Don Johnson

We belong to a mutal admiration society.

In Hebrew thought, a neither/nor contruction can refer to one thing.  For example, when Jesus in Mat 6:20 where thieves neither break in nor steal (in the Greek, see ISA, some translation do not show it this way).  Jesus is making it memorable but the concern is about the stealing, the breaking in is an adjunct to the main concern.

This is another reason why the meaning of authentein is pivotal.  We cannot be sure if it is one or two things.

If it is 2 things then didasko/teach has no direct object and is therefore unrestricted in scope, which we KNOW is not true in general as Paul in other places says for women to teach other women; so we KNOW there MUST be a scope limitation somewhere in the sentence, else there is a contradiction.  My take is that a scope limitation is that the command is in the present tense, as in I am not now permitting….  But besides that, it is possible that it is one thing that is being discussed, not two, as in I do not permit a woman to teach nor do X; but we need to know what X is.

However, given all the challenges of interpreting this verse, it seems crazy to claim it is clear and furthermore that it clearly forbids women from some ministry.