Paula

I do think there is more than enough in the Hebrew text to rule out OEC, but of course this topic needs its own thread, so I won’t get into that here. But I will say that I think Gen. 2 is simply the same creation account with more emphasis on details than on the days of creation.

Pink, (and any other egal who’s interested)

I just wrote a small book on authority in Christianity, and it’s basically a walk through the whole Bible with that theme in mind. I’m looking into getting it printed but will send it via a zipped email attachment to you if you want. All I ask is that you don’t make copies for distribution.

[/shameless plug]

Gengwall, I hear what you’re saying too, and as any egal will point out, we certainly do appreciate the differences between male and female. 🙂 And I will also only make this one more post about it here.

But beyond the physical, we are in a realm of tradition and personality and group behavior. The traits a particular person might find attractive in the opposite sex may differ significantly from someone else’s opinion. For example, not all women are attracted to men who are into trucks, camping, fishing, etc. and not all men are into those things either. Likewise, not all men are attracted to women who are empty-headed or into high fashion, and not all women are into those things either.

When asked where the mysterious line between male and female is drawn, you will get a hundred different answers. And if you ask that question across cultures you will get a thousand more. The point being, a trait cannot be labeled as intrinsic to a gender unless there are no exceptions ever, in any culture or time in history.

We’re all human, and humans have a wide range of personalities and experiences. The day male supremacism grasps that simple fact is the day they cease being supremacists.

That’s exactly my view, Cheryl. Jesus wasn’t “being a guy” when He drove the merchants from the temple, and He wasn’t “being a sissy” when He wept over Jerusalem and compared His attitude toward the people as like a mother hen gathering her chicks beneath her wings.

I’ve written rebuttals to various male supremacist documents in the past year, and my theme each time is that the qualities they are trying to reserve for men are Christian qualities, not male qualities. Women are courageous, wise, aggressive, nurturing, etc., and are not exempt from the fruit of the spirit– and neither are men. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control– are not Christian men and women all to have these qualities?

Male supremacism would turn the fruit of the Spirit into something like this: lust, winning, conquest, aggression, harshness, slickness, good ole boy, roughness, and self indulgence.

Which brings up an interesting point, gengwall, and it’s the old nature/nurture debate.

Sometimes I’m passive, sometimes I’m aggressive, and it depends upon the situation. I can be cold and I can be warm; I can refuse to bend and I can allow my arm to be twisted. Per my personality (not my gender) I can have various tendencies, and per my gender I may fit into some (but not all) generalities.

The problem comes when people try to force all men to be this and all women to be that; that is truly a case of erasing differences!

Jesus cried, turned tables, mocked, laughed, was sometimes tender and sometimes harsh, etc. In other words, he was human. Does that make him or anyone else androgynous? No. Androngyny is only when someone tries to physically blur the line. Male and female are physical terms. Yes there are generalities, tendencies, and averages, but those are not what make us male and female.

Hey Cheryl, might want to check that link to the LXX, because it has been usurped by a link to the Hebrew. 😉

We all agree that “has become” denotes a past event with continuing results; that is not the issue. The issue is whether scripture says it was the sin of Eve that had continuing results, or whether it was only the sin of Adam. Much scripture supports the latter; none support the former.

It all hinges on who “the woman” is. It is she who “has fallen into sin” and still remains there. It does NOT say that one woman fell into sin and that other women still suffer the results. Repeatedly asserting otherwise is not an argument or proof. Only Adam’s sin is said by scripture to have had continuing results on others.

The challenge: to prove that “the woman” MUST be Eve, and that scripture says her sin has ONLY AFFECTED WOMEN that came after her.

But I expect that instead of facing this challenge, it will be sidestepped. The assertion will be repeated endlessly, as long as we all play along. ::sigh::

No doubt. Just like the way evolutionists refuse to debate YECs.

