Don Johnson

And besides them doing this, some believe it IS scholarship and accept their claims.  Never underestimate the power of seeking personal advantage when interpreting Scripture.  And this includes me also.

I find it AMAZING that anyone would think that finding all references to a phrase in the NASB is scholarship. To be fair, I could see it as a helper TO scholarship, but not as actual scholarship.  As you say, it is similar to Grudem claiming that the NT has the word “man” in it, when this is not even possible, as the NT is in Greek.

On closer reading I see he used the NASB translation and apparently searched for all occurances of “a woman” IN ENGLISH.  This is a flawed methodology, he needs to start from the Greek text, say UBS4.  That is apparently why he missed the 1 Cor 7 ref. And there may be others, that is one I knew off the top of my head.

I meant “without an article” not “with”.  Duh!

In his article “The use of the phrase “a woman” in the entire NT” the title is not even accurate.  What he is trying to examine is the term gune with an article or more formally anarthrous gune.  He thinks this means “a woman” or “a wife” but that is just one of the possible meanings.  It also migft be definite, the absence of the definite article does not require the noun to be indefinite, however, the presence of the definite article does mean the noun is definite.  It might also be referring to a class distinguished by the attribute, in this case, womenly people or more simply women.  It is up to the other context to provide clues as to which is meant.

So he has a fundamental misunderstanding of Greek from the start.

I look some of Matt’s analysis of “a woman” or more correctly gune.

He misses one in 1 Cor 7:10 where it is general, but is then made specific to A woman in 1 Cor 7:11, which some translations miss.  It is aorist verb, when means an instant in the past, which implies reality, not theory, that is, an actual woman is being referred to by Paul, but not named.  This is important to establish as a concept that Paul was willing to refer to a woman in a way that would identify her to those in the know, but did not name her.

Gen 4 and 5 discuss the man and woman and for someone who is supposed to lead, as the non-egals claim, the man does very little leading.  The woman makes 2 statements praising God, how many does the man make?

Just to be clear, Bruce Fleming points out that “pistos ho logos” occurs 3 times in 1 Tim, the first time it is ambiguous meaning either “Trustworthy is the saying” or “Faithful is the Word (meaning Jesus)” but the latter 2 times just the latter is meant,  except as perhaps a backwards ref. to the first ambiguous ref.
Many translations do not show this, and look for a saying in the 2nd and 3rd instances, when there is not one to find.

Well, there obvious IS a compelling reason to reject it, namely if one come INTO these verses with a masculinist belief that men should be on top.  This is why I think it is only necessary to show one or more ways an egalitarian can understand these verses and be faithful, as most people will choose that given the choice.
So do not let him try to paint you into a corner, he is the one who needs to show that you are being incorrect/unfaithful and that his (masculinist) interpretationi is greatly preferred and I do not think he can do that.

I believe it is important to see these verses as part of a pericope, which I claim is 1 Tim 2:8-3:13 as this provides the immediate context.  A reason this is important is the generic terms used, indicating the possibility of males and females beging discussed, e.g. 1 Tim 3:1 (as you also pointed out occured earlier in 1 Tim).  Another is seeing “pistos ho logos” in 1 Tim 3:1 as referring to Christ, per Bruce Fleming and therefore the turning point of the whole pericope, before this are concerns and afer this is the vision of how things should be.

Taking a verse out of its pericope is always dangerous, as one can lose the immediate context.

What he cannot do is show that your interpretation must be wrong, as this is simply too difficult a task to do.  What you do is make valid word choices for the meaning and then ask the reader to see if it hangs all together.

The idea of a “great chain of being” was a 19th century fad, but I do not think any scientist today believes it.

Any slave society lives in fear of a slave revolt.  This by itself is a big reason to be egalitarian in the family.  There are 1001 ways to subvert some decision that one does not agree with, there are many forms of manipulation.

A non-egal man is also kept immature by getting his way when he really wants it or thinks it is the best or whatever.  He always has the ability to vote twice and break the tie and even if this is not used explicitly, it can be used implicitly to get what he wants, as his wife knows she will lose eventually, so why even oppose it, as it will make no difference in the end.

A MAJOR stumbling block for Jews and Moslems believing in Jesus as God is the idea of God being 3 “gods” somehow which simply cannot be monotheistic, so any idea of permanent subordination they see right thru for what it means, which is tritheism.

All of us can do that and might not even realize it.  We need to be humble when we approach the word of God and be willing to learn more so that we understand it better.  Its depths are inexhaustible, so I am skeptical of Grudem’s efforts, it smacks too much for me like treating the Bible as if it was like Euclid’s Elements, which it most certainly is not.  But because it is supposedly a logical construct, if he gets even one thing wrong, say by missing an idiom, big sections of the whole structure might collapse.

