Craig

Cheryl. @137 you thought it was me who said
“I disagree with things said on here all the time but I won’t comment cause I don’t have the passion for the subject.”
Actually it was Pinklight. I would never disagree with anyone here 🙂

Pinklight asked @116 “But what would that subject be?” in relation to ch2.
I am thinking about false teaching and authenteining, and the problems in the congregation being caused by this.

Thanks everyone for all your helpful comments!
I will probably need to reread the comments to properly digest them all.
I particularly found the comments about grammar useful. Thanks Cheryl, Pinklight, TL and Gengwall for being willing to go over things which may be quite basic for you in order to help me understand things better.
I can understand the dangers of trying to bring in too much assumed outside information to help to explain the text.
I can understand that if we stick with what is written in 1 Tim 2:11-15, and stick with the grammar that is there, my suggestions so far for connecting v11-15 with the rest of the chapter, and for getting past the problem that many have in seeing v11,12 as dealing with a particular woman and a particular man have failed. Thanks for being willing to hear them and correct me. It is much better getting things sorted out here amongst friends than in some other less loving environments!

Thanks Pinklight for all of your one hundred comments of disapproval of my suggestion! I appreciate your honesty and being willing to say what you think. In a way, it is kind of encouraging when people disagree. If I know people are willing to be critical of an idea when they don’t agree with it, then it makes it more meaningful when you do agree and say encouraging things. So thanks 🙂 .

continued from above
4 I know both egals and comps who can see the force of Cheryl’s argument from v15, and yet they still have difficulty accepting that v11,12 are speaking of particular individuals. This makes me wonder “are there any other ways of understanding v11-15, where Paul could be expressing a principle in v11,12 while still making sense of the “she” and “they” of v15.
Pinklight, I understand that you are very hesitant about constructing possible scenarios to explain the meaning of bible passages, but don’t we use background information learned from outside the bible to understand difficult passages quite frequently?
Anyway, suppose Timothy had asked Paul about a particular woman and a particular man. Could Paul have answered this by first stating the principles that would apply to the specific situation in v11,12 (while Paul and Timothy would know exactly who these principles would be relevant to), and then in v15 spoken of them as “she” (the woman) and “they” (the woman and the man/her husband). This is very similar to Cheryl’s view, but just with a slight twist in v11,12 for those who can’t see the Greek as directly referring to a particular woman and man. Does this make any sense, or is this not possible from the grammar as well? Thanks.

There are several issues that I am thinking about at the moment
1 The only reasonable way I have seen so far for explaining “she” in v15 is as a particular Ephesian woman as Cheryl does. The arguments that “she” is “Eve”, or “Eve representing women” don’t seem very satisfactory to me. Many egals and comps seem to get very messy in their explanations of this.
2 Cheryl’s explanation of “they” seems a very good one to me, and may be the only reasonable possibility and so may well be correct.
3 I know both egals and comps who can see the force of Cheryl’s argument from v15, but find it difficult to see how v11-15 then fits in with the context eg Kristen. My last attempt @#102 was an attempt to see v11-15 as dealing with the same subject as the whole of chapter 2 and find some possible explanation for why Paul could have referred to the parties involved as “she” and “they” in v15, and “a woman” and “a man” in v12. From the responses I have got it seems like I am barking up the wrong tree and just showing my ignorance of grammar -it never has been a strong point of mine. I asked
“Does that make any sense at all as a possibility to anyone else besides me???”
I have one hundred No’s from Pinklight 🙂 and zero Yes’s so far. Doesn’t look very promising!

Cheryl, @85

The “they” has to refer back to something already in the text.

