Craig

Hi Cheryl,
I understood TL and Kristen to be agreeing with you that the teaching was false teaching.
Kristen said,

“But a certain woman or women were…… … holding meetings in which they contradicted what the established, trusted teachers (who happened to be all male in Ephesus) were teaching. Paul wanted this to be stopped.”

Two tricky bits are:
1.The exact meaning of “authentein”.
As you said “Paul used a word that is so extremely rare that it is difficult to pinpoint the exact meaning”. Is it
“usurp the authority of an accepted/authorized teacher before you yourself have been authorized”
as Kristen has put forward or to “dominate” as I think you believe.
I think your question

“If teaching in an “authoritative” way was wrong if you aren’t an expert on something, then why were these “women” only restricted from teaching men this way? Why not also stop them from teaching women authoritatively?”

is a good one. I wonder what Kristen and TL would say?

2.Is it a certain particular woman or more than one doing this dominating false teaching? Your view that it is one woman makes a lot of sense of the whole passage, and is very appealing, but it is not easily accepted by others.
In our recent discussions on the Sola Panel some questions were raised about it eg
a)Is it really a natural way for Paul to have spoken, without clarifying a little?
b)Are there Greek experts and other prominent egals who have adopted this view?
When you have more time Cheryl, (I noticed that your last comments were at 2am and 3am!!) I would really appreciate any more thoughts you have on these issues.
Thanks.

Thanks Kristen and TL. I think I’m following much better what you are saying and its giving me good food for thought to throw into the mix of reasonable possibilities. Thanks.

Thanks Kristen.
I agree that only some have a gift of teaching, yet all may teach.
Just as only some have a gift of mercy, yet all may show mercy.
I had not thought of “teaching of the law” in 1 Tim 1:6,7 as something that they were seeking to be authorized into, but rather just an activity they wanted to do.
What sort of things might the person “authorized” to teach be able to do that would distinguish them from those that were not “authorized”? Are you thinking of some sort of office or position like elder, or home church leader?

Hi Kristen,
On the Sola Panel #6649 you said regarding 1 Tim 2:12

If Paul did in fact mean that “teach-authentein” is one unified thing (which I think means teaching in such a way as to usurp the authority of an accepted/authorized teacher before you yourself have been authorized), then it’s true that it would be wrong if men did it just as much as if women did it.

I was wondering how this view of authentien relates to how the rest of the bible doesn’t seem to speak much about authority of teachers. Cheryl and some others on this blog (if I have understood them correctly) would doubt that teachers in the church have authority over others. So if they are correct, that would mean there is no authority to be usurped. Perhaps the alternate meaning of domineer or dominate would avoid this problem? Any thoughts? Thanks.

Hi Cheryl,

After all, one day we will surely find an area where we have not understood correctly and we will be greatly blessed by having our understanding challenged by a brother or sister in Christ who is able to speak truth to us in gentleness and respect so that we can hear and have a safe place to change our minds.

I am thankful to God and to those who “live” here, that your blog has been just such a place.
I think I’ve finally worked out you do those cool quotation marks 🙂 .

Thanks David again for taking the time and trouble to help to clarify things for me. #232 all sounds very sensible and along with Kristen and TL’s comments is helping to sharpen my thinking and resolve the point of confusion. Thanks everyone.

Thanks TL.
I notice that Sola Panel is continuing with new threads on the comp/egal issue and Kristen has commented on the issue I just raised @230. The link is http://solapanel.org/article/complementarianism_and_egalitarianism_part_7/#6661 for anyone who is interested.
Thanks Kristen.

A related question I think if anyone has the time.
One of the staff at my church said egals use a “different hermeneutic”. I have often heard comps say it is a “liberal hermeneutic”. I don’t really understand what they mean, what is “liberal” about it, and why they say this. It doesn’t seem “liberal” at all to me.
Thanks.

Thanks TL and Kristen. What you are saying is helping and making sense. I think I am understanding much better what you are saying now.

