1 Timothy 2:12
Michael Haggett
michael at michaelhaggett.freeserve.co.uk
Mon Oct 18 18:23:47 EDT 1999
Picking up on what Carl said in his response to George Goolde, (5:13 PM -0700 10/17/99) and his post of
Monday, October 18, 1999 4:33 PM:
I don't much like what most people take this verse to say either. So I confess at the outset that my approach is to try and see if the text can legitimately be interpreted another way. I feel like Henry Fonda in "Twelve Angry Men" - over the years I have got to the stage where I think I can put a large enough question mark over the normal interpretation to find Paul not guilty, but I'm not sure that I can yet PROVE him innocent. I thought that Michael Abernathy (8:13 PM -0700 10/16/99) was moving in a similar direction,
I think that we have established that the text COULD possibly be translated,
"but as to teaching, I do not permit a wife to be independent from a husband either"
instead of
"but I do not permit a woman/wife to (a) teach nor (b) be autonomous of a man/husband"
But DOES it? The first thing is to re-construct some sort of plausible circumstances in which Paul could make such a statement. We have to do this with many of Paul's letters, a prime example being the nature of the Colossian "heresy" - if there actually was one! Please forgive me for moving off-base, but I can't think of another way to make the point.
I think that such a notion of independence might be derived from Paul himself. Romans 5:12-19 talks of sin entering the world through one person, with death being the result for all mankind. He refers only to Adam, not Eve. He says the same sort of thing in 1 Cor 15:21-22, death came through a human ... for as in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive. Now, would it not be at least possible for some to take this as meaning that sin was male-transmitted? Also, would that not be corroborated by Jesus being without sin because he did not have a human father? So is it impossible to imagine that some people could have thought that sin was a male problem rather than a human problem? Doesn't Paul also say that it is better to be single in 1 Cor 7, which could be taken to mean independence? And mightn't such ideas be all the more readily fostered in Ephesus, the centre of the cult of Artemis? Of course this is conjecture, but I think that it fits the thrust of Paul's argument very well. Certainly much, much better than the alternative - that women are gullible and must therefore be subservient.
Back on-base now! With this scenario, it doesn't much matter whether the prohibition is on women teaching it, or anybody teaching it (although of course it's hard to imagine any MEN doing so) that's why I said that there was a degree of ambiguity in the Greek, which I tried to reflect in the translation I offered.
I hope this answers Carl's second query. I wouldn't like to say that either of his options was the TRANSLATION of what the verse says. But, if I can draw a distinction between translation and interpretation, (i.e the difference between what the text says and what it means) I think it is most likely to mean, in Carl's words:
<<That is to say: you intend AUQENTEIN ANDROS/GUNAIKOS to be what the author forbids a woman (as well as a man) to teach--and you understand AUQENTEIN with the genitive as meaning "act independently of." >>
In his:
<<you understand the author to be saying: "I don't allow a woman to teach being independent of a husband, nor do I allow a man to teach being independent of a wife.">>
... the second sentence can probably be inferred as a corollary. But I don't think the Greek could actually be construed as saying that, even elliptically.
Now I need to put our "problem verse" into the context of what precedes it. First, I would imagine Paul putting a very positive emphasis on the imperative MANQANETW (v11) that women SHOULD learn, in exactly the same way as men. Perhaps it is in the nature of English that third person commands read more like grudging concessions. To me, the emphasis is on the MANQANETW (learning) rather than the EN PASH hUPOTAGH (in all submissiveness). But anyway, I do not interpret this as submissiveness to MEN, but instead as self-control, the same way as the hUPOTASSETAI of 1 Cor 14:32.
This in turn relates to v8, where MASCULINE MEN, not women, are to hold up holy hands without ORGHS KAI DIALOGISMOU (anger or being argumentative). I think that this is in every way a parallel to the hUPOTAGH and hHSUCIA (quietness of disposition, NOT silence) that he wants women to have. Paul is surely being completely even handed. In the first place, Paul is putting himself forward as DIDASKALOS EQNWN (v7) - which is what occasions the rest of the chapter - and therefore these Gentiles need to have what we might call a teachable spirit - reflected in men by the absence of anger and being argumentative, and in women by self-subjection and quietness of disposition.
As so often, Paul is treading a tightrope between the equality that both genders have (1 Cor 11:11 and Gal 3:28) but, at the same time, respecting the fact that the men and women of his churches did tend to behave in different ways.
Now, back to Carl's first question.
<<Are there any other instances of AUQENTEIN in the sense "act independently" with an ablatival genitive of the one of whom one acts independently in Christian or non-Christian Greek? There are sufficient examples, even if they be few, of AUQENTEIN with a genitive of the person over whom one exercises authority, and such genitives are common with verbs of exercising authority.>>
Here I have to confess that I haven't researched enough to be able to PROVE the point. I would love someone else who can help out here to do so. To me, the use of a word other than EXOUSIA seems to indicate that Paul intends something different. Most of Perseus' examples of AUQENTE-W are of murder or suicide - but I suppose that is the ultimate form acting independently or "taking things into your own hands". I don't read any of the examples there as meaning "having authority over". I would like to have Carl's few examples.
||||||| Michael Haggett
||||||| 164 Holland Road
||||||| London W14 8BE
michaelhaggett at altavista.net
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