20 Chris,

You said:

Here a command is given to the congregation. The pronoun ‘she’ refers to ‘a woman’, but the command isn’t just for one specific woman, it is for all women.

This is no problem at all. “A woman” can refer to generic woman. The point I was making is that “a woman” is always referred to as “she” and never referred to as “they”. “Women” are referred to as “she”. The grammar can be generic woman for both cases but in each case the grammar must match. In other words “a woman” will never be matched with “they”. You have not proved me wrong and I challenge you to do so from the scripture.

The reason Paul switches to the generic singular form is because he intends to connect his proscription in verse 12 to his argument from the creation order in verses 13-14 where the singulars ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ are used as representatives of all men and women. In verse 14, ‘the woman’ refers back to Eve and stands the representative of all women.

If this is the case then Paul (and the Holy Spirit who inspired Paul) made some blunders with the grammar. Verse 14 cannot refer to Eve and neither can verse 15 because of the grammar. Verse 15 is future tense and verse 14 is continuing transgression and neither can apply to Eve. As far as Adam referring to all men, that doesn’t appear to be the case cause “all men” are not formed first and not all men are *not* deceived. *Adam* was formed first and only he was not deceived.

’[S]he’ is any woman, and ‘they’ refers to those women.

I am asking for a second witness for this type of grammar. Show me another example from scripture. I hope that you do not just ignore my request like you have ignored Paula’s questions. That is not a good sign of someone who wants to press on towards truth. Please do answer my question and give me a second witness to this kind of grammatical error in the scriptures.

So, in context, Paul is giving instructions for women. He switches from plural to generic singular but is still giving instructions for women.

There is no need to switch from plural to singular if he is still talking about women in general. This would confuse the matter instead of keeping it simple and understandable.

The switch to generic singular anticipates his argument from the creation order. Adam and Eve stand as representatives of all men and all women in Paul’s argument.

Prove this argument. Show how all men have not been deceived and all women have been deceived. This is not a representative argument since it is reflective of Adam’s position alone (not deceived) and not that of all men.

The woman in verse 14 is Eve. So, the woman is representative of all women.

You cannot just keep repeating your argument. I have already shown how verse 14 doesn’t fit with “the woman” being Eve because of the continuing state of transgression.

‘She’ in verse 15 refers back to ‘the woman’ in verse 14. All women are still in view here.

John MacArthur has already proven my point and he is a strong complementarian. He gives the proof that Eve cannot be the “she” from verse 15 since the grammar is future tense. Therefore either your argument is true and the passage is filled with all kinds of grammar errors (which isn’t possible since it was written by the Holy Spirit) or the grammar is true and verse 15 cannot be Eve. Instead verse 14 AND verses 11 & 12 are all a particular women who is continuing in transgression at the time of Paul’s writing and whose salvation is spoken of in verse 15.

‘[T]hey’, in verse 15, can have an inferred antecedent that refers distributively to all of the women in the church because the topic continues to be instruction to women and ‘the woman’ to which ‘she’ refers stands for all women.

This will be the subject of our next interview with Paul. I am sure that it will interest you. It may take me a couple of days to get the interview complete as I am at a women’s conference this weekend.

If there is some rule of Greek grammar that requires the pronoun ‘they’ to have explicit antecedents in the text, then (unless this rule is extraordinarily arcane) Greek experts would have caught this in 1 Timothy 2:15 and brought everyone’s attention to it. So, I seriously doubt that there is any such rule that would prevent the Greek ‘they’ in 1 Timothy 2:15 from having an inferred antecedent, especially given how this verse has been understood by most commentators.

The experts have always said that this is a very difficult passage and most say that they do not know exactly what Paul means or why he kept switching from plural to singular and back to plural. If there was a Greek or Hebrew precedent for this kind of grammar, it surely would have been brought to light by now. By the biblical standard of two or three witnesses, I ask for a second witness for this kind of grammar. If it is valid to make she = they, then surely there will be a second witness. Will you be successful at finding a second witness? I am still waiting. It appears to me that you are begging the question.

1. Few elders attended the seminar. They stayed home instead.

They = the elders who did not attend the seminar. The antecedent is the complement of ‘few elders’ in the set of all elders.

“Few” means “more than one” so it can properly be called “they”. But it would not be proper to say: “An elder attended the seminar. They stayed home instead.” This is because “an elder” cannot equal “they” just as “a woman” cannot equal “they”. You are trying so hard to circle the issue but your circling only proves that you are unable to answer my question and to prove the unique and improper grammar with a second witness.

I’ve seen the claim that the switch from ‘she’ to ‘they’ is a problem for patriarchalists several times here, but I have yet to see any documentation to support this alleged violation of the rules of Greek grammar.

It is a violation of the rules of any grammar as I have already shown. It would be such a simple exercise to prove me wrong by bringing up a second witness. But alas the proof of the improper grammar as “proper” is for you to prove. Go ahead. I would love to see you try. I think that you know deep inside your heart that this one is unprovable but you are not willing to say that you are wrong. Am I right?

Your appeal to Terri Darbi Moore is without merit without proof that this kind of grammar is valid. Neither Terri or you can give another example of such violation of the accepted use of grammar. If you or she could, then her statement would have merit and we can examine the second witness. But without a second witness it is not only improper grammar, but it is without precedent and would make Paul (and the Holy Spirit) out to deliberately confuse people. I would rather believe that Paul meant what he said and said what he meant.

As far as my argument being a “red herring” it should take nothing to prove it. Provide a second witness to prove your claim that Paul used a valid type of grammar making a singular noun equal to a plural noun in the same sentence.

Again, I would recommend that you read my next post about “they” and see if you can refute “Paul”. 🙂