Andrew Bartlett, author of Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts (IVP Books, 2019) writes:
New Testament scholar Preston Sprinkle has created quite a stir with his new book, From Genesis to Junia: An Honest Search for What the Bible Really Says About Women in Leadership. Formerly ‘complementarian’, Sprinkle has changed his mind. Though he did not initially know where his study would land, after three years of intensive study of Scripture, he concludes (page 288):
The Bible says that women can teach and exercise leadership at every level in the church.
The Gospel Coalition are committed to the view which Preston Sprinkle has decided is mistaken. The day before the book’s publication, they posted a review of it. The reviewer is Tom Schreiner, who declares he’s not persuaded by Sprinkle’s argument and has said why. Sprinkle has responded.
Sprinkle’s response praises Tom Schreiner as sincere, gracious, and a top-tier scholar. Having read Schreiner’s writings, and having done a joint three-hour session with him at the Evangelical Theological Society, I agree.
I’m not going to discuss the details of Sprinkle’s response. Here is what most interests me: Schreiner’s review exposes some of the gaping holes in complementarian exegesis of Scripture.
When we say that Schreiner is a top-tier scholar, that is not empty praise or polite flattery. He has impeccable scholarly credentials, and he has published extensive scholarly work in support of complementarianism. For the review, he has chosen his five best points for defending it against Sprinkle’s book. When one of the best scholars chooses his five best points and encapsulates them in a short review, that is a great opportunity to assess the biblical strength of complementarianism, which I will now do.
1. The sequence of creation in Genesis
Complementarians say that the sequence of creation—Adam first, then Eve—calls up the ancient Hebrew custom of primogeniture. In that custom, when the father of the family dies, his firstborn son inherits a double share of the family property. Socially, he may also be acknowledged as having greater authority than his younger siblings. Schreiner is convinced by this complementarian argument. He finds it “mystifying” that Sprinkle is unconvinced.
Schreiner says:
The narrator in Genesis, under God’s inspiration, crafted the story with great care, and the order of creation clearly has significance.
To which we say, yes indeed, the sequence has significance. The carefully crafted story shows that woman is man’s indispensable partner. But why does Schreiner think that it calls up the custom of primogeniture? He does not tell us.
Every choice of words made by the writer fails to call it up:
- There is no father who dies. Adam is created by God.
- He is ‘formed from the dust of the ground’.
- He is not described as the firstborn, or even as ‘born’.
- Eve is not a sibling born from the same womb but is fashioned from Adam’s side.
- There is no unequal inheritance of property.
In the way the story is told, there is not one element which calls up the idea of primogeniture. The carefully crafted words show no connection with that idea.
Did we miss it? If so, we are in good company. No Bible author speaks of Adam as the firstborn. From Genesis to Revelation, he is not described as the firstborn or as the eldest son. He is not connected with the idea of primogeniture anywhere in the Bible.
Someone may say: “But what about 1 Timothy 2:13?” Well, look at the words. Paul remains faithful to the text of Genesis. He does not say anything about a father dying, or about Adam being firstborn, or about Adam having the rights or authority of an eldest son, or about property being inherited in unequal shares. In short, Paul does not use any words which point the reader to the ancient Hebrew custom of primogeniture.
Schreiner is mystified by Sprinkle’s view. But I am mystified by Schreiner’s. I believe I’ve read everything which he has written on this subject. He has never identified for us the carefully chosen words in the Genesis story which supposedly call up the custom of primogeniture. This is an empty hole in his interpretation. It is a hole which cannot be filled, because words which could call up that custom are not in the text.
2. “Woman from man” in 1 Corinthians 11:8–9
Schreiner rightly accepts Sprinkle’s view of the Hebrew word for “helper” which is used of Eve in Genesis 2:18, in her relation to Adam. The Hebrew word does not imply any particular relation of authority between the one helping and the one helped. God is often Israel’s “helper”. When God helps Israel, that does not mean that Israel has authority over God. When this word is used, we have to look at the particular context to see the nature of the relationship between the helper and the helped.
Schreiner makes his contextual argument about the meaning of “helper” not directly from Genesis 2 but from 1 Corinthians 11:8–9. The underlying premise of his argument is unremarkable: we can take it that the apostle Paul, who describes himself as “a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil. 3:5), has a good understanding of the context in Genesis 2. Schreiner says that “Paul picks up on the idea of women being helpers in 1 Corinthians 11:9” and that verses 8–9 show “the unique authority of men”.
The problem is, in these verses Paul does not say anything to the effect that women being helpers shows the unique authority of men.
Schreiner provides links to the ESV. Here is what the verses say in that version:
8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
Verse 8 is about source: woman was made from man. Verse 9 is about purpose: woman was created for man. But neither of these verses says anything about authority.
Schreiner seems to regard “the unique authority of men” as being somehow apparent from the fact that woman was created for man. But that supposition confuses purpose and authority, which are two different things.
To see the difference, we can consider some illustrations:
- If humans have need of a Saviour, and so God provides for humans a helper—a Saviour—for the purpose of meeting that need, this does not imply that humans have authority over the Saviour.
- If my son has a need to learn French, and so I provide for him a helper—a tutor—for the purpose of meeting that need, this does not imply that my son has authority over the tutor.
In the same way, if the man has need of a helper because he is alone, and so God provides for the man a helper—a woman—for the purpose of meeting that need, this does not imply that the man has authority over the woman. It simply doesn’t follow. There is a hole in Schreiner’s interpretation.
3. Paul’s Greek verb authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12
For this rare verb, English versions offer more than twenty different translations. The ESV has it as “exercise authority”. In this verse, Paul is not permitting a woman to do it to a man.
Schreiner complains of Sprinkle’s view that this verb “doesn’t fit with Jesus’s understanding of authority, where we serve each other instead of dominating one another”. Schreiner finds Sprinkle’s argument “astonishing”. He says:
Sprinkle imposes on the text his conception of authority and then declares the authority described is bad because it doesn’t fit with Jesus’s understanding of authority.
In short, he takes issue with Sprinkle’s position that this word is unsuitable for the proper exercise of authority within the fellowship of the church.
But there is plenty of evidence to support Sprinkle’s understanding of authentein, and Schreiner doesn’t even seem to disagree with it. So, his complaint seems strange. After all, complementarians interpret 1 Timothy 2:12 as Paul’s prohibition of women carrying out functions which should be reserved for a male church elder. So, it is important to consider whether this word is suitable to describe the proper action of a male church elder.
Schreiner refers to a detailed word study by Al Wolters. One of the best examples of this word, close to Paul’s time, is in Ptolemy’s astrological anthology, Tetrabiblos. In Wolters’ translation, Saturn ‘has gained mastery [authentein] of Mercury and the moon’. Another translation says ‘dominates’. A similar meaning for authentein is given in some of the early versions which translated Paul’s letter into other languages. In the Vulgate, the Latin verb used for authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12 (dominor) is the same as in 1 Peter 5:3, where Peter forbids church elders to ‘lord it over’ the flock. It is not within the job description of a church elder to gain mastery over the flock, to dominate them, or to lord it over them. That is something that an elder definitely ought not to do!
The point is simple: if this word is unsuitable to describe the proper action of a church elder, it follows that in 1 Timothy 2:12 Paul is not talking about who may properly exercise authority within the church. Instead, he is prohibiting bad behaviour. The complementarian interpretation, that Paul is forbidding a woman to do what a male elder ought to do, does not fit Paul’s choice of words.
4. Teaching or false teaching in 1 Timothy 2:12
In 1 Timothy 2:12, Paul is not permitting a woman “to teach”. Sprinkle argues in his book that “to teach” in this verse has a negative meaning.
Again, Schreiner says he is “astonished”. He observes that this word “only has a negative meaning if indicated by further contextual information”. He says that Sprinkle’s claim of a negative meaning in 1 Timothy 2:12 “has no evidence to support it”.
But Schreiner’s astonishment is itself astonishing. There is plenty of information in the context which shows that the meaning is negative:
- Paul is forbidding the teaching, so evidently Paul disapproves of it.
- The parallel activity authentein is also forbidden by Paul, and is something that even a church elder ought not to do.
- In the last phrase of verse 12, Paul contrasts these two bad activities (the teaching and authentein), which he is not permitting, with the good behaviour which he does want a woman to do: “but she is to remain quiet”.
- In the next two verses (13-14) Paul refers to the woman being deceived in Genesis 3. How was she deceived? By the serpent’s false teaching. Paul certainly views such teaching negatively.
- Throughout 1 Timothy, Paul’s number one concern, repeatedly expressed, is about false teachings and false teachers.
The context provides ample information to support Sprinkle’s position. In light of all of these negative indications, how can it seriously be claimed that Paul is viewing the teaching in verse 12 positively? This is a gaping hole in Schreiner’s interpretation.
