Don Johnson

Thanks for your hard work and insight into this puzzling passage of Scripture. I agree with you that 1 Tim 2:15 is critical to understanding 1 Tim 2:12. So let us strive to not take a verse out of context (and you help us here to avoid this pitfall), as then it can become a pretext for almost anything.

FWIIW, there ARE modern day polygamists who point out all the righteous men in the Bible who were like them. Jews were the only ones who were allowed to practise polygamy in the 1st century in the Roman empire. Even today, some Sephardic Jews are polygamists and keep their wives if they immigrate to Israel, even tho monogamy is the rule in Israel, following the Askenasic Jews in this area.

P.S. I do agree that Jesus taught monogamy as being God’s intent and am a monogamist. I happen to know the above as it is a part of my class I am giving at my church.

The male hierarchicalists know that IF both positions are possible, then they will lose (since people want to be free); this is why they believe that the egalitarian position amounts to heresy, because they are trying to scare people from even considering studying it.

It is a great threat to them to have someone who believes the Bible is inspired in words and grammar but does not conform to their understanding. An atheist they can dismiss, a liberal they can dismiss. In another forum I was shocked at the accusations that were made against me on this issue. The male hierarchicalists simply do not know what to do with us freedom teachers. This is uncannily similar to the slave owners not knowing what to do with the abolitionists in the 1850’s, except to say that if you do not believe what they teach, you do not believe the Bible.

I think that Matt is “spooked” by Cheryl. He is used to debating by scoring debating points in sound bites. Cheryl contantly tried to show respect and present aspects of her teaching, but did not really conform to the sound bite method. So Matt is not quite sure what to do with Cheryl, so the safest thing is to not provide a forum for what he considers heresy. He is just being consistent with his beliefs, even tho it means going back on an offer.

There is one way to guarentee one never changes and that is by never being willing to learn.

I do not preach, per se.

I am a member of Vienna Baptist church in Vienna, VA (they are ABC, not SBC). I am currently teaching a class on Marriage and Divorce: First Century perspectives there as the verses are very easy to take out of context. I attend a Sunday school class led by someone else, but I have sometimes been asked to fill in when he goes somewhere. I am a member of CBE and have attended their last 2 US conferences.

Yes, I verified with Bill that he can be quoted. He gets asked questions about Greek all the time apparently.

I did notice one thing where you allowed Matt to get in a cheap shot. This was where you were trying to contrast the deceived with the deliberate sinners. The deliberate sinners could easily have been deceived in some way also and Matt pointed this out. So I would use carefully crafted terms, like deliberate and non-deliberate sinners. They may be better ideas of words to use.

As I see it, there are 3 types of sinners, all are sin, but the consequences are different.
1. Non-deliberate sin – like the woman in the garden
2. Deliberate sin – like the man in the garden
3. Teaching another to sin – like the serpent in the garden

I see God treating these differently.

Yes, a debate is NOT a teaching. In a teaching you can build up slowly to your main point, like a math proof. It is simply not possible to do a math proof type of argument in a debate, so do not even try. My take is your limited goal should be to get as many listeners as possible to STUDY BOTH SIDES ala Proverbs 18:17.

The way to do that is to make claims that do not seem totally crazy and so will be rejected by a listener WITHOUT STUDY.

Get as much agreement as possible, like the Bible is the inspired word of God, including word choice and grammar (as you did). This will mean that the listeners will not reject you out of hand. Get agreement as to the purpose of 1 Tim, this purpose should color every other verse in the book and provide the overall literary context. This is why Paul could say for the woman in 1 Tim 2:12 that she is not now permitted to teach, because (in literary context) she was teaching false doctrine, which is the whole purpose of the letter, to stop false doctrine. When he says authenteo means authority, agree that this might have been true in 400 AD, but what did it mean in 65AD when in 300BC it meant murder? This gets people thinking.

So it is important to state your CONCLUSIONS from your DVD in a way that people cannot simply dismiss. For example, claim that 1 Tim 2:15 is critical to understanding 1 Tim 2:12. Listeners cannot just reject this claim out of hand, they will need to dig and see whether it is true or not, regardless of what Matt says.

Ask him whether the Bible should be understood as the original readers would have understood it. Then point out the tombstones in Ephesus that use “mias gunaikos andra” to refer to both a woman and a man, in other words, it was generic, not specific to males and means being a faithful spouse.

