But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
–1 Tim 2:12, KJV
While researching for yesterday’s post I came across a complementarian controversy regarding the NIV translation of 1 Tim 2:12 back in 2010. Denny Burk, who has since gone on to assume the role of CBMW president, strongly objected to a change of a single word in the NIV’s translation of the verse. The 1984 and 2002 NIV translations were:
I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.
But in 2005 the NIV changed “have authority” to “assume authority”:
I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;1,2 she must be quiet.
Burk smells a rat, as he sees this as feminist translators at the NIV opening the door for churches to ordain women and place them in leadership roles over men. He sees this as encouraging churches to read this only as a prohibition of the woman assuming the authority of her own decision, leaving open the option for churches to place her into a position of authority.
Dr. Douglass Moo of the NIV translation team appeared in the comments to defend the change, arguing that the phrase assume authority can be read multiple ways.
As one of the NIV translators, let me just make four comments….
Third, the footnotes were dropped in the updated NIV simply because the translators believed that “assume authority” could be taken in either direction. We often use this phrase in a neutral way (e.g., “When will the new President assume authority”?).
What is so strange about all of this is that complementarians gutted this verse of nearly all meaning decades ago. What we see here is merely fighting for the scraps. If complementarians hadn’t gutted the verse of nearly all of its meaning, the controversy over “have” vs “assume” would not really matter. The Apostle Paul instructed Timothy that women were not to teach, and they were not to have authority over men. In 1991 the founders of the CBMW decided to abandon the long accepted meaning of this verse for a feminist friendly interpretation. The new CBMW interpretation claimed that all Paul was prohibiting was women having authority over men in the church. The claim was that when Paul wrote women were not to teach, he really meant teach men, because teaching men meant assuming authority over men. To get here they had to entirely ignore the last part of the verse:
…she must be silent
Moreover, they had to torture the verse that immediately follows, which explains why women are not permitted to teach nor to hold authority over men. Paul explains in 1 Tim 2:14 that it was Eve who was deceived. The CBMW recognized that the traditional (and obvious) reading of 1 Tim 2:14 was that women were more prone to being deceived than men, but they didn’t like that reading because it meant that clearly Paul was saying women couldn’t teach/preach. They came up with a new feminist friendly interpretation, claiming that when Paul mentioned Eve being deceived what he really meant was that Adam was created first:
28. Do you think women are more gullible than men?
First Timothy 2:14 says, “Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” Paul gives this as one of the reasons why he does not permit women “to teach or have authority over a man.” Historically this has usually been taken to mean that women are more gullible or deceivable than men and therefore less fit for the doctrinal oversight of the church. This may be true (see question 29). However, we are attracted to another understanding of Paul’s argument. We think that Satan’s main target was not Eve’s peculiar gullibility (if she had one), but rather Adam’s headship as the one ordained by God to be responsible for the life of the garden…
If this is the proper understanding, then what Paul meant in 1 Timothy 2:14 was this: “Adam was not deceived (that is, Adam was not approached by the deceiver and did not carry on direct dealings with the deceiver), but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor (that is, she was the one who took up dealings with the deceiver and was led through her direct interaction with him into deception and transgression).”
When I laid out the CBMW argument for women preaching in March of 2016, many of my readers liked the CBMW’s claim that women are permitted to preach to other women. However, none of these same readers could bring themselves to swallow the CBMW’s absurd rational for coming to this conclusion. They liked the reading because it would feel weird not to allow women to preach to women, but they could not bring themselves to defend the CBMW’s argument as to why Paul wasn’t telling women to remain silent (not teach) when he said they were to remain silent.
Paul says women are not to teach three different ways in the segment of Scripture in question:
11A womana should learn in quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;b she must be quiet. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
If there was any question over what Paul meant when he said women were not to teach, the fact that he opens and closes by saying women are to remain quiet should settle all doubt. And again, verse 14 also removes all doubt by explaining that it was Eve who was deceived. Lastly, after explaining what women should not be doing (preaching, leading the church), Paul explains what women should be focused on (having and raising babies). Paul couldn’t have been more clear, but complementarians want to read this as feminist empowerment so badly they came up with an absurd and novel interpretation.
One thing feminsts never tire of reminding us is that the accepted roles of men and women were very different in the patriarchal ancient world. This fact ironically is yet another piece of incontrovertible evidence that Paul was telling Timothy that women were not to preach. How else would you expect the men of the ancient world to interpret verse 14, but to see it as an explanation that women are more easily deceived? Grudem and Piper’s novel interpretation only makes sense if you assume Paul only expected his first century letter to Timothy to be understood two thousand years later! The whole argument is nonsense, which is why everyone in favor of women preaching to women wants to avoid defending it.
Ironically, when Grudem and Piper wanted to advance this radical, feminist friendly interpretation of 1 Tim 2:12, the man they brought in to make the case is the same man who leads the NIV translation team, Dr. Douglass Moo. As Kevin DeYoung at The Gospel Coalition pointed out at the time, this is a debate not between complementarian and feminist scholars, but between different factions of complementarian scholars:
Craig Blomberg and Doug Moo, for example, maintain that the NIV rendering does not tip the scales one way or the other. Their goal was to stay neutral and bow to no theological agenda.
Blomberg and Moo are among evangelicalism’s best scholars (and complementarians too).
Yet complementarians like Burk have to fight this last remaining battle with their fellow complementarians, because having gutted the verse twenty five years ago, the question of “have” vs “assume” is all complementarians have left. Having swallowed a camel, they are forced to strain for gnats. Complementarians already claim that Paul meant women can be preachers when he said they were not to teach, and instead were to remain silent. Complementarians accept women as preachers, not just preaching to women, but preaching to men. All that is left of this shredded Scripture from the complementarian perspective is the question of whether women can be ordained as preachers.
As Dr. John Piper explains, it is fine for Beth Moore to be a preacher. It is even fine for her to preach to men. But according to Piper, Paul didn’t want Beth’s preaching to compromise her and her audience’s manhood and womanhood:
The Bible is clear that women shouldn’t teach and have authority over men. In context, I think this means that women shouldn’t be the authoritative teachers of the church—they shouldn’t be elders. That is the way Rick Warren is understanding it, and most of us understand it that way.
This doesn’t mean you can’t learn from a woman, or that she is incompetent and can’t think. It means that there is a certain dynamic between maleness and femaleness that when a woman begins to assume an authoritative teaching role in your life the manhood of a man and the womanhood of a woman is compromised.
What’s the problem? We’ve already had a female Pope. Yuk yuk.
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Dalrock
About a third of the way down – comoplementarians
I’ve always said it’s a hard word to type.
[D: Thanks!]
@Dalrock
Nice post! I agree that women should be quiet. Could you imagine that? Most of them today are a bunch of obnoxious foul mouth cunts. The Synagogue that I attend would never allow a female Rabbi as well the Evangelical Church that I attend where the Pastor would never allow a female Pastor or for them to become Church Elders.This has created some animosity among the women in the Church. But,then again I was voted down twice for membership as a Church Elder.They don’t mind taking the Jew’s money though.Their logic is that “if we let that Jew become an Elder of the Church he will be running the show within a year”! Probably true. But,I could also run things a lot more efficiently and bring more money into the Church than they are now.If it were not for “The Jew” the Church would be in dire financial straits!
It all depends on what the meaning of the word is is. After all, President Clinton was a member in good standing of the SBC, and despite a dust up over gay month still preaches in SBC pulpits.
If she wishes to learn anything, let her ask her HUSBAND at HOME.
I think this is the crux of the whole issue. If a wife is learning from her husband, then there is no room for women teaching. Yet no church I know of will teach this. They do not send women to their husbands for biblical interpretation…..instead, what God had made one, they treat as two. Two individuals with completely separate legal and moral agency.
This is necessary so that the church/pastor can become the authority over the woman instead of her husband. Usurping the husband authority (which is very close to what Satan did to eve) opens the door to massive rebellion, because the Pastor said she could.
That’s exactly right.
Years ago, I attended a protestant service for the first time in my adult life. The experience was so shocking that I wrote about it, in the comments on this blog. The preacher gave off a very weird vibe as he laughed at supposed male inadequacies. I thought then (and still do) that he was essentially “gaming” all the wives and daughters in the congregation.
Aside from the cheap sexual thrills this must give Protestants, it also opens up an aperture in a marriage where it’s easier to harvest a family’s money. Once the husband is demeaned, the wife is primed to give generously on demand, as the role of husband is now ambiguous between actual husband and surrogate husband (preacher).
It’s an insidious little scam these preachers have got going, and you guys are the marks.
@ Hose_B
Nailed it.
Dalrock, love your blog. I’m really trying to change decades of bad spiritual teaching in this area, and while it’s hard to accept the Christian “red pill” all at once, I appreciate your comments in this area. It’s helping. I have a long way to go, and my wife has a longer trip. But slowly I’m leading myself and her to the right direction. When I started the journey I whined a lot about roles and headship in front of her, which went over just as well as you’d think. Learned my lesson the hard way there, and thankfully we’ve recovered and are slowly orienting ourselves more correctly.
Less related to this, but more related to divorce theft and glorification – the latest thing I’ve seen going viral in my Christian social networking circles: https://www.theedgescollective.com/home/2017/6/19/fighting-for-my-wife. It gets honestly sickening toward the end. My cousin’s wife shared this and actually TAGGED HIM in it! How do I even begin to show them and others what’s so incredibly wrong with this? Literally no responsibility at all toward the wife, complete justification for “I’m unhappy” divorce, and complete subservience by a man to his wife’s smallest desires – all dressed up in Christianese and good intentions. Even in my blue pill days this would have been sickening to me. How many people will follow this same logic and wind up in the courtroom even faster?
[D: Welcome.]
The first assumption behind this is that a doctrine hangs on a single verse. The passage quoted above must be taken alongside 1st Corinthians 14:34-37
34 The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. 35 If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church. 36 [b]Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only? 37 If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment.” [emphasis added]
We’ve all heard people say “Paul said….” but Paul makes it very clear in verse 37 where this came from and he used the word “commandment”
The second assumption is natural, because so very, very few have ever worshipped in a house church. They think church and they think building. They hear elders and they think of some kind of election by the congregation and “official” status. What they don’t think about is a gathering in a home in which the women get together and start talking about Scripture and offering their own opinions to each other. Nor do they think about how much women want attention.
1st Cor. 14:34-35 is instruction regarding the deportment of women in the congregation and 1st Tim. 2:12 is nails down the authority issue. The CBMW’s focus on changing the meaning of 1st Tim 2:12 is to completely ignore 1st Cor. 14:34-35. While we know that all Scripture is God breathed, occasionally we get these little reminders that it isn’t a polite opinion (and Paul is specific when he’s just providing an opinion), but a commandment from the Lord.
And we cannot overlook 1st Corinthians 11:1-16, which quite a few idiots are convinced is about head coverings. No, while the subject of head coverings is discussed, the issue is authority and the structure of authority within the church. God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of man, a man is the head of woman.
Again, Paul might well have been addressing the CBMW when he stated in verse 16:
But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.
Again, the idea that a doctrine should hang on a single verse is ridiculous and is contrary to the meaning of the word doctrine in the first place.
Uh, Mark, are you both Jewish and Protestant? How does that work?
Another great post by Dalrock. If these false teachers really wished to understand 1 Tim 2 – they would seek help from other passages provided by the same author – St. Paul.
Thankfully we have at least seven (7) related passages from five (5) different Pauline epistles to learn… that St. Paul is a conservative Patriarch teaching that husbands need lead their families and males lead their Churches (who would have guessed)!
These passages are:
1 Corinthians 11
1 Corinthians 14
1 Timothy 2
1 Timothy 4
Ephesians 5
Titus 2
Colossians 3
Read them on your own to see how abundant, unambiguous and incorrigible is St. Paul’s criminal sexism! But see below a few ripe quotes to show you a taste of St. Paul’s view of Men & Women..
1 Corinthians 11:7+ A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.
1 Corinthians 14:34 Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
1 Timothy 4:11+ As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to. So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan.
Ephesians 5:22+ Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Titus 2:3+ Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
Colossians 3:18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
St. Paul is quite clear in these matters for any that have ears to hear.
“In 1991 the founders of the CBMW decided to abandon the long accepted meaning of this verse for a feminist friendly interpretation.”
I see it was none other than Douglas Moo who wrote that chapter in the linked paper. And now he’s leading the team feminizing the NIV? Seems he’s been at the center of this for a long time.
Quote from Moo from a bio on wheaton edu, ” Yet since the text I deal with is no less than God’s word to his people, I must grapple not only with original meaning but with application to myself and to the contemporary church.” A bit disturbing when combined with his personal slogan “Apply yourself wholly to the text; apply the text wholly to yourself.” Looks like he’s written about 1 Tim. 2:11-12 since 1980 (Trinity Journal 2, can’t find it this side of a paywall).