5. Does Paul rely on the Genesis story for a general creation principle or as an illustration of the local situation?
In 1 Timothy 2:13-14, Paul provides support from the Genesis story for what he has said in verse 12. Sprinkle explains in his book (page 267):
He doesn’t bring up Eve to make a universal or general point about women. Rather, he mentions Eve’s deception to illustrate something about the local situation in Ephesus (as he did with the situation in Corinth in 2 Cor. 11:3). We know that women in Ephesus were being deceived by false teachers, so it makes sense for Paul to appeal to Eve as an illustration of a woman being deceived like the Ephesian women were.
Schreiner is unpersuaded. He holds to a role-reversal theory. He reads verses 13-14 as grounded in the idea that the sequence of creation establishes Adam’s “role of authority”. He says:
Satan subverts the created order by tempting Eve instead of Adam. The Serpent doesn’t approach Adam first but Eve, even though Adam had primary responsibility as the spiritual leader in the first family. On this understanding, verses 13 and 14 are both grounded in the created order. The point of verse 14 isn’t that women are more apt to be deceived but that the order of creation was subverted when the Serpent approached Eve instead of Adam. It seems to me, then, that the prohibition of women teaching or exercising authority (v. 12) is followed with the same reason (the order of creation in both verses 13 and 14).
But how is the Genesis story actually written? God’s command was not to eat fruit from the forbidden tree (Gen 2:17; 3:3). There was no command about Adam’s authority over Eve or about Adam having primary responsibility as spiritual leader. After the disobedience, what sin is apparent from God’s pronouncements? It is the eating of the fruit, in disobedience to God’s command: see Genesis 3:11, 12, 13, 17. God says nothing about the order of creation being subverted, whether by the Serpent, the woman or the man.
Some have tried to justify the role-reversal idea from the opening words of Gen 3:17:
Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it’.
But listening to his wife and eating the fruit are not two separate sins. There is only one sin. There is disobedience only because the fruit was from the tree which was the subject of God’s prohibition. If Eve had given Adam fruit from any other tree in the Garden, that would not have involved a sin by either of them.
So, Schreiner’s role-reversal theory does not arise out the text; it is inappropriately fastened onto it. This leaves another gaping hole in complementarian interpretation of Paul’s words.
If verses 13–14 are not about a general creation principle of male-over-female authority, is Sprinkle right to see them as an illustration of the local situation? Broadly, without endorsing every detail of his analysis, I believe he is. Paul’s prohibition in verse 12 is targeted at some particular women who were deceived. To paint a full picture, we must attend to what we can learn from both 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, from Acts 19–20, and from historical and cultural information. There is not room for that here. I intend to publish a full account in my forthcoming book True Complementarity: Men and Women in Christ (IVP Books, due out in October 2026).
Part of Sprinkle’s explanation of Paul’s illustration involves the cult of Artemis of the Ephesians. Schreiner believes there are no clear pointers to Artemis having any relevance. I consider there are many such pointers in the letter. However, for present purposes, this is a side issue. Sprinkle makes clear in his book that his exegesis of 1 Timothy 2 rests primarily on the text itself, not on the cultural context (page 278).
Holey Exegesis
Preston Sprinkle is not the first person to take a deep dive into the complementarian-egalitarian debate and to firmly change his mind as a result. Terran Williams did the same, as his How God Sees Women shows. This keeps happening, because the complementarian position depends on holey exegesis.
I commend From Genesis to Junia as a thoughtful exploration of the debate. It is written in a lively style and is easily accessible.
(This article was first published on Terran Williams’ website here.)
Buy me a Coffee
Thank you Ian for pointing out that the review hones in on what Schreiner considers to be key points.
I need to read your article more carefully at home, but I’d suspect that in the review Schreiner hasn’t set out all that could be said on each point and could respond to your review of his review.
I’ m not persuaded by your argument against primageniture, and find his point about Satan’s attack on God’s created order persuasive.
Again, I’d need to read this more slowly at home.
If recalled correctly Andrew Wilson described Schreiner in terms something like, a sharp cookie, though I’m certainly unsure about the use of the word, cookie.
Thanks again.
Note that is it not *my* argument.
Andrew Bartlett points out that there is simply no textual evidence for primogeniture in Gen 2. I think he is right. There is none.
But why does Paul though make the distinction between man and woman by saying the man was created first, then woman? That seems to be a general point, not specific to Ephesus.
He makes that point in 1 Corinthians 11—and immediately makes the converse point, that every man comes from a woman.
Peter, in Genesis 2, Eve had not been created when God told Adam not to eat the fruit. And in the temptation, Eve said they are not to eat OR TOUCH the fruit. But God never told Adam not to touch the fruit. This suggests Adam failed to teach God’s rules correctly to Eve. Reading 1 Tim 2 with this in mind makes a lot of sense. Paul singles out the woman and commands her to learn (v.11) – this indicates she was not correctly educated in the faith. He prohibits her from teaching and domineering (v.12) – suggesting she was imposing her teaching on others. Paul then relates this back to Genesis in v13-14. He notes that Adam was created first (ie he didn’t correctly teach Eve), and sin resulted, with the implication that, if the same thing happens in Ephesus – an incorrectly educated person teaches – sin will also result. This view is consistent with the Paul’s introduction – in v.7 he says of the false teachers “They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm” – in other words they are not correctly educated in the faith.
The alternative view, that male headship comes from the order of creation, doesn’t fit the clear Old Testament examples of women in authority (eg Miriam, Deborah, Huldah).
Note that we must also be very careful about claiming to understand v.12-14 when v.15 is such a challenging verse.
thanks that makes sense. And I had forgotten God hadnt told Eve directly about the prohibition, but relied on Adam to relay it correctly. Though it should be noted Adam must have told her about the not eating part but she still chose to believe the serpent. So both possible bad teaching and disobedience.
Surely not a ‘general point’. Why does Paul use only one of the versions of Adam and Eve’s origins, the other one not covering sequence at all?
When your opponent adduces multiple arguments from a single viewpoint, and you have to use different special pleading against each one of those arguments, you have a problem.
God’s curse on Eve and womanhood, following the Fall, includes this (Genesis 3:16): “You will desire-your-way [TSHUQAH] with your husband, but he will master [MASHAL] you.” This much mistranslated phrase means that the woman will desire to dominate the man, but will fail. In the Hebrew original, the same construction appears soon after in Genesis 4:7 when God says to Cain, “Sin desires-its-way [TSHUQAH] with you, but you must master [MASHAL] it.” The two words appear together nowhere else. So the Fall is the start of the ‘battle of the sexes’.
What did God intend, before the Fall took place?
Eve was made for Adam (as a helper: Gen 2:18), from Adam (2:21-2). Paul says that this implies male authority: “The head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man… for man did not come from woman, but woman from man” (1 Corinthians 11:3&8).
So God intends authority to be male. That is why he reveals himself to us as Father.
In 1999 a secular woman called Laura Doyle wrote a book called The Surrendered Wife. The gist is: obey your husband and don’t argue or nag, even if you want to, and see what happens. At her wits’ end, she tried this when all else had failed to restore her failing marriage and she had nothing to lose. To her surprise she found that the man she had fallen in love with deeply enough to marry reappeared. He again lavished love upon her. Her book advocates this way to desperate women. She does not recommend it with alcoholic or some other men; nor does she believe the man should do nothing to improve the relationship – but she is writing for women about what they can do. Reviews are polarised: feminists deplore the book, but desperate wives who have tried it express astonishment at the result and recommend it.
In the Mind of Anglicans 2002 survey, 2/3 of female Church of England ordained priests who replied to a questionnaire did not believe without question in Christ’s virgin birth, 25% more than for men.
Also, a survey by (Rev Prof) Leslie Francis found that female Anglican ordinands typically have masculine personality traits, and male ones have female traits (in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 12, pp. 1133-40; 1991).
In the light of all that, are we really to believe that Paul doesn’t mean what the man in the street in Asia Minor 2000 years ago would have taken him to mean, and that this football needs kicking into the Academy?
Laura Doyle story sounds like a real and damaging waste of time at first – thank goodness it was curtailed. It is obvious that if when courting you have a beautiful mutual ambience of the man delighting in the woman and the woman therefore responding to that (lover and beloved), then you already know the way to go: continue the same way. So why do people pretend they do not know this?
Anthony, there is no ‘special pleading’ anywhere in this article. I am unclear why you think there is.
There is no implied authority in someone being the helper of another. God is the ‘helper’ of Israel. So does that mean Israel has authority over God?
You need to know that, in NT Greek, ‘head’ is not a metaphor for ‘authority over’. You are imposing your own cultural assumption on the text. The man in the Asian street 2000 years ago knew that.
Paul never ever says ‘Wives obey your husbands.’
God’s primary use of Father is that he is provider.
Paul never ever says ‘Wives obey your husbands.’
Indeed he doesn’t. How about Peter?
Peter doesn’t say that either.
Ian, what does 1 Peter 3.1 say? And 1 Peter 3.5-6?
