7 Lin,

Of course, the Puritans were not concerned about women prophesying so they did not need to twist the meaning. :o)

It is thought-provoking to see how people interpret passages when there is no ulterior motive to cover up.

8 Greg,

The amount of extra-Biblical construction, extrapolation, and inference required to make it a universal law for the church age is staggering.

“… No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means…”
(George Bernard Shaw)

This is the reason why I keep pushing people to have an honest view of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and test this “law” against every other universal law. An honest evaluation shows that this prohibition is not like the others. One needs to ask why we as a church have so easily taken a prohibition written in a personal letter to one person and without any connection to any existing law and without a second witness, and made it applicable to all women? If Paul had stopped one unnamed man from teaching other men, would this have so easily become a universal prohibition against men teaching other men? I think it reveals our societies underlying prejudice against women.