pinklight

‘Your claim that one specific wife is in view is based on 1) the singular form ‘a woman’ in verses 11-12, 2) the shift from ‘she’ to ‘they’ in verse 15, and 3) your claim that Paul is talking about a husband and wife. Your claim that the woman is a false teacher is based on a contextual argument that depends largely on 1 Timothy 1:3ff.

As to the first point, the singular form ‘a woman’ presents no problem for the patriarchalist view. William D. Mounce writes in his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (specifically 1 Timothy 2:11), “The anarthrous ????, ‘woman,’ functions as a generic noun here as in v 9 and v 12 (Wallace, Greek Grammar, 253-54), appropriate in the statement of a general truth.” (William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, Word Biblical Commentary, ed. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, and Glenn W. Barker, no. 46 (Nashville: T. Nelson, 2000), 117-118). This means that ‘a woman’ is not referring to a specific woman, but to a typical member of a group. In English, this means any woman.’

Chris,

There is no way for the patri/comp to prove that Paul stopped more than one woman, so it doesn’t matter what their argument is since that’s the bottom line. What can only be proven from the passage in regards to who Paul stopped from teaching, is that he stopped one woman since one is the smallest number. That’s the big ‘duh’. But then, funny thing is, that the patri/comp does actualy want to claim that Paul used ‘a woman’ specificaly but only in v14 (as a reference to ‘Eve’)! But when they interpret vv 11 & 12, they want to claim that Paul uses the same singular genericaly, though they cannot prove it. So they want thier cake and to eat it too. They believe then that Paul uses the singular to refer to a specific woman but only when it suits their interpretive purposes. Simply, Paul uses the singular ‘a woman’ 3 times throughout the passage to refer to the same woman.