gengwall

I think you are overly concerned about a supposed connection of the “women” of vs. 10 and a generic woman in vs. 11. There are many stark indicators that paul has changed subjects beyond the obvious change in grammatical number. Just the introduction of authentein alone makes this a very different situation. As we all know, comps make illogical leaps of reading into the text all the time and your explanation for the anarthrous woman in vs. 11 won’t put a stop to that behavior.

So, your argument has a flavor to it that strikes of fear that it must be your way or egalitarianism can not survive. Put another way, you see a lot of danger in my position which I think simply doesn’t exist. I see a similar panick in the inter-church creation debate, where young-earth creationists insist that there can be no other interpretation because an old earth would guarentee victory to the evolutionists. It simply isn’t so.

The fundimental reason why my position doesn’t grant an inch to comps is that I am still arguing for an individual woman in vs. 11, just as you are. Mine is generic to be sure but she does not lose connection to yours, who is the archetype. Kristen’s example from the workplace is indeed a great analogy and makes perfet sense to me. I see no reason why Paul and Timothy couldn’t have had a similar dialog.

What needs to be established, and what I think is clearly established in the text, is that the topic is false teaching. Once that is accomplished, the separation from vss. 8-10 is complete and there is no threat from a generic woman in vs. 11.