Dissertation

Where you see bold and underlined sentences, I guide you to the main, take away conclusions.

11 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. 12 I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. 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, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. 1 Timothy 2.11-15 (NRSV)

At first glance, this text contains four prohibitions: women are to be silent; women are to be in submission; women are not to teach (or teach men) and women are not to have any authority over men. That this pericope deserves closer inspection becomes clear by its seeming proposal that women are saved through childbearing. No where else do the scriptures contradict the central premise that salvation is through faith in Christ and his work on the cross. Paul, the author of this letter (disputed but assumed for the purpose of this thesis), has brought Priscilla and her husband Aquilla to Ephesus, the geographical context for the epistle and ‘they have explained [to Apollos] the way of God more accurately’ (Acts 18.26). That women like Priscilla are not to teach men is questionable too. It is difficult to reconcile with Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11 where women can offer up prayers and prophesy in the gathered assembly that women are ‘to keep silent’ here.

Despite such difficulties, these verses have limited women’s roles in the church. The debate regarding the meaning of this text resurfaced in the years approaching the Church of England’s decision to consecrate women to the Episcopate. Two integrities now exist on the issue and in order for the flourishing of those for whom the Scriptures do not leave the office of Bishop open to women, a See has been re-created at Maidstone so that separate episcopal oversight can be given by someone sharing that integrity. This is indicative of the impasse that still exists over this problem text. This thesis explores the scholarly community’s engagement with 1 Timothy 2.11-15 and the implicit theologies revealed shaping the approach to, and any application from, this text.

Chapter 1 is a literature review undertaken within particular parameters. William Mounce describes 1 Timothy 2.11-15 as the most discussed passage in the Pastoral Epistles with interpreters ‘seeing Paul as a liberator and champion of women’s rights to dismissing Paul as wrong and irrelevant in today’s culture’ (2000:103). The debate scrutinised here is between evangelicals because as Richard France describes, scholars can change their minds even about long held positions but are to do so not ‘in favour of a secular agenda . . . [but because of] legitimate ammunition in the Bible’ (1995:19-20).

Chapters 2 to 5 scrutinise the variety of interpretative approaches to the sentences constituting this pericope so that a range of exegetical conclusions can be critically reviewed.

Chapter 6 explores the implicit theologies which drive approach and any inconsistencies in method.

Chapter 7 explores the challenge of translating exegesis into praxis for women’s ministry in the church.

Chapter 1 Literature Review

That the debate around women’s ministry was renewed for the Church of England as women were appointed to its three-fold order sets another useful parameter around literature otherwise too dense for the scope of this essay. In 1981 the diaconate was opened up to women in the Church of England and in 1992, the priesthood. Consequently, prior to 2011, the year of women’s consecration, scholars like Craig Blomberg could afford to reason that because ‘senior pastors submit to larger [male] structures of authorities over them . . . women’s subordination could be preserved even with a female senior pastor’ (1994:291). Women’s consecration turned male headship on its head.

During these years Elaine Storkey notes a sea-change in the trajectory of the debate so that it is ‘not just by biology but also by theology’ (2000:90). In 1981 James Hurley describes how rather than Paul ‘saying all women are gullible’ (1981:215), it is, instead, that they are simply ‘not prepared‘ by God, who gave to the man ‘responsibility for leadership’ (1981:216). Man and woman in Biblical perspective describes how a hierarchy exists between the genders with examples of appropriate and inappropriate ministries for women so that ‘the creational pattern of . . . male leadership [is not] undercut ‘ (1981:244).

In 1985, George Knight III revises an earlier 1977 version of The Role Relationships of Men and Women: The New Testament Teaching. He articulates a vision for male headship and female subordination describing how ‘subordination does not imply inferiority, even if the aspect of “ontology” – namely, femininity – is brought into the picture’ (1985:43). His exegesis of 1 Tim. 2.11-15 describes Paul’s reference to Adam and Eve as confirming ‘the order of authority. The one formed first is to have dominion, the one formed after and from him is to be in subjection’ (1985:19).

Werner Neuer in Man and Woman in Christian Perspective, written a year after Knight‘s book (trans. 1990) challenges Knight’s introduction into the debate of ‘roles’ (1990:30) but offers a vision for the genders which blurs the distinction between biology and theology. He believes women are not to lead churches because ‘this is incompatible with their true nature’ (1990:175). He holds to ‘the equal worth of men and women’ (1990:63) but in authority over a mixed assembly, a woman would ‘step outside her divinely intended subordination to men’ (1990:120). Neuer believes that ‘lurking behind the rejection of the biblical ordering of the sexes lies a rejection of central truths of the gospel‘ (1990:171).

Douglas Moo arrives at similar conclusions to Neuer. In his 1980 essay “I Timothy 2:11-15: Meaning And Significance” for Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, he claims that ‘the nature of woman as exhibited in the fall’ (1980:73) renders female leadership inappropriate. However, he later retracts this specific reasoning behind the prohibition, saying, ‘there is nothing in the Genesis accounts or in Scripture elsewhere to suggest that Eve’s deception is representative of women in general’ (1991:185). He argues from the order of the genders’ creation, instead.

As scholars draw on examples of women teachers (Priscilla), apostles (Junia) and prophets (Paul’s approval in 1 Cor 11) to challenge such an apologetic, the precise nature of the restriction on women at 1 Timothy 2:12 comes under closer scrutiny. Knight (1984:143-57), H Scott Baldwin (1995:66-85, updated 2005:39-52) and Albert Wolters (2000:145-175, updated 2016: 40-93) write papers on the hapax legomenon αὐθεντέω by exploring its meaning in contemporaneous literature and determine that there are prohibitions against women’s authority over men per se. Leland Wilshire (1988:120-134), Andrew Perriman (1993:129-42), Richard & Catherine Kroeger (1992:79-104), Linda Belleville (2004:205-23), Philip Payne (2009:361-397), and Cynthia Long Westfall (2014:138-73) also complete studies and argue that something more specific is being prohibited.

In 1985, Gilbert Bilezikian’s Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says About a Woman’s Place in Church and Family becomes the founding ethic for Christians for Biblical Equality.¹ Bilezikian articulates a redemptive-movement hermeneutic, employed most obviously as a theological method by William Webb in his Slaves, Women and Homosexuals (2001). Bilezikian’s approach sets the ‘Women in Ministry’ question within a larger framework so that the Spirit’s movement is to a telos not yet realised but toward which it is advancing, when ‘men and women would be able to enjoy again the parity for which they had been created’ (3^rd ed. 2006:51). Bilezikian believes in prelapsarian parity. Postlapsarian male hierarchy is something from which the church is to seek redemption.

Women, Authority, and the Bible (1986) edited by Alvera Mickelsen explores theological method and the key texts of the debate. Robert Johnston exposes as naïve any idea of reader objectivity. David Scholer agrees that ‘the concept of genuinely objective biblical interpretation is a myth’ (1986:215) They bring much needed common sense with Johnston proposing eleven principles for engaging in the debate and Philip Payne and Moo’s disagreement² as evidence of the impasse which Roger Nicole says should inhibit drawing a universal prohibition from such a problem text (1986:46-47). Richard Longenecker wonders how ‘one can speak of a necessary subordination of status without also implying a necessary inferiority of person’ (1986:76). Clark H Pinnock and Stanley Grundry ask that scholars on both sides polarise their opponents less and value their insights more. J. I. Packer decides that ‘the burden of proof regarding the exclusion of women from the office of teaching and ruling . . . now lies on those who maintain the exclusion rather than on those who challenge it‘ (1986:298).

Women in Ministry: Four Views (1989) contains essays for and against women in teaching and preaching roles with rebuttals to bring out the nuances of each position. Attention is given to the out-workings in the local church with Susan Foh considering Sunday school teaching appropriate for women because it differs from authoritative teaching from the pulpit. Culver‘s argument, less refined than Neuer‘s, is for the ‘essential difference between masculine and feminine nature’ (1989:37). Mickelsen blames views like Culver’s for turning women away from the church. Editor and contributor, she expands upon Liefeld’s discomfort with the entire approach because ordination does not confer authority so much as service and she explores the inconsistencies over women’s authority in praxis, utilising this to question Culver’s traditionalist interpretation. Using the Golden Rule, as a measure against which the fairness of restrictions on women should be judged, sounds like special pleading. Interestingly, she endorses the Kroegers‘ more unusual conclusion that αὐθεντέω means to author or originate a man (1989:202).

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Biblical Feminism (RBMW) (1991) is polemical with its subtitle; Christians for Biblical Equality define their approach as egalitarian rather than ‘feminist’. RBMW contains an updated version of Grudem’s analysis of the word κεφαλή from Knight’s earlier book in 1985. It also contains the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s founding statement from their Danvers summit.³ Wayne Grudem and John Piper frame a prolegomena in which they lament the ‘great uncertainty among evangelicals’ (1991:xiv) regarding the roles of men and women. Some contributors have revised earlier essays. Moo’s essay (1980), from the first Trinity Journal, sheds its pejorative comments about woman’s nature. Grudem begins to articulate a trajectory since influential regarding relations between members of the Trinity so that men are never subordinated to women just as the Father is never subordinated to the Son (1991:197). Knight expands on this, deciding ‘Husbands and Wives are analogues of Christ and the Church’ (1991:165). RBMW considers the biological, psychological and sociological bases for masculinity and femininity. Some contributors overstate distinctions and it is to be wondered whether because the book decides women are not to teach men, women’s contributions lack the theological depth of the men’s. Dorothy Patterson analyses the spirit of her own age rather than Paul’s, deciding ‘the social atmosphere that causes women to crave professional pursuits over the family is perverted by unbiblical assumptions’ (1991:381). Piper endorses Packer’s belief that ‘the man-woman relationship is intrinsically non-reversible . . . a female boss [with] a male secretary . . . will put . . . strain on the humanity of both’ (1991:37).

In Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul (1992) Craig Keener has changed his mind on the issue of women in ministry. His conclusions regarding 1 Timothy 2:11-15 are constructed through attention to the letter’s cultural milieu. Paul’s prohibition on women teaching is temporary until they have learned the faith. Paul’s reference to Eve’s creation after Adam is not because he has her subordination in mind but because he is explaining how her deception resulted from her having not been present for the commandment from God. Women in Ephesus are restricted from teaching ‘not because they are women, but because they are unlearned’ (1992:120). Keener communicates with the kind of humble spirit otherwise only seen amongst commentators here in Craig Blomberg, saying ‘the number of ‘mays’ and ‘possibles’ in my own arguments indicates that I myself am not settled on every detail’ (1992:225).

Catherine and Richard Clark Kroeger in I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in Light of Ancient Evidence (1992) speculate about the cultural and historical backdrop to the letter. Their challenge comes with a proposal that αὐθεντέω translates as: ‘proclaim oneself author of a man‘ (1992:103), which whilst discounted by many because they seem to be imputing gnostic influences, prevalent in the 3^rd and 4^th rather than the 1^st century AD, does encourage the scholarly community to continue its quest over the meaning of αὐθεντέω.

