pinklight

Craig,

4 I know both egals and comps who can see the force of Cheryl’s argument from v15, and yet they still have difficulty accepting that v11,12 are speaking of particular individuals. This makes me wonder “are there any other ways of understanding v11-15, where Paul could be expressing a principle in v11,12 while still making sense of the “she” and “they” of v15.

The thing here is that the very thing that is difficult to accept which is Paul speaking of particular individuals is then or would be accepted through v15.

Pinklight, I understand that you are very hesitant about constructing possible scenarios to explain the meaning of bible passages, but don’t we use background information learned from outside the bible to understand difficult passages quite frequently?

Yes, but constructing possible scenarios that we’ve no idea actually exist is different from using historical context that does exist as a help to view a passage.

Anyway, suppose Timothy had asked Paul about a particular woman and a particular man. Could Paul have answered this by first stating the principles that would apply to the specific situation in v11,12 (while Paul and Timothy would know exactly who these principles would be relevant to), and then in v15 spoken of them as “she” (the woman) and “they” (the woman and the man/her husband). This is very similar to Cheryl’s view, but just with a slight twist in v11,12 for those who can’t see the Greek as directly referring to a particular woman and man. Does this make any sense, or is this not possible from the grammar as well? Thanks.

The principle includes vv 13 &14, lack of knowledge and deception. The principle here is that the deceived must learn and not teach (and usurp, dominate) because what they teach is false. Is it possible then that Paul wrote the said principle and not about a particular woman and man in those verses to then in v15 actually write about two real people? It’s not possible because v15 begins with the conjunction “but” which connects it to the previous verses. Grammatically it’s not possible.