James, those verses note the example of Sarah obeying Abraham—and then fail to use the same words.
Hupotasso does not mean the same as hupakouo.
But I am also fascinated that, of all the discussion that there is in the NT, folk need to reach for a single quotation from the OT to prove a point. The lauguage of mutual submission in relationships completely undermines Aristotelian ideas of husbands ruling wives.
Ian,
You are commendably clear on what you don’t believe, but I have difficulty working out what you do believe about these relations. Please specify a translation of the New Testament in modern English that you believe conveys the meaning of 1 Peter 3:1-7 accurately. If none does, please write out your own translation.
Anthony, I don’t really understand why you don’t know what I believe. I have repeated it a lot, on the blog and in my Grove booklet!
Even though there are clear differences between men and women—they are complementary to one another—there is no hierarchy of authority between them.
As Andrew Bartlett points out here, all the best arguments that there is a hierarchy of authority in the biblical texts are full of holes, and involve imposing an assumption on the text which is not there.
A good example is your claim that ‘head’ means ‘authority over.’ It does not.
Ian,
Wouldn’t it have been quicker and easier to fulfil my request than write that? Please specify a translation of the New Testament in modern English that you believe conveys the meaning of 1 Peter 3:1-7 accurately. If none does, please write out your own translation.
Ian,
I think hupotasso ‘be subordinate to’ and hupakouo ‘hear and obey’ are pretty synonymous. What does actual Greek usage show? What exactly do you think Peter is saying? How do you distinguish these words?
As for kephale meaning (as least sometimes) ‘authority over’, you have to bend over backwards to deny this. How is a husband ‘the source of his wife’? I don’t think that works at all in 1 Corinthians 11.3. Christ’s submission to his Father is pretty obvious in the NT.
The evidence in Paul is that they are not synonymous. He tells children to ‘obey’ their parents; neither he nor anyone else in the NT tell women to ‘obey’ their husbands.
And Paul tells us to hupotasso to one another. So this cannot be hierarchical in the way that hupakouo is, else Paul is telling us nonsense.
James, I am surprised given your reading that you think kephale has any sense of ‘authority over’. It is not a question of ‘bending over backwards’; it is a question of knowing the literature and context. https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/head-does-not-mean-leader-in-1-cor-11-3/
The first man was the source of the first woman. That is exactly what Paul refers to in 1 Cor 11.8 which he then counters in v 12, since every man has come from a woman. Rather symmetrical!
What is really fascinating here is that no-one is actually responding to the holes that Bartlett has highlighted in Schreiner’s critique.
Ian writes: “The lauguage (sic) of mutual submission in relationships completely undermines Aristotelian ideas of husbands ruling wives.”
I agree. But St Paul wasn’t having a pop at Aristotle – a man who believed that women were naturally inferior to men and slaves were naturally inferior to the free. St Paul evidently didn’t believe that, as Galatians 3.28 indicates.
What does Ephesians 5.24 mean, for example? Just how does the church submit (upotassetai, ‘is subject to’) Christ? Why are husbands given a different command in Ephesians 5.25, one that models Christ’s self-sacrificing relationship to the Church?
Is a woman bishop the spiritual superior of her husband and one who is over him in the Lord? Is a woman presbyter/priest the spiritual elder of her Christian husband? That seems to be the implication of Anglican polity now. What do you think?
In saying this, I know that liberals like Penny don’t accept that Ephesians is by Paul and that like the Pastoral Epistles, they reject this letter from their canon-within-the-canon.
Of course Paul is ‘having a pop’ at Aristotle; his ethics still dominated that culture.
Ian,
I do know about the debates about the meaning of ‘kephale’ in the NT, and trying to reduce it to simply ‘source’ doesn’t really work. It cannot have that meaning in Ephesians 1.22, where Christ is ‘kephale huper’, ‘the head over the church’. At the very least, here it means some preeminence and authority.
1. In Ephesians 4.15-16, Christ the kephale is the directing and continuing organic source of the Church’s life – so clearly preeminent in the life of the church.
2. In Ephesians 5.21-24, ‘the husband is kephale of his wife as Christ is kephale of the Church’. It is hard to see how ‘source’ fits the meaning here, not least because we are told ‘the church is subject (hupotassetai) to Christ, so also wives to their husbands’.
I ask again, what do you think ‘hupotassomai’ means? You are keen to assert it does not mean ‘hupakouo’ (although I think they are not so distant in meaning), but what do you think it POSITIVELY means? Why is the command given to wives but not to husbands? I have read you to say Ephesians 5.24b should be subsumed under 5.21, ‘Be subject (hupotassomenoi) one another in the fear of Christ’, and is simply an instance of mutual submission of husbands and wives to each other; but if that were correct, it would mean that Ephesians 5.24a, ‘as the church is subject (hupotassetai) to Christ’ also implies that Christ is subject (hupotassetai) to the church – which is absurd.
3. Do you think 1 Corinthians 11.3 is teaching that Christ is the ‘source’ (kephale) of every male, and the male is the ‘source’ (kephale) of the woman and God is the ‘source’ (kephale) of Christ? How is Christ the ‘source’ of every male but not of every female? Is Paul talking about the divine origin of Christ or his submission to the Father’s will? Is there not some sense of ordering going on here?
4. The other metaphorical uses of kephale in Paul referring to Christ as the kephale of the soma (Colossians 1.18; 2.19) mean the organ of life, direction and sustenance, and these usages cannot be separated from having a ruling power over the body.
Anyway, it would be good to know what you think Ephesians 5.24 and huptoassetai mean, and whether you think it means Christ and the church should mutually submit to each other in the light of Ephesians 5.21.
James, ‘trying to reduce it to simply ‘source’ doesn’t really work.’ Well, it is good job I am not doing that then. If you think I (or anyone else) is then you are arguing against your own straw man. ‘Head’ has connotations of prominence, and being representative, not least because men are taller than women, so literally stand head and shoulders above them. The question is whether, as claimed by hierarchalists, ‘head’ is a metaphor for ‘have authority over’ or ‘be in charge’ in Greek, as it is in both Hebrew and English.
1. ‘In Ephesians 4.15-16, Christ the kephale is the directing and continuing organic source of the Church’s life.’ Exactly so. And this is where first century physiology differs from ours. The head was believed to be the animating source of life. Thus is Jesus to the people of God. There is no connotation of ‘authority over’ in this passage at all.
2. In Eph 5.21f, note that the parallel ‘is…as…’ is limited. Men are not women’s saviours. So we need to ask ‘In what sense is there are parallel?’ as we always do. Men are prominent, representative in society, and potentially life-giving in some sense.
What does hupotassomai mean? It means we all give ourselves up, lay down our own priorities and preferences, and give our lives in loving service to the other. Did Jesus do this for the people of God? Of course he did! That is what he says in Mark 10.45, ‘not to be served, but to serve, and give his life…’. That is what Paul says in Phil 2: in emptying himself for us, Jesus models for us what it means to submit, to give himself up for us. That is what Paul spends on 21 words correcting the women (‘Don’t think that freedom in Christ means you no longer are committed to your husband; alongside the general command to ‘submit’ to others, you still have *your own* [emphatic] husbands.’) Then he has to spend 115 words instructing the husbands to explain to them what it means to give themselves up for their wives as Christ gave himself up for his people.
How could it mean otherwise?
3. No man has any origin outside of Christ. ‘Through him all things were made’. So yes, the ‘head’ of every man is Christ. But Paul does not go on to say ‘the head of every woman is man’ and certainly not, pace ESV ‘the head of every wife is her husband’ . He says that the head of woman is man. Indeed; in Gen 2, woman comes from man. This is made explicit in verse 8, then Paul offers the converse in v 12: every man actually comes from a woman. That is why I think Lucy Peppiatts analysis is convincing: as he does elsewhere (eg in 7.1) Paul is quoting the claims of the Corinthians to them and then gently refuting them, drawing out the real consequences.
If you think that ‘head’ means ‘authority over’, then you walk straight into the heresy of the Eternal Subordination of the Son.
4. ‘The other metaphorical uses of kephale in Paul referring to Christ as the kephale of the soma (Colossians 1.18; 2.19) mean the organ of life, direction and sustenance…’ Of course they do. Thank you again for proving my point.
‘…and these usages cannot be separated from having a ruling power over the body.’ Of course they can. Paul does not say this.
OK?
James
You have made some unwarranted assumptions:
1) that I don’t believe Ephesians was written by Paul. On balance I do.
2) that I deny the canonicity of the disputed Letters and the Pastorals. I do not. They might not have been written by Paul, but they are in the canon and we have to engage with them in good faith.
James
You, at least, are ‘commendably clear’. Thank you for examining the ‘head-does-not-mean-leader’ argument in some detail – something of a straw man anyway the way it is advanced, for the ESV gives kephale as ‘head’, the literal translation, not ‘leader’, and thereby allows, as Paul does, the reader to get the intended non-metaphorical meaning from the context.