Hi Kristen,
Just thinking aloud, about the universal command thingy.
You said today on the Sola Panel blog

Either Paul’s words are universal, or they are time/place specific.

You also said

But if we decide that Paul meant these words universally, then we must infer that there is a reason that all women, everywhere and for all time, need to hear these words more than men do.

Maybe the word “meant” is key to my problem in following you? You are saying that there are only two alternatives. Paul either “meant” to be time/place specific or “meant” to be universal. You are arguing that he “meant” to be time/place specific in v8-12. I agree with you on this.
Possibly my problem was that I was looking at a third alternative. Paul meant his words to be time/place specific, but they are actually applicable universally. So the men in the church at Ephesus had a particular problem with anger during prayer, and Paul was addressing this, but it is always applicable that men should pray without anger. I was including this third alternative as universal where as I think you would see it as still time/place specific.
Am I making sense?
I never was much good at English at school. Maybe I need to do that University English study that you and David have done 🙂 .

Hi David,
This morning on the Sola Panel blog you said regarding 1 Tim 2:8-12

“But as a matter of fact the other sex does not appear to be free from any of the problems Paul’s remarks are plainly designed to forestall: in which case none of the rules Paul lays down can be of such a nature, it could apply only to women. From which it follows what Paul says about women teaching etc. must apply to men also.”

I agree. I think this is a similar point to what I was trying to get across to a comp friend of mine in an email I sent a few days ago.
I said
“V8 opposes anger in prayer by men. He does not say it is ok for women to do this.
V9,10 opposes inappropriate dress by women. He does not say it is ok for men to do this.
V11,12 opposes teaching or “aunthentien”ing. Can you be sure he is saying it is ok for men to do this?”

Hi everyone,
As has been mentioned above, there has been a discussion at http://solapanel.org/article/equal_and_complementary_a_review/ over the last month on 1 Tim 2:11-15 and related subjects. That discussion closed today so I am continuing here.
I was asking why egals are concerned to emphasize that 1 Tim 2:12 is not a universal command if there are good grounds for believing that “authentien” is always a bad thing to do.
From your reply Kristen, I think some of the reason why I am not following you completely may be that my definition of universal command may be wrong.
I have thought of a universal command as one that is addressed to a particular group because they need to know it and suits their situation, but it could also be applied universally because it is also true universally.
So “love one another” in Jn 13:34 is addressed to a specific group of people applying to their specific situation, but I also understand it to be a universal command.
However, “wash one another’s feet” Jn 13:14 is also addressed to a specific group of people applying to their specific situation, but I believe that it is  is not a universal command. I make these inferences because of the teaching of the rest of the bible and some knowledge of culture and some hopefully sanctified common sense.
If Paul addressed a mixed group, and in that group the men were prone to anger during prayer, he would say that men should pray without anger 1 Tim2:8. I would understand this as both a specific command to a particular group, but I have also understood this to be a universal command because from the rest of the bible it would seem that it is always wrong for men to pray with anger. So this same command could be given at other times and places in the same way and still be God’s will.
I don’t see why, with this understanding of universal command, that a universal command necessarily implies anything at all about the things you and Jereth see. For example, you said
“If we decide that Paul’s words about men praying “without anger or disputing” are universal, then it is logical to infer (thanks, David!) that there is a reason why men need this command to be given specifically to them; i.e., that men, more than women, have throughout history and culture, more tendency to be involved in anger and disputing than women.”
I don’t see this as logical at all, and so this is why I think you must understand “universal command” differently. Do you understand “universal command” as God giving a general list of commands for all time to the whole human race, saying “this is what I want you all to do.”  There is no reference at all to any specific situation at all. If that is the case, then I think I can better understand what you are saying.