There’s a list with photos of the NIV translators at www thenivbible com/about-the-niv/meet-the-translators/ . 3 of 15 are female and obviously not following the head-covering verse with either hat or long hair. Looks like they didn’t waste any time adapting to the new version of 1 Timothy… and nearly all the men have that high-cheeked smile that disturbs me more every time I see it.
I can’t even give Burk credit for bringing up the issue when he responded to Moo’s pathetic defense with an even more pathetic “…We may have to agree to disagree about whether or not this is a neutral translation. That being said, we’ll also have to agree to disagree about the wisdom of removing the notes.” Cuck-tastic job, Burk, you so-called leader.
There’s also the protests from women that Titus 2 authorizes women to teach women, including that older women can instruct younger women on scripture (which would be preaching).
But a closer read of Titus 2 doesn’t really authorize that. Titus 2 says older women are to be taught to be reverent and temperate and avoid gossip, and to teach/learn by example. And then older women are to come alongside younger women and teach them to do as the older women do – love/submit to their husbands, take care of their kids and homes, keep themselves busy with caring for kids and homes and husbands, and showing kindness to all. Nothing in Titus 2 authorizes women to have ministries, or teach on scripture, or preach, or anything of the kind.
okrahead says:
June 21, 2017 at 1:09 pm
It all depends on what the meaning of the word is is. After all, President Clinton was a member in good standing of the SBC, and despite a dust up over gay month still preaches in SBC pulpits.
Time to remake the Charlie Daniels song, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia….”.
This is merely the catching up that they have to do in order for their Scriptural readings to be inline with their current Churchian rules. Women already preach and teach in their Churches, thus the Scripture has to support it. They have to square that circle and it’s obviously not them who is wrong but St Paul or his interpretations that are wrong and thus must change.
Nothing shows following the Bible and God then re-writing and re-interpreting the texts. 2000 or more years of people and history, tradition and research can go to hell, they have it right!
The Big Lie will rue the day men awaken – and that process is now well underway. “Oh what tangled webs we weave – when we practice to deceive.”
The danger to Western civilization is no longer the lies of feminism, but men’s gradual awakening to the lies hidden within feminism & gynocentrism and the lies feminists & gynocentrists use to whitewash the lies feminists use to cover their other lies – like the ‘pay gap’. Ever wonder why feminists don’t discuss the ‘empathy gap’ (men’s much harsher punishments for the same crimes), the ‘war and workplace death gap’, nor the ‘suicide gap’? Because those don’t buy feminists free stuff. This is why feminists work so diligently to destroy male spaces and hide posts like my own. To survive, feminism must have power over speech, voices, opinions and thought; hence the feminist annihilation of male-only spaces in favor of female-led spaces.
Female oppression, and hence feminism is a lie of inconceivable proportions, to wit:
#1: Everything upon the earth was built by men. There’s not a single, substantial structure on the earth primarily built by women.
#2: It was men that were trafficked, exploited, used, manipulated, brainwashed and disposed of in all the wars for the advancement of women and the state.
#3: Men have always been primarily responsible for working the most dirty, most dangerous, most life shortening, most back breaking jobs, for the advancement of women and the state.
#4: Women demand quotas only in the most prestigious, most powerful, most lucrative positions and didn’t demand their place in employment until after men made work relatively safe, broken nail free and mussed hair proof.
#5: Men pay the majority of taxes, but the vast majority of spending on healthcare, welfare and education is spent at the state and federal level on women.
#6: The vast majority of alimony, asset division and child support flows from men to women.
#7: Trillions in wealth and power have been forcefully transferred, via state power, from men to women and the state through Affirmative Action, Title IX, alimony, asset division and child support (alimony++).
#8: Affirmative Consent – a feminist creation like no-fault divorce (legislation written by NAWL), seeks to remove men’s rights to presumption of innocence and due process at the behest of a woman scorned, on her word alone.
#9: Feminists, while standing tall against the idea of men defining femininity, insist on defining and redefining masculinity.
#10: Feminists claim sole ownership of victimhood and ignore the many benefits patriarchy has bestowed upon women whilst also ignoring the billions of male victims of gynocentrism.
What do feminists say in response to the above? It’s all the fault of ‘toxic masculinity’. In other words, they ‘victim blame’. “Should I not have worn such masculine clothes? Should I not have displayed my muscles and instead worn a long sleeve shirt to cover them from bulging out so? Should I have raised my voice a few octaves so as not to attract the misandric attention of women and the state, both of whom see men as disposable utilities with which to do their dirty work? It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have been so brazen as to expose my masculinity or none of it would have ever happened. If only men would behave in a more gentlemanly like manner – women wouldn’t see the opportunity to financially rape men and dispose of men in war for their own perverted self-satisfaction and lust for power over men.”
Under any other context, the above would be considered war crimes against men. But since it’s only men that get the shaft – they just hand out empty medals and pin them to the body bags or toe tags. Male disposability. It’s all the rage. It’s a massive crime hidden in plain sight.
Feminism is now irrelevant. Follow this one simple rule as a man and you effectively make moot women’s & the state’s entitled attitude towards men, male disposability, cultural misandry, female privilege and the naturally recurring grown spoilt child attitude of women & the state. Here it is, boys – the existential awakening game-changer for men rule:
Never give a woman and/or the state any level of legal, financial, emotional, physical, intellectual, psychological nor spiritual power over your life – to the extent legally possible.
That’s it. Gynocentrism has only the power over men that men allow. Pull the rug out from under women’s entitled feet and gynocentrists will be on their knees begging for forgiveness. Stock up on knee pads, gynocentrists. You’re most certainly going to need them in the relatively near future.
There’s a reason why men rule the earth, ladies. We built all you take for granted upon it.
The grammar of 1 Tim 2:12 is highly ambiguous. Scholarly material on this is readily available. Shoot down, as you will, the following alternative to the KJV, NIV, and CBMW interpretations.
The proper interpretation rests on the rendering of authentein, a word only used once in the NT (!!). In the hundreds of known uses, it implies aggressiveness and abuse. It does not refer to the normal use of authority (exousía). A better rendering would be to abuse authority in a dominating way.
The Ephesians were dealing with the cult of Artemis which taught that woman was the originator of man. These women were trying to assert their dominance over men by teaching that man comes from woman. Verse 12 instructs the woman not to teach that she dominates a man due to the superiority of her gender. Now the applicability of verse 13 is obvious: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve” directly contradicting the cultist teaching. Verses 14 and 15 states that Eve was deceived, cursed with painful childbirth, and will be saved through faith in Jesus Christ (a man who came through childbirth).
V.12 is silent on the topic of the normative authority of women. V.14 does not state that men or women are superior. Adam was not deceived, but he received the curse of death for willingly choosing to sin and took the blame for the fall (Romans 5:12+). The traditional wording of v.15 is troublesome and it is hard to find any consistent teaching on it. Women are not saved by giving birth, they are saved through faith in Jesus Christ (it can’t contradict Ephesians 2:8 or 1 Cor 7:34+).
“If there was any question over what Paul meant when he said women were not to teach, the fact that he opens and closes by saying women are to remain quiet should settle all doubt.”
It all depends on your presuppositions. The woman (singular in the text) is supposed to be quiet in direct contrast to making her specific aggressive false teachings. The instruction to be quiet has no bearing on the broader issues of women teaching. The text is silent on that point.
“Paul explains what women should be focused on (having and raising babies)”
The text does not say that. That is neither a literal interpretation nor is the synecdoche figure of speech universally accepted. This is for good reason as it would potentially contradict 1 Cor 7:34+ where a women is better off not being married. It’s incoherent to say that it is best for a woman to be simultaneously unmarried and raising a family with her husband, nor does this even make sense in the context. Is it not also the job of a father to raise a family? What does it mean to be ‘saved’?
I recently listened to a church elder tell a young kid that the meaning of “women should remain silent” was meant for the time in which it was said and didn’t apply now. First I would think it would apply now more than ever because of the female influence that has taken over much of the h]church. God knows it’s needed. Second if it was only for the time in which it was spoken, why wasn’t it simply left out of the Bible?
The only conclusion must be surely that the translators simply do not believe in or have any liking for the text. No one, not even theatrical producers on Broadway, seek to change Shakespeare’s verse yet WS is contemporaneous with the KJV: Shakespeare scholars revere the text.
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This, and all of the aforementioned, need to be flung in the face of feminists, gynocentrists and the state at every available opportunity. I’m talking right in their face, full bore, impolite, non flinching, aggressive, masculinity style, insulting, put on the spot, called to the carpet, never ceasing reminders of this disposable attitude towards men – all of which are really despicable, unconscionable, ‘Nazi like eradication of the Jews’ war crimes by women and the state against men.
The below is happening globally, with zero acknowledgement or concern. It’s all simply women’s and the state’s way of bringing men to their heels – through the mass murder of disposable men. There is no more murderous, more deceptive, more forked tongued, more reviled, more hypocritical, more entitled entity on the planet than an oppressive, self-serving, feminist, criminally gynocentric and malfeasant state (lead by supposed ‘alpha males’ or gynocentrists. All must be brought to heel (Hillary man-hating, The Future is Female phrase):
http://blog.fathersforlife.org/2017/06/21/indian-mens-suicides-have-reached-epidemic-proportions/
Feminists & The State have become existential threats to men’s survival globally. They all must be taken down and down now. Feminists & the state have joined in partnership to destroy ‘beta males’. Their numbers are few, these feminists and gynocentric alpha males. Let’s eradicate them from existence. Let’s do to them what the plan for most men.
I have no idea how many bible versions exist in the world. Biblehub has 26 listed at the top of its webpage: http://biblehub.com/
Seems more than adequate. The only real reason to continue “translating” the bible afresh, centuries after it was pretty well set, is to make it say what you need it to say. Dalrock exposes the latest trends in re-interpreting the bible, which apparently have to do with sanctifying feminism.
This is more of a Sacred Tradition argument, so take it as you will, but women can’t be priests/heads of the Church because Christ only gave the authority to do so to men. Pope John Paul II declared this infallibly. I know for many, this may seem like a useless point (because of more of a Sola Scriptura attitude, not Catholic, etc.). However, the argument could still be used:
The apostles and all of Christian history did not do this (for the reason above, no authority). In context, this is what was believed and practiced for now 2,000 years. The early Church and apostles (who either compiled or in the case of Paul, others, etc. wrote) did not ordain or allow a single female to preach or have authority in the church. They knew these scriptures better than anyone, so the fact that for centuries not a single one allowed this proves what the interpretation of what Paul said really means.
If Paul really was open to women having authority in the Church, where are all the examples in Christian history? There should be hundreds, right?
Feminists to cry out it’s because of insitituional sexism, no doubt.
The great irony to all of this is that even as these “pastors” tweak the scriptures to allow women’s roles to change and expand, they still insist that the men will be expected to fulfill the same roles and provide the same acts and services that society has relied upon so heavily throughout the ages. Failure to comply with the old traditions still useful to the church is unacceptable for the men, and the evidence for this is littered all across American evangelicalism.
The Kendrick brothers will moan, “I wonder where all the good fathers went?” as they spend their latest movie laying the responsibility for society’s ills at the feet of men who failed to meet their standards for parenting.
Al Mohler will berate single men for committing “the sin of delaying marriage” when he notices that fewer marriages are occurring and even then at much later ages, and concludes that “young men must accept most of the blame for this situation.” Link here: http://www.boundless.org/relationships/2010/reflecting-on-the-mystery-of-marriage
John Piper will gleefully assert that a women with sufficient karate skills is more than capable of taking down a male mugger and “kicking him hard!” — right before he adds that if any man who happens to be with her at the time doesn’t step up to defend her first, then he doesn’t even deserve to be called a man. Link here: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/co-ed-combat-and-cultural-cowardice
These fools want the freedom to let one member completely change their role in a society, but then still be allowed to act shocked when other members respond by shedding their traditional role in order to adapt to the change. Do you suppose there’s a chance that any of them still read the Bible? Because I thought I remember that it had some choice words about the kind of man who expects a harvest from land where he never even bothered to plant . . .
“I recently listened to a church elder tell a young kid that the meaning of “women should remain silent” was meant for the time in which it was said and didn’t apply now.”
I’ll bet that elder says, with a very straight face, that his church is “Bible Believing”
Derek Ramsey @ 4:02 pm:
“The grammar of 1 Tim 2:12 is highly ambiguous. Scholarly material on this is readily available.”
The first principle of hermeneutics is that the Bible is the best interpreter of itself. Nowhere, not in one single instance, did God appoint a women to hold authority over a man. The traditional interpretation of 1 Timothy agrees perfectly with both the Old Testament (all-male priesthood, no queens) and New Testament (Christ’s inner circle of 12 disciples were all men; all 12 apostles were men; Paul’s proteges Timothy and Titus were men; the first delegation of Apostolic authority in Acts 6 was exclusively to men; no female leaders).
