject my view from the passage.

tiro3,
Great points!  Excellent comments about primogeniture being of human construct.  We receive our rights through Christ alone as you have shown that he alone is the firstborn.

Excellent comments, Paula.  I’ll have to remember that flying spaghetti monster analogy!  Good going!!  The thing that has slipped Mr. Slick up is that he has nothing in the passage to link the Jewish practice of primogeniture to while I have much in the context of both chapters 1 & 2 to link the prohibition with deception.  The fact that he can’t see his double standard shows a “strong possibility” that he has approached this topic by viewing it through the eye glasses of patriarchy.

Lin,

Yes indeed his presuppositions have affected his ability to get past his hierarchal views that won’t allow Paul to be dealing with a specific situation in Ephesus.  Matt has at least a dozen articles on this subject that he has produced in an attempt to refute me and I will be going through each one of the articles to dismantle the faulty foundation that he has build his argument upon.  It should be fun.

Yup, this is a major problem for Matt.  I will be bringing out more in the next segment of my refutation of Matt’s refutation 🙂  Thanks, Paula!

Molly,

Even those who understand what is clearly emotional abuse, can fall back into the pattern set by years of practice.  If a wife does not have a high self-esteem so that she thinks that she somehow deserves being treated as a child so that her will is overridden and her decisions are made for her, it may take a long time to develop healthy patterns of mutual respect.  When she sets boundaries to stop the abuse she can have guilty feelings and fall back into supporting his control.  It certainly helps when both marriage partners recognize the faulty patterns and each work hard to bring mutual love and respect back into the marriage.  Yet while it can be hard to change old patterns, it is a rewarding thing to see the positive changes.

This is also a good reminder that if you are going to post here, it would be a good idea not to post with the same name as on CARM or give information that would identify you with your identity on CARM.  Diane Sellner has her spies who read and watch especially this blog.

It is amazing that a group that exposes cults and aberrant movements would resort to milieu control.  This tactic conforms to Lifton’s identification of brainwashing and mind control groups.  Milieu control is identified as all communication with the outside world is limited, either being strictly filtered or completely cut off.  This milieu control also extends outside of CARM as their spies search the internet for any negative word regarding Matt Slick, Diane Sellner or CARM and they report back. Those who dare to challenge any of the strict rules will find themselves cut off from their friends on the discussion board, threatened or censured.

Do a search for Diane Sellner on the internet and see how she has threatened people. People who have stood firm have not bowed to her threats. Look below at the censorship she tried on wikipedia. Diane Sellner is the Diane S referenced on the pages below and her sock puppets and meat puppets are discussed. This is wikipedia’s record of their dealing with Diane Sellner and Diane’s complaints cannot have it removed from the record. Reading through all of this lengthy material gives one a very clear picture of what goes on behind the scenes and why Diane Sellner has the reputation that she has. This is evidence of her “ministry” as she is released by her boss to go after anyone who they perceive as an enemy, even if that enemy is a fellow Christian whose “sin” is to believe differently than they do on women in ministry, which is a secondary issue of faith and not an essential issue of salvation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Christian_Apologetics_and_Research_Ministry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Christian_Apologetics_and_Research_Ministry/Archive_1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Christian_Apologetics_and_Research_Ministry/Archive_2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Christian_Apologetics_and_Research_Ministry/Archive_3

Elizabeth,
Your comments made me smile.  Yes, I do think that Diane Sellner and Matt Slick wished I was a “dead horse” however no such luck.  I am very much alive and I am not going away neither is this topic going away.  I also believe that when our new DVD is released on the Trinity that we are now working on, a lot of people’s eyes will be opened to the faulty tradition that complementarian scholars have forced on to the doctrine of the Trinity and onto the women’s issue.  No longer will those scholars who see hierarchy in the Trinity have such an easy time with the “man” in the pew because they will be called to account for their misguided teaching.