So what I meant was that I see the commands of v8-12 operating the same way as each other.
All of them are given to a particular gender because this is the gender that was having the particular problem at the time.
None of them imply that the other gender may not have problems with these at some other time or that one gender is more prone to it than the other.
None of them imply that it is ok for the other gender to ever do the thing prohibited in the command.
All of them could still be given at other times and places and be true (eg it is still correct for men to pray without anger today and women to dress appropriately) This is what I meant by universal command but may have a wrong definition.
Any comments? Am I totally confused? Thanks.

We continue to pray for you Cheryl, that God’s refreshing and strengthening grace will be with you at this time.

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like Jereth is really interested in continuing the discussion. At one stage he said he was finding the discussion fruitful – this seems to have changed.
He is definite about it not being here on Cheryl’s blog, because he wants to be on “neutral territory”.
Does anyone know much about the Christian Forums Jereth mentioned? I’m praying about whether to just let it drop- that seems to be what he would prefer- or take him up on the offer and we could continue at Christian Forums.
Any thoughts?

Hi David and others,
Sola Panel is working again. Jereth has not yet appeared to let us know what he would like to do.
May I suggest we continue at Sola Panel until we find out Jereth’s preference. A Sola Panel discussion apparently has to stop after one month, which is on 10th Dec (or end of the 9th?).

Hi Everyone,
If there is nothing more from the Sola Panel by tonight, I will write another comment asking Jereth if he would like to continue here. Hopefully he will get it through the feed.

Hi Kay,
I have several comps I am having ongoing discussions with. The one I mentioned in #200 is one of the full time staff at my church. He has said he would like to have coffee with my wife and I about it because he prefers face to face rather than emails.
But he has now said how busy he is for a while with too many meetings to attend and not enough time.
Another staff member has basically said the same thing- preaches compism from the pulpit, would love to discuss my questions, but not enough time.
Another friend said he wanted to discuss the issue, but after several months of no reply, he was the one who told me about the Sola Panel blog and has been reading, but not participating in the discussion.
The Sola Panel blog has not gone private if that is what you are referring to. I think the problem is that we reached 500 comments and overloaded the system again. I noticed comment 501 didn’t appear so I am waiting….. before I make another comment. I have sent an email to notify them of the problem.
If the Kay, Kristen, Teri, Sue, Dave (and others?) on that blog are also regular contributors here, I wouldn’t mind having a bit of a discussion here on how you thought everything went over there eg lessons we can learn, questions we need to further investigate etc
Another possibility would be if Jereth would like to move over here if he wants to continue. Cheryl always seems to welcome comps.

Thanks TL for those helpful thoughts.
I also noticed that Martin Shields seemed to change a bit from his 8:15 am comment to his 7:41pm comment after reading Cheryl’s article on the anaphoric reference.
He changed from saying things like
“strongly indicates that the woman is not a woman known to the audience. ” to saying
“ Although there are reasonable grounds for arguing for a cataphoric reference for ???? in verses 11–12…”
So I have given Cheryl’s article to my friend @198 to see how that goes with him.

Just another comment from a friend on the Greek issue I raised @194.

“I’ve spent this afternoon nutting through the Greek and I don’t think your reading is possible (or at least it is highly improbable). There are several points that I would make, but the key point comes back to the lack of the definite article in verse 11. John 4:7 doesn’t provide the precedent you suggested to me as at that point she is an indefinite person. Notice that as soon as she is introduced and John wants us to understand that she is ‘that’ woman he uses the article. Here there is no introduction to ‘that’ woman (anywhere in 1 Tim 1-2) and that would demand the use of the article or some adjectival descriptor.”

This seems to be a common problem that comes up when discussing Cheryl’s view of 1 Tim 2:11-15.

I noticed that Martin Shields @195 did at least say
“(4) Although there are reasonable grounds for arguing for a cataphoric reference for ???? in verses 11–12…”
so he thought it was possible that the woman could be a particular individual.

Any thoughts?