I don’t suppose you will get the point-by-point response your little study deserves. In my opinion, it puts to bed the tendentious kephale argument once and for all. Don’t be hesitant to reproduce it the next occasion the straw man gets deployed!
As a classicist, you will also be aware that your average man on the street was not a philosopher and, even among those who had read Aristotle, few based their relationships with the other sex on what Aristotle had said on the subject. Or the Epicureans, the Stoics et al. Or Homer, whose Odyssey, while it presents us with a very patriarchal society, nonetheless honours women like Penelope and Eurykleia quite beautifully. His work influenced Greek/Hellenistic culture more than the Ethics did, I suspect.
And Paul’s world was Roman as much as it was Hellenistic. In the political world of his day there were not a few examples of wives dominating husbands, and mothers dominating sons. It was ever thus. And early in the 2nd century Juvenal’s 6th satire tells us a lot too.
It is sad when ancient history gets mythicised in order to buttress preconceived notions that are as unshakeable as they are unsupportable.
Well Steven, you will be disappointed to see I have replied. And if you think that philosophy only influences culture when people on the street read philosophical texts, I have news for you.
‘ In the political world of his day there were not a few examples of wives dominating husbands, and mothers dominating sons.’
Indeed. Which means it makes perfect sense when in 1 Tim 2, Paul is not prohibiting women from teaching, but is challenging their domination of men in a city where the cult of Artemis encouraged it.
Ian,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I will try to respond in detail later, but for the moment, some quick observations.
1. You have not responded to my question on the meaning of Ephesians 1.22, ‘kephale huper’, Christ ‘the head OVER the church’. That is pretty obviously a statement of authority.
2. You have not stated why men are not instructed in Ephesians 5.24 are not instructed to be subject to their wives, only women are so specified.
3. The context of Ephesians 5.22-24 is clearly marriage; and the husband (aner) is called the kephale of the wife (gunaikos), AS Christ is the kephale of the Church. Note the comparison ‘as’: what does that mean?
4. My biggest problem with your reply is that you haven’t carefully exegeted what hupotassomai actually means in the NT, both in the Pauline writings and everywhere else. Despite what you say, it does NOT mean ‘giving up our lives in loving service to the other.’ Of course Jesus did this – but notice that Christ is NEVER the subject of this verb. The etymology of the word is obvious: it means ‘to be placed under’ (from hupo and tasso) and before I am accused of the etymological fallacy, consider how the verb is actually used in the NT:
Col 3.18 (wives to husbands)
Titus 2.5 (wives to husbands)
1 Peter 3.1, 5 (wives to husbands)
Luke 2.51 (Jesus to his parents)
1 Cor 14.34 (women in the church)
1 Cor 16.16 (church members to their leaders)
Titus 2.9 (slaves to masters)
1 Peter 2.18 (slaves to masters)
Romans 13.1 (everyone to political authorities)
Luke 10.17, 20 (demons to disciples)
1 Peter 3.22 (all creation to God)
Heb 10.9 (men to God)
In all the middle and passive uses of hupotassomai in the NT, the root idea of being ‘placed under’ is visible, i.e. being in a subordinate relationship. Loving voluntary self-submission is certainly *how Paul thinks this should happen in marriage and church relations (and to political rulers); but this is not the primary meaning of the word. Husbands are repeatedly told to love their wives ‘as Christ loved the church’; but they are never the subjects of this verb vis-a-vis their wives, who are frequently the subject vis-a-vis their husbands. Why this very notable, repeated distinction in the NT? The demons in Luke 10.17, 20 don’t lovingly submit to the disciples, and the disciples don’t submit mutually to them!
Most importantly, Christ is NEVER the subject of this verb. His loving, saving self-sacrifice is never so characterised. Why is this? Because Christ serves us by ruling us.
If I have more time today, I will return to the meaning of kephale.
“a survey by (Rev Prof) Leslie Francis found that female Anglican ordinands typically have masculine personality traits, and male ones have female traits”
What on earth are masculine or feminine personality traits?
Masculine and feminine personality traits are very well established within psychology, based on the ‘Big Five’ or OCEAN characteristics.
Men are typically risk takers, who are less conformist, and less anxious about others’ opinion of them. Women are typically more risk averse, concerned about impressions, and wanting to build consensus relationships.
This has been widely confirmed across time and across cultures. And it is hardly surprising!
It would be incredible if men and women scored the same on all of the thousand possible character traits. if you are asking us to buy that, there will be few takers. Even fewer if you are not expert and quote no analysis, leading to the suspicion of ideology.
Quite the contrary. Men and women do not score identically on most trait surveys. It would be a flimsy basis to think that somehow in the face of such large biological differences they would somehow do so. It is not one claim you are making, it is 1000 – identical on everything but everything.
Never was there a falser dichotomy, which is compounded by the idea that there is somehow a maximum of two alternatives.
Everyone agrees on equality of the sexes in worth, and on complementarity of the sexes in biology and romance – as being both very good things and fundamental things.
These two things, obviously far from mutually exclusive, are then presented as mutually exclusive.
Now, of course, they are not really, because in these discussions ‘complementarian’ is instead given a confusing specific technical sense which is not the first that would occur to one when seeing the word (cf. ‘creationist’, ‘Islamist’). Which bids fair to turn people against all the positives of complementarity, which are in fact the greatest thing in the world.
But, as so often, the false framing of options from the start becomes an insurmountable problem unless one goes back and starts again.
I will say, though, that the benefits of strong complementarity in marriage and in personal development are not just going to cease being benefits when we come to nonmarital settings. And that the era of their blurring has been nothing but disaster. And that the positive use of psychobiology studies (e.g., Armin Baum, Tyndale 2017) is obviously going to tighten any argument just as the ignoring of it will immediately weaken any.
You don’t clarify what you mean by ‘complementarity’ here Chris.
Do you mean it in the usual sense, or in the sense of ‘hierarchy of authority’?
Like you, I mean it in the usual sense, which is its proper sense. When it is used otherwise, this should be highlighted by the speaker, and it seems suspicious to me that it is often not.
I’d like add a note to the issue of ‘help’ in Genesis 2 (and not ‘helpmeet’). The Hebrew word ezer appears in fifteen contexts, in some of these more than once. In eleven of the contexts God is either the help or the provider of help. These contexts are about deliverance or protection. Isa 30:5 has Pharaoh not being a source of protection. Dan 11:34 has ‘help’ being received by those who have fallen. Ezek 12:14 uses the word to describe soldiers with a king. Given the other uses, I read this as being the king’s bodyguard.
Given all of this, it seems to me impossible to read ezer in Genesis 2 as implying subordination. If anything, it is the other way round!
When a man with a weapon bursts in the front door, whose job is it to get the children out of the back door – husband or wife – and whose job is it to delay the attacker? Does this scenario have anything to do with the relationship between husband and wife described by Paul as being like that of Christ and his church?
It must have some.
That is why I said on another thread that the model of marriage as described in Ephesians should condition the way we think of the Church and its ministry; indeed, St Paul says that marriage is ‘a profound mystery that refers to Christ and the church’ (Ephesians 5.32).
In short, pastors are meant to be fighters and fathers, laying down their lives if need be.
This sacramental understanding of marriage and of the Church has been largely lacking in Protestant reflection on the nature of the ministry, and I think Andrew Bartlett’s discussion would benefit from fitting this fact into his thinking. (Maybe he does this elsewhere in his book, but I don’t see it here.)
Treatments are generally better to the extent that they factor in male and female respective distinctives.
Anthony, it just might be the wife’s ‘job’ if she is the jiu jitsu trained one who works with the police.
I give you the same reply that the Spartans offered to Philip II of Macedon.
How very Laconic of you…!
One can always suggest that whoever is best equipped/trained to deal with the attacker, then that person should delay the attacker.
But what if that is not so clear as to who is best equipped/trained to do that? In the egalitarian logic, you must conduct a meeting to arrive as some type of consensus, which like in a soft complementarian marriage, is certainly a commendable suggestion. But what if you are limited on time, and the attacker is beating at the door, and no consensus between husband and wife has been found, as the door begins fall off its hinges?
According to the egalitarian model, if a consensus can not be reached in a timely manner, you must try to figure out who should make the final decision on what to do: perhaps have a rule established ahead of time whereby on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the wife should fend off the attacker, but if the intruder comes by on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, then it is the husband’s responsibility to find the baseball bat and secure the door. …. Oh, but yeah, what if it happens on Sunday? …. Perhaps if it is the 1st or 3rd Sunday of the month, then the wife should grab the kitchen knife and brace for the attacker, and if it is the 2nd or 4th Sunday of the month, it is the husband’s turn to throw objects at the intruder as the intruder breaks down the door….. Oh, but what if it happens to be in a month with 5 Sundays? Well, then you…….
The egalitarian proposal can get rather complicated.
But if you take the complementarian solution, the husband stands with shovel in hand to whack the intruder, once the home is breached, while the wife leads the kids out the back to safety.