Does it definitely? Is it too “outside the box” to wonder whether Paul could be referring to his prior communication with Timothy and what Tim and Paul both knew about the situation rather than what he has just written?
We often say how it could be like listening to one side of a phone call, or a reply to a letter we don’t have.
If Timothy has asked him about a particular woman and a particular man, or a particular wife and husband, or a particular woman and several men, Paul, with this specific situation in mind, could be stating the principle that he would go by and apply to this case “A woman should learn and I do not permit this kind of behaviour of a deceived woman teaching falsely and authenteining a man. He then gives the reason for this principle in v13,14. Then he gives the specific outcome in v15 that will occur in this case if the principles of v11,12 are followed. So the “she” and the “they” refers back to the letter of Timothy rather that v12.
If Tim has written about a particular wife and husband, then “she” refers to the wife and “they” refers to the wife and husband. If Tim wrote about a woman and several men, then “she” would be the woman and “they” could be the men.
Does that make any sense at all as a possibility to anyone else besides me???

TL @#93. I am not sure that I understand what you mean here. I will try and clarify what I am thinking.
When we have 2 verbs in a sentence separated by an “or” and an object following only the second verb, how do we know if the object applies to both verbs or only the second verb?
1 I do not permit a girl to run or throw a ball.
2 I do not permit a girl to kick or throw a ball.
3 I do not permit a woman to teach or authentein a man.
In 1, “a ball” probably only relates to throw. We know this because it is quite normal to just “run” but it is not normal to “run a ball”.
In 2, “a ball” probably relates to both “kick” and “ball” because it is quite normal to “kick a ball” and less normal to just “kick”.
In 3 it is ambiguous. It is a normal activity to just “teach”. It is also a normal activity to “teach a man”. Both would be possible.
Therefore, I conclude that unless Greek is quite different to English in this and agreed upon by Greek scholars then it is safest not to base an argument on one meaning or the other. But then again, I could be totally wrong!

I am still thinking about whether 1 Tim 2:11-15 has to be understood as a husband/wife private thing or whether there is any way Paul could have been referring to matters going on in the wider church.
In the example I gave @77, say the woman (let’s call her Betty) had actually led no one astray yet but was trying to with 20 different men, don’t you think Paul could still have expressed “I do not permit Betty to authentein a man”? I can agree that he could also have said “I do not permit Betty to authentein men”, but both sound possible to me.
If Paul still had this idea in his mind of deceived Betty endeavouring to enrich many men in their spiritual experience through sex with her, could he not also have expressed it as “But she will be saved… if they (meaning all the men she was trying to influence, or possibly her and the men)?
The sexual element seems to work in well with Adam and Eve as well, with deceived Eve offering Adam something supposedly to enhance his spirituality or godliness, but ends in death. The men in Ephesus must not be like Adam, but rather, by continuing in faith, love, holiness with propriety can be involved in her salvation.
Could this Artemis problem also be related to such things as
1 prayers for a quiet life 2:1,2 (in contrast to the riots of Acts 19)
2 Jesus is the one mediator v5 in contrast to the temple priestesses
3 Anger, fighting, disputing v8 ?

Thanks Cheryl for this information @#82,83 regarding whether the object of “a man” would modify just “authentein” or also “to teach”. I have heard both points of view from “experts”. Moo in RBMW p186 agrees with you, that it relates to both verbs. But in the footnote p497 he says Payne disagrees. I have heard/read someone else also (can’t remember who) say that “a man” only relates to “authentein” and not “teach’. I had concluded that it is probably not possible to be conclusive from the text itself which one it is. I will take your information into account in my thinking. I noticed you said “typically has object or indirect object” – does a verb have to have an object? If I say “I do not permit a girl to run or throw a ball”, “run” doesn’t have to have an object.

As an example of what I am saying/asking. @#73 Cheryl quotes a suggestion from Kirsten and then sees a problem with it.

Kristen,?You said:
“Perhaps the women in question, being used to seeing women leading in the temple of Artemis, were only “shouldering in” when it was a man doing the teaching in the Ephesus church. Perhaps when a woman was teaching in the church, they were letting her teach without resistance. Perhaps this particular situation is what Paul was addressing. It seems plausible.”
The problem with this is that Paul’s words are not about men teaching but about who she teaches. How are you going to get a woman “shouldering in” to the congregation when a man teaches and find her only teaching men? Where are the other women that would be there? There is a hole in the argument.