The Kroegers encourage rebuttals like that of Baldwin’s on αὐθεντέω – this “Difficult Word” (“Important Word” 2^nd ed. 2005) in Women in the Church: A Fresh Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:9-15 (1995). This book goes through a further revision for 2016, changing its subtitle to An Analysis and Application. The 2^nd edition includes a woman’s contribution on the practical application of the prohibition which is then replaced with a ‘Roundtable Discussion‘ (2016:274), in the 3^rd edition, which aims to provide ‘specific points of application‘ but fails because the responses are largely defensive. Daniel Doriani‘s essay from the 1^st edition is absent from the 2^nd edition in which he describes how ‘the constitutions and inclinations of men and women’ (1995:263) have been engineered by divine fiat to reflect God’s will for male authority and female submission. For Doriani the ‘male tendency toward competition . . . and the female tendency toward . . . enmeshment’ (1995: 264) is behind Paul’s injunction against women who would compromise doctrine for relationship. The 2^nd edition also drops an essay by Harold O J Brown. He had argued that egalitarians ‘stray from God’s order‘ (1995:198). In the 3rd edition Denny Burk (appointed as CBMW president July 20^th 2016) assesses Wolters‘ replacement for Baldwin’s essay on αὐθεντέω and criticises the 2011 NIV Bible translators for giving αὐθεντέω a pejorative edge as ‘assume authority’ rather than ‘have authority’ (2016:263-272).

Good News for Women: A Biblical Picture of Gender Equality in 1997 by Rebecca Groothuis is CBE’s answer to CBMW’s RBMW. Groothuis challenges the concept of biblical manhood and womanhood and one of the significant advances of the book is its very recovery of the word ‘complementarian’ for the egalitarian cause: ‘no one is claiming that men and women do not complement one another‘ (1997:15). In chapter 2 Groothuis critiques the ‘equal in being, different in function‘ concept, of which Philip Payne (2009:96-104) and Kevin Giles (2000 Part II:201) prove fierce critics.

Joan M. Holmes (2000) Text in a Whirlwind: A Critique of Four Exegetical Devices at 1 Timothy 2.9-15 decides, like Nicole before her, that if the exegetical problems of 1 Tim. 2:12 can not be resolved, it is an inadequate foundation upon which to organise ministries in today’s church. She cautions against drawing conclusions from Paul’s two infinitives at 1 Timothy 2:12 and explores interpretative misconceptions: the circularity of argument deriving from theological conclusions a priori; unlocking meaning for 1 Tim 2.11-15 from the equally obscure 1 Cor.14.34-35 and the supposition that Paul writes to inform congregational rather than daily life. She proposes that Paul is quoting a Jewish slogan familiar to Christians ‘or possibly a well-known Christian reply to a Jewish argument’ (2000:299) at 1 Timothy 2.13-15.

Linda Belleville’s Women Leaders and the Church: Three Crucial Questions (2000) explores the roles and ministries in which women can be involved with authority in family, church and society. She argues that ‘ministry and leadership in the New Testament are a cooperative venture, whose success depends on the gifting and empowerment of women and men’ (2000:183). To confound contemporary obsession with human authority, she proposes authority ‘rests in God and Christ alone’ (2000:134-135). She argues affirmatively on the basis of the questions she constructs but defensively where she finds inconsistencies in her opponents’ translation of their interpretation into praxis in the church and the world.

Themes in her work are expanded upon a year later in contributions to Two Views of Women in Ministry, 2001 (editors James Beck & Craig Blomberg) where she is more exegetical and less sweeping, perhaps due to interactions with Craig Keener, Thomas Schreiner and Ann Bowman. In the revised edition (2005), Belleville challenges the distinction made between public and private teaching by which complementarians harmonise the injunction against women at 1 Timothy 2:12 with Priscilla’s teaching of Apollos. For Belleville the creation account explores gender sameness rather than difference with their joint mandate to rule the earth and raise the children. She decides that 1 Timothy 2:12 is best rendered ‘“I do not permit a woman to teach a man in a dominating way but to have a quiet demeanor”’ (2005:89). On such a basis any prohibition is temporary and corrective of an attitude rather than an office, function or role.

In Blomberg’s appendix essay in the first edition of the book: “Neither Hierarchicalist Nor Egalitarian: Gender Roles in Paul” he explains that Jesus ‘chose twelve men . . . [even though he affirmed] the personhood of women and their equal value before God with their male peers‘ (2001:335). Departing from complementarian colleagues, he proposes women can preach if authority to do so is delegated from a male eldership (2001:344-345). Contributor rather than editor in the revised edition, Blomberg tackles the hurts on either side of the debate and is candid about presuppositional baggage brought to the text. He rejects the sinful ‘heavy-handed use of patriarchy‘ (2005:138) but describes how ‘Jesus never promotes full-fledged egalitarianism‘ (2005:144). He draws conclusions from the creation narrative so that Adam’s role in naming the animals is indicative of his authority and Eve’s creation as helper is evidence of her subordination. For Blomberg, the ontological equality of women and men is consonant with women’s subordination to male leadership in the church.

Craig Keener decides that curtailments are for the appropriate communication of the gospel in the first century historical-cultural milieu. Whilst deciding to ‘believe Paul probably prohibits not simply ‘teaching authoritatively’ but both teaching Scripture at all and having (or usurping) authority at all’ (2005:231), he then describes how this restriction is limited only to the church under Timothy’s authority. A transcultural and universal prohibition rests on both genders only where they are found to be false-teaching.

Thomas Schreiner‘s interpretation of Gen. 1-3 is the controlling narrative for his interpretation of other key texts. Adam’s primacy is established by his first being created, first hearing from God about the tree and being held accountable for human disobedience. The serpent challenged Adam’s priority by approaching Eve first. Two distinct activities are prohibited for women: teaching men and exercising any authority over them.

For Ann Bowman, whose essay in the 2001 edition is absent from the revised edition, the call on all believers to minister is dependent upon relationship with God; knowledge of the scriptures; knowing your own abilities; training and experience and the cultivation of the spiritual gifts (2001:253-263). Ministering is a community venture in which all are equal in God’s eyes. She considers the ministries of Junia and Priscilla but decides callings are not legitimately into all offices and makes a case for a male only pastorate (2001:271). She decides women can lead but under delegated male authority (2001:286) due to the devastation caused through role reversal at the Fall (2001:289).

Discovering Biblical Equality Complementarity Without Hierarchy (DBE) (2004) edited by Pierce, Groothuis and Fee, is similar in style and format to RBMW. The sub-title alone demonstrates its purpose to expand on Groothuis’ aim to recapture the term complementarian for the egalitarian cause or at least to nullify the word’s associations with a complementarity expressing itself in hierarchical terms. DBE considers women’s roles in ministry over the last three centuries (Ruth Tucker and Janette Hassey) the contemporary debate (Ronald W. Pierce) and new constructs for hierarchy which have been articulated over the last half century. Part II of the book analyses key texts from the Old and New Testament. Part III concentrates on a vision for the church where both genders minister collaboratively. The idea of subordination and ontological equality is explored by Rebecca Groothuis and Kevin Giles. Giles explores a fissure between those who hold to subordinationism in the Trinity, describing how some complementarian evangelicals ‘think that eternal role subordination apart from a personal subordination in nature, essence or being is logically untenable‘ (2004:335). (From 2002 Kevin Giles is prolific in his challenge to the common complementarian argument that a hierarchy of authority and subordination between men and women finds its locus in Christ’s eternal subordination to the Father in the Trinity. His book (2002) The Trinity & subordinationism: the doctrine of God and the contemporary gender debate is an important contribution to that debate.) Part IV looks at the hermeneutical inconsistencies which come to light and the benefits of a redemptive-movement hermeneutic (Roger Nicole, Gordon D. Fee, William J. Webb). Part V explores the benefits of gender parity in marriage and how the impasse between evangelicals might be overcome (Mickelsen).

Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters (2009) by Philip B Payne critiques influential essays such as Knight‘s “ΑΥΘΕΝΤΕΩ Reference to Women in 1 Timothy 2.12” (1984) and Baldwin’s study of this “Difficult Word” in Women and the Church (1995). Payne decides the closest contemporaneous usage of αὐθεντέω from a 27/26 B.C letter describing a dispute over a debt owed a boatman, has a connotation other than just the neutral authority Knight, Baldwin and Grudem maintain. Their conclusions are faulty, reliant on a scholar (John R Werner) whom Knight has misquoted. Payne decides that Paul’s prohibition is against self assumed authority.

Post 2009, Köstenberger and Payne write rebuttals written one to the other.⁴ Other scholars are beginning to explore a ‘third way‘ for those on either side of the debate. Ten years before, Elaine Storkey has described how ‘complementarity does not imply hierarchy . . . it is premised on the reciprocation and completion of female by male and male by female’ (2000:117). In 2002, Groothuis decided that ‘the standard egalitarian and traditionalist interpretations fall short’ (2002:10). Michelle Lee-Barnewall’s vision in Neither complementarian nor egalitarian: a kingdom corrective to the evangelical gender debate (2016) is about how ‘neither position quite encapsulates what they sense is the biblical view’ (2016:1). Her ‘kingdom corrective’ describes how gospel servant-hood requires ‘the loss of the right to self-determination and self-assertion,’ (2016:118). Although she doesn’t make connections here, it is worth noting that Payne’s belief is that it is this very self-assertion that Paul prohibits for the women in Timothy’s church.

Conclusion

Scholars, egalitarian in their leanings, hold the whole canon of the scriptures in view and are more inclined to focus on the horizon ahead: the eschaton. They distinguish between ‘the New Testament as final revelation and the ethical realization of its redemptive spirit‘ (DBE Webb 2004:399). Those more complementarian tend towards exegesis that is atomistic, analysis of the word αὐθεντέω an obvious project for this group, and claim their view has a consonance with the church’s historical interpretation of this text despite such a tradition claiming that women are more prone to deception than men. Their focus is toward a horizon behind: the creation ordinance, finding a pattern there of male priority and female subordination.

A note on the exegetical task of chapters 2-5

With the exegesis of any pericope, it is important to study the original language, syntax of sentences, contemporaneous examples of any hapax logomena and historical cultural background: the Sitz im Leben. It is worth remembering that the bible’s overarching narrative is one with a telos toward redemption and completion at the eschaton (Bilezikian 2006:chp 5; Giles 2003:24). Analysis seeks to establish ‘what is cultural and therefore belongs to the first century alone and what transcends culture and is thus a word for all seasons’ (Fee 2014:74-75) but the reader’s lens is clouded by presuppositions and unconscious biases so that the exegetical task is impeded by distance in historical time, cultural context and human prejudice. It is worth saying that as an ordained, evangelical woman leading a local church as the incumbent, I come to the text with a little trepidation. If I am prohibited in some way from leading, it is to be wondered whether my first vocation: teaching mixed groups (male and female) up to the age of 18 (men, then) remains left open to me!