“The proper interpretation rests on the rendering of authentein, a word only used once in the NT (!!). In the hundreds of known uses, it implies aggressiveness and abuse. It does not refer to the normal use of authority (exousía).”
You claim the Bible had a severe translation error that went undetected for millenia until sex-pozzed clergy discovered it in the 1980s… a correction that just happened to legitimize their PREEXISTING attitudes and practices?
“A better rendering would be to abuse authority in a dominating way.”
The verse says, she is not to teach. It does not say, she is not to teach harshly.
Frankly, women would still be guilty as charged. Have you noticed how the most self-destructive European governments are the ones with the most female leaders? It’s ugly when a servant unseats her master.
“The Ephesians were dealing with the cult of Artemis which taught that woman was the originator of man. These women were trying to assert their dominance over men by teaching that man comes from woman.”
The cult of Artemis taught feminism. Today, the cucks and churchians teach feminism. The same problem. Your argument that this part of the Bible was intended for a specific time and place is therefore false.
“Verse 12 instructs the woman not to teach that she dominates a man due to the superiority of her gender.”
*laughs*
“The traditional wording of v.15 is troublesome and it is hard to find any consistent teaching on it. Women are not saved by giving birth, they are saved through faith in Jesus Christ (it can’t contradict Ephesians 2:8 or 1 Cor 7:34+).”
I agree. Consider, however, that childbirth was both a mortal threat to the mother’s life and an excellent way to drive home her dependence upon her husband. Christ died to give us new life (in fact, His wording was “second birth”) and childbirth is the closest women can come to appreciating what Christ did for them. Alcoholics would call that a “moment of clarity”.
Derek Ramsey @ 4:02 pm:
Can you name a single Christian in church history (any tradition) that upheld your interpretation of 1 Tim 2 before the 20th Century? Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, (Bueller)?
Can you reconcile your plain theological novum with the balance of Pauline scriptures (I cite above)? No, your interpretation must overturn all (or most) all of these other NT passages. The whole teaching of Paul on Men & Women must be thrown out for your 20th century heresy to stand.
As for your problem with Paul’s claims of women “being saved in childbirth” in 1 Tim 3:15, this has never been a problem to any in Christian traditions that predate the Reformation.
I go to Kevin’s church, former now, he is moving to teach at a seminary. We are a mixed bag, but I can tell you that the lay people and many elders are bursting to push women in as many upfront roles as possible. Patriarchy is a very bad word there, one that is not for use in polite company.
If we remember that most of the original recipients of the NT letters were hardly educated, we’ll realize that the writers, including Apostle Pau, did not use any complicated expressions to write to them.
The word of God is so simple that a kid could read it, believe it, and receive the benefits promised.
I have read the Bible for 37 years, and have never found the commentaries useful, except in those areas where they provided historical contexts.
The Scripture is a living word; a letter from a loving God to His children. Kids don’t generally need an interpreter before they understand their father’s letters to them.
When we submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit, we will receive the teachings of Scripture without any human intermediary. That was God’s original intent, actually.
1 Jon 2:27:
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
John 14:26:
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Uh, Mark, are you both Jewish and Protestant? How does that work?
I’m guessing that Mark is a Messianic Jew.
”. In the hundreds of known uses, it implies aggressiveness and abuse. It does not refer to the normal use of authority (exousía). A better rendering would be to abuse authority in a dominating way.”
The only reason it was not exousia is that the husband is not the state. He doesn’t have the power to execute his wife the same way the state can execute criminals.
That’s why.
@Dry Holes
”1 Tim 3:15, this has never been a problem to any in Christian traditions that predate the Reformation.”
While the reformation did much good. There is no question that heretics and apostates took advantage to spread false doctrine.
Being Jewish is similar to being a Mormon or Hindu. One can be born into a set of ethnic folkways without entirely accepting the folk religion of his people.
In my case, I’ll never be able to escape being a Mormon, but I also attend mass at a Catholic church and do other stuff by my own choosing, because it appeals to me. I’m guessing Mark has a similar story, but don’t want to speak for the man.
Boxer
http://biblehub.com/greek/831.htm
@Gunner Q – “You claim the Bible had a severe translation error that went undetected for millenia.”
Personal incredulity, eh? In the first century the term also referred to all sorts of violent and aggressive things, such as murder and suicide. In the fourth century it was translated into the Latin Vulgate as dominari. The 17th century KJV translates it as usurp authority. The NIV has have authority. The direction of manipulation is opposite that claimed.
This dogmatic overconfidence in an exact definition for eisegetical reasons is my objection exactly. The exact meaning of the disputed term matters greatly. See below:
“The verse says, she is not to teach. It does not say, she is not to teach harshly.”
It is the traditional view that she is not to teach because she is not permitted to have authority over a man. But if the verse says she is not to teach nor is she to abuse authority in a dominating way over a man, then the conclusion is thus: she is not to teach because she is not permitted to abuse authority in a dominating way over a man.
@Dry Holes – “Can you name a single Christian in church history (any tradition) that upheld your interpretation of 1 Tim 2 before the 20th Century?”
Why would I make an appeal to authority? No thank you. There is real evidence to support the claim without any need to resort to logical fallacies. If you have a specific objection to anything I said, I’d be happy to address it.
…your 20th century heresy…
Exaggerate much? I point out that a term is ambiguous and that is heresy? What doctrinal claim do you think I am making here?
For those questioning what the “she will be saved through childbearing” part means:
13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
The context is that women are not to teach, not to have authority over a man, and that the first woman was deceived.
If the woman was not to teach or have authority, who was? The man. As Dry Holes pointed out, the Bible repeatedly says a woman is to submit to her own husband.
With the above in mind, I suggest this interpretation: The woman will be saved *from being deceived*, if she does as instructed:
– does not try to be in authority over a man
– does not try to teach
The woman who is silent and follows her husband’s leading/direction/orders will be saved from deception, as she is guided by her husband, corrected by him, and saved from making foolish decisions. How many times have we heard about divorced women being defrauded of money, through deception by a con artist? Or seen independent women “reason” in foolish ways?
These deceptions are vastly less likely to occur if she is in submission to a man who loves and takes care of her.
Similarly, a woman who has children is going to have less time to think about ways to argue with her husband, or to find imagined faults with how her husband leads. She’ll be too busy doing the work she should be doing. So this also will save her from being self-deceived.
I admit that the text does not say from what she will be saved, but given that the passage immediately prior is talking about her deception, this seems an interpretation that is both submissive to the text and reasonable.
Although, the above is unlikely to be accepted by those seeking to be friends of the world. James 4:4-6 seems appropriate for religious professionals and feminists alike:
4 You adulterous people![a] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Men are more rational, more abstract, more adept at seeing the whole, and less emotionally compromised. Women are solipsistic, concrete, and more prone to emotional, tunnel-vision thinking. They are definitely more gullible, as anyone with any real world experience knows in their heart.
As I’ve said here before, those qualities in women are actually quite endearing and attractive when they function in their proper context, i.e. in submission to male authority. Outside of male authority those same qualities can be profoundly ugly and very destructive.
But, Piper et al. HAVE TO find ways to not offend women, so they weasel out of the clear meaning of scripture, and trivialize God’s word. Because, why would it matter who was created first? Why should that have any bearing? Is God that petty? No, the answer is that women are weaker and need male authority, and they should NOT teach.
The hamster keeps running…running…running…
Derek Ramsey sez:
Here’s what we read:
12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
There are no ambiguities in these prescriptions. The meaning is perfectly clear.
Do you understand why the men in this forum have a problem with these tortured attempts at hermeneutics? They have a source which is very clear, only to be told (and not just by you) that
“it’s actually not clear at all… it means something totally different than it’s surface-level semantics would suggest… there’s a deep structure here that you’re missing, because you are too stupid to understand it… but I can interpret it for you, provided you do what I say, and give me your money…”
The KJV is not difficult to understand. It’s a beautiful text which was designed to be read and understood by common people. No one needs a “guru” or interpreter to get the meaning of it.
If you (and others) don’t like the messages in the Bible, you should write your own holy book in the way you want. The SBC, for example, can release their new feminist scripture and do the work of making converts, but they should be honest, and not call it the New Testament. They should call it something else, because it is something else.
They’ve essentially started a new religion, and they should take pride in this, rather than attempting to ride the coattails of Christianity.
Boxer
Christians behaving like Pharisees, so that they can get accepted by the world? Who would have thought!
Actually, the much-maligned Kent Hovind worked this out years ago:
He states the problem from 2:34
They’re going to go down with this one come Judgement Day
Boxer,
Aside from the cheap sexual thrills this must give Protestants, it also opens up an aperture in a marriage where it’s easier to harvest a family’s money. Once the husband is demeaned, the wife is primed to give generously on demand,
Yes, and this is almost exactly the same sequence that leads to a frivorcing woman losing everything to a Nigerian romance scam.
The couple with the husband as the head just cannot be scammed. The woman gets ill-gotten cash and prizes, and is vulnerable. The Nigerians drain for for everything she has, often a six or seven-digit amount. The amount is capped only by her account hitting zero balance.
So a pastorbator and Nigerian scammer are identical in many ways.
@info – “The only reason it was not exousia is that the husband is not the state. He doesn’t have the power to execute his wife the same way the state can execute criminals. That’s why.”
Three minutes with Strong’s is enough to show that this statement is absurd.
@Dale – “The woman will be saved *from being deceived*, if she does as instructed…”
The KJV reads that she will be saved through childbirth, not if she does as instructed. How can she be saved from being deceived through childbirth? Painful childbirth was Eve’s punishment for being deceived, not her redemption.
@Boxer – “There are no ambiguities in these prescriptions.”
Of course there are no ambiguities in the KJV interpretation. Nobody said there were.
“Do you understand why the men in this forum have a problem with these tortured attempts at hermeneutics?”
Yes, I do. That’s why I commented.
“They have a source which is very clear…”
Yes, the Greek New Testament. Oh wait, that’s not what you meant…
As usual, feminists get things completely reversed. The ancient pagan world had no problem with women in priestly roles and as religious mediators. Paul wasn’t necessarily just going along with the culture at all, but expounding a deep understanding of a creational reality since the foundation of the world.
Dear Derek Ramsey:
Yes, of course, which only you understand. Fortunately, you’re here to help. All these poor Christian fools on Dalrock need to hire you as the pathetic “guru” to tell them the true meaning of their book. Lucky them!
You should be honest with yourself. You’re not a Christian. Fortunately, Amazon’s createspace will help publish your new holy book, and you can start a new religion in the secular USA whenever you want, with almost no hassles. Be a man, quit parasitizing Christianity. Go out and get some converts, and good luck with your religious cult.
Suddenly I feel like having a pretzel.
Derek Ramsey exhibits a complete lack of genuine faith.
@Derek Ramsey
Exousia was used in Romans 13 in reference to government Authority who had the power of life and death. Yet was not used in regards to teaching. The bible seems to interpret itself quite well.
@Some Guy at Work
“”Uh, Mark, are you both Jewish and Protestant? How does that work?””
I am Orthodox Jewish,born and raised.I became a Christian about 10 years ago.As you know most Jews,Orthodox,Reform etc…,do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and therefore place no relevance in the New Testament.I am not one of those Jews.The coming of Christ was predicted many times in the Old Testament and Jews fail to acknowledge this.Also,all you have to do is trace the lineage of Jesus and it will show you beyond a reasonable doubt that he is who he says he is.There are quite a few of us and as RPLC stated above…”Messianic Jew” I believe to be the proper term. I still attend the Synagogue as well as an Evangelical Church.
I am surprised Dalrock made no mention of another big change: the large difference between “she must be silent” and “she must be quiet.”
@Mark
I am Orthodox Jewish,born and raised.I became a Christian about 10 years ago
If you don’t mind sharing how has your family dealt with this and treated you? Friends?
@Derek Ramsey, Boxer, Dry Holes, GunnerQ, etc.,
I’m finding your discussion of 1 Tim 2:12 and the other verses enlightening. Please keep the ad hominem comments to a minimum – I have no idea which one of you is “not a Christian” or a heretic and who is the real thing. Your comments on the interpretation of these passages in scripture is valuable. The ideas you have presented will be useful to me, should a discussion on this ever come up in the church I attend. (A place where it is just assumed that “servant leadership” is the norm, and that these verses only apply to the patriarchal society of Paul’s time. Where the women in the Bible study last week were telling me what a great movie The Shack is. And a church where the men are always saying that their wives are so much smarter than they are and that they would be nowhere without their wives.)
I am generally way too short for this ride, but some observations.
I think Balaam’s story fits here. We all know him, he’s the guy with the talking ass right? All the stories portray him as a hero. Not so much. While he did follow directions and bless the people, he also gave some advice to Balak that haunted Isreal for a long time. He told Balak that to bring Isreal down, have the women of his country intermarry with the Insrealites. Even Solomon was guilty of this, and spawned some of the worst kings ever.