The problem doesn’t exist if “a man” only refers to “authentein” and not to “teach” as far as I can tell. So Kristen’s suggestion may not be ruled out by this objection, if we are looking outside of the wife/husband private scenario possibilities. I still think it suffers at verse 15 though- but no more than any comp view I have heard.
BTW One of the comp staff at my church also argued with me that “she” in v15 was Eve representing all women- a bit the same as Adam representing all mankind in Rom 5. I think Cheryl’s view makes more sense than this of v15. I was also thinking, if comps take this line- that women sinned “in Eve”, I wonder what happens to their Federal headship of Adam?? I didn’t think to ask this at the time.

Thanks very much Cheryl for the link to Chrysostom’s quote.

This thought is a little unrelated to what we have been discussing so I thought I would put it under a different post on 1 Tim 2:15.
I remember discussing 1 Tim 2:15 with Mark here a while back, and he was saying how it was bad theology to relate one person’s salvation to the actions of another. He was arguing against Cheryl’s interpretation. I just noticed that Paul says the same sort of thing in 1 Tim 4:16. He tells Timothy to persevere, because if he does, he will save himself and his hearers. This sounds a bit like “they” persevering resulting in the salvation of “she” in 1 Tim 2:15.

Just thought I would clarify my point number 1 in #77 in case it was a bit unclear. Many of the comments above to argue against certain views assume that the “a man” refers to both the “teach” and the “authentein” in v12. We often read it as “I do not permit a woman to teach a man or to authentein a man”. If “a man” only refers to “authentein” and not to “teach” then this would alter the validity of many of the above comments. Paul would be restricting the false teaching of the deceived woman generally, not just teaching to a man. But he would be be prohibiting authentein specifically of the woman to a man.
So therefore, we have to work out why authentein only relates to a man. We don’t necessarily have to figure out why Paul may be only restricting a woman’s teaching when it is to a man, because he may not be. We might be misreading him.

Interesting discussion! I’ll need to reread some of the comments to digest it all, but I just thought I would throw some more thoughts into the mix. It’s late here so I’ll just put them out there and see if there are any nibbles while I am asleep. (I’ll put on my flame proof suit before I read any responses, because they are, like most of my comments, just off the top of my head and could have “holes” everywhere! 🙂 )
1 We seem to be assuming in some of our comments that the teaching not permitted is just to “a man”. I am not sure that this is certain is it? Isn’t it also possible from the grammar that the teaching could be to everyone and this teaching is combined with “authentein a man”. The word order in my interlinear says “but a woman to teach I do not allow, nor to authentein a man.”
2 If “authentein” had a sexual meaning, imagine there was a particular woman from a background as an Artemis Temple Priestess. Could she have been teaching intimacy with God through intimacy with her? She would be deceived, and holding out the “forbidden fruit” to the Adam’s of the congregation. It would be very important if she is to be saved, for the men to hold fast to their Christian faith and godliness and not be like Adam and fall when offered the “fruit”. I think the language Paul uses of “a man” in v12 could involve one or many men ( because presumably she would only have one man at a time- but I am speaking from total ignorance of the temple practices of the time!) The “they” in v15 could be the woman and one man, the woman and many men, or just the men.

Thanks Lydia for finding where Chrysostom’s quote is from.

I must say that I still find Cheryl’s view of this passage the most appealing, but in looking at whether any other views are plausible (just in case “a woman” is generic), does anyone know why the view of authentein with the sexual connotatation (from Catherine Kroeger?) seems to be discussed less than authentien as self assumed authority (Philip Payne?)? To me, the “sexy” view seems to explain the “a man” better than the “assume authority” view. Has the research discounted the sexy view or something?

TL. You said,
“But teaching requires certain boundaries in orderliness that are different than the local gatherings. Even when Jesus taught in the temple areas for teaching, it was different in order than when they gathered on the Sabbath.”
You seem here to be linking the teaching mentioned to groups other than the main church meeting. Do you mean by “local gatherings” what Kristen means below by “main church meeting?
Kristen. You said
“men were the only ones doing the teaching in the main meetings (it was in those meetings that I pictured the women as “shouldering in on the class”)
You seem here to be linking the teaching mentioned to the main church meeting.
Am I correct in thinking you both differ from each other on this point? I am just trying to clarify what each of you is saying. Thanks.

