CONTINUED FROM ABOVE:
Exegetical Fallacies in Interpreting 1 Timothy 2:11–15
This is by far the best article I’ve read on 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Linda Belleville, a new testament professor, put together a thorough and compelling paper on 5 exegetical fallacies concerning 1 Timothy 2:11-12 : Contextual/historical, Lexical, Grammatical, Cultural, and Doctrinal. She provides a thorough survey of the early uses of authenteo, in all its forms. This is a MUST read to gain a proper understanding of the egalitarian position.
Catherine C. Kroeger also put together a brilliant survey of authentein (and all it’s sister-nouns/adjectives) uses from before Paul up until the third and fourth centuries. I would particularly challenge Tonya and Catrina to read these articles in full before giving me CBMW rebuttals.
These combined articles find that early uses of authentein (in its noun, verb, and adjective forms) collectively mean “criminal mastermind,†“a perpetrator,†“one who slays with his own hand,†“self-murder,†“women who can command domestic and sexual services from their male concubines,†“incestuous sex and murder,†“religious sexual orgies,†“to dominate,†“to control,†“to restrain,†and “to domineer.â€
Hardly the meaning we find in modern translations of 1 Timothy 2:11.
One of the earliest meanings to authentein is the act of murder or the act of violence.
Wisdom of Solomon 12:6, an apocrypha book translated into ancient Greek, considered “scripture†by both Jews and Christians until the second century AD, uses a form of authentein.
“With their priests out of the midst of their idolatrous crew, and the parents, that killed with their own hands [authentas] souls destitute of help.â€
Ancient Greek grammarians and lexicographers define authentein as “to dominate,†“to control, restrain, and domineer.†It is also classified as a “vulgar†term, possibly because of it’s sexual uses.
Other notable uses of the word include:
Josephus, the famous Jewish historian from Paul’s own time, used the noun form, authenten, to describe the “author†of a poisonous drink. Diodorus of Sicily wrote about the “sponsors†(authentas) of daring plans and the “perpetrators†(authentas) of a crime. John Chrysostom, an early church father, used the same word, authentia to express “sexual license†or perverse sexual practices. Clement, another early church father, linked the word with women involved in sexual orgies.
Catherine Kroeger makes an excellent analysis of the implications of the original meaning of authentein:
“Chrysostom [the early church father] uses autheritia to denote “sexual license.†If the word in this context refers to sexual behavior, it puts a quite different interpretation on the entire passage. For instance, if we were to translate the passage, ‘I forbid a woman to teach or discuss higher algebra with a man,’ we would understand the prohibition to be directed against instruction in mathematics. Suppose it read, ‘I forbid a woman to teach or talk Japanese with a man.’ Then we infer that the injunction applies to the teaching of language. ‘I forbid a woman to teach or dangle a man from a high wire’ would presuppose that the instructor was an aerialist. ‘I forbid a woman to teach or engage in fertility practices with a man’ would imply that the woman should not involve a man in the heretical kind of Christianity which taught licentious behavior as one of its doctrines. Such a female heretic did indeed ‘teach to fornicate’ in the Thyatiran church mentioned in Revelation 2:20 (cf. 2:14f.; Num. 25:3; 31:15f.).
Too often we underestimate the seriousness of this problem for the New Testament church. A passage in 2 Peter expresses concern not only for those drawn into this error but also for the illegitimate children which it produced:
‘But Israel had false prophets as well as true; and you likewise will have false teachers among you. . . . Having eyes full of adultery, that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls, an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children which have forsaken the right way … following the way of Balaam…. They utter big empty words, and make of sensual lusts and debauchery a bait to catch those who have barely begun to escape from their heathen environment (2:1,14f.,18).’â€
Others have conducted in depth word studies on authentein with similar results…
Dr. David H. Scholer sites Leeland Edward Wilshire’s exhaustive study of the word authentien.
“Wilshire is the first to use the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) computer database, which contains virtually all three thousand ancient Greek authors from Homer to A.D. 600. The database showed that authentein and its cognates occurred about 330 times and over a large number of centuries almost exclusively meant “a perpetrator of a violent act, either murder or suicide.â€
But there is no evidence from the first century that authentein means ordinary or legitimate authority. Nothing exists until the late third and fourth centuries to suggest other meanings, and even then, the verse in question still translates authentein as “dominating men†or “domineer over men.â€
Paul is not allowing a woman to teach others to dominate men, to teach the domination of men, nor to dominate a man themselves, but to be peaceable (heshucias). This verse has nothing to do at all with mature, trained christian women exercising their spiritual gifts and serving the body through teaching, preaching, or leading. These were women led astray by false teaching, whom Paul is correcting in these verses and who must start at the beginning with full submission to the gospel and sound teaching.
He ties in the creation story to draw a correlation between Eve being deceived by the voice of false teaching and these women. It is a reminder to the church of the devastating effects of false teaching and deception.
I know someone is going to say, “Well, if Paul is forbidding dominating others as opposed to holding mere authority and it’s wrong for all believers to dominate each other, why does Paul only address this to women?†Consider that HERE IN THIS LETTER, Paul is correcting the ones exhibiting specific behaviors. Consider that Paul only tells the men to lift up holy hands in prayer without anger or disputing. Now, just because he only directs the men here in this verse, does that mean women shouldn’t lift up holy hands? Does it mean women are free to be angry and constantly disputing in or out of church? Of course not. But the men in the body were the ones exhibiting this behavior, so Paul only addresses them, even though it’s inappropriate for all believers to behave that way. Likewise, he only addresses the women about dominating and seizing authority through false teachings, possibly sexual ones, because they were the ones doing it in this instance.
Consider this reality of ancient Greek culture pointed out by Catherine Koeger:
“Virtually without exception, female teachers among the Greeks were courtesans, such as Aspasia, who numbered Socrates and Pericles among her students. Active in every major school of philosophy, these hetairai (high-class, intellectual prostitues) made it evident in the course of their lectures that they were available afterwards for a second occupation. But the Bible teaches that to seduce men in such a manner was indeed to lead them to slaughter and the halls of death (cf. Prov. 2:18; 5:5; 7:27; 9:18). The verb authentein is thus peculiarly apt to describe both the erotic and the murderous.â€
It becomes overwhelming clear from the the well-documented culture of Ephesus coupled with the original word meanings used in 1 Timothy 2:11-12, that this mandate is not a prohibition against all women teaching/preaching/leading in the church. It’s simply absurd to keep gifted and qualified women from teaching the truth of the gospel, leading church bodies in the ways of Jesus, or simply contributing their gifts by vocally participating in the gatherings of the entire body because of a verse that was originally a disciplinary action against women at Ephesus. who were lead astray by false teaching.
next post: the case for junia, the lost apostle