In addition to all of the comments on this thread, do you think the Rev 2 passage about tolerating Jezebel has relevance here?
I think the whole point is, the womenz has their own special brand of rebellion, and we as a church, are wise to call them on it.
FWIW.
“For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
I always understood the verse as pointing to the reality that childbearing is both a sign of and consequence of the woman’s fall/sin (the deception/transgression/fall is mentioned immediately preceding this verse). Despite her having the sign/consequence of her fall, woman will be saved if……
I guess this is a different topic but I believe “saved” means salvation (not saved from dying in childbirth, not saved from being deceived, etc.) and that this is one of the best verses to argue for Catholic/Orthodox soteriology.
Congrats Prots…they claim that Scripture is the authority and then massage the words to fit (current year).
As far as the church/pastor usurping the husband’s authority…they must have forgot the model for marriage is Christ and his church. Do Prots even believe in Christ anymore after almost 500 years of rebellion to the true church?
Eph 5:22-32
Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Dear James:
I’m not pretending to be a Christian. I’m just pointing out the obvious: if there is a mortal man who is claiming to be “the way, the truth and the light… no man gets to heaven except through me!” Then his claim is at odds with a simple reading of the text.
This applies whether the man is an anonymous commenter on Dalrock blog, or is the head of the Southern Baptists. Historically, this is an old argument. I can refer anyone with questions to Martin Luther’s theses 53, 54. Back in the day, priests were running the same con on regular folks: claiming that the semantic content of the bible was incomprehensible to everyman, and that the actual commandment was to give them lots of money in return for forgiveness of one’s petty shortcomings. (What a great racket!)
The entire text of the bible is freely available here:
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org
You’re all smart guys here. I assume this is common sense.
You have your own reason for attending these feminist meetings, which I won’t question. Allow me to point out your positive duties: Never give the feminist priest any of your money. Use the content of their sermons as object lessons later, particularly with your sons or other male relatives in attendance. Other participants here have done this to great effect. Consider actively resisting the feminists in small ways (sabotage their building, spread dissent through the population, etc.) A first step might be spreading the URL of this blog. leave a little printed card with the address in the hymnals, perhaps?
Best,
Boxer
@Bruce
I think its not childbirth itself but the pain of childbirth that is the curse. And given in Genesis 1:28 God blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply after making them male and female Indicates that childbirth is not the result of the fall only its pains and dangers.
@infowarrior1
Thanks for pointing that out. It is interesting though that Adam knew Eve and she conceived immediately following the fall and curse.
@LostPatrol “Seems more than adequate. The only real reason to continue “translating” the bible afresh, centuries after it was pretty well set, is to make it say what you need it to say. ”
I think something similar every time I see a sign stuck in the grass on the side of the road about a new church meeting at the local high school.
Out of ALL the churches out there, you can’t find A SINGLE ONE that’s acceptable, so you’ve got to start another one?
@Swanny River “I go to Kevin’s church, former now, he is moving to teach at a seminary. We are a mixed bag, but I can tell you that the lay people and many elders are bursting to push women in as many upfront roles as possible. Patriarchy is a very bad word there, one that is not for use in polite company.”
So, why do you go there? Just curious.
@Derek Ramsey
Lets step back and see the results of your work. By this interpretation, what Paul was saying was “I don’t allow women to abuse authority!” This is either meaningless, or a suggestion that it is ok for men to abuse authority.
You forgot to preface this with “Hey, I’ve got a theory!” Because that is all this is, your conjecture about a possible backstory that would totally change the meaning of the text. This is a popular method of making Scripture say whatever you wish it said, because you can make up any backstory you want. No one can disprove it, because it relies entirely on evidence you conjectured outside the text.
My personal favorite in the bullshit backstory genre is one I heard about 1 Cor 14:35. See, in Corinth the women and the men sat in different sections of the church, and during the sermon this one woman kept shouting over to her husband, asking what the pastor meant. Instead of the pastor taking her aside and reminding her not to yell during the sermon, the Pastor was so perplexed by this difficult problem that he wrote a letter to Paul in Italy. Paul wrote back with instructions framed as if he was referring to women in general, but 1 Cor 14:35 isn’t general instruction like it seems, it is a reminder that Edna in the 3rd row needs to stop yelling in church.
I’m guessing you have a ton of these wacky back stories about the Epistles you could share. I see from your blog that you are United Methodist, so I presume you have some really hilarious ones explaining Paul’s desire for gay marriage and lesbian priests.
Not unrelated, I recently saw this post: http://thronealtarliberty.blogspot.com.au/2017/05/scriptural-truth-equality-of-sexes-and.html
No one argues that a husband’s obligation to love his wife is cultural, non-binding and irrelevant to today’s world. Funny how it only works one way.
@Boxer
You have your own reason for attending these feminist meetings, which I won’t question. Allow me to point out your positive duties: Never give the feminist priest any of your money. Use the content of their sermons as object lessons later, particularly with your sons or other male relatives in attendance. Other participants here have done this to great effect. Consider actively resisting the feminists in small ways (sabotage their building, spread dissent through the population, etc.) A first step might be spreading the URL of this blog. leave a little printed card with the address in the hymnals, perhaps?
Thanks for the comments. I don’t mind talking about my reasons for attending. The church is in walking distance – I mean, why drive 20 minutes to get the same thing somewhere else? The study I’m attending is given by a brother who is a good discussion moderator (a talent I admire) and is one who I consider has valuable insight on the Bible and who I consider to be a faithful brother (but yes, he did let comments go by about how the gender inclusive Bible translations are more appropriate for this day and age, without challenging it).
I could say why be there at all? I’m not too connected to this church, once I leave the building, there are no relationships that follow. I’m rather isolated. I’ve been considering hosting a Bible study at home.
I’m not tithing to this church and your comment about not giving money to a feminist priest, well, it helps me consider why I’m reluctant to do that and that it is not just out of not being generous.
I do try to intervene and resist in small ways, though I haven’t mentioned any of that here.
A quick google search about this (yet another) elusive word authentein is just more chin rubbing faux scholarly rabbit trail like hypotasso and kephale have been for so long. The deconstruction of biblical gender parameters and concepts by amateur truth sleuths who decide what they want then fit the text to it is old hat. Ramsey writes like so many of these characters, free with his quips with just a hint towards how deep his forensic understandings go.
Too tedious by half.
Dear James:
If you know this guy, you may consider talking to him, in the most inoffensive and non-crass way possible, about your doubts about feminism. Maybe frame it as you being concerned about other pseudo-Christians who are wont to re-write the bible.
Current events with the Southern Baptists give you the perfect excuse for such a conversation.
Bear in mind that this guy may well be on our side already. Lots of men just sorta go along to get along, never wanting to rock the boat by voicing their doubts. If other people made the feminist comments and this guy just let them pass, then he may have had other reasons besides blind agreement.
If he knows he has some support in the audience, he may be less likely to let such nonsense just slip by, in the next meeting.
I consider it my duty not to ever voluntarily give any support to feminists – financial, moral or otherwise. It would be a direct betrayal of my own father and grandfather, and of all my friends who have kids, etc.
Feminists have historically been very adept at manipulating society’s productive workers and doers. That has to stop someplace. Let it be with you.
Peace,
Boxer
All writing is done within cultural context. Except fiction.
Inspired writing needs no cultural context – so long as it is not addressing cultural issues.
With regards to letting scripture interpret scripture (something I agree with):
– How many New Testament writers use the phrase ‘proper and fitting help’ when discussing the responsibilities of a wife toward her husband.
– Where did God use the term ‘submit’ when telling Eve what her relationship with Adam would be (not should be; would be)
That is – what did God actually say? If we are truely letting scripture interpret scripture, are not God’s words higher on the heirarchy than any one else’s?
Note that New Testament writers state that Adam was created first, that woman was created for man. If we can use only the words actually used, if we cannot assume what they mean, then we cannot say these words mean “proper and fitting help”. Or – if we can make that assumption here, that frees us to make assumptions elsewhere. It must be one or the other. It cannot be both.
God did not speak just to hear himself talk. He spoke to be understood. That means God spoke to the writers of the Bible in languages that they understood, using imagery and figures of speech that they understood, and cultural context that they understood. God did not speak to them in Old English, nor did he speak in Klingon. He spoke in their own language, and spoke to their cultural context. Which means that the original writing had to be translated if it was to be available to anyone other than those who spoke the language of the writers. That translation was as necessary at the time of the original writing as it is now – as the world at the time of the original writings did not all speak the same language, nor did they all have the same culture.
I would take most comments in this thread more seriously if they were debating the meanings present in the original languages God spoke in, and the cultural context in which they were spoken, instead of debating the meanings present in Old English. God did not speak in Old English.
Example: ‘meet’ is Old English for proper and fitting. How many folks in this corner keep misusing that word as ‘mate’ – which confers none of the meaning of ‘meet’ in Old English. From which Old Testament pagan God does the phrase ‘God rides on the wind’ borrow? If you don’t know, you cannot possibly know what was meant by that phrase or why it was uttered. But it was a cultural context understood by the Hebrew folks to whom the words were first presented.
Of all folks who populate this corner, Boxer has surprised me the most with immediately going to the Old English of the King James instead of the original words in the original languages in the original cultures.
All writing is done within cultural context. All translation is also done within cultural context. And often that cultural context was political. If you don’t know that King James ordered his translation to translate troublesome / unclear phrases in a way that would explicitly support the ecclesiastical church structure, then you are at a disadvantage. The King James version was created to support a church structure that already existed within a political power structure. One would think that a cchurch structure should emerge out of an unbiased translation of the original words into a current language and context.
If God had wanted each of us to understand exactly what he meant, he would have made it so. He didn’t. Consider the number of denominations, bible translations, distinctives, confessions, creeds, etc. There is no clear universal understanding of what God said and meant now or ever. That is the missing context in all of these conversations. Old English won’t help us sort that out. Original words and images and figures of speech and social contexts help us get closer, but not perfect.
Thus, the need for the working of the Holy Spirit, as described upthread.
Derek Ramsey @ June 21, 2017 at 9:14 pm:
“@Gunner Q – ‘You claim the Bible had a severe translation error that went undetected for millenia.’ Personal incredulity, eh?”
You bet. When a clergyman chooses to disobey Scripture’s teachings about women and then leads a new translation effort that says look, he isn’t a heretic after all, everybody else was just mistaken for half of human history… yeah, I’m incredulous.
“This dogmatic overconfidence in an exact definition for eisegetical reasons is my objection exactly. The exact meaning of the disputed term matters greatly. See below:”
God is real. This world offers ten million lies but only one truth, and you would have us not seek that truth too vigorously? Stop pretending that these incompatible translations can be equally valid.
correction in posting above: King James ordered his translators …
@Gunner: ‘You claim the Bible had a severe translation error that went undetected for millenia.’
There is a transcription error in the King James version that is well-recognized and acknowledged by those who study these things. Yet it has not been corrected in all subsequent reprints of the KJV. That fact remains, even tho I am not going to post a link to proof, since I don’t have the time to find it.
The Bible tells us this: there is one God – who has brough order out of chaos; who has bounded the world and the things in it; that has set boundaries for us that we must stay within if we are to eventually be granted an eternal relationship with him; that we will not understand these things until we are brought to spiritual life; that God is the only one who can confer this spiritual life; and that the Holy Spirit has been given to assist in the awakinging into spiritual life. These are the main ideas that persist through all translations – regardless of translation or transcription errors.
Majoring on minors is not what God has called us to. And getting hung up on a word that God did not utter to Eve (submit) is exactly majoring on minors. Unless you are ready to claim that any woman who does not pass your smell test re. submission is going to be turned away at the Judgement Seat. Unless you are claiming that, and can prove that you are correct, you ARE majoring on minors.
Major on the majors presented in the previous paragraph. God is more likely to actually work through you to bring his mercies to others in that context.
@Dalrock & Empath
Dalrock said:
Empath said:
Yep. These theories are veiled accusations that Lord Jesus and His apostles were cowards in the face of 1st Century cultural norms. They are worse than ridiculous. They are offensive.
And they are stupid. Derek Ramsey wrote:
Ramsey tried to discredit St. Paul (and the clear reading of his words) by pitting a sentence to Timothy (“Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”) against salvation by Christ, and against St. Paul’s other words to the Church in Corinth. But St. Paul didn’t offer different ways. He spoke of how things worked together.
This is how St. Paul starts his instructions on marriage: “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. “ There’s the pattern. People should marry. The rest of the section is explanation of that instruction; including rare exceptions, how to know those exceptions, and why. So in truth St. Paul wrote that most women are better off being married because most women aren’t exceptional in that they are tempted to sexual immorality.