Oh, and Happy Resurrection Day! 🙂

Yes, Cheryl, it is a two-way street, and we always need to make sure that the demands of one side to be heard are demanded equally of the other. I also notice that no matter what the topic, one side accuses the other of misrepresentation, failure to comprehend, ignorance, poor samples, etc. The assumption is made that anyone who disagrees with them must certainly do so only out of ignorance or deliberate hostility, and that of course is not true, especially for you. You’ve bent over backwards to hear the other side, even though they still refuse to return the favor.

Also, for anyone to demand that we must address every possible flavor of male supremacist teachings is arrogant. I can’t count the number of such debates where I’ve seen this card played, especially long after the person who cries “that isn’t my view” has had multiple opportunities to clarify. And as we’ve seen in this case, it appears that your opponent wants you to keep answering the arguments made by everyone but him. If these others are to be debated instead, then let them watch your DVDs and produce their own rebuttals.

In other words, I think we should only be expected to deal with whoever shows up, and demand they answer questions put to them instead of continually trying to pass them off to people they know will not give us the time of day. If Grudem, Ware, Piper et al have killer rebuttals, then let them argue here themselves.

Yes, these discussions force us to consider the implications of our claims. Prov. 18:17 is one of the most important verses in the Bible to guide us in such things.

And as I discussed in my recent blog post about snake oil theology”, either the section of vs. 10-15 is a separate discussion that does not get its subjects (she/they) from the preceding one and thus it’s about one woman and one man, or we have to ignore the clean breaks around it and justify this practice in other passages. Knowing the scope of the passage is critical.

Just another thought re. “they” as congregation…

If we know Timothy is dealing with falsehood, then of course the whole congregation must remain faithful in order for “she” to sit and learn. It is the whole environment that must be cleaned up, and we already know that the false teachers were affecting more than one person. It is unambiguous that “a man” is being authenteo‘ed, but surely he isn’t the only one at risk for being led astray.

I wrote “any clause” when it should be “any cause”. Keyboard dyslexia.

The problem again is that this “she/they” isn’t in a vacuum. It is a conditional statement, and the condition is “remain faithful”. This isn’t a matter of what sounds right in English, or even English grammar, but of (1)basic reasoning and (2)an absence of precedent.

(1) The salvation of “she” depends upon the faithfulness of a pair or group. Why specify only that this is true of women? Where are the men in this discussion? Elsewhere when it’s clear that Paul is addressing groups of people he always includes all who are affected by the teaching: husband/wife, master/slave, Jew/Greek, etc. But here there is only mention of a woman or women, and it clearly is about false teaching. Are we to presume that only the women there were teaching falsehood, and only the women needed to quiet down and learn, and only women were forbidden to authenteo? And as stated repeatedly, it ignores the shifts in number, even within a sentence.

In other words, what is technically possible is often logically nonsensical. It reminds me of the Pharisees and their “any clause” reasoning. They were masters of minutia, nitpickers to the nth degree. Surely you’ve heard the expression about the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law… well, the argument that “she/they” could possibly and technically refer to “she” as a group disregards the context or “spirit” of the passage and the letter, as well as the whole of scripture, making Paul contradict himself at the very least.

(2) There is not one other instance in all of scripture that matches this construction. It’s either “s/he will… if s/he” (whether it is understood to refer to an individual or not), or “they will… if they”. Like the rare words authenteo and teknogonias, this construction is found nowhere else, so the context here is all we have to go on. Yet it must be consistent with all Paul’s teachings and his grammatical usage.

I think the first thing Paul should tell Driscoll is “who Jesus would smack down”. 😉

The instances I found where singular and plural occur together had an important feature: another word such as “every” described the singular. Does Wallace show any examples of scripture where this is not the case? What I’m getting at is that Paul does not say “every she” or “all she” or anything like that (which would be nonsense). The phrase “if she will” would have to refer back to a generic woman already identified, such as if Paul had said “Women cannot teach men. If a woman teaches a man, she is in sin.”

