ἐξουσίαν ἐπί

Summary

ἐξουσίαν ἐπί ("authority over") is the standard NT construction for expressing legitimate authority over others (Rev 2:26, 6:8). The egalitarian argument: if Paul wanted to say "I do not permit a woman to exercise authority over a man," he could have written exousian epi — the phrase used throughout Revelation and the NT. His choice of the rare authenteō instead signals he is not prohibiting normal church authority but naming something more specific and negative.

Article 340 discusses this phrase in the context of showing that exousia (the normal, unambiguous word for authority) is the standard vocabulary Paul uses everywhere except 1 Tim 2:12. The Revelation passages (e.g., Rev 2:26, "I will give him authority over the nations"; Rev 6:8, "they were given authority over a fourth of the earth") demonstrate how Greek expresses legitimate authority over others using exousia + epi. The egalitarian argument from this phrase is a fortiori: if Paul wanted to say "I do not permit a woman to exercise authority over a man," he could have written exousian epi (as used throughout Revelation and the NT). His choice of authenteō instead — a rare word with a more ambiguous, often negative semantic history — signals that he is not simply prohibiting women from exercising normal church authority. This is a key plank of the Bartlett/Williams argument in article 340. See also: exousia, authenteō, epitrepō.