Marriage and sex lead to childbearing so St. Paul wrote to Timothy, (Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.) Not by childbearing; through it. Because bearing and raising children produces suffering for the mother. Here’s what St. Paul had to say about suffering:
From suffering we learn the depths of our unworthiness. Then we learn the depths of God’s love for us despite our unworthiness, and then that gives us hope in Christ which produces faith in Christ–and by that faith we are saved. St. Paul’s teaching on women and childbearing isn’t divergent from salvation by Christ; it is an explanation. Any mother who had children can understand this. Anyone who has watched a mother worry for her children, cry over them, fear for them, and suffer ingratitude and ignorance from them–all while wanting and working for what is good for them–can understand it.
Anyone who doesn’t encourage women to this pattern tries to steal glory and treasure from Christ. He is a stumbling block to others; a vessel made for wrath and dishonor.
My meaning, more specifically:
Consider the number of denominations, bible translations, distinctives, confessions, creeds, etc. There is no clear universal understanding of what God said and meant now or ever.
Given that this is true, then it is also true that the teachings of a man can be (and have been) just as spurious as the teachings of a woman. Therefore, making an absolute distinction between male and female teachers creates a false sense of security. The truth is, you can be just as easily misled by what a man teaches as by what a woman teaches.
Many places on the internet place great stock in annonimity – because the value should lie in the words spoke, not in the speaker. We have demonstrated that the words of men have led to a great deal of confusion and that the Holy Spirit has been given to humankind to aid in sorting through that confusion.
Conclusion: When faced with words spoken by either men or women, we must have a standard against which we can judge the value of what was spoken. For christianity, that standard is the meaning of the original words, using their original figures of speech which reflected their original social context. In other words, the Bible.
Question is – which one out of the many that seem to contradict each other? What standard do we use for answering that question?
Spurious = (of a line of reasoning) apparently but not actually valid. (one definition)
Dear Richard P.:
Thanks for noticing me. A couple of important points.
1. KJV isn’t written in Old English. (OE is largely unintelligible to us – it’s what the Anglo Saxons spoke when they first invaded Britain). KJV is written in Modern English, with some very minor pronoun subjugations from late-middle.
Note that the subjective genitive “apostrophe s” case ending is no more alien to modern English than pronouns like thee or thou. It is also a relic of a time when English was less analytic and more synthetic, but we all see it and know what it means.
2. I speak English, not Greek/Hebrew. I was born in the twentieth century, and not the fifth. If I want an authoritative source for what my Christian brothers believe, I go to the KJV. It’s the authoritative text that underlies the ideology in this time and place.
This is edging toward a sort of Derridian postmodernism. It reminds me of a synopsis of Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences, which I find interesting, but ultimately incompatible with the application in this thread, used by Mr. Ramsey.
There is, by the way, a lot of value in your position. It can be very interesting to study the origins of the Bible (or of Aesop’s Fables, or Grimm’s Fairy Tales…) but that is an entirely different sort of practice than reading these stories and understanding the moral meanings. Both of these disciplines are practical and useful, and they shouldn’t be conflated.
People here should be skeptical of anyone who tells them that they don’t really understand the KJV, and encouraging them to employ some “guru” to explain it. I find participants on Dalrock to be far too smart to fall for such stuff. No such interpreter is needed.
Best,
Boxer
Dear Richard P.:
Apologies in advance if this comes across as unduly eristic. It probably will, but I promise it isn’t meant that way.
The problem guys like you have is explaining the original social context. The fact is, nobody knows all the details of life in the Roman empire in the first century. My old classics teacher would remind us that we don’t even know for sure how these old Greek words were pronounced.
We have few clues as to all the details of the social lives our writers enjoyed. So, we’re back at the origin. Arguing that context is everything boils down to a defeatist claim that no one will ever be able to understand the Bible in toto, and we may as well just throw it out… Note that this is the end-result of postmodernism, with guys like Deleuze arguing that truth is just this unmoored ideal that can never be achieved, etc.
I have never found that to be an attractive solution. It’s more sensible to read it and attempt to understand it. I find the KJV to be exceptionally easy to understand. It’s really an amazing text in that regard. It’s fair to say that I’ll never understand all the original minutiae that went into this verse or that one, but I believe it’s still possible to get a clear picture of its principles, and apply them to the world today.
Peace,
Boxer
Gents,
I think this is on topic. Lysa Terkeurst of Proverbs 31 Ministries is divorcing her husband.
http://lysaterkeurst.com/2017/06/rejection-heartache-and-a-faithful-god/
“My husband, life partner and father of my children, Art TerKeurst, has been repeatedly unfaithful to me with a woman he met online, bringing an end to our marriage of almost 25 years. For the past couple of years, his life has sadly been defined by his affection for this other woman and substance abuse. I don’t share this to harm or embarrass him, but to help explain why I have decided to separate from him and pursue a divorce. God has now revealed to me that I have done all I can do and I must release him to the Savior.”
I don’t know the details, so I won’t comment on that, but check out this guy’s nauseatingly sappy response.
https://www.theedgescollective.com/home/2017/6/19/fighting-for-my-wife
@shmohawk1
I’m not sure if you are kidding or being serious. Do you see a real issue here?
I did a site search for Priscilla, and I didn’t find you addressing this point, but Acts 18:26 provides a limited counter to Paul’s command. “And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.”
I have no understanding of the original, so perhaps Priscilla was just pouring tea while her husband did the teaching, but the English implies that she was an active participant in teaching. Which is to say there are some circumstances where women can teach men. In this specific instance in private with her husband.
Oh be careful Dalrock. Whether that was serious or not, I am sure there is someone who will darn well make it serious by dividing the meanings of silent and quiet into slices so thin they’d need to have been sliced by proton beam,.
@Oscar
“God has now revealed to me that I have done all I can do and I must release him to the Savior.”
Revealed how??
I don’t know the details, so I won’t comment on that, but check out this guy’s nauseatingly sappy response.
Oscar —
Quite possibly the closest I’ve seen a man come to outright worship of his wife. One wonders where his wife ends and God begins, because it really isn’t at all clear from that post.
@Empath
Yes.
@ Bruce
“Revealed how??”
Good question. I see no answer.
@ Novaseeker
Until I started reading here, I didn’t really see (maybe because it’s so common) all the posturing that conservative Christian men do for women’s benefit. And I’m not convinced that Mr. Willard (the author) is posturing exclusively for his wife, and I think the responses from his female readers are evidence of that. For example…
“These are BY FAR the most romantic words I have ever seen!! Wow! I pray these exact words over every marriage in the world.” ~ Michelle Van Deventer
Also, you can’t have a comment section in a post aimed at women without a “love yourself” remark.
“The man married to Lysa just sounds like a terrible, terrible person. I am happy that Lysa was strong enough and brave enough to leave a man that was treating her badly though the Bible advocates against divorce. It is important to love the self as well as the partner. Never forget to love yourself too. You can’t fully love others without loving the self.” ~ Alicia Allison
And, of course, husbands are supposed to submit to their wives.
“Actually a truly Biblical marriage will be both husband and wife leading together. I submit to him when he is gifted in an area and he submits to me when the decision involves an area of my gifting. He knows he can’t call on a gender card to play when he wants his way. Christ is the head of our marriage not my husband and we follow God side by side. He does serve me in the way much of this article describes but we lead together as we both follow God. That’s a Biblical marriage.” ~ Laurie Hinds
Lysa Terkeurst is a real winner, a perusal of her ‘Ministry’ website tells the story; there is no mention of her Biblical Husband of 25 years. They adopted two Liberians, one of which is now married. Google images tells the story.
Sounds like she may want to recuse herself from teaching other women how to have a fantastic marriage.
@ Oscar
In my experience, when it comes to women, whatever their personal, subjective feelings and emotions are counts as “revelation” to them.
@info – “Exousia was used in Romans 13 in reference to government Authority who had the power of life and death. Yet was not used in regards to teaching.”
The term is used 103 times and includes non-governmental contexts. Examples include casting out demons and a woman covering her head. It does imply a strong, often given, authority. So it’s curious that it wasn’t used here since the traditional interpretation is that men have a God-given authority that women do not.
The word used for teaching is didaskein not authentein or exousia. Are you implying that if exousia is never used alongside didaskein that they couldn’t be? Besides being an argument from silence, it is also a head scratcher. Lots of words could be used together but just happen not to be. For the record though, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 contains forms of both words used in the same context.
@Dalrock – “By this interpretation, what Paul was saying was “I don’t allow women to abuse authority!” This is either meaningless, or a suggestion that it is ok for men to abuse authority.”
It is neither: women were abusing authority and men were not. A few points:
First, the term translated have authority is ambiguous and only used once in the Bible. There is no comparable biblical explanation: it is a meaningless word on its own. We now possess over 300 uses of it in extra-biblical texts. First century meanings include murder, commit suicide, perpetrate a crime, dominate [authority], etc. Authentein is not authority in the normal sense (exousia).
Second, v11 instructs women to learn. Why view this as a restriction instead of a recommendation? Women were rarely educated, so telling them that they should be restricted to learning is anachronistic (and pointless if they were not already learning). The simplest explanation is that they must not teach (v12) because they have not learned (v11). Those who learn need to be quiet and not disruptive in order to learn. We know they were being disruptive, not because of historical conjecture, but because of the terms used (#831, #2271, and #5292). We also know, by deduction, that they were wrong in their teaching. What wrong teachings were they making? See the next point:
Third, as for a supposedly contrived backstory, Timothy was in Ephesus (1 Tim 1:3). There is no historical question that Artemis was the fertility goddess of Ephesus. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus is one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. This isn’t even remotely controversial. It is mind-bending to say that the religious and cultural identity of the Ephesians has no bearing on this text. Without considering Artemis, it is unclear what being saved through childbirth means in v.15. It is anything but simple and clear as evidenced by the lack of consensus here and among theologians. Ignoring cultural context is blinding.
Fourth, even if you accept usurping authority, why assume that the fix is no authority rather than due authority? By negating ‘usurping’, the text does not explicitly make the former claim over the latter.
You forgot to preface this with “Hey, I’ve got a theory!”
That was implied when I said it was ambiguous. Which it is. If the theory is wrong it should easily falsified. Instead, I see those losing their mind over a contrary viewpoint. It’s unwise to base doctrine on the meaning of one unclear word (Majoring on minors, as RichardP says). Take a step back and consider. Great care is needed not to make a mistake and the consequences of being wrong are significant.
Holy crap.
Thanks to one of the commenters dropping truth bombs on Mr. Willard’s article, we now have some of the background story courtesy of an article Lysa Terkeurst wrote in 2008. Apparently, Mrs. Terkeurst and her husband (Art) had sex before marriage, she got pregnant and she had an abortion. And, apparently, the guilt turned her into… this…
“‘You’re late. Again’, I said as I glared at my husband, Art.
‘I’m sorry. Traffic was a nightmare’.
Not the traffic excuse again, I fumed as I filled Art’s plate and slapped it onto the table. We’d been married only two months, but the honeymoon phase was definitely over—in fact, it had never existed.
I forced myself to eat despite the tension crackling between us. As Art took a bite, I was sure I saw an odd expression cross his face.
‘What’s wrong?’ I demanded.
He frowned. ‘Nothing!’
‘You made a funny face. You don’t like it, do you? You hate my cooking!’ And you hate me, I mentally added.
Art slammed down his fork. ‘What is wrong with you? You’re behaving like a nutcase! You overreact to everything, and it’s driving me crazy!’
His words cut me to the bone. ‘If you were a better husband and loved me more, I wouldn’t be so emotional!” I lashed out in retaliation’.” ~ Lysa Terkeurst
She sounds lovely. A real peach. She ends the article this way.
“Art and I are a team. We’ve made the decision that we’re going to have a good marriage, and we’re both committed to that decision—whatever it takes. We’re still human, and we still get irritated with each other. But we no longer explode in anger. We try to laugh a lot. We give grace a lot. We know a successful marriage isn’t a matter of chance, but of choice. And it’s a choice we make every day.” ~ Lysa Terkeurst
Maybe that last paragraph is true. Maybe. But I find it a lot easier to believe that she remained a bag of nuts and drove her husband (and father of their five children) to drink and into the arms of another woman.
@Derek Ramsey
But this isn’t what you argued. You claimed that Paul’s letter to Timothy was in response to women in the congregation “trying to assert their dominance over men by teaching that man comes from woman.” You then claim that what on its face seems like general instruction in 1 Tim 2 is really specific instructions regarding those specific women. It is a pretentious game of “Assume Paul was talking about something else. Therefore, Paul must have meant something else.”
Like I said, you invented a backstory to make the text mean what you wish it said. Anyone can do this. Ephesus had a famous library. This is also not remotely controversial. But it would be nonsense if I extrapolated from this to claim that when Paul said women were to learn in silence, he was responding to an unknown letter from Timothy asking whether Christian women should talk loudly in the Ephesian library.
