gengwall

Craig – I have just begun reading a book called “I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking I Timothy 2:11-15 in Light of Ancient Evidence” which basically is looking at the passage with the pagan situation in Ephesus that you refer to as the main focus. I have not read very far yet but I think that they are going to make the argument that Paul is dealing with bunches of people, not an individual couple. I’m not sure but that seems to be the direction they are heading. (BTW – anyone read this book?) That doesn’t necessarily preclude Paul from addressing one couple as an example of the larger group. (In essence, that is what comps say he is doing, although the “one” is Eve and the larger group is all women, or at least all Christian women within the setting of the church service. To me, the evidnece is clear that “the woman” and “she” in verse 14 and 15 can not be Eve, so I reject their notion).

The bottom line is we don’t have Timothy’s letter to Paul which prompted Paul to write. We simply can’t know for sure if there was only one couple involved or if one couple is emblematic of a broader problem. What we do know for sure is that “she” in verse 15 is a specific woman and she is not Eve, so the application of the prohibition of the passage to all women for all time is simply not supportable and the teaching that is involved must be false teaching.