A quick check of scripture tells me there’s no other passage with the kind of singular/plural shift seen here in 1 Tim. 2, and an exhaustive study would take a very long time. Let those who think this “she will… if they” construction can be taken as a generic “she” find supporting scripture, since they are highly motivated to find it. But I did blog today to comment on bible dot arrrgh’s footnotes to the passage.

Excellent points, Pink! I think I’m going to try and find time to look up ever NT instance of the singular that context requires to refer to a generic plural. Should be interesting.

No Chris, your insults will not deter me from holding you to supporting your assertions. I have been challenging your premises from the start and you just keep re-asserting them.

An example of your own case of misrepresenting or poor reading comprehension is in your statement about Paul’s proscription in the OT. The whole point of contention is NOT whether he’s doing that, but why. You claim that his merely citing creation order is proof of your interpretation of hierarchy, yet I have shown that the context of Genesis to which he refers has nothing whatsoever related to authority between Adam and Eve. She had nothing to usurp, and scripture never says she lusted after anything of Adam’s. And the context of 1 Tim. 2 is clearly about deception, and this deception, per Paul’s explicit statements, is due to Eve’s being created last.

And you have in fact been arguing for exactly what you now say you aren’t, namely, that Paul’s statements in 1 Tim. 2 are applicable for all women for all time, because Paul refers to creation order. If you’re trying to make some other argument, you have yet to begin. You expressly stated earlier that Christian men today are to restrain Christian women today to keep them out of deception. So you take Paul’s words to Timothy as about men ruling over women even today, 2000 years later.

Ask yourself this question: If Paul wanted to appeal to the OT to bolster a new command, one never seen before, then why doesn’t Genesis contain the necessary language to indicate the authority you allege existed between Adam and Eve before the fall? It is not there, as I thoroughly explained. No one before Paul ever cited Genesis as making such a statement, and since Paul’s reason for citing it is the very point of contention, asserting that point in your premises will never win the argument no matter how often you repeat it.

The context of 1 Timothy is deception and how Timothy must stop it. Good reading comprehension makes this clear. And good reading comprehension of Genesis 1-3 easily sees that Eve never sinned until after she was beguiled, all while her alleged “covering” stood by and watched like a coward or a traitor.

You have muddled the order of events, relied on special pleading to make only the chronology between Adam and Eve have significance related to hierarchy, invented a “family order” when only one human existed, and ignored the context of Paul’s letter to Timothy. Again, I’m not impressed, and though that hardly matters to you, here’s something that should.

Jesus laid down his power and position to serve His bride (Phil. 2:5-11). He left His Father’s house to redeem us, went back to “prepare a place”, and left us the Spirit to distribute gifts as He wills– NOT as MAN wills. Before He made that sacrifice, Jesus told His disciples “not so among you”. Do you remember that? Do you think it doesn’t apply to you? How then can you put yourself above any of your spiritual siblings? You cannot say that the left hand must ask the right hand’s permission to act (woman must go through man); you cannot put yourself between any woman and her Savior, for that would be idolatry; you cannot rise above your Master by claiming preeminence over half His Body.

What kind of Christian wants to rule over another, and thinks God is now a “respecter of persons”? What kind of Christian thinks God now “looks on the outside”? What kind of Christian seeks power and control? I’ll tell you what kind: the proud kind, proud of his flesh. But remember this: “many who are last will be first, and the first will be last”. You want first place in this life? Fine. Take it. All I want is to serve Jesus and His people, to free the oppressed, to get truth out of the Bible instead of trying to over-write it with my own assertions. I want to use my spiritual gifts and talk directly with my Savior, without a human priest, without worldly ambition.

Want to be great in the kingdom of God? Be the lowest slave. That’s what Christianity is all about.

Your paraphrase is almost identical to the one I did last year (source):

That woman must learn, in a respectful and humble way. I do not confer on her the authority to teach, since it will be the man’s ruin; she must quiet down. For Adam was formed first and Eve second, and Adam was not fooled; but this woman, being completely fooled, has fallen into a state of error. In spite of that, she will be rescued by means of proper spiritual upbringing, as long as they both remain in faith and love and wisdom. You can count on that.