For those who would like to hear another story about a woman who also had to live with someone taking over her will, I was given this link http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/kchopin/bl-kchop-story.htm It is a short story that will make you think.

Oops, yup, you are right. It is verse 15 or 1 Timothy 2 not 1 Cor. 15. I have 1 Cor 15 burned into my mind these days as it is part of the “proof” of those who believe in a hierarchy in the Trinity and my refutation of their view from the passage itself is still fresh in my mind. I stand corrected, thanks Lin! I corrected my error in my comment above.

Lin #52,
What is interesting about Andreas Kostenberger is that at the time of our correspondence he remarked that his view on 1 Timothy 2:15 was not accepted by some in CBMW yet since that time, it appears to have moved from a outside-of-the-norm view to become a very prominent view popular with hierarchalists. His interpretation has holes big enough to drive a mac truck through so I am mystified his interpretation has become so widely accepted.

I would recommend anyone interested in seeing the foundation of this thinking to take Dr. Bob at his offer and get his material.  While many think that the hierarchal way of looking at things is biblical, Bob shows where it is not.  It is awhile since I read his material and I should go back myself and reread to freshen up my thinking.  Thanks Bob for reminding me and us all!!

That is a really good point, Don.  She knows that she is going to lose anyway since he has the tie-breaking vote.  Makes for a helpless feeling for sure.

Lin,

I was in correspondence with Andreas Kostenberger while I was writing my script of WIM.  He is the one who proposed that 1 Timothy 2:15 means that women were promised by God that they would be kept spiritual safe if they stayed within the boundaries of their roles as wife and mother.  I asked him if this meaning was the true meaning of the verse why God would be prejudiced against men by not promising that they would be kept spiritually safe by remaining in their “roles” as husbands and fathers?  I also asked him wouldn’t this mean that God failed to keep his promise since many women who have stayed home to remain in their domestic “roles” have fallen prey to the Jehovah’s Witnesses?  He did not have an answer to my questions.  I think the view is faulty and unsupportable by either scripture or factual evidence.  It also doesn’t take into consideration that Paul uses both the singular feminine and third person plural in the verse.  I believe that without paying close attention to the inspired words, we are easily captured by our society’s preconceived patriarchal thinking.

Cindy,

It is an amazing thing to see several blogs and news forums pick up the story about your lecture and the reaction to your lecture.  It appears that people are willing to take a risk and speak out against injustice and faulty biblical thinking even in the Southern Baptist Convention.  I hope that many will read these excellent news links and think again what happens to the church when we set up faulty tradition as the norm and then set up boundaries to stop us from questioning these traditions.  It is a healthy thing to question.  The one who has the truth should be solid enough not to be offended by the questions that are asked.  Truth is provable and solid and need not fear.  A faulty foundation will produce fear from those who are building on that foundation but don’t want others to see the cracks and holes.  Error at times runs and hides and at other times it attacks to deflect that attention away from the questions.  May we always be humble enough to admit our mistakes and to turn towards the firm foundation.

Paula, I like your analogy of the foundation vs the roof.

The world is prone to “lording it over others”.  If Jesus had proposed that this was the way to operate the church and Christian marriage, he did a poor job of teaching the “lordship” model.  Instead he made it clear that the world’s way which is  “lordship” based is not to be practiced among them.  Instead, Jesus said they are to be a servant and a slave to the body of Christ.

The term slave here means one who is in a permanent relation of servitude to another, his will being altogether consumed in the will of the other.  If a husband were to serve his wife this way with his will altogether consumed in her will there would be no way that he would force his will on her.  A servant is not a tyrant and a servant is not someone who will domineer.   Today’s hierarchical leaders term “servant-leader” as defined as someone who takes over leadership of their spouse for the spouses good.  However taking over one’s wife against her will, does not qualify one as a servant nor a slave.  I believe that it is time that we get rid of these worldly terms and practice true godly servanthood.

Lots of good thoughts, all of you! I kept myself away to let you talk. I should be back tomorrow.