Hi pinklight,
I am not sure if Adam knew about the serpent’s nature after naming the animals or not. He certainly knew how much God loved him, cared for him and would not withhold anything good from him. If he knew the nature of both, then he would not even need to understand about the details of what the serpent was offering to not be deceived by him.
If you know someone is a con man, and he tries to tell you to disobey someone who has proved he can be trusted, you are not deceived by whatever he says.
Now if Adam didn’t know about the serpent, and needed to discern all the details……I’ll leave that to others more capable 🙂

Thanks everyone. Looks like the Sola Panel blog is back on.

Hi everyone,

From a different blog I have been involved with recently, there was a question raised over the legitimacy of thinking that Paul had a particular Ephesian woman in mind, from the perspective of the Greek. I was wondering if anyone had any comments that could help to confirm or deny whether Cheryl’s exegesis is possible from the Greek or not. Thanks.

Are there Greek experts who:
1.Agree that 1 Tim 2:11-15 is referring to a particular woman,
2.Agree that grammatically it is possible, but don’t agree for other reasons,
3.Don’t believe it is grammatically possible.

These are 2 comments from the other blog and one question of mine which unfortunately hasn’t been answered yet.
Thanks.

Martin Shields
15/11/2010 08:15 AM
Craig, you said
“My understanding is that “woman” singular, without the article, in Greek can legitimately refer to either a particular woman (eg John 4:7) or to women generically.”

ISTM there’s some confusion over the presence/absence of the article in general. The absence of the article in John 4:7 is the normal way of indicating that the referent is not a particular, known woman. Once the initial reference is made, of course, subsequent references to the woman in John 4 include an anaphoric article to make it clear the author is referring to the same woman.
A nice example is 1Kings 19:9. While most English translations read “he went into a cave,” the Hebrew reads ????? (“the cave”) and the Greek preserves the article (?? ????????), but there’s been no previous reference to a cave in the passage. Given the parallels with Exodus, most scholars believe the article indicates that Elijah has travelled to the very cave that Moses had hidden in many years earlier. It was not simply any unknown although specific cave.
So what of 1Tim 2:12? If the woman was known to the audience but the author wished not to name her it would be normal to either use the article or else a demonstrative (“that woman” or the like) — “I do not permit that woman…” or the like. The absence of the article in 1Tim 2:12 on ???? strongly indicates that the woman is not a woman known to the audience. It is the normal way to refer to an undefined woman. Context then determines whether this is a reference to a particular unknown woman or any non-specific woman. I would think the simplest reading of the text is that the absence of the article indicates that Paul is referring to any undefined singular woman. Otherwise Paul seems to be saying “I do not permit a (particular) woman (but I’m not going to tell you who she is!)…”
Examples are numerous, so I’ll just list a few indefinite nouns which refer to any particular instance of the nominee: Matt 5:28 (“a woman”); 7:24 (“a wise man”), 26 (“a foolish man”); 10:21; 13:33; 18:2 (“a child”); and so on.

Martin Shields
15/11/2010 07:41 PM
Hi Dave,

You asked
“I would ask, Martin Shields, have you read the link I gave earlier regarding the anaphoric article and the precedence for how we are claiming the grammar in 1 Tim 2 to be working?”