I suppose I should spell out the circularity of your argument.

You say 1 Tim. 2 is about authority of all men over all women for all time because Paul refers to creation order.
You say creation order must therefore be about authority because Paul refers to it in 1 Tim. 2.

That’s a tautology.

Oops, pressed return too soon…

You are arguing in circles. Paul appeals to Genesis but Genesis says nothing about authority. You then read this imaginary meaning back into 1 Tim. and call it proof that Paul had authority in mind. You have yet to establish your premise that Adam had a mandate to rule over Eve, and that Eve usurped it.

Did you read my long post at all, where I pointed this out?

I asked you a very simple question, Chris. You claimed in #62 that “Adam’s role as steward was denied when Eve took it upon herself to break the garden mandate”. I challenged you to show scripture to support your claim. You say Adam’s role of steward included not only what Genesis says– cultivate and guard the garden– but also that he ruled over Eve. And you say that Eve “broke” this imaginary rule somehow.

Show me the scripture.

You were asked a question in post #63. Are you going to answer it?

She was his “strong one facing him”, his “comrade in arms”. Today we might say “I’ve got your back”. So although the word for “guard” wasn’t technically used for her, it’s really a part of the meaning. IMHO. 🙂

Yes, we need to remember that guards are not authorities. They have a responsibility and the authority to repel invaders, as pointed out already, but never over the people they protect. Nobody would put the generals of the army on guard duty, nor put the king beneath the guards simply because the guards protect them. So Adam’s having been charged with protecting the garden and all it contains is certainly no authoritative role in itself. His dominion over other life forms was not tied to this task of guarding at all, and was given to both he and Eve. But Eve was charged to guard Adam! And although she failed, her failure was due to being beguiled by the most skilled deceiver of all time, while Adam’s failure cannot be excused.

Ha! The security word is Adam! 🙂

Well, no “answer” has arrived yet. But I’ll go ahead and examine the rest of it.

Genesis 2 provides detail to the overview that is Genesis 1. Yet of course it does not negate ch. 1 but magnify portions of it. And in that first chapter we see a chronology, an order, a sequence of events– but nothing about authority until both male and female are created. Order, if equated with hierarchy, would make mankind the lowest life form. Yet no one can deny the supremacy of humanity over other life forms, so one could perhaps then see a reverse hierarchy in chronology. Yet that would put woman over man, since Eve was created last. PMS reacts to this, not by acknowledging either that there is no authority inherent in chronology, or that woman must be superior to man, but that hierarchy by chronology only applies between Adam and Eve! Yet the scripture clearly states, near the end of chapter one, that the only authority there is was granted directly and explicitly by God to both Adam and Eve over other life forms, not each other.

So as we enter chapter two we have only seen that God granted both male and female authority over other life forms. Then we are told that God placed Adam into Eden, having formed him from ground outside of the garden (a fact that will have significance later on). And the stated purpose of Adam there was to do two things: cultivate the garden, and protect it. And then we see God expressly state the prohibition against eating of the tree in the middle of the garden. PMS likes to emphasize the fact that Eve was not there to hear the command. But it conveniently forgets this point when the question of authority comes up. This is where the alleged “garden mandate” gets interesting.

If Eve did not yet exist when this “mandate” was given by God, then pray tell, how does it amount to a divine sanction of male over female? Who was Adam ruling besides lower life forms when no equal to him had yet been made? Where was the “family order” when only one human existed? And here’s another angle: Some teach that we all sinned “in Adam”, as “federal head”, citing Heb. 7:10 as establishing this principle. Yet if this is true, then was Eve not “in Adam” when God gave dominion over all the lower life forms? Was she not “in Adam” when God gave the “garden mandate”? Did Adam have rule over himself then, since Eve was “in him”? PMS can’t have it both ways. Either Eve was given the same mandate, or there was no “family order” set up before she existed. And if such order did not exist before Eve, then PMS will have to look elsewhere besides creation order for their alleged authority.