Situation resolved.
…. And now you do not have to try to remember which cultural context best fits the supposed heresy Paul is potentially trying to address in 1 Timothy, whether it be a form of Gnosticism which makes Adam the deceived and Eve the enlightened one, a form of Jewish hyper-asceticism which denigrates marriage (as Lyn Kidson suggests), or the influence of the Artemis cult in Ephesus.
If you think that is how normal people, who don’t believe in the need for a fixed hierarchy of authority, behave, then I gently suggest you get out more?
(On the basis of what you say here, I guess every time you socialise, you have to have a discussion about who is the person ‘in authority’ in the event of an emergency, so that they can be the one who issues instructions that all the others will follow without question…?!)
The reason why these debates don’t make any progress is that many on either side appear to live in their own bubbles and cannot imagine life for the other—as I think you are demonstrating here.
Actually I don’t St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians is making a point about what to do when a couple are confronted by a murderous criminal. Don’t stop reading at verse 25. Carry on. The actual instruction to husbands, in being like Christ, is to cleanse and wash their wives (spiritually – i.e. “through the word”) and importantly to love their wives as they love themselves (feeding and caring etc.). People seem to be hung up on the idea that the husband is the head. But St Paul’s real point is that the couple are the same body.
That’s far too artificial to make sense in that way.
Who’s job? Suppose the man is in the garden with the children and the woman in a position to delay or stop him? Should they swap over?
David, can’t you see it’s not a matterof interpreting by linguistic equations, of the Hebrew word having a special sense which does not transfer into English?
If God says “I will be your help”, this is from a position of power, because he is God. A man is in no position to say to God, “I can be your helper,” because he is the one in need. If one person says to another who needs help, “I will provide someone to be your helper,” the implication is that the provider of the helper is the strongest party, the beneficiary is in need of help, and the help-person is subordinate to the beneficiary.
It is also clear from the text that Adam welcomes the woman not simply as helper but as a companion. He is incomplete with her, and she is the perfect match.
Paul is authoritative in interpreting Genesis. He sees Adam as a figure of Christ, and Eve as his bride, the Church. Does Christ have no authority over the Church?
In 1 Timothy he says, “For Adam was formed first.” What point was Paul making by drawing attention to Adam being formed first, do you think?
Peter says, “Wives, be subject to your husbands.” He too backs this up from Genesis. Sarah modelled godliness by calling her husband ‘lord’. Men are to honour their wives because they are the ‘weaker vessel’ – a fact of biology. Facts of biology come from God the Creator.
The parallel that Paul actually uses in Eph 5 between Jesus and the church is that Jesus gave himself up as a sacrifice for them, so the man should give himself up as a sacrifice for his wife.
Nowhere does Paul ever say that men have authority over their wives. In the *only* verse where he talks about ‘authority’ in marriage, he says that each exercise authority over the other. I hope you know where that is!
You seem not to see that the passage to which you refer is talking about sexual intercourse within marriage. In this context the wife does not [even] have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And vice versa. Total mutuality. It should be obvious that Paul is not talking about authority as to decisions and leadership in the wider sense. That would be meaningless – do you see? – because if one person has the authority, that excludes the other person having authority.
You’re playing with words – what matters is what the words mean, not whether Paul or Peter actually use the word ‘authority’. Paul says, ‘Wives should submit in everything to their husbands.’ What is that if not saying that wives should accept their husbands’ authority? Peter just the same. Why do you ignore Peter’s teaching? Abraham was Sarah’s lord, kurios. How can you be blind to what that implies?
The churches should be speaking in praise of motherhood and prophesying against the death cult that has taken over society. Instead they have absorbed it down into their very marrow.
Steven, I am not ‘playing with words’. I am noting what Paul actually says about authority in marriage.
Paul says clearly that wives and husbands are in mutual submission to one another. From Abraham’s example, Peter does *not* say that husbands are the lord of their wives, nor that wives should obey their husbands. If he thought as you do, he would have said it. He doesn’t.
Steven, but you are right: it is not a question of ‘linguistic equations’. So anyone who says ‘the woman is the man’s helper, therefore the man has authority over her’ is completely mistaken.
Thanks for highlighting that!
Eh?
We are God’s co-workers. He is not ours. Priority.
He truly is our Ebenezer. It is He who fought, who brought in the human victory.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Ebenezer.html
As does Jesus.
Jesus who is the Groom.
Yes, God is our ‘helper’. Just as the woman was ‘helper’ to the man. So what does that tell us about patterns of authority?
I remember David Wilson speaking excellently about the dangers of a particular theological position monopolising the word “complementarian”. I think it was at the Festival of Theology in 2019.
It is quite possible to believe that men and women are equal in value and authority while recognising nevertheless they have important differences too. You do not need to reject the latter when recognising the former, despite a great many strawmen.
The ‘telos’ of a biblical Egalitarianism is never “we are the same”.
Indeed. Which is why I call myself a ‘complementarian’. Men and women complement each other.
I think the proper term for the alternative view is ‘hierarchalist’ since it believes that there is a hierarchy of authority.
In the post and comments the complementarian view appeals only to Gen 1-2, 1 Timothy, Ephesians, and 1 Peter. The creation story cannot be taken literally, for well known reasons, and most specialists consider these epistles to be fake. Surely the debate should focus on the texts that are agreed to be genuine.
The creation story is theological, so I don’t see any reason to dismiss it in developing our theology of sex relationships.
‘Most specialists’ are in hoc to a tradition which I don’t find persuasive. Besides, the question here is ‘What does Scripture say?’ Again, there is no need to take any particular view of the authorship of any part of Scripture in order to address this question.
In any case, Andrew Bartlett is simply responding to what Tom Schreiner says is his strongest case.
Still, it is no coincidence that the patriarchal parts of the epistles are all in disputed letters (1 Peter, Eph., Col., the PE), and in 1 Corinthians, which was tampered with.
Convenient.
Not exactly. It is more that these later letters start having household codes in the first place, and since the earlier ones do not, the comparison is not valid. If the earlier ones would not have been ‘patriarchal’, what would their attitude have been?
Dispute cuts both ways, and consequently your point holds only in the scenario where said letters were actually inauthentic, i.e. all you are stating is a 50-50 or similar (though I agree that the PEs were penned after Paul’s life) – I would state the odds very differently.
The undisputed letters mention women church leaders and are thus irreconcilable with the disputed letters that I listed. And, of course, they are disputed for other (good) reasons.
There are also many places where textual variants were introduced to reduce the authority of women. In some cases we can tell that these variants were very early indeed and perhaps contemporary with the writing of the disputed letters.
What are the ‘many’ places?
To classify as disputed is to beg the question, and to force others to accept that classification. Once such a classification gets in the bloodstream it is impossible to remove, whatever the best (esp. intertextual and chronological) analysis is saying.
On these sexist textual variants, see my 2022 article in CBQ, my 2023 article in TC, and my 2024 article in JSNT. They are all open access and you can get to them via my blog, which is called Paul and co-workers.
Thanks, Richard. Are they all on one page, and do you have a link?
so you agree with R Fellows that some of the ‘Pauline’ letters in the NT were not in fact written by Paul or authorised by him, but composed after he died? If I thought that I wouldnt bother reading them as I would view that as deception. Someone else or a group of people pretending to be Paul.
Egalitarianis engages the fallacy of denial of antecedent, from the outset.
Neither does it mean that roles are interchangeable, but are of one in likeness to God. Neither does it mean that there is not a created order, (which is a fallacy of denial of antecedent).
Whether the term primagenitur is attached to it or not, primagenitur is found in scripture, nowhere more so than adopted by Jesus in the parable, the prodigal son and it is well attested throughout scripture.
Geoff, is this before or after your careful reading of Andrew Bartlett’s article ‘at home’? If ‘after’, I think you need to read it again.
Can you please explain how ‘primoagenitur’ is *relevant in what Jesus was saying in his parable?
Thank you Ian and Andrew for republishing this article.
As our host has stated that in hindsight it was a political error to ordain women.
It is not stand alone politics of governance, but is a theopolitical error, of theological primacy, antecedence, in application. It can not be only political in the context of Christianity, and church governance.
To admit to one is to admit both, indivisible.
In Genesis, it is the thing created last which is the climax and the capstone. If you want to take order as important, then you need to reverse your logic.
Ian, that is an interesting point. I thought that Schreiner’s statement: ‘The Serpent doesn’t approach Adam first but Eve, even though Adam had primary responsibility as the spiritual leader in the first family.’ as classic begging the question. It occurred to me when I read that one could just as much say that the Serpent approached Eve first because he knew where the real authority lay. Neither is supported by the text.
No indeed. There is much imposing of a pre-formed view on the text going on here.
Primogeniture of the Elder Son; parable.
Jesus is the true Elder Son, (see Keller- The Prodigal God).
He is true Adam, first born: Adam a type of Christ, Eve type of Bride of Christ.