Yes, I did have a look. I think it does raise questions about the text which need to be examined in more detail which is why I remain somewhat undecided over the interpretation of the passage. In short (if I understand it correctly) the claim is that references to “[a] woman” in verses 11–12 are cataphoric pointing forward to the woman mentioned in verses 14–15. At that point the identity of the woman is disambiguated (sufficiently for Timothy to understand who Paul is referring to) by the additional description that she was deceived (aorist) and became disobedient (perfect) and (presumably) will be kept safe through childbirth (v. 15) if she and her husband (the singular ‘man’ of v.13 and, together with the woman, subject of the plural ???????? in v.15) remain in faith etc. The woman in verse 14 isn’t Eve because of the perfect verb and the non-repetition of the name “Eve.”
It does offer a fairly neat explanation for the most difficult verse (i.e. v.15, which is a problem for most other explanations and cannot be overlooked given it is clearly linked to the remainder of the passage), but unfortunately there remain, as I insinuated, problems with this reading which prevent me from wholeheartedly accepting it. (1) Unlike Paul’s other instructions to Timothy, he here uses the expression ??? ???????? (“I do not permit”) — elsewhere he speaks imperatively (e.g. 1Tim 2:11; 4:7, 11, 12, etc.). There may be plausible reasons for this, although the expression is unparalleled in the NT. If Paul was giving Timothy instructions for dealing with a member of the congregation why not simply use the imperative as elsewhere?
(2) Were this Paul’s meaning, he could have been a little clearer (just to keep me happy, you understand). If he’d written something like ??? ???? ?? ?????? ????????? ?? ???? ??????? (“Let a certain woman learn in quietness and full submission…”) for verse 11 there would be no question that he was referring to a specific individual.
(3) The perfect verb in verse 14 could be related to the deictic centre established by the aorist so fitting with the identification of ? ???? as Eve, an identification reinforced by the association established between that woman and Adam by the repetition of “deceived.”
(4) Although there are reasonable grounds for arguing for a cataphoric reference for ???? in verses 11–12, I don’t think there’s as good a case for so reading ?????? (‘a man’) for which there’s little beyond the plural verb in verse 15 to clarify the referent (if the woman’s husband is here identified the text as it stands may be sufficient, although identification of her husband could be made clearer with the use of a possessive pronoun [cf. Matt 1:19; 10:12; Acts 5:10]).
I could probably go into greater detail with the pros and cons as I see them, but time is limited. If the Bible contained another affirmation of the restrictions on women claimed to be stated here I’d be far happier. As it stands there remain, as I mentioned (much!) earlier, too many questions for me to feel happy choosing one interpretation over the other.

Craig Swift
16/11/2010 09:29 PM
Hi Martin S,
You said,
Although there are reasonable grounds for arguing for a cataphoric reference for ???? in verses 11–12, I don’t think there’s as good a case for so reading ?????? (‘a man’) for which there’s little beyond the plural verb in verse 15 to clarify the referent (if the woman’s husband is here identified the text as it stands may be sufficient, although identification of her husband could be made clearer with the use of a possessive pronoun [cf. Matt 1:19; 10:12; Acts 5:10]).
If you are still out there Martin, a question if you wouldn’t mind.? If Paul and Timothy were both very much aware of the problem here, so that Timothy knew exactly who Paul was referring to through the anaphoric reference to the woman, wouldn’t Timothy also then know exactly who the man is without any further clarification? Remember, this is first of all a personal letter from Paul to Timothy.? Thanks.

Thanks TL for giving the link. Thanks too Pinklight for your comments and your interest. Hopefully the Sola Panel blog will be able to work again. The discussion has been good and everyone is “playing nicely”.
Its been great to “meet” all of you on this blog. It is interesting trying to work out if any on the Sola Panel blog are the same people as on this blog. There have been a lot of really great comments and I have my suspicions that some of them are from the same people who make such great comments here 🙂

Hi Everyone,
I have been involved in another blog recently on egal and comp things. The present discussion has just reached 400 comments and there is a computer problem. I wouldn’t mind some help thinking about the problems with what “J” has just said until the discussion can resume.
I have put my last comment and his reply. Thanks.