Make up whatever imaginary backstories you like. They won’t impress anyone but the most gullible.
@Oscar,
“I think this is on topic. Lysa Terkeurst of Proverbs 31 Ministries is divorcing her husband.”
Deep Strength posted on this recently:
https://deepstrength.wordpress.com/2017/06/17/another-divorce/
Pingback: Trolling The Edges – v5k2c2
Derek Ramsey says:
June 21, 2017 at 4:02 pm
The grammar of 1 Tim 2:12 is highly ambiguous. Scholarly material on this is readily available.
If it is readily available then you should look it up and post citations.
If you think grammar is ambiguous then you should walk us through the Greek and explain why you think the grammar is ambiguous.
June 21, 2017 at 10:34 pm
@info – “The only reason it was not exousia is that the husband is not the state. He doesn’t have the power to execute his wife the same way the state can execute criminals. That’s why.”
Three minutes with Strong’s is enough to show that this statement is absurd.
If you understand how to use Strong’s then you should post the details of your argument. We can look up references in books too.
I’m amazed no one has referred to the use of exousia in the Gospel.
This is off-topic, but in my defense, they started it guvnor.
Dear Oscar:
Thanks for posting this nonsense. I’ve had a very entertaining day.
FYI: Dr. Willard would like us all to know that he has a Ph.D.. (fuck’n lol)
Please consider devoting some time to deconstructing the personalities depicted here on your own blog. You’re a clear thinker and you write well. Mizz Terkeurst is a perfect example of what’s wrong with society. She deserves to get a bit of the attention she’s clearly desperate for.
Regards,
Boxer
Anonymous_ng,
So why do I go? It is close, I have good friends there and it seems like the others will be worse and I have tried about 6 others. Also, people tell me I am just seeing a liberal slice, and that women are asking other older women for help in submitting. I was told that in one small group, a husband rebuked his wife for something, and we have lots of stay at home moms. So it is a mixed bag and because how feminized culture is, I think this is probably as good as it gets in , especially in a college town.
The emphasis on servant leadership is nauseating and the refusal to call women on their rebellion seems unnecessary and the guys I know are all about gender and race and hate conservatives, yet it is true that this church has the reputation of being the most conservative in the area. You asked an honest question,thank you, and I replied in kind. Those aren’t justifications and I am not defending my choice, but only explaining it.fear and laziness and pride also play a large role but I don’t want to get into that.
He knows he can’t call on a gender card to play when he wants his way. Christ is the head of our marriage not my husband and we follow God side by side. He does serve me in the way much of this article describes but we lead together as we both follow God. That’s a Biblical marriage.” ~ Laurie Hinds
So “he” is the “man” in a lesbian marriage? Nah – no bull dyke would put up with an attitude like Laurie’s.
To piggyback on what Dalrock and others said, I want to point out that when Paul gives instructions intended to address an issue unique to a particular church he makes it explicit in the text. For example, in 1 Corinthians 10-12 states that is was “reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you,” and then urges them to keep unity. In 2 Thessalonians he states, “For we hear that some among you walk in idleness,” and then encourages hard work and discipline.
The point being, if Paul’s instructions in 1 Timothy were meant to address a specific issue in Ephesus he would has said so. He might have said something like, “I hear that some are teaching that woman is superior to man, and worship a pagan goddess…” etc. etc., This would have been very easy to do in the letter, and Paul demonstrates his willingness to give this type of personal instruction in the verses I cited above.
The scriptures are sufficient in-and-of themselves to understand God’s word. People who claim that the meaning of a certain passage is indecipherable without the help of some outside unique historical knowledge betray their lack of respect for the authority of scripture, and flatter themselves by claiming special knowledge unavailable to the “commoners,” who then depend on them decipher the “true meaning.” It is an elitist mentality totally anathema to God’s purposes for the scriptures and design for salvation.
“If the theory is wrong it should easily falsified.”
Appealing to “falsifiability” like this is a physics problem. Well, since “a statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive of an observation or an argument which negates the statement in question”, and several such arguments have been presented, consider it falsifed.
Or maybe you’re sitting on a stash of first century Ephesus Sun-Sentinel newspapers that tell the real story?
Derek Ramsey, I know your kind. You insist on unusual variations of foreign words in dead languages because almost nobody outside academia understands them and almost everybody inside academia will back your lies. This is exactly why the Reformation happened, this game of “you aren’t smart enough to say I’m wrong”.
It is the favorite game of Pharisees. “The traditional interpretation of “Do not lie” is that we should be honest. However, a different, valid and very common alternative interpretation of ‘lie’ is ‘to sleep on the ground’. Therefore, God is okay with me cheating you but not with me sleeping on the ground. How fortunate for me! I have wanted to cheat you for a very long time.”
I give you my usual warning for Pharisees: God is a person, not a rulebook. Why do you bother threading these loopholes? Either God does not exist and you can do as you wish, or God does exist and you will not outwit Him.
I appreciate the humor some of you are using in responding to Derek. What is your point Derek? That is, do you think the original point unnecessary because you think it is premised on a faulty interpretation? Are you throwing out a hypothetical about different ways of looking at Timothy? Are you using the post as an opportunity to correct us because you feel enlightened by your understanding and want to save us from the errors you thought you were making?
You brought out a side of Boxer I don’t remember seeing. You seem similar to Art Toad or Dasgamer and Boxer was defending one or both of their logical validity and sourcing, but not so you. If you care to say Boxer, and if my summation is agreeable, could you say why the more rough handling of Derek? Derek, you see that your interpretation is going to play well with women, so since we take the heat from the church, it is up to you to say why your way just isn’t appeasement. Do you have examples of rebuking your wife or female rebellion so we know you can take the heat when called upon?
@Dalrock – “But this isn’t what you argued.”
True. My initial comment was presented as an alternative view for consideration. It was just an overview, not a rigorous defense. I wasn’t sure what kind of response it would get, so that seemed a reasonable course of action. Given your objection to conjecture, I summarized the primary points and removed the unnecessary and speculative parts. It makes the argument stronger and clearer. I’m not sure why you’d object to that.
“You then claim that what on its face seems like general instruction in 1 Tim 2 is really specific instructions regarding those specific women.”
Yes, and I provided a detailed explanation for why (so I won’t repeat it). Moreover, v9-10 uses women (plural) and 11-15 uses woman (singular), separating the sections in a way that is visible in the English (NIV).
“Ephesus had a famous library…”
Why is the idea that the Ephesian women’s cultural identity might conflict with Christianity so abhorrent? Certainly you can see that religious beliefs are in a completely different league than the volume in a library.
What a great nondegenerate religion! https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/6iupmm/is_premarital_sex_common_among_christians_why/
@ Bee
“Deep Strength posted on this recently”
Thanks. I don’t visit DS often enough.
@ Boxer says:
“FYI: Dr. Willard would like us all to know that he has a Ph.D.. (fuck’n lol)”
Well, pardon me, Dr. Willard!
@ Lost Patrol
“So ‘he’ is the ‘man’ in a lesbian marriage? Nah – no bull dyke would put up with an attitude like Laurie’s.”
Dude, it makes no sense. None whatsoever. There’s no point in trying to make sense of it. Egalitarians perform all kinds of gyrations and backward somersaults trying to make the Bible say what they want it to say. That (and the fact that Mrs. Terkeurst purports to teach women how to become Proverbs 31 women) is why I think it’s on-topic.
Ultimately, egalitarians betray their hatred for God’s Word and His order. Check out this comment at (ahem!) Dr. Willard’s article.
“Some of us want to be lifted up as Jesus lifted women up regularly, not treated as servants based on the rantings of Paul.” ~ Jessica Brown
@gaikokumaniakku – “If you understand how to use Strong’s then you should post the details of your argument.”
I am generally hesitant to post links in the comments of someone else’s blog without their permission. Citing my arguments could result in many links that take up a lot of space. I’d prefer Dalrock to approve that. I’ll cite by Strong’s by the codes used, and you can just look it up yourself. I use biblehub or blueletterbible. The Greek interlinear translation is also useful.
authentein – αὐθεντεῖν – #831
didaskein – διδάσκειν – #1321
didaskei – διδάσκει – #1321
exousia – ἐξουσίᾳ – #1849
exousian – ἐξουσίαν – #1849
The claims made by info are “The only reason it was not exousia is that the husband is not the state. He doesn’t have the power to execute his wife the same way the state can execute criminals. That’s why.” and “Exousia was used in Romans 13 in reference to government Authority who had the power of life and death. Yet was not used in regards to teaching.”
Matthew 10:1 uses exousia (“he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out”). It is translated power (KJV) or authority (NIV). This has nothing to do with government. It certainly has to do with God-given authority, but so is the claim that a man has God-given authority over woman.
1 Corinthians 11:10 uses exousian (“For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.”) and 1 Corinthians 11:14 uses didaskei (“Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?”). Again, this has nothing to do with government.
1 Corinthians 11 is the discussion on a woman covering her head. To paraphrase, nature teaches [didaskei] that a women should have power [exousian] on her head. The two words are used in the same context (but obviously not the same way). This is not to say that exousian must be used in regards to didaskei. That claim is an argument from silence. But you can see that both words are used in the same context. It is made more interesting by the fact that 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2 both discuss the correct behavior of women.
It is not silly to ask why the rare authentein was used instead of common exousia. If nothing else, the choice tells us that we shouldn’t interpret the text using the common term. This was understood when the Greek was translated into Latin as dominari.
I forgot to include the link to Mrs. Terkeurst’s 2008 article. Oops!
http://www.todayschristianwoman.com/articles/2008/september/i-had-abortion.html
@Swanny River – “What is your point Derek?”
I’ll keep it simple. The text under discussion is ambiguous and the common interpretation is questionable (for various reasons stated). Most people are not aware of this, but should be. That’s the primary motivation. Even if the objections are discarded, at least there is no ignorance.
Considering that I could be in error, I’m certainly not trying to save other people from errors or enlighten them. I’m nobody’s babysitter and everyone can make up their own mind and do their own research to confirm or disprove what I say.
@Gunner Q – “You insist on unusual variations of foreign words in dead languages because almost nobody outside academia understands them and almost everybody inside academia will back your lies.”
See my response to gaikokumaniakku. The question goes all the way back to at least the 4th century. It’s not an issue of modern academia, although modern academia has the advantage of having a greater number of documents with which to compare word meanings.
@OO – “Appealing to “falsifiability” like this is a physics problem.”
I avoided the term falsifiability, because that speaks only to potential. Instead, if what I’m saying is without merit, it will be trivial to show it false. That’s a very different thing than saying something has falsifiability.
@RPC – “I want to point out that when Paul gives instructions intended to address an issue unique to a particular church he makes it explicit in the text…if Paul’s instructions in 1 Timothy were meant to address a specific issue in Ephesus he would has said so”
This is an excellent point! This is exactly what happens in 1 Timothy 1:3-11. Verse 7 is especially interesting: “Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.”. This is exactly why women are instructed in 1 Timothy 2:11-12 to not teach, but to learn instead. The purpose of the letter matches the instruction.
“The scriptures are sufficient in-and-of themselves to understand God’s word. People who claim that the meaning of a certain passage is indecipherable without the help of some outside unique historical knowledge betray their lack of respect for the authority of scripture”
You claim has a certain appeal, but it is demonstrably incorrect. However, since this is veering off-topic, I will only reference it once: Epiousios.
My wife left me, now what?
https://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=1055733
Hanging by a string……
https://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=1055774
Ultimately, egalitarians betray their hatred for God’s Word and His order. Check out this comment at (ahem!) Dr. Willard’s article.
“Some of us want to be lifted up as Jesus lifted women up regularly, not treated as servants based on the rantings of Paul.” ~ Jessica Brown
Yup. Sums it up perfectly. That’s pretty much the voice of modern western churchianity.
Next time either a pastor or an elder/teacher reads from Ephesians 5 and skips verse 22 (as nearly ALL of them ALWAYS do), it’s time to start asking them, flat out, whether they (1) hate God’s word, (2) consider Paul a fraud (in which case you ask them why they bother to even read anything he wrote), or (3) are just embarrassed at the countercultural message that Scripture delivers. It has to be one of the three, if not some combination of all of them.
Boxer said :
Aside from the cheap sexual thrills this must give Protestants, it also opens up an aperture in a marriage where it’s easier to harvest a family’s money. Once the husband is demeaned, the wife is primed to give generously on demand,
This leads to a number of conclusions :
i) Pastorbators are in the service of Satan himself.
ii) Pastorbators are identical to Nigerian romance scammers.
iii) Pastorbators themselves possess a complete lack of genuine faith.
A sordid trifecta of faggotism…
Dear Swanny River:
Well, I don’t think I’ve ever defended Toad’s positions (I’m one of his harshest critics here). I did defend him when people were making up personal stories about him and his family, for which they had no evidence. I also did this when people were dogpiling Innocent Bystander in Boston.