On Matt’s “Rules of Engagement” you need to realize you accepted skewed conditions and would be accepting even more skewed conditions. And accept the need to tailor the presentation of your message to those skewed conditions. This is (by far) NOT the best way to present a message, but sometimes it can be accepted as a way. Part of that acceptance is to accept a severely limited goal.
Here are some limited goals:
1. If you can just get people to THINKING about these verses, I think it would be worthwhile. One of the main (false) winning arguments that CBMW, etc. uses is that the verses are straightforward to understand. You want to dispute that claim.
2. This may be hard for you, but you need to learn to make bold assertions (given the 1.5 minute time limit) that do not sound totally crazy. For example, in explaining 1 Tim 2:12, go IMMEDIATELY to 1 Tim 2: 15 and claim that this verse makes best sense for an actual person living at the time (which is true). In explaining 1 Tim, claim that one needs to read the book in Biblical, literary (book) and cultural context and that missing even one of these contexts can mean one takes a verse out of context (which is true) and that a verse taken out of context can be a pretext for almost anything. Exaplin that as we are not Timothy, we are in effect looking over Timothy’s shoulder and trying our best to understand what would have been easy for Timothy to understand, in other words, that the verses might easily take some hard work to try to understand.

Reposting from previous thread where it may have been missed

Good news. I am taking a Greek class from the Greek scholar Dr. Bill Wagner. I asked him if in 1 Tim 2:15 whether the “she” (implied in the verb sothesetai) was theoretical or actual and he said he believed it was an actual person. He said Paul is very direct in his letters and Paul would not have written it this way to Timothy if Paul had wanted it to be theoretical. Bill is the author of “First Reader in New Testament Greek” which is the textbook for the class I am takingm he personally knows all the famous names associated with the Greek NT.

Some ideas that may help.
1. In 1 Tim the concern of the letter is stopping false doctrine that is being taught. In some cases this is done by disfellowshipping the person, a person that I am not to fellowship with as a believer cannot teach me anything. In other cases, it is just to stop the false teaching, this is whatteaching means in 1 Tim 2:12, it does not need to be repeated that it is false teaching, Tim knows exactly who is being referred to that he should not currently permit to teach. In other words to rip 1 Tim 2:12 from the context of the whole letter (and try to make it a self contained mini-teaching) is a mistake.
2. The hesuchia in 1 Tim 2:12 ties back to the hesuchia in 1 Tim 2:11. This repeat forms an inclusio and serves to tie these 2 thoughts together. This means 1 Tim 2:12 should never be even discussed apart from the tight coupling with 1 Tim 2:11. Of the 2 verses, verse 11 takes prominence as it contains the imperative.

The (mostly) redundant 2nd hesuchia would tie these ideas together into one thought. The basic thought is “The woman/wife must be allowed to learn, while doing this she is not to teach.”
Hy and Al are not allowed to teach either, but they will also not be allowed to learn in a church setting, they will be taught by satan. Which method of learning would YOU choose?

Of course repentance and redemption is always the goal, but one needs to see the contrast in treatment. It is really very strange, in the garder the man sins deliberately, while the woman does not and somehow this means he is her leader? It is similar in Ephesus, Hy and Al sin deliberately and get disfellowshipped, while the non-deliberate sinner (the woman) gets a counter-cultural chance to learn the truth, yet somehow this means women cannot teach?

If you substitute rich person for the male and poor person for the female, you can see that the hierarchical arguments just do not stand up. Yet somehow they are thought to stand up when man and woman are the subhects. And what do we get, massive rejection of Christianity because people can see that becoming that type of Christian would be a step backward in justice.

There are many Hebraisms in the Greek NT, after all, everyone but Luke was a Hebraic thinking Jew and Luke was a disciple of Paul, certainly one of the best Jewish scholars of all time. And of course the entire OT is totally from a Hebraic perspective. This means that Greek thinkers, like me, have an additional challenge to overcome in order to understand as best we can what the sentences meant to the original readers.