FWIIW, I see the 2nd century as being the flowering of the gentilization of the church, this was a sea change from the 1st century Jewish believers at first.  I see this loss of Hebrew context as one reason for the allegorical method of interpreting Scripture, since it was the word of God, it needed to be put to SOME use but some parts were not understood in their original context and this neededcontext was lost more and more over the centuries.  So while the early church fathers provide SOME evidence, they are certainly not infallible, not even as a group, contra the RCC and EOC claims.

This development is not TOO suprising, as the non-egals find hierarchy where it is not in the church and home, they also find it where it is not in the Godhead.  From anyone standing outside their worldview, it is clearly because they are wearing hierarchical lenses, so they see hierarchy everywhere.

http://www.instone-brewer.com is a great site for info on marriage and divorce in 1st century perspectives.  He also has visual sermons he posts which are quite good.

It is useful to know that the ESV and HCSB translations were done in a hierarchical assumption and that TNIV and NRSV were done in a gender accurate way.  When you compare these you can often discern concerns (as in potential weaknesses of their position) of the hierarchicalists by reverse engineering the way they choose to translate some verses as they want to make it simple for the reader to agree with them.

The original ref is in French, and is available at amazon.fr, but it is expensive. The other 2 that I know are in English and refer to the French one. I wish there were pics, as there is really only 1 witness, so no one is required to accept it.

Any gender can commit adultery and that is being unfaithful. I also see this as flirting, etc. An elder is not to do this. It is true that a woman could only be married to one man at a time, the Jews had an exception to Roman law that allowed a man to have more than one wife.

Yes, I know the typo is in Ann Nyland’s The Source. While I use this as a ref. as she is a Greek scholar, it might be best NOT to use it as that translation with some added notes is now being sold as the Gay Bible. This makes it too easy for some to reject it.

Here is the ref.

The second qualification: “Faithful spouse” (3:2)
The second qualification in the list deals with the
overseer’s married life. Careful research has shown that
this qualification means that whether one is a husband or
a wife it is important to be a “faithful spouse.” It requires
that an overseer, if married, be faithful and be “a one-spouse
kind of person.”

According to Lucien Deiss (notes to the French
Bible, the TOB, Edition Intégrale, p. 646, note a), this
Greek phrase was used in Asia Minor, on both Jewish
and pagan gravestone inscriptions, to designate a woman
or a man, who was faithful to his or her spouse in a way
characterized by “a particularly fervent conjugal love.”

When I read Deiss’ comment about how this phrase
was used on ancient grave inscriptions in Turkey, where
Paul and Timothy ministered, I confirmed it with him
myself, reaching him by telephone in Vaucresson, France.
Some might find this insight into 1 Timothy 3:2
surprising because modern versions of the Bible
translate this Greek phrase as – “husband of one wife” –
making this qualification appear to be restricted to men
only! Instead, rightly understood, this qualification is
about faithfulness in marriage by a Christian spouse. It is
not saying that oversight is “for men only.”

Pages 87-88
Think Again about Church Leaders by Bruce C. E. Fleming http://www.ThinkAgainBooks.com

This is also in his book “Familiar “Leadership” Heresies Uncovered” which is very insightful, altho the title is a mouthful.
—————
The Keever citation is a typo, it is Craig Keener, but when I look there I cannot find it. So I would use the above ref.

In my understanding, to be a one-man woman was considered an honor, but the reverse was not expected. However, there were cases where both spuses were such and this was held in esteem.

It is not just a Hebrew idiom, it is a Greek one, as is found at Ephesus on pagan and Jewish tombstones of both husbands and wives.

In my (limited) understanding, grammatical gender is used to match pronouns to nouns, or nouns to nouns, etc. One thing tho is that Greek is like 1950’s English, sometimes a male plural form is used for a group that includes females or it could be all males. Therefore a MEMBER of that maxed group could be a female that matches up with the singular masculine term.

In English, a waitress could be in a group of men and therefore is an example of a man (but man in this case needs to be understood as generic, as in human). So a waitress can be a man (generic), but a man (masculine now assumed to be understood) cannot be a waitress.

However, if Phoebe were simply a servant-girl, she could be called a diakonissa, since Paul did NOT do this, the translation should steer away from this choice, which is exactly what some do NOT do, like the ESV.

diakonos is masculine. Phoebe is clearly female. It is an apparent gender mismatch, but this is why I think it is not right to translate it as servant (ala ESV); the gender mismatch indicates it is a ministry to me.

Scripture4all is wrong in this case, as least based on other things I have read. Perhaps they could not believe what it says. There is at least one other case where a gender switch happens in the Bible (Noah), and most Bible translations just fudge it. In that case, I think it reveals something, as in this one.

Diakonos in Rom 16:1 is singular masculine.

OK, I thought you were harmonizing the gospels, you are at a higher level than that and for a specific purpose. It would still be interesting to see.

I do not know much about what the JWs teach, except I know that on some secondary doctrines, they get what the Bible says better than many churches; and this can throw some people a curve when they talk to them at a door and point this out.