The pericope in context

1 Tim 2.11-15 sits within a larger unit of this letter to Timothy, framed by the words: Πιστὸς ὁ λόγος: ‘the saying is sure’ (NRSV 1.15 and 3.1). This first saying is that Jesus is the Saviour of the world (1.15-16). A doxology follows (1.17) and then Paul gives encouragement to Timothy (1.18-20) to advise the various gatherings of Christians meeting in Ephesus regarding what constitutes appropriate prayer and worship (2.1-15) to combat the problem of false teachers who have infiltrated the church (1 Tim 1.3-7; 4.1-2; 6.20-21). Πιστὸς ὁ λόγος then closes this frame, relating to a second saying about salvation through childbearing and perseverance in faith, love and holiness with modesty.⁵ In the rest of the letter Paul continues to guide and organise the life of this church. Like bookends, the letter begins (1.3-7) and ends (6.20-21) with Paul’s charge to Timothy to counteract the erroneous doctrines of false teachers in Ephesus.

Chapter 2

1 Timothy 2.11 – Let a woman learn in silence with full submission (NRSV).

11 Γυνὴ ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ μανθανέτω ἐν πάσῃ ὑποταγῇ

Kenneth Bailey describes how, ‘Paul gives a clear directive that a woman must learn the faith . . . he [Paul] commands, ‘Let a woman learn!‘ (1994:14). Many scholars describe how Paul is counter-cultural with his imperative, his onus very much on a woman’s education. However, it is likely this ‘has been overstated’ (Towner 2006:213). Fee (2011:72) and Marshall (2004:452-453) agree that wealthy women had educational opportunities and what is more important is the appropriate attitude accompanying such learning (Holmes 2000:79).

For Schreiner the first adverbial phrase ‘does not actually mean silence,’ (2016:98) and about that there is general consensus because of the meaning of ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ elsewhere. It occurs as a noun in Acts 22.2 to describe the hushed condition of Paul’s audience on hearing him speak in their own tongue. It forms a command in 2 Thess 3.12 for quietness whilst working. Paul uses its cognate when advising Timothy to lead a quiet and peaceable life (1 Tim 2.2). If Paul had wanted to communicate literal silence he could have chosen ςιωπάω (Lk 20.26; Acts 12.17; 15.12, 13; Rom 16.25; 1 Cor 14.28, 30, 34).

Moo‘s insistence that silence is an accurate translation with transcultural force is, therefore, unusual. He arrives at his conclusion less through attention to the context or its use elsewhere, than by a focus on definitions from lexicons and the arrangement of the syntax. He argues that the teaching discussed in the next sentence (v.12) finds its opposite in the silence here (1991:179). Steven Motyer is more persuasive: ‘Paul only prohibits teaching expressed through domineering bossiness, and urges ‘quietness’ instead‘ (1994:96). It would be premature, at this point, to support Motyer’s descriptions of the kind of teaching prohibited but that Paul guides attitude rather than activity is persuasive. Both learning and teaching, just as praying in the sentences prior to this pericope, are all to be undertaken peaceably, a point driven home by Paul’s use of ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ as an inclusio at verses 11 and 12.

About the word ὑποταγῇ there is disagreement, not over its meaning but in terms of to what or to whom submission is to be given. The most compelling idea is that it is ‘obedience . . . directed to what is learned‘ (Holmes 2000:76). With the present tense active voice of the verb µανθάνω emphasising that these women are to be in a continual state of learning, Holmes is keen to widen the vocational setting in view. Robert Saucy describes how ‘the Greek teacher sought to impart knowledge and skills, teaching for the Jew sought to change one’s entire life’ (1994:81). Towner believes the submission is required ‘generally in the instructional setting‘ (2006:215) and Bailey believes it is to ‘the orthodox teachings of the Church,‘ (1994:14). Blomberg proposes that although ὑποταγῇ denotes ‘some form of subordination . . .[the submission] is behavior for students’ (2005:167) and not gender-specific, appropriate whether the student is ‘male or female’ (2005:167). In contrast to Moo, these scholars suppose the submission is not to the men per se but envisage the kind of submission in view is of the learner’s spirit, in attitude to the body of knowledge taught.

Moo proposes connections with the sentence following where men are mentioned and supports his case by alluding to the use of ὑποταγῇ in passages advocating submission to those in authority: subjects to their governments; slaves to their masters; children to their parents and wives to their husbands without differentiating the kinds of obedience Paul has in view, in each case. Moo assumes an asymmetrical relationship between husbands and wives at Eph. 5 so that a hierarchical ordering of the sexes a priori has him suppose these women are ‘speaking out against male leaders’ (1991:179). Herein, he most obviously ignores his own advice about being ‘careful about allowing any specific reconstruction—tentative and uncertain as it must be—to play too large a role in our exegesis‘ (1991:177). In fact, a ramification of his conjecture would be that these women would then be acting with a presumptuous (see Payne 2009:396) or even bullying kind of authority and yet Moo is keen to maintain that αὐθεντέω, in the next sentence, is at least neutral or even positive. Similarly, Schreiner supposes Paul advises women to be of ‘quiet demeanor and spirit . . . peaceable rather than argumentative,’ (2016:98), which further begs the question whether disputatious leanings in these women motivates Paul’s choice of the word αὐθεντέω (the subject of chapter 3).

Moo and Schreiner do at least make a case for the relationship of this verse to the next one, connected as it is with the conjunction δέ which many translations ignore by their translation of this single sentence into two verses. Keeping this in view helps establish Paul‘s continuing train of thought on the subject of appropriate and inappropriate attitudes. That verses 11 and 12 are actually one sentence within a larger unit of meaning where prayer is holy if it avoids dissension and attire must be modest and lack pretension, means that if pedagogical enterprise is peaceable (verse 11) and free from self-assertion (verse 12) another contrast is presented if διδάσκειν and αὐθεντέω have negative connotations. When Mounce describes how ‘the topic changes . . . Paul is . . . addressing not the topic of disruption but the topic of leadership‘ (2000:104) he could be introducing a false distinction. If Paul is continuing his advice, he now simply continues from prayer and attire to appropriate attitudes during instruction for the maturation of the Ephesian neophytes. Verses 11 and 12 are better considered an extension of what has come before despite Moo and Schreiner contending that verse 12 introduces a universal restriction on the official ministry of women.

Mounce, Moo and Schreiner are examples of the many scholars who introduce anachronistic applications supposing that Paul’s guidance is for ‘the church’ (2000:104) and today’s radically different ecclesiastical structures. Some of the motivation for keeping an ecclesial setting in view at verses 11 and 12 is for reconciling Paul’s commendation of Priscilla’s teaching of Apollos with a prohibition against the teaching ministry of women. For this to work it is pointed out that the word for Priscilla’s teaching is rendered ‘explaining’ and it is carried out informally and from her home and yet ‘the church met in her home . . . [and] how does one explain something without teaching?‘ (DBE Liefeld 2004:265). Scholars reclaim the holistic nature of Paul’s guidance because too much is made of a congregational setting by those who use this pericope as ammunition for a prohibition against women elders and pastors. That Paul establishes some kind of universalised ‘church manual‘ motivates Fee to write a commentary so ‘uneasy’ is he about this (2011:xv). Verses 11 and 12, a train of thought, where the δέ has a ‘mildly adversative transitional force‘ (Moo 2006:184) cannot then convey such a change in focus from attitude to role as assumed by Moo:

We may, therefore, paraphrase the transition in this way: “Let the women learn . . . with full submission; but [de] ‘full submission’ means also that I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man (RBMW 2006:184).

Rather, Paul’s request is not for silence as opposed to teaching, nor is it for women’s ‘full submission’ (RBMW Moo 2006:184) to the men.

Perriman presents the most persuasive argument for the ever-developing contrasts as the pericope progresses. His proposal is that a woman is to submit to godly instruction so that she avoids Eve’s fate and her falling into transgression. It is only whilst in a state of transgression that a woman is not to presume to be a teacher (equally, men in transgression should not presume to teach either!). It is Eve’s deception, at verse 14 that is chiastically contrasted with a woman’s learning (Perriman 1993:131) at verse 11 and this helps to establish that it is a woman’s submissive spirit to the truth which Paul has in view.

Conclusion

Ultimately, what can be said here is that at verse 11 two adverbial phrases qualify Paul’s imperative so that the importance of the attitude to learning is established. Bilezikian gives a persuasive gloss of the demeanour anticipated of ‘a docile disciple who receives instruction eagerly and without objections or self assertion,’ (2006:136). Moo’s paraphrase could be seen as a consequence of his interpretation of Paul’s allusion to Adam and Eve at verses 13 and 14, where Moo’s focus is on gender hierarchy rather than the catastrophe of the human fall from grace. Simple gender hierarchy then becomes the decisive reason why women should not teach men authoritatively and this shapes Moo’s analysis at every turn so that women are not to speak and are to be in submission to the men. The next chapter will explore those very assumptions of Moo’s that a woman’s ‘full submission means’ she should not ‘teach or . . . exercise authority over a man,’ (2005:184). If Paul has female co-workers (notably Priscilla) ‘who learn in silence and in full submission’ are they really restricted from ministering publicly simply because they are women in the company of men?

Chapter 3

1 Timothy 2.12 – I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. (NRSV)

12 διδάσκεινδ ὲγυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός ἀλλ’ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ

Teaching is the first activity in view in the Koine Greek. There is no particular syntactical significance to it preceding the negated finite verb (Mounce 2000:129). Piper and Grudem decide teaching is always an activity undertaken by ‘men in the church’ (RBMW 2006:61). Moo decides that ‘teaching always has this restricted sense of authoritative doctrinal instruction‘ (RBMW 2006:185). Such assumptions influence the exegetical task so that Foh finds consistent with Paul’s prohibition, women’s ‘praying and prophesying (1 Cor 11.2-16), private instruction of men (Acts 18. 26), teaching other women (Tit 2.3-4) and teaching children (2 Tim 1.5; 3.15; Prov 1.8)‘ (Clouse & Clouse 1989:81). A cursory reading in the English does seem to support, then, Moo’s paraphrase above, that Paul prohibits the teaching of men by women. However, if the translation ‘silence‘ fails to accurately capture ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ, it is likely there is more to discover here about what a woman is more precisely prohibited from doing. The next infinitive must be considered.

Much of the debate over this pericope is dependent upon conclusions drawn regarding the accuracy of the translation of αὐθεντέω: ‘to have authority over’ (NRSV) and its relationship to the infinitive which precedes it, διδάσκειν: ‘to teach’ (NRSV). Scholars scrutinise syntactical, grammatical, lexical, and contextual significances to decide whether a neutral exercise of authority by women over men is prohibited or whether something more nuanced is in view.