Kristen. You said,
“For example, it might have been possible for someone to “teach and authentein” Jesus in his sessions with his disciples, by shouldering in and taking over as rabbi, expecting Jesus to sit down and listen.”
I think I can understand what you mean here. But can we consider a man in a church to be like Jesus (or any Rabbi) to his disciples?

Hi Kristen. Thanks for the interesting history. I am just thinking aloud and trying to grasp what you are saying.
You said,
“To me, it makes sense to read it, “I do not allow a woman to teach in a way that takes over a man’s class.”
You also said
“men were the only ones doing the teaching in the main meetings (it was in those meetings that I pictured the women as “shouldering in on the class”)”
I am probably misunderstanding you because it seems like you are saying that they understood church as a class belonging to a man. We often see church that way today, with one man being the official teacher, being in authority, and others being in a position of learners. With this view of church, if someone wanted to “shoulder in and take over” that position, they could be described as “authenteining” a man. But I don’t think that church belongs to one man and so how could it be seen to be a man’s class that the woman is taking over? How could it therefore be “authenteining a man”? Sorry, still confused.

Hi Lydia. Thanks for your comment regarding Chrysostom and authentein. This is very useful information that I have heard on blogs several times. A reference to verify this would be helpful. Did you read it in a book, or do you know where this information comes from? Thanks.
And yes, the idea that a woman (or some women) was teaching from a position of deception and thus spiritually murdering a man seems also a possibility. But if there was more than one woman involved we would still have to assume that for some reason, the women’s teaching was focused only on the men. Any ideas?

I would love to know, as we all would, exactly what was going on in Ephesus – what Paul meant by authentein and what he was prohibiting.
Your proposal seems possible to me, but I do not know enough about the Ephesian situation to know if they had “classes” for instruction outside of the normal church gatherings in which only men had been authorized to teach. Was Ephesus different to Rome (Rom 16) and Corinth (1 Cor 11-14) where it would be difficult to imagine there were no women teachers? What about Priscilla?
At this stage I feel comfortable with the idea that authentein was something that was bad for either a woman or a man to do, and that a particular woman (or perhaps women) was combining teaching with whatever authentein is, and doing this from a deceived position.
If you are looking for alternatives to the particular woman view that Cheryl teaches
1 If it was some sort of domineering behaviour, I can imagine that some women could do this just toward the men.
2 If it had some sort of sexual meaning I can imagine that some women could do this just toward the men.
3 If it was “shouldering in and taking over a man’s class”, I need to think some more about that one, and “learn in quietness and full submission” 🙂 before I can properly envisage that as what Paul might be saying.
Whatever the behaviour was, it seems to be contrasted with learning in quietness and full submission.
Thanks again Kristen for the interaction.

Hi Jeremiah,
I am trying to follow what you are saying but it would be helpful if you could clarify something.
You said
“eve could’ve have taken the rap”. You seem to imply that she could have been held responsible because she ate the fruit first, but Adam was held responsible because we are told that “sin came through Adam”.
You later said
“Both man and woman are responsible for their own walk with God.”
Just checking whether you believe Adam was responsible for Eve’s sin or were each responsible for their own actions?
Thanks Jeremiah.

Kristen, I don’t think that “teach’ and “authentein” had to necessarily commonly go together to mean something specific, like “drink” and “smoke” do. So you are probably correct that my example still doesn’t seem to get the idea across that I am trying to make. So I’ll try again.
1 I do not permit you to learn or commit idolatory at the local mosque.
2 I do not permit you to worship or have seances with those friends of yours who are involved in the occult.
3 I do not permit you to teach or commit adultery like the temple prostitutes do.
4 I do not permit you to teach or authentein a man while you are deceived like Eve.
The negative context and the negative second verb influence the meaning of the first verb and make it reasonable to assume that the first verb has a negative meaning also. Example 1 involves learning Islaamic teachings, not biblical truth. Example 2 involves worshipping Satan, not God. Examples 3 and 4 involve error, not biblical truth.