The Bible never tells us why God (not Adam) stated it was “not good for the man to be alone”. Every attempt at an answer is sheer speculation, and no one opinion is superior to another. But I suspect that if God had wanted us to know, He would have told us. At any rate, the fact is that Adam was in need, incomplete. This touches on the issue of being made “in the image of God”, in that such image is not dependent upon marriage. Those who advocate marriage as a necessary component of the complete image of God will have to deal with the fact that no one ever suggests Adam lacked this image before Eve, so it follows that Eve (or any woman for that matter) is not to be considered “incomplete” or of a lesser or merely reflected image of God on the basis of singleness.

So God creates Eve to be a strong companion, a rescuer of sorts. Never is she portrayed as an underling, secretary, slave, or auxiliary (I detest that term used for many women’s organizations!). She is strength to his weakness and thus completes him, not in the image of God, but in humanity. As Adam himself exclaimed, she is his own flesh and bone, of the same (equal) substance, unlike the animals God showed him earlier. Those animals were made from dust as Adam was, but Eve was made from Adam’s own flesh. Genetically, Eve was his clone! So where is superiority here? Scripture says no such thing. It speaks of strength, equality, and unity. It is only by imposing an unscriptural meaning for “help” that PMS can wedge hierarchy into this.

So there was no order for Eve to reverse, no hierarchy to usurp. Noplace in all of scripture ever even hints that Eve lusted after some imaginary position of power over Adam, and only ever speaks of her being the victim of deception. And though a victim, note that she nonetheless took responsibility for her actions: she “owned” the fact that she ate the forbidden fruit. Adam, on the other hand, dared not only to pass blame to Eve, but also to blame God Himself for her! He was a traitor to God and to Eve. Eve did not sneak around behind Adam’s back; he was there watching the whole temptation, per Gen. 3:6b. There is nothing whatsoever in that text or any other to suggest that Eve was focused on anything at all but the fruit and its being the key to unlock wisdom. She, the inexperienced one, was an easy target, and Adam completely failed to guard.

Many have claimed that Eve tempted Adam but that is a lie. They claim she lusted after Adam’s alleged authority, but that too is a lie. They assert that Satan tempted her because she would in turn tempt Adam, but that is another lie. Eve was the target because she, unlike Adam, never observed God’s creative power. Sure, that’s speculation too, but at least it doesn’t malign the character of Eve nor exonerate the character of Adam. Only Adam is blamed for sin, and with good reason. Genesis 3 makes it quite clear, without added footnotes or fine print, that Eve accepted the consequences for her sin while Adam turned against her and God.

While the serpent and Adam were told by God, “Because you have done this…”, Eve was not. And it was Adam, made from dust, who alone was driven out of the garden (3:22-24); it was due to Adam alone that the ground was cursed; to Adam alone is sin attributed (Rom. 5:12). A “steward of moral life”? I don’t think so.

“Chris” made the claim that Eve “opened herself up to Satan’s deception, ate the fruit, and fell into transgression”, yet what does the scripture say? It says the exact opposite: that only after the serpent tempted and deceived Eve did she consider eating the fruit. She did not “open herself up”, and Adam was standing there yet did nothing to prevent it. Deception is always given as the reason for Eve’s sin, not the result. After all, if she first of all lusted after power or fruit or whatever, that was her sin, yet scripture plainly states that her sin was in eating the fruit. For people who like order so much, PMSers sure are quick to ditch it when it suits them!

Now we come to the matter of the extent of Eve’s actions. We have seen that she was deceived, and that this only applied to her; it is never said to be a curse passed on to others. “Chris” tried to switch horses in midstream by implying that “now we all have to deal with the consequences of the fall” is ultimately the result of Eve’s actions, but scripture only ever lays the blame for the fall at the feet of Adam; it is never attributed in any way to Eve. If women are still prone to deception, then surely Adam is still passing the blame!