Primogeniture.
Jesus is firstborn from the dead.
Adam is *nowhere* anywhere in scripture described as firstborn.
He is first God breathed, born son. It is following the sweep of longitudinal canonical biblical theology.
Geoff, can you point me to any verse in scripture which describes Adam as God’s ‘firstborn’?
Morning Ian,
I think that you have bi-passed the incarnation.
Adam – Spirit formed, Eve made from him.
Jesus/Adam Spirit Born, begotten not made, new creation, incarnate, fully man, fully God. God’s beloved Son. Adam, Israel, Son pointing to the true Son, fulfilled in Jesus .
Son who inherits, son who brings many sons (believers) to glory. Son who shares his inheritance with believers.
Son, through whom his Bride is formed .
There you have it PRIMOGENITURE, in all its Biblical reality splendour and Glory fulfilled in Jesus.
I have missed out nothing.
What you appear to have missed is that Jesus now performs the role in the new humanity that Adam and Eve *together* performed.
Humanity did not come from Adam without Eve. The new humanity comes from Jesus without any other partner.
So the correspondence is only partial. Jesus is the ‘firstborn of the [raised from the] dead’, but Adam is *not* the ‘firstborn’ of humanity. He was not born.
So there is simply not a shred of ‘primogeniture’ language in Genesis 2.
Eve came from Adam, Just as the bride of Christ comes from and through Jesus.
But this is about marriage, not primogeniture.
Adam was first created son of the Spirit from dust.
To deny that is to exercise the fallacy of denial of antecedent. Just as Adam was first formed son, Jesus, incarnate, is first Spirit- born Son. Adam a type of Christ.
Who’s denying that?
And what has it to do with the relation of Adam and Eve and questions of authority?
For me this is all very heavy weather.
To date no-one has defined the meaning of obedience and submission [meekness and lowliness]
As any infant in junior church might reliably inform us; in answer to any question or dilemma [or “Issue”]
“The answer is always Jesus,” as St. Peter would say
“Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His footsteps” (1 Peter 2:21).
His obedience and submission implies his absolute confidence and trust in the word of God and in the Sovereign purposes of God to bring a peculiar people to share in His Nature and Glory.
It is our choice to “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Shalom.
Interestingly, when I was chairman of a health authority, I had to sign the executive order so that any establishment could be accredited as a care home – and it was not allowed to have the joint authority of a husband and wife – one of them, or a corporate body, had to be the final decision maker. They had obviously found a joint authority unworkable in practice.
And of course, authority and responsibility are intrinsically linked. It is impossible to take a responsibility without some authority. This applies in virtually every sphere of life. From the sixth former directing traffic for the school speech day to our Prime Minister. Husbands who argue against having authority in the home – I suspect they know it lets them off the hook as regards responsibility.
And of course it seems to be a widespread sociological phenomenon that women marry men who are older than themselves. Particularly so in second marriages. Is that because they are looking for somebody with greater experience who might take the lead?
It is not only unworkable in practice, but will also eat up a good bit of anyone’s precious free time. And also, who decides, and how, when a discussion has concluded? One vote against one, even when the positions are close to each other, is deadlock. I can’t imagine how anyone could be against the casting vote system in provinces of expertise or of special interest.
Explain to any UK evangelical aged under 40 – or one of any age from the USA – that you support female ordination, and have happily lived in an egalitarian marriage for over 30 years, and they see you as a heretic. But if your memory stretches back to the days when the likes of Joyce Huggett, Jackie Pullinger and Elaine Storkey were widely respected (women who probably would not be given a platform for a mixed audience nowadays), you are more likely to see the view of male headship as a ‘one size fits all’ as a recent trend.
People’s views are obviously swayed by experience. I must have heard hundreds of views on this topic, and find it significant that hardline complementarians I’ve heard are nearly always either single men without experience of a long-term girlfriend, or men and women (but mostly men) in marriages where the husband performs a much more demanding or senior day job than his wife. Conversely, the keenest egalitarians are very often professional women or their close relatives.
Unfortunately the polarisation of churches on this debate in recent years is, in my view, leading to polarized demographics. In the 1990s three women left our church to train for ordination – in fact one of them is now a Bishop. In contrast, recent years have seen a declining number of professional couples (thankfully our overall numbers have slightly increased), which has correlated to a tendency to teach complementarianism as right for every marriage and every church leadership situation. I know older people in three or four other Anglican and FIEC churches who have observed a similar trend. In contrast, I know people in three Baptist churches – which at a national level permits female ordination – who still see healthy numbers of professional couples amongst their members.
Our most immediate problem is that professional couples tend to be the best placed members to give financial support, and we’re certainly now noticing their absence, even in spite of our overall growth. If current trends continue, we shall soon need to withdraw from some areas of ministry or make redundancies, for financial reasons.
The other downside we’re noticing from a complementarianism-only approach is that in recent years we’ve attracted about three times as many men as women amongst young single adults. Those young men are not finding wives in church. The resulting dearth of couples of child-bearing age a few years from now will surely affect our ability to survive at anywhere near our current size.
Let’s hope and pray that Preston’s wisdom is heavily ‘sprinkled’ across the UK evangelical movement.
Preston Sprinkle uses the description of Adam’s helper as “ke negdo”- “equal but opposite” – in his arguments for exclusive male- female sexual relationships. I wonder how that principle of “equal but opposite” sits within this debate? For me the question lies more in what do we mean by “ordination” today. Is it the recognition and setting apart of those whom God has gifted or merely a “club” to which men cling as an exclusive ideal and to which women want to belong simply because men can.
Or is it perhaps that I am not as good an Anglican as I thought I was, being brought up a Methodist!
The term kenegdo is central to both.
Only someone of the other sex can be the opposite partner. And this opposite partner is equal to Adam, not his subordinate.
Done.
Primogeniture.
See my response to Ian today at 10:04 am.
May we all see the splendour and glory of biblical primogentiture fulfilled in by and through Jesus. And more could be said about him truly imaging God.
The interesting thing about the privilege of primogeniture is that it does not seem to be prevelant in the Bible. The story of Genesis is one of younger sons being more favoured than older ones: Isaac rather than Ishmael, Jacob rather than Esau, Judah or Joseph rather than Reuben. Then it is the youngest son of Jesse who is anointed as Saul’s replacement.
Yes, rather important! It is portrayed as a social custom rather than the will of God.
David, primogeniture does not stand or fall on how well it was modelled.
As for the exceptions and contrasts they point forward to Jesus, king David’s greater son. The fall affected all of family life, consequences starting with the first family, with Cain and Able.
Geoff, it is just absent from Gen 2. Adam is not the firstborn, anywhere in scripture.
Really Ian? Adam is a, the, first ‘son’ created in God’s image. There were no others!
Why does scripture compare and contrast Adam and Jesus as Adam?
David Isaac, was the first born Son of faith! Born of God. Not human will.
There seems to be a great need for Christian exegesis and biblical theology of the OT. Working back from Emmaus Road. How is all scripture about Jesus?
My view of the ‘complementary’ is that it implies a parity of two things. One might choose a main course to go with a fine wine, for instance. So I view the term “complementarianism” as disengenous. It is really “subordinationism”.
It has been observed that “complementarians” knowledge of the weakness of their case is shown by some of the other theological excursions they have embarked upon to bolster their case. The worst is probably the pursuit of the eternal subordination (q.v.) of the Son.
I agree very much. Though I don’t know how I would argue that decision making ability is not one of the things in which people, or the sexes, can in theory be complementary.
Indeed. Or a more accurate term is ‘hierarchalist’, since the belief is that there is a hierarchy of authority between the sexes.
Is there a little sleight of hand going on with ‘authentein’? The Vulgate translates as ‘dominor’ as its does ‘katakurieuo’ in 1 Pet 5:3. It doesn’t follow that ‘authentein’ and ‘katakurieuo’ mean the same thing, right? Is it also fair to say, that given the lack of evidence we have on 1st c. usage of ‘authentein’, both sides should be cautious about making it bear too much weight in the argument?
Jerome clearly thought that they were synonymous enough to be translated by the same word. And the extant examples of the term support this—as Andrew’s example shows. See the full study by Linda Belleville.
I wonder why the egalitarians do not point out that in 1 Timothy 2:12, Paul explicitly says what he, Paul, does not permit. Elsewhere in his letters Paul distinguishes between what he thinks the Spirit has told him to say and what he personally believes. Of course he thinks his belief is well-formed and correct and I do not argue that. My point is that in this verse of Timothy, Paul explicitly states what he personally does not permit, with the plain inference that follows. Yes, we are an apostolic church but that does not mean that when an apostle states a personal preference without indicating that it is of divine inspiration, we must treat it as divine inspiration.
That said, if I were an egalitarian I’d be a lot more concerned about verses 13 and 14, but this already is too long of a post to explain why.
Thanks John. Quite a few people do comment that Paul is responding to a specific issue in a local context.