Syntactical explorations lead to disagreement over whether there is one prohibition here or two. Blomberg describes how Paul uses synonymous words or expressions in his letters so that διδάσκειν here is given more colour by its proximity to αὐθεντέω in a construction known as a hendiadys (2005:169). Moo‘s conclusions concur with those of Blomberg, for whom there is one prohibition, and Köstenberger, for whom there are two: ‘Paul prohibits women from conducting either activity, whether jointly or in isolation, in relation to men‘ (1991:187).

That there is only one prohibition here would reveal a very contrary reading to that offered by the English translation and is proposed by a number of scholars (Payne 2008:243; Kroeger 1992:80 and Davis 2009:9). The ουδε has English translators consider each activity separately but in Greek this construction is used when a second idea enlarges on a first. The syntactical arrangement of the sentence has Paul ‘start with teaching, followed by αὐθεντέω as a specific example’ (Belleville 2001:86) of that teaching, so that the correlating nouns ‘define a purpose or goal‘ (Belleville 2004:218). Paul prohibits teaching that authenteins a man. In response Köstenberger‘s assertion is that teaching is always positive (1995:90) but a better case is made for διδάσκειν being intrinsically neutral, modified by relating ideas (Kroegers 1992:81). The parallel examples that Köstenberger presents to support his case that teaching is positive, contain modifiers (1 Tim. 4.11; 6:2 and 2 Tim 2.2) (1995:90).

Köstenberger continues to build his case by scrutinising the grammar as well as the syntax of this ‘Complex Sentence’ (1995:81-103), to decide that αὐθεντέω cannot characterise the teaching, it is a second prohibition. He draws on wider syntactical parallels which contain either similarly negative or similarly positive verbs after a negated finite verb. He proposes that teaching, neutral in itself, and free of negative connotation (the word chosen being διδάσκειν and not ἑτεροδιδασκαλεῖν for false-teaching) cannot be paired with anything other than a positive or neutral exercise of authority. Belleville’s criticism of his examination of correlating verbs when correlating infinitives are in view, draws his rebuttal in which he maintains that ‘Greek grammars regularly and rightly treat infinitives under the rubric of verbs’ (2005: 84). His thesis is challenged more widely and particularly by Philip Payne, who, adamant, like Belleville, that concepts are being combined, suggests διδάσκειν is used in Titus 1.11 in a circumlocationary way for false teaching, thereby rendering Köstenberger‘s thesis unstable. Payne supplies his own wider syntactical parallels in support of concepts being combined and when Köstenberger admits it is problematic to not ‘discern a given term’s connotation in context‘ (2009:38) he seems to concede to Payne, some ground. Moo’s admission that ‘only a clear contextual feature would allow such a connotation’ (1980:67) makes clear, by contrast, the common complementarian reluctance to consider ‘a concern with false teaching [which] permeates the entire book!‘ (Mickelsen 1989:119).

Wilshire describes how ‘everywhere in the NT where teaching and authority are mentioned together, it is always the word ἐξουσία that is used for ‘authority’ (1988:131) so that with a lack of consensus over the grammar and syntax and ‘since lexical and contextual evidence favors the meaning’ (Payne 2009:235-236) the connotations αὐθεντέω has elsewhere are scrutinised for a better understanding about the nature of the activity prohibited. Marshall believes αὐθεντέω ‘characterizes the nature of the teaching rather than the role of women in church leadership in general’ (2004: 460) and cautions scholars from believing that wider prohibitions against women’s ministry are in view. That bibles vary in their translations of αὐθεντέω highlights the lack of consensus over its meaning. The KJV renders it ‘usurp authority.’ The NRSV, the pew bible in my own setting, ‘to have authority.’ Köstenberger‘s scepticism over lexical considerations is understandable when as many as 8 different lexicons vary considerably regarding its meaning (Hübner 2015:16). With no further examples in the New Testament of αὐθεντέω, it is a hapax legomenon, contemporaneous examples of the word are studied.

Köstenberger, relying on research by Knight, Baldwin and Wolters, who all render αὐθεντέω neutral, defends his conclusions against scholars who push for an alternative meaning because they observe how middle eastern translations of the word connote ‘something dark and sub-Christian‘ (Bailey 1994:21). Payne’s explanations that διδάσκειν and αὐθεντέω, combined as they are by οὐδέ, parallels the way in which ‘n’ functions in English to combine concepts like hit ‘n’ run, helps the reader to appreciate that a clearer understanding of the connotation αὐθεντέω has in contemporaneous literature will do a great deal to lessen ambiguity over exactly what Paul prohibits. Hitting and running, neutral and even positive in many contexts, would, combined on a police report, signify something altogether very negative. What it means to διδάσκειν ‘n’ αὐθεντέω a man lies at the heart of the debate.

Blomberg refers to Wilshire’s research into 329 occurrences of αὐθεντέω in contexts outside scripture but admits it is still ‘hard to be sure,’ (2005:168) proving his uncertainty by imputing to Wilshire these conclusions:

Prior to the first century the term often had the negative overtones of “domineer” or even “murder.” After the first century, especially in Christian circles, it was frequently used more positively for the appropriate exercise of authority (2005:168).

Blomberg believes the office of ultimate church authority is prohibited for women from his study of the prerequisites for the office at 1 Timothy 3 but Belleville notes quite how he comes to his opinion is ‘the key unanswered question in Craig’s essay,’ (2005:201). When John Davis looks to the same research paper as Blomberg, he imputes to Wilshire conclusions that ‘contemporary with the first century, αὐθεντέω often had negative overtones such as “domineer” or even “murder”‘ (2009:4). Looking at Wilshire’s word study first hand, Davis’ review is more accurate, Wilshire’s study concludes:

There are authors, roughly contemporaneous with Paul . . . who use the word almost exclusively with the meaning of ‘to murder/murderer’ or ‘to perpetrate a crime/perpetrator of a crime’ (1988:130).

That even Wilshire had to make more clear his own findings demonstrates the greater problems involved in drawing conclusions from sources as rare and removed as fragments of papyri.⁶ The debate over αὐθεντέω becomes entrenched in a series of rebuttals and revisions.

Wolters concludes that because the word means ‘master‘ in colloquial Greek and ‘murder‘ in literary Greek, this is not the meaning in view in Paul’s Greek. Master and murder might also be homonyms and belong to different lexemes altogether. Wolters’ view is championed by Köstenberger by its inclusion in the 3^rd edition of Women and the Church (2016), replacing Baldwin’s essay from the former edition. Baldwin had relied on Knight’s research and based on Knight’s translation of the BGU 1208 Papyri, had decided that ‘the meaning of “compel” does seem appropriate’ (1995:276 ftnt 5) as a synonym for its protagonist’s use of authority, after all. Wolters‘ conclusion, on the other hand, regarding BGU 1208 is that ‘Tryphon used αὐθεντέω to describe his own behavior, the verb unlikely had a pejorative connotation‘ (2016:51). With a great deal resting now on the interpretation of this one Greek word, Wolters’ conclusion helps Köstenberger more confidently claim a meaning he needs to maintain because his work on the syntax proposes that if αὐθεντέω is negative there are ramifications for διδάσκειν. By extension there are ramifications for the validity of his very thesis. In Köstenberger’s own words:

The implication . . . is that there are only two acceptable ways of rendering that passage: (1) “I do not permit a woman to teach [understood pejoratively] or to domineer over a man,” or (2) “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (2016:106).

Linguist Cynthia Long Westfall brings light to this heated debate by explaining that Baldwin, Knight and Wolters have failed to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate authority. Baldwin’s selection of 85 examples from Wilshire’s 329, which he supposes ‘sufficient to give an adequate understanding of the meaning of the word’ (1995:45) does not. When there is no differentiation between authority exercised over animate and inanimate objects, furthermore, when the relationship between a human subject and human object pays no regard to the relative power of each, conclusions that where literature uses this word the ‘one unifying feature is authority’ (1995:46) says nothing about authority rightly or wrongly assumed. This lies at the crux of the issue because it would be appropriate for Paul to prohibit wrongfully assumed authority. Prohibiting general authority for women would look like a serious restriction on their ministry in the church. Westfall attributes Knight and Baldwin’s failure to grasp the precise nature of the authority in view in BGU 1208 by their having neither translated the text themselves nor considered it in the context of its entirety. Her conclusions are highly significant considering what is at stake.

I believe that there is enough text to reconstruct that it is an account of how Antilochus was forced against his will by the author of the letter (presumed to be Tryphon) to pay a fare to the ferryman Calatytis (2014:161).

With such a connotation to αὐθεντέω, Westfall decides, that ‘no person should take this kind of action against another person within a church’ (2014:171). The word αὐθεντέω is ultimately negative, after all. If Paul had meant to communicate a universal ban on women ever neutrally leading or teaching men, his use of this hapax does nothing to help his cause. Mickelsen describes how he surely would not ‘have used that word’ (1989:20). For Paul to have more obviously forbidden female eldership, as Knight, Baldwin and Köstenberger maintain, he could have used a range of other possibilities:

Within the semantic domain of “exercise authority”, biblical lexicographers J. P. Louw and Eugene Nida have twelve entries and of “rule”, “govern” forty-seven entries. Yet Paul picked none of these. Why not? The obvious reason . . . a nuance . . . particularly suited to the Ephesian situation (Belleville 2003:5).

It is also worth considering whether αὐθεντέω was Paul’s word-choice because of connotations very particular for him. As a former murderer of the people of God (Acts 7.58-8. 3; 9.1-2), once delivered from false teaching by his encounter with Christ, Paul spends years learning ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ and with submission before he goes on to teach. He describes himself as the πρῶτος of sinners (1 Tim 1.16) and will describe Adam as formed πρῶτος in 1 Tim 2.13 in a way that likely pertains to Adam’s first hand knowledge of God. Saul had acted ignorantly in unbelief, like Eve at 1 Tim 2.14. Perhaps 1 Tim 1.16 acts as something of an interpretive key. For Paul’s ignorance and being deceived, he had received mercy so that by him πρῶτος Jesus might be known for his mercy towards Paul who becomes a pattern ‘to those who would thereafter believe upon Him for eternal life‘ (I Tim 1.16). Paul’s very own experiences in perpetrating acts of violence could have had a bearing on his choice of αὐθεντέω. Wilshire, who returns to his original study at the prompting of Paul Barnett and Timothy Harris, states that he is very sure that its meaning is ‘instigating violence’ (1993:48). Perhaps, at first, Payne underestimates the severity of its nuance describing its meaning in terms of ‘assume authority’ (2009:235-236) to explain it, later, in terms of ‘seize authority’ (2014:24) as he strengthens his position. Suffice to say, on balance, I am more persuaded by the scholars who believe there is a negative connotation to αὐθεντέω.

