Suzanne

Oops. I missed the anti-spam word and copied the code from the other page.

Grudem’s Open Letter to Egalitarians has been well answered many times. In fact, that webpage used to contain the responses of Linda Belleville, to whom I am indebted for much of my research.
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Since I have started to quote from that page and from Belleville and have proven that every one of the points was based on evidence that does not exist, CBMW has vastly edited that page and other pages to remove all their supposed evidence from their articles.
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I wish I had saved the earlier pages from the CBMW website. There are very simple ways to refute each of those arguments.
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1. Grudem: Specifically, we cannot find any text where person A is called the ”head’’ of person or persons B, and is not in a position of authority over that person or persons.
McCarthy: ”the whole family of the Ptolemies was exceedingly eminent and conspicuous above all other royal families, and among the Ptolemies, Philadelphus was the most illustrious; for all the rest put together scarcely did as many glorious and praiseworthy actions as this one king did by himself, being, as it were, the leader of the herd, and in a manner the kephale (head) of all the kings.” Philo, Moses 2:30
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Clearly, Philadelphus was not the authority over the other kings in his family. His father was also a Ptolemy, and Philadelphus could hardly be the authority over his own father.
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2. Grudem: Will you please show us one example in all of ancient Greek where this word for ”be subject to’’ (hypotasso, passive) is used to refer to one person in relation to another and does not include the idea of one-directional submission to the other person’s authority?
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McCarthy: 2 Macc 13.23,

”[King Antiochus Eupator] got word that Philip, who had been left in charge of the government, had revolted in Antioch; he was dismayed, called in the Jews, yielded (hupotage) and swore to observe all their rights, settled with them and offered sacrifice, honored the sanctuary and showed generosity to the holy place.”
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The king ”submitted” to the Jews, who had no authority over him. He yielded to them for political reasons.
3. I have not researched this.
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4. Grudem: Our problem is this: we have never seen any clear example in ancient Greek literature where authenteo must mean ”domineer’’ or ”misuse authority.’’ Whenever we have seen this verb occur, it takes a neutral sense, ”have authority’’ or ”exercise authority,’’ with no negative connotation attaching to the word itself.
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McCarthy: BGU 1208 (first century B.C.): ”I had my way with him [authenteo] and he agreed to provide Catalytis the boatman with the full payment within the hour.”
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This is the ONLY occurrence of authenteo is ancient literature. This citation is listed in the original study by Baldwin under the meaning of ”to compel, to influence someone.” and Grudem agrees with the translation ”compel.” (Ev. Fem & Biblical Truth. page 677 – 680.) According to Grudem other translators suggest ”prevail” and mention that this is a hostile relationship involving insolence.
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The only example is listed as ”to compel.”
5. Grudem: oude 1 Tim. 2:12. … when we look at other examples of this Greek construction, in the form ”neither + [verb 1] + nor + [verb 2],’’ only two patterns occur: (a) verb 1 and verb 2 are activities or concepts that are both viewed positively, such as ”neither sow nor reap,’’ or ”neither eat nor drink,’’ or (b) verb 1 and verb 2 are activities or concepts that are both viewed negatively, such as ”neither break in nor steal’’ or ”neither leave nor forsake.

McCarthy: Since authenteo can only have a negative meaning, both verbs must have a negative force in this verse.
6. I have not looked at this either.

For # 1, 2 and 4 there is a clear response to Grudem. However, I have not researched the others to find examples of specific grammatical patterns. The Lexicon is clear that the meanings are ambiguous, but I just haven’t taken the time to find a collection of examples.

I have been able to disprove many of Grudem’s  statements against the TNIV as well. I have sent many emails to CBMW asking them to take down evidence taken out of context, or claims that are not supported by fact. They started doing this but ultimately gave up and stopped responding to my emails. They  at first got me to review some stuff and got the authors to respond to me. However, they could not take down the entire kephale study, which is for the most part inaccurate, so they did just start ignoring me.