I think it was Gordon Fee whom I read perhaps 30 years ago who pointing out the unusual grammar of ‘I am not permitting’, which does not read like a general prohibition.
David Wilson,
Eternal subordination of the Son, is not a ground or which complementarianism stands, although much fairly recent ‘ink’ has been spilled on the topic. ESS is erroneous and not necessary for complementarianism, something of a theological red herring methinks.
Except that it does actually follow from that reading of 1 Cor 11.1. Which is a problem.
So do you subscribe to ESS, Ian?
Why would I follow a doctrine promoted by people I completely disagree with…??
What I find fascinating here, amongst all the push back and discussion: not a single person here has actually responded to the holes Bartlett has highlighted with Schreiner.
So Schreiner’s case remains holey, and so wholly unpersuasive!
Ian,
Bartlett is commenting on Schreiner’s own comment on Sprinkle.
Even scholars and Counsel have their limits and this kind of critique of a critique of a critique adds little to the matter.
Peter, Bartlett is showing that what Schreiner claims are his strongest arguments in his case, are full of holes.
I think he does a good job.
Really, There has been pushback, which is unaswered on the biblical theology of Primogeniture, and which has seemed to have unsettled Ian and David Wilson, in particular.
I’m not sure whether Andrew Bartlett has considered the full biblical theology in support. Though from responses, from Ian and David, it would appear not.
The primogeniture argument has not ‘unsettled’ me. As Bartlett points out, there is zero evidence in the text of Gen 2 of PG language, and you have pointed to none…!
Ian, I have got through this far in the comments; I don’t know what is below this one. But can I say I admire your patience and graciousness in your responses. Thank you again for posting this article.
Thank you! I do wish some of the vociferous commentators here would pay more attention to the comments policy!
Holey primogeniture Batman!
There is no such thing as equality in the Kingdom [rule]of God.
How do the Scriptures define authority?
The centurion recognizes that Jesus is a man under authority as he himself was, yet he also possessed and could speak with great authority that was given to him.
As Watchman Nee said “No man can be an authority who is not first a man under authority”
Read what happened to Miriam when she demanded
equality with Moses, God punished her.
12:10 And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous.
12:11 And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. See all in Numbers Ch. 12 .
AI Overview
In the Bible, leprosy (often tzaraath) signifies extreme ritual impurity, social marginalization, and spiritual separation from God, rather than merely a physical ailment. It served as a symbolic picture of sin’s corrupting nature, decay, and power to isolate, requiring those affected to live outside the camp.
There is an excellent paper on this issue @
The Association of Biblical Counsellors;
“The Role of Authority in Biblical Decision Making”
@ https://christiancounseling.com/blog/uncategorized/the-role-of-authority-in-biblical-decision-making/
Shalom.
To take one very obvious flaw on Bartlett’s argument.
He asserts or at least implies that Paul forbids women only from exercising domineering authority and teaching.
If that is Paul’s meaning, why is he placing this prohibition only on women ?
This point also occurred to me.
Has anyone an answer to it?
Perhaps because that was the specific problem that Paul was addressing?
I very much doubt it. How could it have divided so neatly in practice between the behaviour of this gender and that?
if there was an ongoing problem with particular women, I think it could very well have been the case. Timothy may have raised it with Paul, if the women and no men had been influenced by the Artemis cult. Paul’s words on women, childbirth and salvation make perfect sense within this context and not otherwise. To me that is a big clue to the background Paul is writing against.
Peter,
Could you point me to the evidence that the Artemis cult is a factor
Peter, could you use your full name in posting please? It is very confusing having more than one Peter. Thanks.
The other context they make sense in is reality. If anyone were thoughtless, immature or short-term in their present priorities, or of narrow horizons, not making the main thing the main thing, childbearing soon puts them/us right in that regard.
Thanks Peter Parker. You see, Christopher, this is how to read any text — finding a (the) context where what is said in the text itself makes sense when it combines *with context to show that the author is thinking. Your ‘statistical approach’ simply won’t work here, let alone *defining individual words.
Sorry, ‘what the author is thinking’ not ‘that…’ !!!! 🙁
A statistical approach is just that. What is with the inverted commas.
I don’t have a statistical approach; I just use the evidence of statistics (which is the right thing to do) rather than being unaware of them or bypassing them (which is the wrong thing to do).
‘Simply’ is a snide word that adds nothing but draws attention to the nature of the communication and communicator.
I don’t recall taking a statistical approach to text and/or context. No doubt statistics will be 1000 times more relevant to them than inattention to statistics will be. But I don’t recall doing so.
As for defining, you are oblivious to the fact that I have always agreed with you on this point (how to read any text is to note what the person is saying, not the stereotype), and secondly oblivious to the fact that dictionaries are very far from useless, as they would be in danger of being if people believed what you said.
Wow – this is deep…
I have always seen a form of complementarianism in the Fall (Gen 3).
Eve commits the first sin of commission by picking and eating the forbidden fruit but Adam was with her and he commits the first sin of omission by failing to stop her a nanosecond beforehand.
You mean they’re as bad as each other!
David, They are figures, contrasts, that point to Jesus, King David’s greater Son, Jesus a true primogeniture
Adam was first created son of the Spirit from dust.
To deny that is to exercise the fallacy of denial of antecedent. Just as Adam was first formed son, Jesus, incarnate, is first Spirit- born Son. Adam a type of Christ.
Eh! Ian So your doctrine is based on people you are either for or against! (See above, on the point about ESS) Ad hom doctrine.
Geoff, this is getting very tiresome. Would it be possible for you to take a break from commenting? You don’t appear to be engaging at all with what I and others are actually saying. Thanks.
I stand to be corrected, but I don’t see that and the biblical theology, types and figures, anti- type, has not been refuted, and is on point, relevant, logically probative of the fact in issue.
But I’ ll do as asked, thanks.
What I first ask is that all commentators follow the guidelines…
THE ARTIMIS CULT – Marg Mowczko
The Temple: The Temple of Artemis (Artemision) was a massive marble structure, a cornerstone of Ephesian identity, and a center of pilgrimage. It also functioned as a bank, highlighting the cult’s influence on the local economy.
Worship and Rituals: The cult, flourishing in March-April, featured festivals including theatrical displays, music, and competitions. The rites were served by virgin priestesses and eunuch priests.
Cultural Importance: The cult offered women roles in leadership and public worship, providing a significant avenue for feminine identity.
Conflict with Christianity: The effective preaching of the apostle Paul in the 1st century AD caused many to turn away from the cult, significantly affecting local craftsmen who produced items for her worship.
The Transition: The cult lasted until the destruction of the city and temple by the Goths in 262 CE, with the rise of Christianity (culminating in the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE) (ironic?} eventually replacing it, as noted in the Encyclopaedia Britannica article.
SEE ON
https://margmowczko.com/1-timothy-212-in-context-2/
AND
https://margmowczko.com/the-prominence-of-women-in-the-cultic-life-of-ephesus/
Shalom.
Alan,
It is not entirely clear, but I wondered if this was a response to my query about evidence regarding the Artimis Cult.
If not – apologies. If so, I need to clarify my query.
Where is the evidence in the biblical text to support assertions regarding Artemis
(Ian, I am not ignoring your point about my name. Once this thread of debate has run its course I will not comment again)
Peter
The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus is mentioned in the Bible, specifically in Acts 19, where it is described as the center of worship for the goddess Artemis (also known as Diana). The text highlights its importance as a “Wonder of the World” and shows how the church’s growth threatened the local trade of creating silver shrines of the deity, which resulted in Paul being chased out of the city.Timothy later appointed as overseer of the church there.
My post was also giving a slant on Paul’s restraint of women being
“in authority” in the church probably due to practices in the Artemis cult
“Probably” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there !
The argument needs to stand firmly on the text and its context.
There is really no adequate basis for treating Artemis as the lens through which to read Paul
The cult of Artemis was significant in shaping the role of women in Ancient Greek society. Artemis was considered a symbol of female empowerment and independence, and her cult provided a space for women to gather, worship and celebrate their femininity.
The cult of Artemis offered women a level of agency and autonomy that was not available to them in other aspects of their lives. As we have seen, women were often excluded from political and economic life, and their roles were primarily limited to the domestic sphere. However, through the cult of Artemis, women were able to assert their own identities and take on leadership roles within the religious community. Women were involved in every aspect of the cult, from performing rituals and making offerings to serving as priestesses and even leading the worship of the goddess.
Artemis was worshipped as a goddess of childbirth, and there was a range of rituals and practices designed to ensure the health and safety of mothers and their children. Women who were experiencing difficulties in childbirth turned to Artemis for protection and guidance, and her cult provided a supportive community of women who could offer practical and emotional support.
The cult of Artemis was not limited to Ephesus, however. There were numerous other sanctuaries and cult centres dedicated to her across the ancient Mediterranean world, from France and Spain in the west to Turkey and Jordan in the east.