However, such a conclusion has another ramification. If αὐθεντέω has negative connotations, Paul’s prohibition, being only temporary, becomes an option that ceases to remain open because there would never be a right time for activities undertaken with a dominating spirit, whether by women or men. If this prohibition is thought to apply only to a temporary situation, there are ramifications for the ways we read scripture more generally and Motyer reminds readers of the untenability of such a position for evangelicals, with his ‘not applicable today. This is holy Scripture!’ (1994:92). Holmes is keen that translations ‘capture both continuous and negative aspects of these actions‘ (2000:95) so that Payne is judicious in his hesitancy about the prohibition’s temporariness resting in οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω being in the first person indicative. As even Köstenberger admits ‘context‘ (2009:38) is a better indicator than grammar alone. Mounce describes how

the least convincing of… attempts to weaken Paul’s language [is] to argue that Paul would have had to use a different verbal form if he were to indicate a timeless truth . . . while the use of the present tense does not require that a statement be true in the future, neither is there anything in the tense that requires it to be true only in the present but not later (2000:122-123).

Neither men nor women are to instruct others with a manner tending to presumption. If scholars are right about a congregational setting, then when gathered, those who instruct are to do so with an authority delegated by the church, who have judged them first to be of sound doctrine and godly attitude. Household life would need to be characterised by such virtues for people to progress to assuming leadership positions over the church, a family in God. Payne’s decision, to which he takes time to resign himself, is to preserve ambiguity over οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, suggesting a translation of ‘“I am not permitting” since it preserves the nuance of the Greek, favoring the normal present reference without excluding the possibility of a continuing state‘ (1981:172). For as long as a situation continues, in which some are presuming to instruct the instructors over-assertively or dominate their spouses at home, the prohibition continues and by an extension of that logic into the twenty-first century and beyond. After all, scholars do not suppose that men are never to pray as a universalised prohibition, only that they refrain from praying angrily. The prohibition would continue for as long as prayer is disputatious. That Paul addresses only men in prayer does not imply that this is not also to apply to women. Paul gives instructions regarding how (peaceably) and what (for all people) to pray rather than about who should pray. It is likely Paul is giving instructions regarding the how and what rather than the who of teaching.

Ultimately, and perhaps quite simply, what Schreiner claims for verse 11 in terms of learning can be claimed too for verse 12 in terms of teaching: ‘the focus of the command is not on women learning (or teaching), but the manner and mode of their learning (or teaching)’ (brackets, mine) (2005:97). Paul is asking students to learn in submission to the truth so that their Christian formation might shape them into the teachers God might just raise them up to be in the future. The adversative ἀλλά before the third infinitive ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ acts as the pivot so that the activity before this conjunction finds its contrast in the activity after it: women are prohibited from teaching where their motive is directed by a desire for mastery over those who teach them, instead they are to be peaceable. For Holmes, Paul’s advice, beyond just the congregational setting (2000:96) is that a woman is ‘neither constantly to direct, nor to dominate a man. She should be tranquil‘ (2000:97).

Conclusion

Issues of translation, especially where a hapax logomenon is in use; the syntactical arrangements of words; the grammatical connection between them and connotations whether positive or negative can all cause the interpreter to become ‘locked into progression from one ‘solved’ difficulty to the next’ (Holmes 2000:33). That there is still an inconsistency to conclusions drawn by scholars obfuscates the task of bringing any model for praxis from this pericope. Where egalitarians agree that there is one prohibition, limiting something negative, they fail to agree on what that constitutes, specifically. For Payne it is presumption (2008:248) or ‘seizing authority’ (2014:24); for Holmes ‘bossiness‘ or ‘a going on and on‘ (2000:96). For Belleville, it is if teaching ‘with a view to dominating a man‘ (2004:219). For complementarians, Köstenberger, Moo and Schreiner, it is both teaching men and having authority over men in familial and congregational settings. For Blomberg, it is only if a woman attempts to be a senior church leader.

One interpretation, at odds with those above, is that of the Kroegers, who depart from their peers, (only finding support in Mickelsen) to suggest that Paul neither forbids an attitude, activity nor office. He forbids instead a very specific idea taught: an erroneous and false doctrine. Kroeger explains the possible interpretative range for αὐθεντέω with the most likely being its use ‘to denote an originator or instigator‘ (1992:102). Rather than Payne’s idea that the women have incorrectly presumed authority for themselves, the Kroegers believe that the women are teaching that they have ‘authored’ the men: ‘I do not permit woman to teach nor to represent herself as originator of man but she is to be in conformity [with the Scriptures] [or that she keeps it a secret]’ (1992:103). The Kroegers are persuasive to a point. It would make sense that Paul is correcting in the next verse this false teaching with his reminder that Adam is the originator of Eve. However, doubt is cast on the legitimacy of this novel interpretation which finds little support because it reads into the text far later gnostic influences when exegesis is to ‘start with the phenomena of the text itself, and not with any presumed situational background’ (Motyer 1994:92). Kroeger might seem to account for ὑποταγῇ in a credible way but that ἡσυχίᾳ enlarges upon ὑποταγῇ to strengthen that sense of a harmonising with and being in conformity to the scriptures by the silencing of an erroneous doctrine, by means of keeping it secret, has ἡσυχίᾳ lose any sense of peaceableness. This is also hard to reconcile with Paul’s celebration elsewhere of mysteries or secrets once hidden now coming to light (Eph 3, 6.19, Rom 16.25). For these reasons the Kroegers‘ interpretation remains unconvincing.

Ironically, Peter charges Paul with being rather cryptic. Paul’s teaching is hard to understand (2 Pe 3.16) which tells us something about the lack of perspicuity deriving from hapax legomena for the twenty-first century reader. Conclusions can still be drawn. The only imperative is for learning (Blomberg 2005:167; Schreiner 2005:97; Bailey 1994:19 and Wright 2006:9). The sentence rendered by modern translations as two separate verses (v11 & 12) is joined by a conjunction as one unit of thought about attitude where the prepositional phrase ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ functions as an inclusio. Paul insists on tranquillity in the learning and teaching environment. Westfall builds a convincing case for the confusion that has delayed a definitive conclusion that αὐθεντέω has connotations of a very inappropriate kind of authority. The sentence rendered by modern translations to convey two activities prohibited (at v 12) is rather a prohibition against women teaching where their goal is for mastery over the men. Mounce concedes so that with such a meaning in view ‘the door [is] open for women to exercise teaching authority in a proper way over men’ (2000:128). Just as ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ and ὑποταγῇ modify the way a student is to learn, αὐθεντέω moderates the way a teacher is not to teach so that Paul might help Christians to submit to the Lord and resist ‘lording it over‘ (Payne 1981:170) each other. Persuaded as I am, that the sentence scrutinised so far should be translated in terms of a necessary self-control for learning without self-assertion when teaching, can such guidance, which I believe to be Paul’s, be supported by his allusion to Adam and Eve, which follows? With one difficulty solved, it’s time to progress to the next.

Chapter 4

1 Tim 2.13-14 – 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor (NRSV).

13 Ἀδὰμ γὰρ πρῶτος ἐπλάσθη, εἶτα Εὔα·

14 καὶ Ἀδὰμ οὐκ ἠπατήθη, ἡ δὲ γυνὴ ἐξαπατηθεῖσα

ἐν παραβάσει γέγονεν,

Despite the conclusions reached above, scholars like Foh believe that there is ‘only one valid argument against women’s ordination to the ministry: scriptural prohibition . . . found in 1 Tim 2:12‘ (Clouse & Clouse 1989:91). Schreiner can even concede ground over Paul’s use of οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω (1995:127). How?

Verse 13 [for Adam was formed first then Eve] establishes that the prohibition is a universal one . . . women are proscribed from functioning as elders/overseers . . . from the function of public and authoritative teaching of men (Schreiner 1995:128-129).

Such certainty derives from an interpretation of Paul’s allusion to Adam and Eve as if were a fait accompli: an irreversible truth about irreversible roles. Hurley is convinced that this is the determinative sentence (1981:204-223). Susan Foh describes how ‘Paul did not relate his commands to women to his day’s cultural requirements [but to] . . . two past unchangeable events – creation and Fall’ (Clouse & Clouse 1989:161). Paul’s reference to Adam and Eve appears even more determinative than translations of αὐθεντέω.

Appearing to present Adam’s priority and Eve’s deception, scholars admit ‘these verses offer assertions about both the creation and the fall, but it is not clear how they support the commands in vv. 11-12‘ (Moo 1980:68). Keener describes how ‘it would be surprising if an issue that would exclude at least half the body of Christ . . . would be addressed in only one text’ (1992:101). Nevertheless, Moo decides ‘for Paul, the man’s priority in the order of creation is indicative of the headship that man is to have over woman,‘ (1991:190). Köstenberger believes the reference spotlights Eve’s usurpation of Adam’s position, reneging on her ‘God-ordained role as indicated in the original creation account’ (1997:140). Schreiner says ‘the church has historically deemed the . . . creation of Adam first [which] gives a reason why men should be the authoritative teachers in the church’ (2016:178). Such an interpretation is claimed consistent with the history of the church and the history of human origins.

The church’s traditional view has, of course, also asserted male leadership because of female vulnerability to deception. Unconvincing now, Adam’s authority is then established, instead, through the primogeniture rule. Adam’s pre-fall status is held to unlock the ‘clear meaning of the text’ (Schreiner 2016:176). Eve’s sin constituted not so much her wanting to be like God as her wanting to be like Adam, ‘taking the initiative‘ (Moo 1991:190) and undermining his religious leadership by asserting her own. Schreiner supposes ‘God likely commissioned Adam to instruct Eve about this command, signalling Adam’s responsibility for leadership and teaching’ (2005:291) so that Adam’s sin was in his reneging on his ‘greater responsibility’ (2005:297). That ‘the serpent subverted male headship’ (Schreiner 2005:315) means for both Eve and Satan, theirs is a transgression against Adam as well as God.

The interpretation has a glaring weakness. Moo describes how ‘the Gen. 3 narrative nowhere attributes the judgement upon the woman to her being deceived‘ (1980:69) but neither is it attributed to her subversion of Adam’s headship. Reductio ad absurdum, Adam transgressed fully aware of his disobedience. Eve at least acted only on the basis of false teaching and she had never been exposed to any command about the headship of Adam. On such a basis, the Ephesian women, teaching ungodly precepts and in an ungodly way, need restricting only until they have become better educated and sanctified. Men, on the other hand, might be universally prohibited from teaching altogether, if they carry, from Adam a tendency to transgress quite deliberately and forfeit their leadership. Of course, this logic for men fails in the same way as it does for women. The locus of any prohibition can not be construed on the basis of something inherent only particularly in the nature of one of the genders. Scholars refrain now from casting aspersions from Eve about women’s propensity towards deception. It is to be wondered, though, whether the modern construal of Eve’s transgression offers any better news for women, particularly those who lead Christian congregations! Köstenberger does not underplay the ramifications of Eve’s mistake being repeated:

All will be well with women who, unlike Eve, adhere to the domain assigned to them by God. Women, on the other hand, who depart from their God-ordained roles in their lives become vulnerable to Satan, particularly if they assume permanent teaching or ruling functions in the local assembly (1997:142-143).

