[B-Greek] 1 TIm 3:11 gunaikas

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Mon May 2 10:19:19 EDT 2011


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl Conrad" <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
To: "ceejay haymen" <ceejayhaymen at gmail.com>
Cc: "B-Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: 2. maj 2011 16:08
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] 1 TIm 3:11 gunaikas


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On May 2, 2011, at 8:12 AM, ceejay haymen wrote:

> Many translations have something like this"Even so [must their] wives [be] 
> grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things"
>
> "gunaikas hOsautOs semnas mE diabolous nEphalious pistas en pasin"
>
> Please clarify -kas for me?
> I understand it to be  accusative plural ie as in “those” women as in ALL 
> women ? so not necessarly "wives" as in the previous verse?
>
> so it could read "women be same serious no adversaries sensible in the head 
> having belief"?
>
> ie I am trying to work out if this is for all women, it does not seem to refer 
> to women married to the deacons, there are so many opionions in transaltions 
> it seems.
> thank you so much
>

There are different opinions, since the Greek word can mean either women or 
wives. It is then an interpretation based on context, and people interpret 
contexts differently.

To understand the accusative and the context, we need to go way back to verse 2:
δεῖ οὖν τὸν ἐπίσκοπον ἀνεπίλημπτον εἶναι
DEI OUN TON EPISKOPON ANEPILHMPTON EINAI

DEI means that something ought to be or it is necessary. It is followed by an 
accusative with the infinitive for "to be" EINAI. So, an overseer needs to be 
without reproach.
This is a general characteristic which is exemplified in the rest of verse 2 up 
to verse 6. Verse 7 is an additional requirement about his standing in the 
community.

Verse 8 then has:
Διακόνους ὡσαύτως σεμνούς
DIAKONOUS hWSAUTWS SEMNOUS - Deacons likewise (ought to be) respectable
The two words DEI and EINAI are implicitly understood from the previous verses, 
and that is why we see an accusative. In this verse up to v. 10, characteristics 
of a respectable deacon are listed.

Verse 11 then has:
γυναῖκας ὡσαύτως σεμνάς
GUNAIKAS hWSAUTWS SEMNAS - Women likewise (ought to be) respectable.
Again the accusative is caused by an implicit "It is necessary that..." It does 
not imply "those" or "all".

Because of the parallel structure with v. 2 and 8 and because of the repetition 
of "likewise", it seems to me that it is most likely that this refers to 
deaconesses on a par with deacons. 3 specific characteristics of such women are 
listed, ending with "faithful in all things".

Then it appears that the author suddenly remembered that he forgot to say that 
deacons like overseers also need to be faithful to their wives, so he adds that 
in v. 12. He just said the women should be "faithful in all things", and that 
includes faithful to their husbands (if they are married, which does not seem to 
be a requirement.) Maybe that is what caused him to say explicitly that the men 
must be faithful to their wives. In the culture of the time (and today?), this 
seems to be more of a challenge for the men than the women.

The NET Bible gives various pros and cons. They prefer the "wives" 
interpretation, but I think that is mainly because of the KJV tradition. I think 
the "deaconesses" interpretation fits better. RSV, NRSV, NASB, REB, NCV, CEV, 
NIV2011 all go for "women", others that I have checked maintain the "wives" from 
KJV, although most have the alternative in a footnote.

Iver Larsen 




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