“Chris” then tries to make this all a permanent condition of all people when connecting it to 1 Tim. 2, as if we all suffer Adam’s “nature” but only women suffer Eve’s being deceived. Yet scripture never says any such thing. And then to claim, as “Chris” does, that “men in the church today are to be stewards of the gospel” is sheer fantasy. Where does the NT ever even hint as such an idea? 1 Tim. 2? Circular reasoning. If, as we’ve seen,

there is no hierarchy for Paul to refer to in Genesis, and
the whole topic of the letter to Timothy is stopping false teachers, and
the woman he mentions “has fallen into” sin due to deception,

then one can only claim Paul is mandating perpetual second-rate citizen status to all women by inserting hierarchy into the text he uses for his argument. So when we read Genesis we cannot presume hierarchy since that is the point under debate. And Genesis never hints at any rank or order between Adam and Eve until after she follows him when he alone is banished from the garden. Her legacy is not deception but oppression, while Adam’s is not only causing sin to enter the world but also keeping women oppressed. That is the root and cause of patriarchy.

It falls upon PMS to cite scriptural support for the claim that all women are prone to deception and to usurping an imaginary divine decree that puts male over female, a ranking by the flesh that has no place in Christianity. If they wish to continue labeling all women in this way even without scriptural mandate, then let them also accept the blame for all men being rebellious against God in a way that women are not, and for keeping women beneath them. Eve’s greatest blunder was to follow Adam instead of God, which is the core teaching of PMS today; they are actually encouraging women to follow Eve in this great error! And it is idolatrous to put any man in a place of spiritual supremacy or to usurp the place of Christ in a woman’s life.

“Chris” and all the other PMSers believe that they must restrain women “lest they fall into deception like Eve did”. Yet as we’ve seen, they have the order of events wrong in the first place, so their conclusions are in error as well. Lack of restraint has nothing to do with Eve’s deception, and Adam’s example, if it shows anything, tells us that men are completely worthless in this task! If “this responsibility for men has not ceased with Adam”, then neither has their inability and unwillingness to protect. Adam was the poorest guardian and thus the poorest role model for men.

Lastly, “Chris” actually argues that the only other way to keep women from deception is for them to “fulfill their role as women”, under “Adam”s watchful eye. (uh huh) Are only women supposed to “continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control”? Are they in sin if they fail in this, while men would not be in sin? Do they actually believe that a man is sinning if he does not restrain women and resist every effort for a Christian women to preach the correct gospel, teach, etc? No wonder they fight so hard to keep preeminence! And it’s all an elaborate house of cards they themselves made up.

What we actually read in Genesis is far different from the highly speculative assertions of PMS. They read their desired conclusions into the premises, putting more fine print into Genesis than there are actual words. They circularly argue that Paul must refer to Genesis to establish authority and then read that back into the context of 1 Tim. 2, completely ignoring the topic of deception, the specific grammar shifts between singular and plural as well as the continuing nature of sin of the woman at the time, and the actual words of Genesis. They ignore Paul’s letter to the Romans which lays all the blame on Adam and none on Eve, along with Paul’s expressed statements to even whole congregations that deception is hardly the sole domain of women (2 Cor. 11:3). They ignore scripture’s description of Adam as the rebel (Hosea 6:7, Rom. 5:14, 1 Cor. 15:45), not Eve. In short, they must ignore much scripture and replace it with their own in order to construct their argument.

I’m not impressed. And I will not, like Eve, follow any man “out of the garden” and away from my Savior. I have no other Priest, no other King, and no man emits any magical mystical covering to protect me, as if the Holy Spirit cannot do the job without their “help”. Pride in the flesh, especially that which puts the other half of humanity behind them, is the real sin.

I will enjoy picking apart the rest of the claims, but I’m giving “Chris” the weekend to answer the question. Being a student and all, I’m sure the weekend is a time of, um, catching up on studies. Or something.

It’s always nice to know I brightened someone’s day, gengwall… tanx.

Aye-aye cap’n!