Harris believes that those who speculate from Adam’s primacy engage in ‘exegetical gymnastics to reshape the nature of the original disobedience‘ (1990:345) but how else might a rationale for this emphasis on Adam’s primacy be explained?

Bailey decides that Paul is correcting with hyperbolic overstatement the Ephesian women’s mistaken belief from Paul’s teaching in Romans and First Corinthians that sin entered the world through a man: ‘anti-male women have used such ideas for their own purposes’ (1994:17). Paul ‘is angry’ (Bailey 1994:16) at their twisting his teaching to assert their own superior status. The Kroegers make a similar appeal, arguing that Paul‘s stress on Adam’s priority is so he might rebuke the women for teaching falsely that Eve was the originator of man (1992:117). Harris concurs due to ‘the evidence of Jewish and gnostic speculations about Eve, which included the notion that she took part in the creation of the world and pre-existed Adam’ (1990:345). Liefeld is more cautious about whether Paul is rebuking female superiority propagated by the gnostics because this ‘involves projection backward from the fourth-century‘ (1989:247).

It becomes evident that there is a crucial weakness in any conclusion which proposes that gender pre-eminence is either being asserted or rebuked. The significance of Paul’s reference to the primacy of Adam lies neither in his rebuke of Ephesian women who assert their primacy nor his assertion of the prelapsarian headship of Adam to justify a prohibition against women’s authority over men. After all, if Paul is admonishing women for their assertions of superiority, it is unlikely he would teach them they are not to have authority over a man because men were created first and should have authority over women. His argument would hardly counteract the women’s convincingly. Paul would be introducing a new problem, which he is seeking to redress by prohibiting behaviour which authenteins other people. It is with some irony, then, that the very grasping for pre-eminence that Paul is prohibiting at verse 12 is the complementarian apologetic with which sense is made of this pericope, so that women are not to teach because they are to recognise the headship of men.

It is also to be observed that where scholars draw conclusions that gender pre-eminence is either being asserted or rebuked, each side brings suppositions to the biblical text. Barron uses anachronistic terminology to account for Paul‘s correction of women’s ‘feminist reinterpretation of Adam and Eve as precedent for their own spiritual primacy and authority’ (italics, mine) (1990: 458). Moo laments ‘contradictory, scholarly reconstructions’ but, blind to his own presuppositions, supposes ‘a tendency to remove role distinctions between men and women was part of the false teaching’ (1991:177-178). Moo‘s reasoning can only envisage that competition between the sexes is in view believing the ‘gnostic . . . tradition was partially responsible for the statement’ (1981:204) but ten years on becoming more adamant that it is creation and not culture which provides ‘the reason for his [Paul’s] advice‘ (1991:185). It would appear that if the reference to Eden is thought to establish the cause for Paul’s prohibition at verse 12, the interpreter sets themselves up to search for that deeper principle upon which Paul bases his guidance, a deeper principle which can only be inferred and then drawn in error, as demonstrated above. Mouton & Van Wolde explore how ‘sense-making of the past . . . runs the risk of endorsing a hierarchical interpretation of the creation story similar to that of a literal reading‘ (2012:596).

An alternative reason for Paul’s reference to Adam and Eve is that his use of it is typological and general. It illustrates for him a weakness in the human condition and the strength of the grace of God. Harris decides that Paul employs ‘cautionary typology [but that he] veils the significance’ (1990:345) of such a device. However, if Paul references this first couple not because women are ‘rejecting traditional female roles . . . unsuited to teaching or… prone to deception‘ (Holmes 2000:86) and it ‘introduces neither reasons for, nor illustration of the need for, verse 12′ (Holmes 2000:249), a far simpler conclusion can be drawn consistent with Paul’s tendency to offer Christian hope and only mild correction. Eve’s guilt for bringing sin into the world or rebellion against her proscribed subordination to Adam

neither appear In Genesis 3 itself . . . nor were universally held by hellenistic interpreters of that material . . . [Exegesis before AD 70 is] ‘characterised by . . . the virtual absence and deliberate rejection of ultra-literal or ‘hidden meaning’ modes (Holmes 2000:290- 291).

A ‘hidden meaning’ would be Eve’s transgression of Adam’s headship. Perriman describes how ‘παράβασις refers . . . to transgression against the law; Eve’s mistake was not that she usurped Adam’s authority but that . . . she disregarded what she had been taught,’ (1993,131). Where Moo believed silence was contrasted with teaching, Perriman builds a better case for learning as the antidote to transgression. The chiastic structure of sentences brings this emphasis to light and the prohibition in verse 12 is parenthetical to Paul’s objectives and much milder in intent.

A 11 Let a woman in quietness learn in all submission. . .

B 13 For Adam was formed first,

C then Eve,

B’ 14 and Adam was not deceived.

A’ But the woman, having been deceived, has come into transgression. (Perriman 1993:131)

Perriman challenges the idea that the prohibition at verse 12 is grounded in creation ordinance gender hierarchy not with appeals to the Sitz im Leben but to the syntax. Arguments from syntax are more easily heard by those reluctant to speculate about the cultural and historical milieu.

If we allow that 12 is parenthetic and that 13-14 give primarily the grounds for a woman learning obediently, then any appeal to an ontological relationship ordained at creation seems misplaced. (1993:140).

Where it has already been argued that the first and second sentences of this pericope are related by an inclusio, Perriman’s thinking is more difficult to reconcile on that point, but he is convincing where he explains Adam’s being formed first is ‘a figure‘ (1993:140) to convey more generally, ‘the historical dominance of the man’ (1998:166). This allusion contains no ‘hidden meaning’ mandating a hierarchy derived from the order of creation, it simply notes ‘the relative advantage of the man’ (1998:166) which in turn spotlights the condition of Eve. It is descriptive rather than prescriptive.

If Eve learned of God’s command later and second-hand, this could also be significant for Paul, who, prior to meeting the Risen Christ, had only heard the gospel second-hand and, mistaking the truth for a lie, had brought death to the people of God. Is it that Paul understands Eve’s error and the error of the women of Ephesus who are about to fall into transgression as explored here previously? Paul, who describes himself as one who was ‘untimely born’ (1 Cor 15:8) relates both spiritually and emotionally to Eve ‘the latecomer’ (Bilezikian 2006:136). It is ‘the state of transgression’ (Fee 2011:179) and a falling from innocence that this reference brings home. This is the condition Paul highlights so that his purpose might be to present a solution. One solution has been to have two men excommunicated from the church for succumbing (1 Timothy 1:20) to false teaching but there is a time when such a trajectory towards transgression can be forestalled. In Ephesus these women are only ‘falling’ rather than having succumbed already, which is how Holmes accounts for the grammar.

The goal of vv. 13–14 is not to highlight the primacy or non-deception of Adam or the subsequent creation or deception of Eve. Those details are secondary to the focus on Eve’s condition (Holmes 2000:263).

Davis explores the way Eve (2 Cor 11:3) is ‘a figure for an entire church in Corinth‘ (2009:6) and by Paul spotlighting Adam in Romans 5:12-21 ‘the apparent discrepancy of holding either Eve or Adam accountable for transgression is resolved when proper stress is placed on deception’ (Spurgeon 2013:544). If the gloss on the Eden narrative only compounds for Paul’s audience, whether first or twenty-first, the fragility of woman‘s nature or her subordination to men in an ‘androcentric interpretation of Genesis 2-3 ‘ (West 2004:165) then audiences are continuing to confine ‘a living God to the boundaries of an ancient text in ways contradictory to its theological thrust‘ (Mouton & Van Wolde, 2012:597). Instead, the allusion to Eden emphasises the severity of falling away from the truth so that Paul might present a two-fold ‘solution to this dilemma‘ (2000:295). The first, explored here already, and championed by Perriman, particularly, is that learning is an antidote to falling into transgression. In verse 15 Paul presents, with a second hapax legomenon, how an activity translations have rendered as ‘childbearing’ might very well be the second.

Conclusion:

Contrary to Holmes and Perriman, Fee believes Paul’s reference to Adam and Eve establishes his grounds for verse 12, which is in itself only a temporary prohibition. Persuaded by Holmes and Motyer that evangelicals are best to derive some universalising principle from the scriptures else other teachings might be restricted to the first century, only, it would seem that Fee’s ultimate conclusions have more relevance for conclusions reached here that Paul is simply spotlighting a fall into transgression and the remedy to prevent it becoming a permanent condition. Fee explains how the reference to Genesis helps Paul to establish what he wants to teach about men and women: ‘(1) their differentiation, (2) their bearing God’s image together and (3) their unity in the marriage union‘ (DBE 2004:378). Where Fee believes Paul’s use of an allusion to Eve at 2 Cor 11:3 is so that he might teach the Corinthian congregation about deception in a way which compares to his use of such an allusion here, he is persuasive. Paul’s ‘concern [is] that such deception is being repeated in his churches‘ (DBE 2004:378). The gospel has so much more to say about what God is ‘for’ than ‘against’ and if 1 Timothy 2.11-15 can be championed by modern evangelicals as a text that is promoting learning and marriage as an antidote to transgression, it will speak of God’s good gifts far more effectively in the twenty-first century global context the Gospel must now address.

Chapter 5

1 Tim 2.15 – Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. (NRSV)

σωθήσεται δὲ διὰ τῆς τεκνογονίας ἐὰν μείνωσιν

ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀγάπῃ καὶ ἁγιασμῷ μετὰ

If Paul’s purpose is to keep the hope of Christ’s salvation ever before God’s people, it is to be wondered quite how the literal act of ‘childbearing‘ helps a woman’s cause. Paul utilises another hapax logomenon here: τεκνογονίας. There are a variety of interpretations making sense of this word. If the presence of the definite article only indicates the generic nature of childbirth, scholars understand Paul reassuring women they will be kept safe through the travails of labour. Another reading renders τεκνογονίας in terms of the bearing of the Christ and σωθήσεται is soteriological. A third reading is, in some ways, a combination of these two and assures women of a spiritual rather than physical salvation won through faith and appropriated fully at the eschaton as they continue in their God-ordained role with faith, love and propriety. Whichever way sense is made of the salvation in view, it is conditional for a ‘they’ who are either the women in Ephesus (Scholer 1986:196; Schreiner 1995:117; Barron 1990:61; Mounce 2000:148; Marshall 2004:471) Adam and Eve (Spurgeon 2013:546; Holmes 2000:293) or all future people (their children).

Bailey (1994:18), Scholer (1986:196-199) and the Kroegers (1992:70) interpret τεκνογονίας quite literally, suggesting that Paul appeals to women to embrace childbearing and to not resist it despite proto-gnostic teaching to the contrary. Belleville decides that

“They [the false teachers] forbid marriage” (1 Tim. 4:3) alone goes a long way toward explaining Paul’s otherwise obscure comment, “She will be saved [or the NIV 1973 edition’s ‘kept safe’] through childbearing” (1 Tim. 2:15) (2003:3).