Craig 19/11/2010 08:24 PM
Hi J,
After a sermon and bible study group on 1 Tim 2 at church earlier this year, I had some questions about its interpretation. It was suggested that I read Moo’s chapter in RBMW ch9. This only created more questions and has led to me being here now.
You said your view of Eve’s deception is basically the same as Moo/ Grudem.
Moo says on p190 that he does NOT believe that Paul is saying that all women are, like Eve, more susceptible to being deceived than are men.
He believes that Eve was deceived by the serpent precisely in taking the initiative over the man.
As I understand him, he seems to be saying that Eve was deceived into a reversal of her God given role.
I know this may seem fairly basic, and there may be a simple answer to it, but at this stage I can’t see it. I couldn’t ask questions of the book, so it has had to wait until now.
I think you would say that Adam and Eve both knew about the authority/ leadership comps believe he was given.
If Eve knew she was not to be in authority, but then led Adam, you are saying she was deceived.
If Adam knew he was in authority, but then followed Eve, then logically he must be deceived as well. Both were deceived about their roles.
But Paul says that only Eve was deceived. Adam was not deceived???? Something doesn’t make sense. Any thoughts?
Also,
If being deceived is believing a lie, who told the lie? Did the serpent say anything about role reversal? Where?
Doesn’t the deception seem all about God’s command to not eat the fruit? This is what the serpent discussed with Eve and what Eve discussed with God.
Thanks.

Craig,

Thanks for the challenging questions, brother.

Yes, I agree the deception was not fundamentally about role-reversal. The
deception was a lie about whether or not they would die when they ate the
fruit (verse 4).

The role reversal happens alongside the eating of the fruit. So, if you
like, 2 sins were committed: the eating of the fruit (primarily), and
Adam’s abandoning of his leadership role (secondarily). Hence God’s
indictment of Adam has 2 parts:

And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of
it,’…

Was Adam deceived? No, the interaction with the serpent happened entirely
with Eve. Adam was a passive participant — he simply received the fruit
from Eve and ate it. There is no indication that he believed what the
serpent said about the fruit.

Was Eve “deceived” into taking the initiative (lead) over Adam? Perhaps we
could say that this was a secondary aspect of the deception. (The primary
aspect was eating the fruit.) Nevertheless, Adam’s assumption of a
submissive role was, like his taking of the fruit, something that happened
passively. He did not ask Eve to lead him. Eve went ahead and acted all by
herself; all Adam could do was react and follow. So again, Adam was not
deceived.

I’m no Moo, but I hope that helps.

J.

Oh it’s good to have a laugh! Thanks Dave!

Mark @138,

You said
“Thus the argument that Paul links the two terms to mean one idea is false. Thus, it cannot be translated, “i do not permit a woman to teach a man in a domineering way”. If one adopts this interpretation it goes against ALL the evidence.”

I don’t know why you said this. Sorry if you have misunderstood me. I am happy to accept Kostenberger’s alternative that it can mean
“i do not permit a woman to teach (error) or to domineer over a man,” .
As far as I can see, you and Kostenberger dismiss this alternative because you fail to see the ample contextual evidence for false teaching being in view. As I continue to weigh the evidence that Cheryl, Dave and others present concerning this passage verses what you and Kostenberger are saying, it is becoming more and more a slam dunk for Cheryl’s view in my opinion.

Mark,
Just trying to be helpful. You continually use the word “saids”. I think the word you are after is “says”. The only thing I could find in the dictionary for “saids” is “simian acquired immune deficiency syndrome” and I don’t think that is what you mean.

“Hamburger quote” ROFLOL. Good one Dave! I nearly choked on my lunch I couldn’t stop laughing!

Hi Mark @135,
You said, “Looking at Rev 2:20 we know the ‘content’ of the teaching.”
This is similar to what i was suggesting. It makes sense that if the context shows that “false teaching” is involved (not just the “content” of it), and the writer and recipient know it is false teaching, then the normal word for “teaching” could be used and it would be understood as “false teaching”. This is the case with both Rev 2:20 and 1 Tim 2:12. The context of false teaching in the letter, the mention of deception in v14, and the fact that there is a question over her salvation, all point to the issue of false teaching in 1 Tim 2. So it is not “teaching” all by itself with no context to tell us what it is. It is not “absolute” in your definition of “absolute”. So my suggestion could still be quite valid.

Thanks Marg, Kay, Kristen and Dave for all your helpful comments in interacting with Mark. Thanks too Mark for challenging everyone. It all helps me to understand things better.