Cheryl,

Good news. I am taking a Greek class from the Greek scholar Dr. Bill Wagner. I asked him if in 1 Tim 2:15 whether the “she” (implied in the verb sothesetai) was theoretical or actual and he said he believed it was an actual person. He said Paul is very direct in his letters and Paul would not have written it this way to Timothy if Paul had wanted it to be theoretical. Bill is the author of “First Reader in New Testament Greek” which is the textbook for the class I am takingm he personally knows all the famous names associated with the Greek NT.

The Source actually translates the Greek eta as “Utter Rubbish!” which is correct in meaning, but loses the short expletive nature of the expression. I think perhaps the closest in English is “Pffft!”. “Hogwash!”, “Garbage!”, “Bunk!” and similar are also possible, as bunk is the shortest and yet is a word (unlike “Pffft!” which some people may not know and/or mishear when spoken).

The basic idea is to repudiate the statement made before, in a short expression of dismissal.

As The Source points out, Paul uses the term quite a big in 1 Cor. So much that it is one of the clues that he is reproving some Corinthian idea when he uses it in a conversational style. Recall that most could not read, so the letter would be read aloud to the congregants. I have read elsewhere that when Scripture was read aloud, Jews considered that the person themselves was with them in spirit.

One thing we need to be aware of is to try not to “auto-transport” our 21st century assumptions back into a 1st century text. This is so easy to do without even realizing we are doing it, that I try to take active steps to avoid it. Part of that involves translating ekklesia as congregation rather than church, the Greek term simply means assembly. It might be a church congregation, but it might be a Jewish congregation, aka a synagogue. Similarly, saints (holy ones) might be church members, but it might also refer to Jews when contrasted with pagan gentiles.

I do not think it makes a big difference in the interpretation either way. Missing the double “Bunk!” in 1 Cor 14:36 DOES make a big difference in the interpretation.

Yes, I know about the moved verses in some manuscripts. I think some copyists did not know what to do with them, as they seemed out of place to them. Recall that our chapter and verse numbering system is a human invention, so one way to read the Bible is to deversify. That is, verse numbering can be helpful and hurtful at the same time. Also recall that the earliest manuscripts did not have much punctuation in order to save space.

1 Cor 14:33b is NOT a crucial aspect to the argument, but (as I see it) tieing it ot 1 Cor 14:33 is saying something that does not really need to be stated. If God is not the author of confusion, then the congregations of God ought not to demonstrate confusion, this is self-evident (at least it seems that way to me).

However, tieing 1 Cor 14:33b to 34-35 (to my way of thinking) is the legalists/traditionalist (that is, those who would put restrictions on participation by women) way of claiming that this is the way things have been done before.

1 Cor 14 Chiasm
A 26 All believers can have a verbal contribution
B 27-28 Tongues – be silent if no interpreter
C 29-33a Prophesy – be silent if another speaks
D 33b-35 Legalists: “Women be silent”
D’ 36-38 Paul “Bunk! Women can speak”
C’ 39a Prophesy – desire to prophesy
B’ 39b Tongues – do not forbid
A 40 All things done decently and in order

By reverse engineering, one can hopefully see that the problem was chaos in the Corinthian church setting. Some legalists proposed doing what the synagogues did, namely keep women quiet, this reduces the potential speakers by half. Paul will have none of that, but he does give guidelines so things will be done in order.
The underlined be silent shows the same word being used in the Greek. The underlined all in the A-A’ shows the paired concept.

As I see it, all the different possible beliefs another believer can have is a test. It is a test if you can still love them EVEN WHEN they do not agree with you on everything. I see Jesus as the model for this, he loved me when I agreed with him on very little. He also put people together who could not stand each other, what sense does it make to put a tax collector (read collaborator with the oppessors of Judea) in the same group with a zealot? It makes God’s sense.

It is so very easy to “put the hammer down” on someone who does not see it our way and we need to resist this temptation of the flesh. I know, I have done it too many times and repented.

On 1 Cor 14:33b and whether it fits with the idea before or after, I believe it fits with the idea after better, but I could be wrong. It depends on how one interprets the phrase “As in all the churches of the saints”. In my understanding, this is better rendered “As in all the congregations of the Jews…” as we know that many synagogues had rules to keep women quiet.

That is, once you see 1 COr 34-35 as a quote from (Judaizing) legalists, it would make sense for them to say “This is how we have always done it.”

Yes, exactly.