It is also wondered whether Paul challenges syncretic beliefs by re-asserting the faithfulness of God in whom women are to trust when many women were appealing to Artemis for protection during their labours because of her recognised ‘dominion over childbirth’ (Kroegers 1992:70). However, if σωθήσεται communicates safe-delivery through child-birth, many woman die giving birth which these scholars pass over, moreover ‘a reference to safety in childbirth is entirely unmotivated in the context’ (Marshall 2004:469).

If Paul is not reassuring women here that they will be kept physically safe during child-birth, a function intrinsic to their gender which is not to be resisted, another interpretation argues that Paul reassures women of their spiritual safety and though they bear children in pain as a result of humankind’s transgression, their salvation in Christ is just as secure as it is for men. Towner decides Paul ‘urges these Christian wives to re-engage fully in the respectable role of the mother, in rejection of heretical and secular trends, so she might ‘work out her salvation’ (2006:235). By conforming to their gender role, a view Towner shares with Moo (1980:73) and Mounce (2000:148), women are spiritually sanctified, evidenced by their display of accompanying godly virtues: faith, love and holiness with modesty. Schreiner develops this idea to propose that τεκνογονίας is synecdochal for a woman’s ‘domestic’ (1995:151) duty, a fruit of her saved condition, alongside those other accompanying virtues listed. It is interesting to note that on this point scholars like Schreiner are happy to draw from the historical and cultural context to strengthen their case:

Childbearing was selected by Paul, then, as a specific response to the shafts from the false teachers. . . [and] because it represents the fulfillment of the woman’s domestic role as a mother in distinction from the man (Schreiner 2005:117–118).

Influencing the exegetical task is also that more fully fledged theology of role differentiation whose influence has already been noted.

For Grudem and Köstenberger, childbearing is efficacious for women on a further level. By adhering to her gender role, not only by bearing children (or prioritising the domestic sphere) but by staying within her subordinate role, she will be kept safe from Satan who had reversed gender-roles and tempted Eve to assume religious leadership to lead Adam astray. Woman’s conformity to her role mitigates her tendency to exercise misplaced authority over a man. Fulfilled by her role, she will, somehow, be kept safe from Eve’s proclivity. For Köstenberger, this interpretation accords with ‘Paul’s concern for the spiritual protection of believers’ conforming with Paul’s use of cognates of σωθήσεται to denote spiritual safety at 1 Tim 4.16; and 2 Tim 4.18‘ (1996:3). The interpretative key here lies in a theology about gender roles and the creation ordinance and through conclusions drawn regarding Paul’s reference to Adam and Eve a priori. The idea that women are ‘kept safe from wrongly seizing men’s roles by embracing a woman’s role’ (Hurley 1981:222) was first articulated by James Hurley (1981) and George Knight (1985:19) from this period of commentators. Fee challenges this interpretation of σωθήσεται: ‘it is nearly inconceivable that Paul would use the verb saved in an absolute way, as he does here, without some qualifier (e.g. ‘from these errors’)‘ (2011:75).

There are a number of problems with interpretations considered thus far. Salvation from Satan is unlikely because there is ‘no explicit mention of Satan in this passage’ (Marshall 2004:469-470). Physical safety in childbirth is built on a foundation that is speculative, that the women were calling on Artemis and are encouraged to direct prayer to God, instead. That she cooperates with her salvation by adhering to her domestic role might add a ‘work‘ to woman being saved and if this is advised it might have better come before, with Paul’s guidance for attire and conduct and learning.

Whilst Grudem and Köstenberger seem to claim too much for the text, they do, at least, draw attention to the verb σωθήσεται being future rather than past in its orientation. They are persuaded that the futurist aspect is appropriate for the conditionality of her remaining in her God-ordained role. This, for them, accounts too for the change in subject from ‘she’ to ‘they’ which is deemed ‘characteristic of paraenetic style’ (Köstenberger 1997:117). However, the futurist aspect of the salvation in view can be reconciled with the typological nature of the reference to Adam and Eve. If the woman (singular) saved through childbearing, were Eve, then despite her being deceived, her salvation will be secured through the future outcome of her mothering. God‘s plan to destroy the first deceiver (Satan) is through the seed of the deceived (Adam and Eve). It seems sensible to propose that the reference to Genesis helps Paul to reorientate any church towards the hope of God’s restorative plan for the deceived proto-types. Payne (1981:177; 2009: 429-40), Bilezikian (2006:183) and Knight (1992:146-48) interpret τεκνογονίας as the bearing of the Christ with τεκνογονίας as synecdochal for Jesus, with the missing definite article (in translations) rendering the sentence the child-bearing: the bearing by Mary of the Christ-child through whom salvation would come. However, the reference might be more subtle than that. As Holmes describes:

Previous debates about the meaning of τεκνογονία with the definite article have failed to consider the possibility that what may be in view is the ongoing process of the bearing of children, that is, over generations (2000:293).

Ultimately, the reader might not have to favour one of these latter two interpretations over the other. Neither is mutually exclusive. Eve is not ‘a standard symbol for women’ alone just as Adam’s fall was not only applicable to men but also women (Rom 5.12-21; 1 Cor 15.45-49)‘ (Keener 1992:117). Writing to build up the church, Paul presents a solution which will take the men and women of Ephesus back to the purpose for which they were created, a mutuality which facilitates God’s plans in Christ to secure the salvation of both men and women. Paul’s concerns are soteriological more than they are managerial, for God’s church. ‘The resolution of this conflict in equality and harmony . . . looks forward to a future redemption‘ (Hess, 2004:95). Padgett believes the reference speaks of Eve and of Mary and the women at Ephesus. He believes Paul ‘uses Eve as a cautionary type for the women of his day and as a positive type of one who bore children in order to further her salvation (and the salvation of us all!)‘ (1987:31).

If bible translations have divorced 1 Timothy 3:1a from its more legitimate place after 1 Timothy 2:11-15, this allusion constitutes the faithful saying that Paul utilises to teach about salvation. Salvation was the topic of the former faithful saying at the beginning of the frame. The saying is indeed faithful that continuing in love, faith and holiness with modesty Adam and Eve, by their continuing in the unitive, complementary and live-giving relationship, where each is dependent on the other, go on to fulfil together their created purpose in a way that leads to God’s redemptive project being delivered in the person of Jesus Christ, born of the line of Adam and Eve. This accounts for the singular pronoun becoming plural as ‘she (Eve) could expect/could be expected to be saved by the (ongoing process of) childbearing if they (Adam and Eve) continued‘ (Holmes 2000:294):

The seed born to Eve would be generated by Adam, so together they must live in faithfulness, love and holiness with sound judgement. Whatever differences there were in their creation and fall, they remain one flesh with one mandate, their salvation coming in exactly the same way from the same seed, whose generation depended on their union (Holmes 2000:298).

Paul Barnett describes how ‘Paul’s concern is not superficially cultural but profoundly creational’ (1989:234) but gender hierarchy makes sense for him of Paul’s reference to Adam and Eve with a prohibition against women ministering in authoritative positions in the church. It might be more likely that Paul’s concern is ‘cultural‘, addressing a peculiarly Ephesian backdrop, after all, but, moreover, Paul’s concern is vocational rather than ‘creational’ ‘addressed to any who vaunt. . . individuality over . . . fellowship . . . [as he] counterbalances criticism with the possibility of redemptive choice and action’ (Gruenler 1998:237). The redemptive choice and action encouraged is two-fold: to learn the faith and to recover gender mutuality. Holmes‘ proposal that the ‘γάρ refers back to something in the original context (2000:290) is that command to learn at verse 11, an imperative and antidote to the presenting troubles, as Perriman also proposed. At verse 15 the reader learns of another antidote to the presenting troubles: childbearing. The action of the ‘they’ who must continue are Adam and Eve (as type) and the women (and men) of Ephesus and everywhere, as anti-type. Partnering and complementing one another in life, ministry and marriage, men and women, in the very propagation of the species and the faith, is that unitive endeavour and creation ordinance as ‘Paul . . . reminds us that, in the end, neither men nor women are independent of the other‘ (Keener 2005:240). West reminds the interpreter that by Paul embedding his guidance in the creation narrative the ‘story is clear: from unity (the earth creature) through diversity (man and woman) to unity (one flesh)‘ (2004:168). The virtues accompanying the obedient life are evidenced in Paul’s life. On his delivery from deception he is endowed with faith and love (1 Timothy 1:14). Paul will also insist on σωφροσυνης which militates against the self-assertion he prohibits at verse 12. Adam and Eve, the men and women at Ephesus, and Christian men and women today, are to work together in faith, love and holiness, submitting their own wills to one another and the scriptures from whose teaching they derive their common purpose in the church, the family and the world.

Conclusion:

Pierce sounded a prophetic note, then, when he decided that the very stalemate explored here between different kinds of evangelicals constitutes ‘a modern display of God’s discipline among his people’ (1987:9). Holmes’ words would apply to the Church of England, who took until 2011 to consecrate women as Bishops:

To the extent that his [Paul’s] meaning at 2:8–15 has been lost, presumably he would view the warfare which has been fought as not good . . . roles for men and women he has in mind seem likely to differ substantially from those which have characterized practices and analyses based upon misinterpretation of his instruction (2000:305).

Holmes paves the way for those more recent scholars who want to find a third way and recall the genders to their mutual need of one another. Exegetical endeavour must aim to recover a positive reading of this text rather than the prohibitive and restrictive note it has sounded for well over two millennia.

Chapter 6. Implicit theologies: consonance and inconsistency

Those different kinds of evangelicals each appear to take a particular line of approach to this pericope. One approach is exemplified by scholars such as Köstenberger, Grudem, Schreiner, Piper and Moo and another by scholars such as Payne, Bailey, the Kroegers, Belleville, Bilezikian and Fee. The former reject descriptions like ‘traditionalist’ or ‘hierarchicalist,’ (Piper & Grudem, RBMW 1991:11) and yet claim to not depart from tradition when it suits them. The latter reject the description ‘feminist’ (Bilezikian 1985:184), understandable, when feminism can sit light to scripture. Complementarian and Egalitarian are ‘by the 1990s . . . the labels’ (Barnewell 2016 Foreword: x) adopted’ but the term ‘complementarian’ fails to capture the distinctions between the genders that such a reading has in view so that Giles is correct to propose that the impasse would be better described as between ‘hierarchical complementarians and egalitarian complementarians’ (Giles Part II, 2000:204). The complementary natures of the genders can be borne out in their working together in society, the home and the church without this also entailing women’s subordination to men in the church and the home. This is incongruent with a theology in which the whole world belongs to God. Conduct for Christians is to be consistent across contexts, which renders the hierarchical complementarian false dichotomy between the world and the church problematic. This, then, is one of the most obvious immediate inconsistencies to come to light.

‘If the order of creation is a general principle, then it ought to be applied across the board. Instead, it’s applied inconsistently and selectively as if it were specific, not general‘ (Sumner 2003:227).