Hi Kristen and TL. Thanks Kristen for expressing your hesitation but I am not sure I completely follow. So I thought I might try and clarify a bit and see if you still think it is off track.
Comps often argue that Paul wouldn’t have used the word “teach” in 1 Tim 2:12 if he had false teaching in mind. Rev 2 and Titus 1 show that “teach” can refer to false teaching. I just thought an example from everyday English could be helpful in showing how context and another verb connected with “or” can influence the intended meaning. Another example along the same lines, but without the driving, would be
“I do not permit you to drink or eat in this section of the museum.”
“I do not permit you to drink or smoke at this party.”
“Drink” has a meaning, but the type of drinking we think of is influenced by the context and the other verb it is connected with.
This seems similar to me to a context of deception and its connection with authentein influencing what Paul had in mind by the word “teach”.

I thought that because the 1st-century mind always thought of “authentein” as negative, then that would quite likely influence the way they would have understood “teach” when associated with it. So if teach/authentein was prohibited, they would naturally think of a certain kind of teaching- not a good sort. So one word, even though a distinct word and activity from a second word, can influence the way we understand the second word. Is this not correct?

Just thought of an illustration for “teach or authentein”.
A man applies for a job for a bus company. At the interview he is told “I do not permit a diver to drink or smoke while on duty.”
The context indicates he is being prohibited from drinking alcohol. It would be foolish to think that drinking water is being prohibited.
Likewise the context of 1 Tim 2:12 indicates a prohibition of false teaching, not true Christian teaching.
What do you think?

Thanks Lydia. This makes sense to me. This idea was behind my first question to Frank @#8. Thanks for filling in some helpful detail.

Thanks Elaine and Kristen.
Kristen, you said
“I think that in the head-body metaphor in Ephesians 5:22, the meaning of “head” is more “source of supply” than it is “origin.” This comes from Ephesians 4, in which Christ as “head” is spoken of as the source of nourishment and growth.”
I can see what you mean here. I am wondering though whether there is also some aspect where Paul may be thinking back to Adam and Eve in Eph 5:23 (see 5:31), just like he relates the term head in 1 Cor 11:5 back to what went on with Adam and Eve(1 Cor 11:3,8,9) I don’t really understand what I’m saying, and it may not be there at all, but I was just wondering.

Thanks Kristen and Gengwall for your helpful comments.
Just wanting to toss out some more ideas for your comments. I hope they are not too confusing so you can follow what I am thinking. Some of them are just new thoughts for me and I haven’t thought a lot about how it fits with all the relevant passages. They may be totally different to what you others think, or you may agree.
If 1 Cor 12 is just a body metaphor and not a head-body metaphor, I am wondering about whether Paul may not be using a head-body metaphor in Eph/Col either, but rather adding the concept of a head (source) to the existing body (including the head) metaphor.
With what I am thinking about, the church is the body (including the head) of Christ and Christ is the head (origin, source of supply,) of the church, which is his body (including the head).
The union of Christ and the church is not the union of a head with the rest of the body from the neck down, but rather it is the union of Christ (including his head) with all of the church so that we are all Christ’s body (including his head). We are thus “in Christ” and one with Him.
The union of a husband and a wife is the same. It is not the union of the husband-head (just from above the neck)with the wife-body (from the neck down) but a total union of their total bodies (including their heads) to become one flesh.
The husband can thus speak of his wife as his body (including his head), and one with him, just as the church is Christ’s body and one with Him.
These concepts would indeed qualify as a profound mystery Eph 5:31,32.
The husband would then be the head (origin, source of supply) of his wife, who is one flesh with him, which is easy to see in Adam and Eve (but not so easy to see for all other marriages- so I am still thinking more about that one).