One minor puzzle is why the “qualification” lists in 1 Tim and Titus are not exactly the same. In my understanding, part of the reason is that Titus is for the situation of a new church while 1 and 2 Tim is for the situation of an established church with challenges. In other words, in some sense it makes sense to read Titus first among the pastorals, as that will follow the timeline of a congregation.

Carving up 1 Tim into teaching units is part of the challenge of understanding it. I do believe 1 from at least Tim 2:8 the teaching unit continues thru 1 Tim 3 and to break it apart misses some aspects of what is being taught by Paul.

Paul is not teaching qualifications for overseers in a vaccum (AKA a theory course), he is giving practical guidelines to an existing congregation with challenges. Part of those guidelines include what an overseer “looks like” for those that wish to be one, or even better, those who wish to be restored to one.

Another thing to see is that 1 Cor 14:26-40 form a chiasm, and this data structure is not used much today so people can easily miss it.

The center of the chiasm, the most important part is the part 33b:38. This is so important to get right, as people that do not implement it are not to be recognized as being spiritual.

On the expletive of repudiation in 1 Cor 14:36, see, for example, Alan F. Johnson’s book on 1 Corinthian, part of the IVP New Testament Commentary Series.

On the chiasm AND the expletive of repudiation, see “Why Not Women?” by Loren Cunningham and David Joel Hamilton (altho I believe Hamilton misses some aspects, he does see the chiasm).

Another thing to see is that 1 Cor 14:26-40 form a chiasm, and this data structure is not used much today so people can easily miss it.

The center of the chiasm, the most important part is the part 33b:38. This is so important to get right, as people that do not implement it are not to be recognized as being spiritual.

In fact the expletive of repudiation term “eta” occurs twice in 1 Cor 14:36. As one way to show the repudiation is to translate it as “Bunk!” I call this Paul’s missing double bunk, as a pun to help me remember.

In 1 Tim it is important to see that the false teachers did NOT have a specified gender. However, we KNOW that Hy and Al were disfellowshiped and they were both male.
In other words, there is a possibility that there were also one or more female false teachers.

In other words, if it was just Hy and Al that was the concern, the letter could have been structured much simpler. So one needs to discern what makes Hy and Al special to be named? As I understand it, it is because they deliberately taught false things.

So the contrast is that the other false teachers, perhaps including a woman or women, were not doing it deliberately, but rather were deceived. These are unnamed, as Cheryl has pointed out, as there is a good chance of redemption and restoration to ministry, but being named explicitly in a letter by Paul as a bad example would be “ministry limiting” in a big way.

In the example given above, about the wisdom of a male elder not going alone into the house of a single woman, this can be a good reason for there to be female elders. In my church there are 3 paid pastors and 3 unpaid pastoral associates. Each set of 3 are composed of 2 men and 1 woman. I assume the numbers might be different, but the idea of including both genders was deliberate.

It is true that everything in church should be done decently and in order.

Some people (male and female) are called to teach by God, the question then becomes whether they obey God or not.

God is the one who gives the gifts and when God gives a gift (including the gift of leadership) God intends it to be used for the benefit of the body of Christ.

One needs to see a puzzle as Phoebe is called a diakonos in Rom 16:1 yet 1 Tim 3:12 says a diakonos should be a one of the “mias guniakos andres”.

Once it is agreed that aner can refer to a woman in some cases, it is NOT that large a jump to find out that “mias gunaikos andra’ (literally one-woman man) in 1 Tim 3:2 and “mias gunaikos andres” (literally one-woman men) in 1 Tim 3:12 has been found on tombstones in Ephesus referring to both men and women, as in faithful spouse, as Nyland translates it in The Source NT.

Acts 17:34 on Damaris shows the NT itself uses andres to include a woman. This is because it was normal for this in Greek.

The point is that Greek was like 1950’s English, a group of “men” (andres) might include women (and often did), but a group of “women” would not include any men, it would be all female.

By extension, an aner (an example from a set of andres) might be a womnn. In 1950’s English, if you were asked to select a man from a group of men (that included women) you might select a woman as well as a man, no one would think you only meant to select a male. This was just the way 1950’s English worked and is also the way Greek worked.

Here are some links on aner being more than male.
This is a crucial point to establish, IMO.

http://www.geocities.com/bible_translation/list/files/list.htm