gengwall

First off – “I was wondering if words like “believes…., is convinced….., must be….” is putting things more strongly than Gengwall is saying. I thought he was just putting forward another possible view to consider, that he could see some merit in.”

LOL – Thanks for some coming to my defence Craig and TL. The response to Cheryl’s characterization of my position is kind of “it was and it wasn’t”. It is indeed too strong a contention that I believed it “must be” the way I was arguing. But I was arguing rather strongly so a response such as this is warranted and welcome. Especially since it deals so directly with the one area of grammer which was a mystery to me – anarthrous nouns. Like Kristen, I am more comfortable now in that the evidence for a continually definate woman from vs. 11 forward is strong. Still, I have reservations (so don’t give in so easily Kristen – there is more to discuss).

Using John 4:7-9 since it seems to be a favorite. I don’t think this lines up well with our 1 Timothy passage. In John, the transliteration is “is coming a woman out of the Samaria to bail water” at the well where Jesus is sitting. Jesus then proceeds to address her directly. There is no possible way this could be seen as anything but a specific, individual Samaritan woman. In other words, there is no way “woman” in John 4:7 could possibly be considered a generic. The context does not allow it. So, in John 4:9, when the definate article is used, it does not clear up or reveal anything we didn’t already know.

That is not true of the 1 Timothy verses. Now if Paul had said something like: “Is a woman coming from the congregation to teach and dominate…” we might have a more parallel passage. But there is no context in verses 11 and 12 that points conclusively to an individual like there is in John 4 so I do not accept the example as applicable.

Let’s look at one of the other examples quoted in Cheryl’s post:

“Because he was very cold, David promptly put on his coat” the identify of the “he” is unknown until the individual is also referred to as “David”.”

To make this parallel to 1 Timothy, the sentence would have to read “Because a man was very cold, David promptly put on his coat”. That, of course, is jibberish. So such an example not only doesn’t fit our passage, but actually supports the idea that a generic must be in use in the first reference because to make it a definate makes nonsense out of the text.

Another scriptural example of the anaphoric reference was James 2:14: “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?”

But this is an example of a generic! It is not referring to a specific, individual “he/him”, but to any “he/him” that fits the situation. “he” is not definate here in the true sense of referring to a real individual. In fact, as pointed out in the prior example of David’s jacket, “he” is an unknown reference. The “he/him” of James 2:14 is no more specific or definate than the “someone” of the same verse or the “he” who turned out to be David

So, I appreciate the instruction on anaphorics but find it lacking an example which fits well with the 1 Timothy verses. Let’s keep digging.