I’m a huge fan of having a vigorous debate about the issues. Ad hom nonsense doesn’t bolster anyone’s positions. It actually distracts from a thorough deconstruction.
As for my position on the Baptists and their scam of re-writing of the bible, I’ve written about it here:
https://v5k2c2.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/levels-of-reality-in-literature/
I hope this is helpful,
Boxer
Cane said it well.
However, the other problem with Derek’s assumption that “usurp authority” should be simply “domineering over men” is that the next chapter of 1 Timothy 3 outlines the passages for office in the Church.
1 Timothy speaks that both bishops/elders and deacons be the husband of one wife, among other character qualities and attributes. Women are not permitted in positions of authority in the Church.
There’s no way women could have the “temptation to be domineering over men” in the Church in the first place since they aren’t allowed in authority positions over them. Even ignoring that, women were/are not permitted to teach men even if they had a position of authority.
The funny part about arguments like this is that feminists and egalitarians think they have a point, but Scripture consistently strikes down their position. Another example of this is arguing against Ephesians 5 and headship by saying that v21 says Christians and thus those in a marriage should mutually submit to one another and also torturing “headship” until it means just “source” with no authority. Yet they ignore multiple other passages in the Scripture that tell wives to submit to their husbands such as Colossians 3, Titus 3, 1 Peter 3, and so on.
These people love the world more than the love God.
Dear Anon:
I don’t really believe in the devil (and I don’t think the pastorbators actually do either.) Certainly I think that most of these feminist priests have hit upon a good scam. It’s not as lucrative as it could be, though, and this is a good sign for us.
An natural parasite (like a tick, or a tapeworm) never sets out to kill its host. It seeks a certain symbiotic relationship, where both can live a long life together. The pastorbators are not as intelligent or as morally upright as the tapeworm, though. They’re so stupid that they kill the proverbial golden goose. One can see this again and again. I believe Dalrock wrote a series of articles on that pathetic feminist fraud Marc Driscoll, which is a fair illustration of this process. He burned through his flock’s resources in only a few years. Rumor has it that he’s now grifting around, looking to start the process over again.
Many pastorbators are even worse than Driscoll. They end up in prison, usually for the most pathetic and scroungy crimes (taking sexual advantage of underage girls in the congregation, tax fraud, etc.)
If there is a silver lining to this phenomenon, it is the total lack of discipline and intelligence shown by the average feminist Christian priest. If they were smarter about things, they’d cause far more damage than they already do.
Best,
Boxer
@Derek Ramsey
I’ll keep it simpler: You’re wrong. Your attempts to introduce vagueness, esoterica, and doubt do not change St. Paul’s instruction; nor do they provide a historical specificity which abjures a present perfect (and correct) interpretation. In fact you unwittingly make the case that authority exercised over men by women is of itself so unnatural that it requires a word for harsh domination which is not used in the rest of the NT. It is not strange that where natural authority is exercised that the term is exousia, but where a woman exercises authority over a man then the proper word for such a perversion is authentein.
We should note that the cri de coeur of lawless, insubordinate, self-loving Christians is for an authentic Christian life of authentic female pastors, authentic fag bishops, and authentic “freedom” from discipline.
Meanwhile, you crawfished on your foolish denial of the ordinary means of knowledge of salvation which is given to women through bearing and raising children.
@Robert What?
“”If you don’t mind sharing how has your family dealt with this and treated you? Friends?””
My father was OK with it.In fact,he supports me and has also wised up quite a bit to what the Synagogue was not telling him.My mother freaked out…L*.My brother was supportive and now he belongs to the Church with me.My younger sister was OK with it.My older sister?…I don’t care what she thinks.She is a fem-tard idiot. As far as business colleagues are concerned they have never questioned it as it has nothing to do with business.One person it did blow away was my girlfriend.Yes,I have been seeing only one woman for almost a year(very unlike me).She is from West Virginia.She is 35 never married,not a tramp,and the most feminine and respectable woman that I have met in the last 20 years.We are 2 polar opposites.I am from one of the wealthiest most powerful families in Canada.She is from a family of 10 kids and very poor.In fact,last year she made $19,200US.A far cry from what I am accustomed to.She knew that I was Jewish when we met,hence my last name.She never knew that I was a Christian .I never told her or her family as I wanted to hear all the “Jew Jokes” that I knew they had waiting for me as I knew that they did not like people of my “ilk”……or blacks,mexicans etc.I never told her that I was wealthy either.I made “$70,000 a year and drove a Cadillac” which made me upper middle class in that part of the country.When she and her family found out that I was a Christian they were flabbergasted and knew not what to think.When she finally made it to Toronto to come and see me and I confessed that “I am a bit more ‘upper class’ than I have told you about”.That really blew her away.From my office,my house,my cars,my parents house etc.I gave her a book to read to explain to her a better about my family where there is a full Chapter on us as one of the “32 families”.
http://dianefrancis.com/books/controlling-interest-who-owns-canada-2/
The best part was when she took the book home and showed it to her family.Suddenly the “Jewish Jokes” ceased and the family was a bit intimidated in my presence……..Just how I like “rednecks” like her brothers.I had more problems with her family about being a “Messianic Jew” than any others.They seemed almost insulted that a “Jew” could become a Christian,therefore, polluting Christianity.I had to remind them that…… “Jesus Christ and his disciples were Jews……..you backwoods shit kicking hillbillies”.
@Earl
Nice to see you back my friend. I was wondering where you had gotten to.Hope things are going well for you and you continue to post here at Dalrock’s blog.
so Kevin’s Church is full feminist now?
What kind of young men are they raising there?
Why go out with a person you obviously dislike?
I had more problems with her family about being a “Messianic Jew” than any others.They seemed almost insulted that a “Jew” could become a Christian,therefore, polluting Christianity.
That’s odd. Christianity is a conversion-oriented religion. Every Christian I’ve met, regardless of denomination, either aggressively seeks converts, or at least happily welcomes the ones who wander in. Every convert is a “score one for our team!”
authority exercised over men by women is of itself so unnatural
A key phrase and a big part of the effort to modify ancient texts so that they no longer mean what they meant. The overall package of feminism, of which modifying the bible is one more subset, is to make the unnatural the new natural. In the long run it won’t work.
There will always be men that will innately resist women in authority over them. Even well churched men. It feels wrong to them, it seems wrong, and maybe they can’t explain exactly why; but in their bones they understand violations of the created order when they see them. It’s unnatural. Women also innately know this.
Maybe those men don’t read bibles, or aren’t from around here, but they will turn up someday and where they do feminism will recede.
“everyone can make up their own mind and do their own research to confirm or disprove what I say.”
I did my research. My research says the Greek grammar that you claimed is tricky is pretty easy.
My research into Strong’s says that citing a bunch of numbers with no logical argument is not an argument.
My research says that if you are worried about posting a long and tedious argument here, I have a spare blog where you can post it. I’ll make a special entry just for discussing the Greek of the New Testament.
Here you go:
http://wp.me/p4cFij-MQ
Anyone from this thread who wants to post the details of their interpretation of the Greek can post comments. They’ll show up as soon as I approve them.
True. My initial comment was presented as an alternative view for consideration. It was just an overview, not a rigorous defense.
If you can’t defend your view(s), why introduce them? Oh, wait….
Originally one had to be literate – that is to say read Latin and Greek – to read The Bible. Following the invention of the printing press translations into the native language were made and thus for the English that meant the KJV. The cadences of the KJV have become (as with much Shakespeare) part of the English language as she is spoken and understood and thus part and indeed a large part of the culture – neither the KJV nor Shakespeare are in Old English, Old English predating even Chaucer. Subsequent translations of the Bible seem bland. More recently every year brings forth a new translation to correct the alleged mistakes of those who in creating the KJV failed to take account of Feminist Dogma, Homosexual Sensibility, or any other aggrieved interest group, for the overriding concern of any new translation is that it should be nice and not upset anyone.
Do other books that garner endless new translations – the Odyssey and Iliad of Homer, the Comedia of Dante, The Quixote of Cervantes – get subjected to what looks to me like rewriting?
Strong’s lexicon is not a dictionary but merely a catalog of how each word is translated. It is an analysis, not a synthesis, and so is not a go-to source for nuances of word meanings. There are other works for that purpose.
Strong’s analyzes authentein into autos (self) + hentes (a worker, obsolete), implying “to work [on something] of his own accord”.
The Blue Letter Bible uses Thayer’s Lexicon, which offers as the meaning for authenteo in 1 Tim 2:12, “to govern or exercise dominion over [some]one”. It’s transitive and takes a direct object in the accusative rather than a preposition, i.e., it’s not to authentein over someone, but to authentein someone. Then there’s the “silence” part. In greek, hesuchia.
Thayer’s gives hesuchia as essentially “minding one’s own business”, as one who stays at home doing his own work, not officiously meddling with the affairs of others. Substituting we get:
“A woman teaching I don’t allow, nor to authentein a man, rather to mind her own business.” Compare and contrast hesuchia with authentein. The business of the assembly is for men, and a woman who would be present should listen and learn in silence with all subjection.
We can’t get past the idea that these commands are somehow unfair to women, but the Apostle makes it very clear that it has nothing to do with anyone’s inclinations or talents but with the nature of all women all the way back to the garden. In particular, the particular ways in which women’s sin nature works itself out makes them unsuited for teaching and for leading in the assembly of Christ. The daughter of Eve out of jealousy of men wants to teach for her own prestige and attention. She not only believes she doesn’t sin; she believes in her heart of hearts that she can’t sin. This is not the kind of person that is qualified to teach sin, repentance, and the Christian life, if we believe the Scripture rather than our Adamly inclinations to be charitable and chivalrous to the daughters of Eve. Women are simply incapable of getting it right unless either by accident or by repeating a man’s teaching, because they simply can’t stack their own life up to Scripture and reach logical conclusions about the rightness or wrongness of their own behavior. And you see that whenever women teach, it’s for the purpose of destroying boundaries and pushing envelopes.
You may not like it; you can have your own meetings and allow whomever to speak that you will and teach whatsoever they will, but that is not a Christian assembly.
Dear Opus:
Feminists are damaged, hollow people: life’s failures. Instinctively they realize that in any coherent social order, they will come out at the bottom.
Rather than improve themselves to compete, they seek to destroy the social order itself.
Those books aren’t used by people to self-organize and define a social order. There is no reason for feminists to destroy them. (Though feminists like to destroy beautiful things, simply being beautiful doesn’t make such literary works a priority, as the feminist first seeks to reduce society to rubble.)
This is why atheists and agnostics need to start taking feminism’s attacks on religion seriously. It doesn’t matter if the stories in the bible refer to historical events — whether they are “true” in any generic sense. The stories are useful, and that’s what ought to matter to everyone.
The utility of the bible certainly matters to feminists, which is why they work so hard to subvert it.
Boxer
Responding to Derek’s arguments is like nailing jello to a wall. He has some convoluted yet somewhat plausible and intelligent-sounding response to everything. I wonder how many less prepared Christians he’s gaslighted. Someone else mentioned the Pharisees upthread and I agree the minutiae of his points have a pharasaical flavor.
@Caspar Reyes
Your comment at 9:37 is excellent.
I second Cane’s praise of Caspar’s comment.
Pretty much sums up what has happened in modern day Church perfectly. Everything is about them now, God and Jesus are but after thoughts.
@Cane Caldo
Indeed!
Caspar’s comment has the right of it.
@Caspar Reyes
Your comment at 9:37 is excellent.
Yes it was, as were yours (really top notch IMO), Dalrock’s, gaikokumaniakku, and some others. It’s always frustrating for me when the ungodly attempt to obfuscate the Word of God. It is reassuring to be reminded that I have brothers in Christ out there with discernment and wisdom from God. My new job (since last July) leaves less time for writing, but I still make time for reading.
gaikokumaniakku I added your link to my favorites. Thank you for posting those links.
That’s odd. Christianity is a conversion-oriented religion. Every Christian I’ve met, regardless of denomination, either aggressively seeks converts, or at least happily welcomes the ones who wander in. Every convert is a “score one for our team!”
The attitude displayed by the girl’s family in that regard tells you how genuine their “Christian” faith really is.
“Christianity” in Redneckistan isn’t a religious faith; it’s a cultural meme that bears only the vaguest of similarities to certain externalities of the faith.
“Christianity” in Redneckistan isn’t a religious faith; it’s a cultural meme that bears only the vaguest of similarities to certain externalities of the faith.
aka a lack of genuine faith…
Caspar’s comment could/should be the basis of a future article…
@ Lost Patrol
See how well single mothers teach boys to be men…, and Christian organizations that promote female leadership and teachers expect them to teach men?
It’s not only unnatural, it’s wildly ineffective and dangerous.
