gengwall

Craig – It occurs to me you may not know what Kay is addressing with the verse parsing issue. In certain Greek manuscripts, specifically the ones used and compiled to make up the “base” Greek text for all modern English translations of the New Testament, “verses” 21 and 22 of Ephesians 5 read as:

“and submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ; the wives to their own husbands as to the Lord”

In other words, the verb to submit is not repeated in verse 22. Whereas many English bibles make a break in the text between verses 21 and 22, implying that there is no clear connection between the two sections of the chapter, the actual Greek text makes it clear that verse 22 is a direct extension of verse 21. The mutual submission, absent of any authority, that verse 21 clearly calls for is identical to the submission wives are to have in regards to their husbands.

It is legitimate to ask “why the redundancy directed at wives in particular”, and I think we have covered some of that ground in the comments here. What is not legitimate is to claim that the submission wives are to have is something different than the submission we are all called tohave in verse 21. And it is totally disingenuous to claim such a distinction should be in place based on extra-biblical chapter/verse separations.