Not only does this debate dichotomise the word of God into a word for the church and a word for his world, the conversation partners understand the word that God speaks in very different ways. Scholars like Giles, Webb and Bilezikian articulate the unfolding nature of revelation. The complementarian apologetic proposes its reading to be more congruent with how God has spoken over the course of the history of the debate. Both sides accuse the other of a weakness in their approach. Whilst the egalitarian side is quick to point out that church history has also associated deceptiveness with femaleness and taken its time to hear the scripture’s condemnation of slavery, the complementarian side fears that dispensing with gender roles dispenses too with God’s mandate for human sexuality. Whilst egalitarians embrace the unfolding nature of revelation but need to articulate carefully, then, where there are parameters around God’s vision for human personhood, complementarians can deny the way their own apologetic has changed over time.

A further observation to be made about the method employed for rendering meaning for those involved in this debate, is that there is at least a consonance to approach for both sides who each render meaning for 1 Tim 2.11-15 from theology a priori. Thinking brought to bear on this text derives from decisions already arrived at regarding God’s plans for gender relations pre and/or post fall; the interpretation of other key scriptures about gender, and perhaps the most influential of all – the relations within the very Godhead itself.

Regarding the first of these, Schreiner’s reaction to Belleville is a case in point: ‘her view fails because it does not provide a convincing interpretation of texts that demonstrate role differentiation between men and women’ (2005:109). Particularly pertinent for 1 Timothy 2.11-15 is whether gender hierarchy is a good gift corrupted by the Fall or whether male headship is in itself a product of the Fall. If it is the latter, the redemptive ideal is egalitarian but if it is the former, it is only how that rule is expressed which needs redeeming. The 2^nd edition of RBMW describes egalitarianism as failing ‘to do justice to the distinctions that exist between the sexes’ (2006:x) but Egalitarians do not dissolve distinctions, only hierarchy as one of the distinctions, doubting that complementarity can really be maintained between the genders when one (the woman) is projected into permanent subordination to the other (the man). Ironically, the hierarchical complementarians argue that his dominating rule needs correcting at Genesis 3.16 and egalitarians argue that her dominating rule needs correcting at 1 Timothy 2.12. Whether words like αὐθεντεῖν at 1 Timothy 2:12 and מָשַׁל at Genesis 3:16 carry negative or positive connotations is something about which scholars care and disagree. A recovery of the prelapsarian co-regency of Adam and Eve is what I have decided Paul has in view as his vision for men and women who have been embroiled in gender wars whether from the Fall, or in first century Ephesus or, indeed, twenty-first century England! As Hess describes, the creation account demonstrates how ‘a relationship that was once equally shared in a uniquely complementary design would become burdened with a struggle for authority from which the man would emerge the ruler‘ (DBE 2004:89). It is with this in mind that Paul writes with advice for the genders so that women do not emerge as rulers in Ephesus. Unlocking the negative connotation to αὐθεντέω is where the egalitarian argument trumps that of the complementarian, reliant as it is on extant, contemporaneous data.

Both sides have also decided already how they interpret other scriptures addressing gender relations: I Corinthians 11.2-16, with regards to whether κεφαλὴ communicates the headship (complementarian) of the man over the woman or her derivation from the man as her source (egalitarian); 1 Corinthians 14.33-36 pertinent for women’s speaking in the church; Ephesians 5.21-33 and whether the vision for submission of spouses to each other is mutual and therefore egalitarian or asymmetrical and therefore complementarian and Galatians 3.26-28 and the extent to which its vision lessens distinctions between persons who are in Christ. Those articulating gender hierarchy criticise egalitarians for using the last scripture here to relativise the others. Those articulating mutuality accuse gender hierarchicalists of using 1 Timothy 2:11-15 in a similar way.

Not only are theological assumptions construed from the creation of humanity and other key texts but from the very nature of the Godhead. The doctrine of the Trinity has had an ever increasing influence on the debate since it first started to be articulated in a new way since the ‘the 1980s [prior to which] no theologian had ever spoken of the Son’s subordination in “role”‘ (DBE 20014: 339). For many complementarians, a woman’s functional subordination and ontological equality to a man has its locus in trinitarian relations in which Jesus is ontologically equal but functionally subordinate to the Father into eternity rather than only in his incarnation. Egalitarians teach, instead, the functional and ontological equality of the genders deriving from what they see as the mutual relationship between the members of the Godhead. Christ’s submission to the Father is only a constituent part of his incarnation, rendered voluntarily. For hierarchical-complementarians Christ’s functional (eternal) subordination is transposed onto the woman who is to be submissive in the church and the home to the man. Where complementarians argue that ontological equality between the genders is consistent with female subordination to male rule, egalitarians see function as the outworking of a person’s essence or ontology. Groothuis maintains the ‘equal in essence and subordinate in function‘ philosophy is a ‘rhetorical sleight of hand‘ (DBE 2004:332). Giles is persuasive with his explanations that ‘what the triune God does is a revelation of who he is: person and work go hand in hand‘ (DBE 2004:339) so that Groothuis might indeed claim that ‘the notion that woman is equal in her being yet unequal by virtue of her being is incoherent‘ (DBE 2004:310).

Conclusion:

It has been interesting to become aware over the course of the exegetical project of the implicit theologies which shape interpretation. The most significant is that re-appraisal of the Trinity now brought to bear on the debate. In this way a secondary issue regarding the genders becomes a first order issue. Gender relations are better predicated on the ‘reciprocity [which] remains the consistent mode of interaction within the Godhead until the end and into eternity‘ (Bilezikian 1997:60).

Chapter 7. Implicit theologies: translating interpretation into praxis for the local church

A major supposition of the debate is that there is a clear vision in the scriptures for the ordering of today’s church. Carl Hoch is aware that the detail will take some working out, asking whether ‘a new “Evangelical Talmud” [is] necessary to give “Halakot” concerning where and when a woman can or cannot “teach” (1987:249). Complementarians like Schreiner try to work out this Talmud and explain that ‘men should assume leadership roles in the governance and teaching ministry of the church as soon as it [a church] is established’ (RBMW 2006:223). Up to that point, whilst the church is still informally gathering or perhaps beginning, a woman can teach. Belleville rightly draws attention to this false distinction between the private and the public spheres of life when limiting women’s teaching roles. Complementarians distinguish between ‘public and private, authoritative and non-authoritative, and formal and informal types of instruction’ when the ‘NT knows no such distinctions‘ (2005:59). For Belleville, ‘such distinctions as “spontaneous versus regular” and “passive versus active” are modern concoctions’ (2005:324). Even Schreiner, coming to complementarian conclusions, describes how ‘the distinction between public and private meetings of the church is a modern invention’ (2005:317). Any debate over teaching as authoritative ‘as though authority were vested in the teacher rather than in what is taught, is an anachronism‘ (DBE Liefeld 2004:265) too. Belleville goes on to question the biblical link between local church leadership and authority (exousia) and Bilezikian is helpful here with his reminder that authority resides within the text itself and ‘not in the person teaching the Bible’ (1985:104).

Ironically and ultimately, then, what the complementarian and egalitarian position both share is a common flaw, that this debate was ever about which gender is chosen by God to exert authority in the church, in the first place. There is little in the scriptures to advocate that leadership has such a focus. As Belleville insists, it is ‘the church that possesses authority, not particular individuals’ (2005:107).

Egalitarian arguments for a time-bound prohibition are as weak as complementarian arguments for an impossible application of the letter rather than the spirit of the prohibition. A third way must be found. If commands to baptise (Matt 28.18–20), celebrate communion (Matt 26.29; 1 Cor 11.26), preach the gospel (Rom 10.14–17), give thanks (1 Thess 5.17,18) and meet to worship (Heb 10.24, 25) are not time-bound, it would be wiser to extrapolate from Paul’s teaching at 1 Timothy 2.11-15 guidance for the church today. Sabbath observance (Exod 20.8–11; Deut 5.12–15) translates today to undertaking activities of re-creation and worship at some point in the week. The requirement that women wear head-coverings (1 Cor 11.2–16) and refrain from dressing ostentatiously (1 Tim 2.9) translates today to dressing appropriately when coming together for acts of public worship. ‘Universal principles are tucked into books written to respond to specific circumstances‘ (Schreiner 1995:87) so that Paul’s universal, transcultural prohibition is against a person teaching before they have learned at 1 Tim.11-15. Teaching should be of orthodox content and undertaken with a godly and not domineering attitude. Authority is in the message, not the messenger. Such guidance can be applied to ever-changing circumstances across a diversity of cultures and to both genders.

Evangelical hermeneutics has as its primary task the need to hear God’s word within the human words of Scripture, neither diminishing it as an eternal word, as liberal hermeneutics so often does, nor enshrining all the particulars, as fundamentalism so often does-but in inconsistent and frequently cavalier ways’ (Fee 1991:174).

Giles (2000 Part I:151) and Fee (1985:150) explore the lack of consistency in applying the letter’s teachings. Those insistent on a male only leadership, ignore Paul’s recommendations to be married and do not teach their churches to keep a list of widows over sixty with the same degree of commitment. Payne describes how enshrining the particulars coincides with a very selective attitude to the text:

To limit the meaning of διδάσκειν in 2:12 to teaching only in public assemblies where men are present is more rationalization than exegesis, rationalization to make Paul’s purportedly universal prohibition more practically feasible for church life today (1981:176).

Conclusion

There are as many interpretations of this text by those of egalitarian persuasion as there are for those more complementarian as scholars ask whether Paul prohibits false teaching; teaching undertaken with presumption; teaching by those who lack education; teaching inappropriate in manner and not peaceable; teaching by women in all situations; in situations only where a church has become established; in situations only where there in no hierarchical male. Until full revelation comes, it would be wise to, at least, declare a moratorium on unnecessarily inflammatory language . . . recognize that there is a large spectrum of views and numerous styles of implementation . . . until everyone agrees or goes separate ways (Two Views on Women in Ministry 2001:15-16).

In the course of this study more recent scholars are beginning to articulate their own apologetic rather than just critiquing that of their opponents in the debate.

Regarding my own praxis as a female incumbent of a Christian congregation, as a consequence of this study, when the Church of England lectionary asks that I preach and teach the implications of this scripture to a mixed congregation as their incumbent, I shall do so from Eugene Peterson’s translation of the message, which captures more nearly the meaning which is, in the end, the one I find most convincing. I will also seek to restrict only the domination of one person over another where circumstances ‘correspond sufficiently to those in Ephesus at the time 1 Timothy was written [and] not stand against the ministry of all believers, including the leadership of women’ (DBE Liefeld 2004:263). This would mean that my own vocation can continue, satisfied as I am that Paul is not restricting my ministry over men, per se.

I don’t let women take over and tell the men what to do. They should study to be quiet and obedient along with everyone else. Adam was made first, then Eve; woman was deceived first—our pioneer in sin!—with Adam right on her heels. On the other hand, her childbearing brought about salvation, reversing Eve. But this salvation only comes to those who continue in faith, love, and holiness, gathering it all into maturity. You can depend on this (2005:1641).

Bibliography

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