@JDG: You’re very welcome.
One of my commenters left a link to a scholarly document about how to translate one of the words: it is at
https://www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=271
It’s a PDF, but oddly WordPress won’t let me host it, so I may need to figure out how to share it for free. For the moment it should be readable, and you should be able to save a copy.
Bdash77,
Take heart, Kevin’s church is not fully feminized, i wrote poorly if that is the impression I left. I can feel very discouraged there and write from my perspective but by any objective measure, they are doing okay and have not undergone any changes. They don’t bash men or lift up single Moms, and they have held and will hold with whomever the new pastor will be, a firm stand on only men elders and no women teachers, not even of small groups(except women only groups). I’ve seen one guy on here brag about how great his PCA church is and that we complain because his is so good. He described the features I do of Kevin’s church but his conclusion was wildly different than mine. I haven’t seen him come back here though, one of those guys that says we overreact and everything is good. God bless him,. The only major change has been inside of me, going pro-patriarchy. I think our church lacks fight and is saltless, but the truth is they are bombarded by continual pressure to keep men-only elders. So I shouldn’t say they have no fight, but that all of their fight seems to be used up in the one battle. Part of that is because the social club nature of us, where so many keep up with movies, cable news and sports. A real fight against rebellion would take time away from those other things and probably make one much less liked, unless you were always subtle and selfcontrolled.
Major typo: my church is constantly bombarded with continual pressure to get RID of men-only elders or at least have women lead prayers committees and Sunday classes.
An example of getting one’s fight choked off is when I was talking to a church band member about Father’s day and was shocked out of my pants when he said the thing he would do if his family gave him a gift of free time would be to binge watch TV! I may have said that 10 years ago, so I don’t condemn him, but dang, I don’t see the positive changes possible that Boxer does if that guy is a typical foot soldier.
While some TV is truly trash today, many things fall under “TV” that are not that bad. It would all depend what was being watched Swanny.
Do note that just having male leadership doesn’t prevent problems. Many male-led churches like that are really led by the pastor’s wife and others behind the scenes.
@FH
“”Why go out with a person you obviously dislike?””
I don’t dislike her…..she is a doll. It is her family that I am too crazy about.They are of the “redneck” variety.I admit that she does not like Blacks…..but,that is prevalent in US society,not just WVA.If I recall you are from South Africa? Blacks are not that popular in your neck of the woods either…L* Her brothers are around my age.Their goals in life were to become “Shiners”??….I have to wonder about people like that.
I wouldn’t say blacks are unpopular here. It’s the ANC that isn’t popular. Whilst I get on with pretty much every person, no matter their religion or race, I do think that people generally get on better in their own communities.
However, that wasn’t my point. There was a level of condemnation in your post. One that unsettled me a bit. You don’t like rednecks, yet she’s a redneck and that seems contradictory. You like that she is more submissive than most but fail to see who brought her up to be like that.
Furthermore, whilst they might have been insulted by you being a Jew who became a Christian and you insulted by their jokes, that might have been a good time, instead of trying to demean, to try and be more like Paul, who went out of his way to try and bring gentiles to Christ.
I do agree with Gunner though, it’s awfully weird for Christians of any stripe to be insulted by those who convert.
Just a quick correction. It was Red Pill Latecomer who made the comment and not Gunner.
Me: I am surprised Dalrock made no mention of another big change: the large difference between “she must be silent” and “she must be quiet.”
Dalrock; I’m not sure if you are kidding or being serious. Do you see a real issue here?
I do. “Silent” is a much stricter standard. I assume Paul is being hyperbolic and is not ordering that women not sneeze in Church, but he’s still commanding something like “no speaking.” “Quiet” opens a lot of doors, in that it’s a relative term, not an absolute one, and thus it can be said that someone gave a “quiet little talk about such-and-such,” or “spoke quietly about so-and-so.” Thus, a motivated reasoner could argue that so long as a female speaker was delivering the message “in a spirit of quietness,” she was not violating Paul’s admonition.
To analogize, when I attended Moody Bible Institute — generally fairly fundamentalist — both women and men took a course on expository preaching. The mens course, however, was called “homiletics” and the women’s course was called something like “message preparation for women.” The course was segregated because the men were learning to deliver “sermons” whereas women were just learning to “give messages.” Those were totally different things, you see, because Moody didn’t want anyone to think they were violating 1 Tim 2:12. But the course content, naturally, was the exact same.
This kind of thinking is much aided by a biblical text that opens the door to “I’m not teaching or assuming authority over any man, I’m just quietly sharing my thoughts.”
Smohawk1, thanks for bringing that good example. I hope it gets its own post or that Dalrock and others will have time to respond. I can’t disagree with your conclusion, especially since it is backed up by Moody’s practices.
The church is twisting themselves into pretzels to make sure they get every woman into every role possible. They must see it as a sinful affront to God to just keep women silent and learning from their husbands. I guess Norman Lear and the TV show all in the family was more convincing to leaders than the bible was. They wouldn’t admit to that, but it is how I read their actions.
Do they think God will be angry and say to them, “you ape, you squashed the gifts I gave to Jane to teach because of your holding to the word. That was legalism, you should have been bigger, like Richard P and Derek.”
Over the years I have seen by far more Bible believing Christ following Christians accused of legalism than anything actually resembling legalism. In fact the actual incidents of legalism that I have witnessed are quite few. However, the compromises with the world I have witnessed (and still do on a regular basis) are too many to recall. The fact that the folks screaming “legalism” are also compromising has not escaped my notice.
@gaikokumaniakku – I appreciate your post of the scholarly work. While I draft more detailed replies to others, I’ll make a few quick quotes from that work and add my comments:
L. E. Wilshire who isolated 314 references to the term and its cognates published the first of these studies in 1988
I made reference to this earlier. Prior to the last 20 years, the most historical understanding of the term authentein was domineer and tradition had remained static on this for centuries from Latin all the way into English. Now it is under debate because of new information. Dr. Albert Wolters is one of many who rejects the traditional definition.
Further syntactical/contextual studies of 1 Timothy are required to decide with certainty among the meanings, 2a, 3a, and 3c. and “…an examination of occurrences of the word contemporaneous with the New Testament limits the range of possible meanings (and
appreciably so) but does not itself establish with absolute certainty the exact nuance of Paul‟s use in 1 Timothy 2:12
Lack of scholarly consensus makes it hard to argue any viewpoint conclusively. Dogmatic doctrinal explanations are thus unwise. With new information available, the meaning of the passage and its doctrinal conclusions need to be reevaluated. It is neither heretical, faithless, or pharisaical to do so. However, it is difficult to argue any point with those who comment holding different philosophies (insistence on the KJV is one, refusing to allow traditional definitions or doctrines to be reevaluated is another).
Swanny River @ 9:10 am:
“Smohawk1, thanks for bringing that good example. I hope it gets its own post or that Dalrock and others will have time to respond.”
I don’t see a concern because the question of silent/quiet comes up in the very sentence that otherwise says women are to have no authority over men. I like “quiet” because there are still roles women can perform in the church. We have the example of Philip’s unmarried daughters who prophesied in Acts 21:9, several other female workers mentioned in Paul’s writings and of course, women were active in Christ’s travels. But they never did so from a position of authority so Smohawk’s point is valid. Perhaps “silent” would be better considering our modern troubles.
FWIW, in ancient times leadership was loosely associated with having a loud voice. If you men couldn’t hear your orders on the battlefield then you obviously couldn’t lead them. There were trumpets, heralds and flags to compensate but it still made sense to promote the loudmouths.
…
Derek Ramsey @ 12:11 pm:
“Lack of scholarly consensus makes it hard to argue any viewpoint conclusively.”
Please stop quoting Genesis 3:1.
“Now it is under debate because of new information. … With new information available, the meaning of the passage and its doctrinal conclusions need to be reevaluated.”
Now you’re quoting Genesis 3:4-5. Don’t tell us nobody knows what God wants because God knows what God wants and God wants us to know it. Your position is so indefensibly weak that you have yet to say ours is wrong.
Gunner Q, for what it is worth, I am curious about the distinction because I agree with Hawk that using Quiet sounds like it will be used as an opportunity to make much cultural noise.
@Gunner Q – Normally I don’t respond to “rough handling”, because what’s the point? Yet, if I am to believe the comments, I am a heretic, faithless, Pharisee, cuck, and at least a deceiver (possibly Satan? Inspired by Satan? Satan worshiper? Just a snake?). I might also be a feminist and liar, but I’m not sure if those comments were directed at me. I probably missed a few others too. Then there are a bunch of accusations about things that I supposedly believe (but don’t).
If all of these accusations are true and this is a body of believers, then why have I, a professing Christian, not been expelled from the brethren for my refusal to repent? I’m a bit surprised this has not come up yet. But if they are false accusations and I am having a discussion in good faith, then lies, mocking, and slander have no part in the body of Christ and should be repented. Either way, it’s embarrassing behavior that shows poorly on the body of Christ.
Now, since I am actually doing this in good faith, I’m more than happy to keep discussing for as long as I’m not blocked or requested to leave. I don’t personally care if the accusations cease, but don’t expect any future replies to them. I’d rather reply to questions directly pertaining to the text and the arguments I’ve made.
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@Gunner_Q (June 21, 2017 at 3:16 pm): Good catch identifying the usual suspects. Feminists are among those have been reinventing history and scripture to fit their view of the world for a long time. These are not people interested in discovering the truth but rather constructing a substitute for it.
For example, their interest in the historical Jesus is different from orthodox scholars involved in the quest of the historical Jesus. Not content to establish objective data to recover precisely what Jesus said and did, feminists instead seek to insert their axis bias into the historical Jesus to leverage Jesus as a justification and tool for their sociopolitical objectives.
They seek to undermine the historical orthodox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship not because they have a truer understand but rather because they view such as a predominantly Caucasian male guild whose training takes place in North American and European universities. It’s a fallacious position for them to take, of course, for the historical orthodox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship is the historical orthodox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship regardless of the who or where. But it’s also hypocritical of them for “feminist theologians” are themselves biased elitists.
In fact, most of these white liberal “feminist theologians” are so economically advantaged that African-American women developed an alternative called “womanist theology” in part to protest against the social and economic elitism of the white liberal “feminist theologians.”
Obviously, the vast majority of educated feminist elitists are not willing to make the transition from an educated elite who speak on behalf of the oppressed to an oppressed who give voice to their own fallacious, maligned, non-orthodox revisionism. They enjoy the elitism and wealth the secular world showers on them for reinventing Jesus and scripture to fit a worldly anti-Christ ideological axis (which they then teach to others).
A biblical author’s original intent is ascertainable and normative for today. But feminists view social context as important as the original text and do so from the viewpoint of their own axis. That’s disingenuous by definition but why we find their criterion to distinguish between correct and incorrect interpretations as whether they think an interpretation is oppressive.
I would argue that to be genuine, interpretation must conform to the historical orthodox exegesis in genuine biblical scholarship without respect to feminism as a worldview. Approaching the bible with a modern feminist ideological axis is analogous to approaching an ice cream tasting with a giant heater. The inherent bias destroys exactly what you’re trying to accomplish before you begin and leaves a real mess to clean up.
Just wanted to say thanks to Dalrock and to those who have commented.
As a relatively new Christian (but with some good mentors) I’d not heard the word ‘complementarian’ until last week, when I was meeting with my church vicar.
He thought we were meeting to discuss the procedure for me to confirm my infant baptism, but I wanted to voice my concerns about the way women are involved in the church service (it’s a CoE evangelical church). Women lead the service, says prayers and read from scripture (and they do all three horribly).
He mentioned that he was a ‘comp..’ and I thought that sounded OK. He argued that women were allowed to prophesy in church by St Paul (further research has revealed this to be false).
So, after reading this post, another by Dalrock, and a few at Deep Strength’s blog, and taking advice from my mentor, I have decided to leave this church. I’ve written to the vicar telling him why, maybe I will email the message to Dalrock.
Thanks everyone for keeping the flame of truth burning brightly, for both new and veteran Christians. God bless you all.
‘Nice to see you back my friend. I was wondering where you had gotten to.Hope things are going well for you and you continue to post here at Dalrock’s blog.’
They are…thanks for the well-wishes.
‘The daughter of Eve out of jealousy of men wants to teach for her own prestige and attention. She not only believes she doesn’t sin; she believes in her heart of hearts that she can’t sin. This is not the kind of person that is qualified to teach sin, repentance, and the Christian life, if we believe the Scripture rather than our Adamly inclinations to be charitable and chivalrous to the daughters of Eve. ‘
‘If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.’ 1 John 1:10
@BillyS
No difference between being ruled by women and being ruled by men being ruled by women the result is the same. For this reason men ruled by their wives cannot qualify for the office of bishop and deacon.
@BillyS
For such men by definition do not keep their household in order but rather give way to rebellion.
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