Men may have been involved in her worship, especially if it conflated with other deities like her twin brother Apollo, but evidence strongly suggests that her cults were largely a female space.
Jasmine Elmer’s “, Goddess with a Thousand Faces…
@ https://histfest.substack.com/p/the-cult-of-artemis
Shalom.
Alan,
Thank you for the thoughts on antiquity.
What point are you making in regard to biblical revelation ?
Peter
PETER
Not sure what point that you are trying to make?
I don’t understand why you keep telling us things you think historians know about Artemis !
At the risk of being too blunt – so what !!
The issue is what does Paul say about leadership and gender
‘So what?’ So a text without a context is a pretext. I find it bizarre that people want to lift 1 Tim 2 out of its social context, as if the dominate view in the Artemis cult (that women do not need men) made no difference to Paul’s writing here.
We make it a discipline *not* to do that when reading other parts of the Bible.
Peter
“The issue is what does Paul say about leadership and gender”.
What do you think that Paul is saying ?
Alan,
I accept the historic and near universal understanding until very recently which is summarised by Schneider
Summarised by Schreiner
Except that is has not been ‘near universal’ in the way that the doctrine of marriage has been.
Authority within the Christian community has often been dispersed, and in many contexts women have exercised authority in different ways.
For nearly 200 years, for example, the Salvation Army has not just believed in women in leadership, but made it mandatory; a male officer can only marry another officer.
And all through Christian history, women have acted as teachers, counsellors, guides, and leaders, even when excluded from the monarchical hierarchy of churches.
Ian,
I am not saying context is irrelevant – I am saying the precise opposite.
Paul provides no indication at all that he has Artemis in mind in the verses addressed by Schreiner. If he did, that would be an entirely different matter.
Historical and geographic evidence is relevant, of course. Galilee was a fishing village eighty miles from Jerusalem and that matters in preaching the Gospels.
However, to overturn the plain meaning of a verse, there has to be a proper textual argument – not just claims about local culture at the time.
Yes, Schreiner’s claim about this was one of the first things I noticed.
Can I suggest that if the writer of 1 Timothy had to actually mention Artemis, then this is a VERY big clue that the writer was not the Paul talked about in Acts and the recipient was not his close associate Timothy in Ephesus.
Bruce,
You are making an argument that inference can be sufficiently reliable to over turn plain meaning. If Paul had to do this, then that means the following etc..
The question is why ?
If Paul’s meaning is that women must not engage in domineering behaviour – why did he not just say so. The Artemis issue is a red herring really.
There is just no textual or (biblical) contextual evidence to support such a meaning.
We don’t like the idea Paul prohibited women from leadership – fair enough. But we should face our own sentiments – not go in search of imaginary meanings
The problem is there isn’t the ‘plain meaning’ you think there is. Our English translations have been shown up to be plain wrong in this regard. I highly recommend Bartlett’s book. If after reading it you still disagree, so be it.
Peter,
It is not what “I think” is the plain meaning.
Carson, Piper, Schreiner, Grudem, Packer, Begg, MacArthur, the FIEC – The Church of England itself until just one generation ago. The list goes on and on.
The notions you hold about the text are novel and widely disputed
And in agreeing with Peter Parker here, I would also add to Peter ?? that it might be good to consider what context contributes to (and not merely ‘supports’) the meaning of utterances. To quote an example from Dan Sperber & Deidre Wilson (Relevance Theory) if your partner responds to your offer of a cup of coffee with ‘Coffee will keep me awake’ the only way you can interpret their ‘meaning’ is from inference. This appears to be the norm in the way we use language to communicate.
‘If Paul’s meaning is that women must not engage in domineering behaviour – why did he not just say so.’
He does. That is what the word means.
Ian,
If that is correct, why did he specify women? Because men are just as capable of being domineering, even more so.
Why didn’t he say ‘I let NOBODY be domineering’? (in a non-domineering way, of course).
I think he is speaking generally in the Pastorals about the proper ordering of the community. At present his topic is women. The first thing he feels the need to speak about is dress and adornment; second, inner attitude, which equates to quietness; third, what is the shape women’s proper interrelationship with men; fourth, that they should not teach. Authentein only comes as a backup to the point about teaching, and even the point about teaching is not the first point that springs to mind when the topic of women comes up. However, what is said about men/women teaching is a huge emphasis, because it is the element that is backed up by reasoning and scripture. So if we see authentein as front and centre and highly specific and directed, that in context looks wrong. It looks like a simple point – to teach is to assume authority over, and authentein is a word for assuming-authority-over-wherever-that-is-a-bad-thing. The word fills out the broader point about teaching.
As Jesus in Mark 10, he seeks to understand men and women and their interrelationship by looking right back to origins.
Peter, what do you think the ‘plain meaning’ is?
The meaning of authentein is to ‘seize mastery’ over someone, and in some instances ‘taking’ their lives.
So it is no surprise that Paul is not permitting women to teach in such a way as to seize control and dominate in this way. (He doesn’t permit men to either! But in this case, for some reason, it is not the men who need his correction.)
The question is: why would Paul need to say that? What is the issue he is addressing? The cult of Artemis offers a credibly background to this; it does not ‘overturn’ any meaning.
Ian,
That is one understanding of authentein – Schreiner and others understand it as a neutral or positive term.
Your question (why would Paul need to say that) is the key question.
You appear to discount the straightforward answer, which is that Paul wanted to limit the teaching office to men for the good of the church.
I guess that invites a further “why” question to which the answer is that he was an Apostle. Sometimes we just need to accept that he knew better than we do, what is in the interests of the church
“Schreiner and others understand it as a neutral or positive term.”
Well, they would, wouldn’t they 🙂
Getting out my Venerable Vine I find it has, Under Authority, B Verbs:
3. Authenteō, from autos, self, and a lost noun hentēs, probably signifying working (Eng. authentic), to exercise authority on one’s own account, to domineer over, is used in 1 Tim 2:12 AV, “to usurp authority”, R.V. “to have dominion”. In the earlier use of the word it signified one who with his own hand killed either others or himself. Later it came to denote one who acts on his own authority, dominion.
Marg Mowczko has a useful summary of the meaning of the verb with the more common cognate nouns authentēs and authentia: https://margmowczko.com/authentein-1-timothy2_12/
The verb is a hapax. Perhaps this is also significant. There is no indication that Paul permits a man to authentein.
But then I don’t think that the common word for authority, exousia, is used in the context of the church anywhere in the NT. The emphasis, particularly from Jesus, is that we are to serve one another.
Oh, and my reasoning for this is that that is the way that language seems to work in human communication! 🙂
Is there any other kind of communication involving language?
Thanks for pricking the pomposity, which rarely moves past incredibly general truisms.
‘pomposity’…’kettle’…’black’?
James, irrelevant question. Of course communication between us humans does involve language (words and the way they are put together). Wonderfully so.
But the far more interesting aspect of communication between us humans is what we leave out so that hearers/readers need to infer what we are thinking. Again our brains do incredibly wonderful work in this.
And our brains do incredibly wonderful work when we hear or read a story. We seem to build up a picture of what is happening. A picture that seems to rely on more than the so-called ‘plain meaning’ of words. So ‘Mary opened the door’ and ‘Mary opened the bottle’ are completely different.
All three of these are aspects of context.
So to get practical, if someone is involved in, say, Bible translation wouldn’t it be important for them to understand not only some things about syntax and semantics but about the (more recent) discussions of pragmatics? And since context is crucial, wouldn’t it be worthwhile to think about what we mean by ‘context’ and how context is set up by a speaker/writer in a particular language? And just maybe it might be worthwhile to think about how pragmatics relates to exegesis as well — even how the Paul might have set up the context he expects Timothy to use in understanding rare verbs?
You are teaching grandparents to suck eggs. Bible translators already understand these basic ideas and Bible exegetes, believe it or not, spend a great deal of time trying to re-create the hypothetical contexts. Believe me, I have already done a modest amount of professional Bible translation and commentary, and I do it every week in sermon preparation and Bible study.
When it comes to accurate Bible translation the fundamental requirements are a deep knowledge of grammar, syntax and the correct use of lexicons. From the very beginning, this has been comparative and contextual work. The better a translator is in Koine Greek or ancient Semitics generally, the better his or her work will be.
When it comes to Bible exegesis the fundamental requirements are the above linguistic knowledge and good historical knowledge about the likely context of a given writing. The historical context is always a little (or a lot) uncertain because the ancient writers never spell out all the questions we would like them to answer. So the better the exegete knows ancient history, the better the exegesis will be. Sometimes excellent linguists get the historical context wildly wrong, e.g. Bultmann on the Gospel of John.
But in the end we are left with Hebrew or Greek texts and a 98-99% confidence that they are accurate. We have texts, not contexts, and it is these we have to translate into contemporary English.
If you have any idea how your particular linguistic interests in pragmatics should change the way we translate particular texts, by all means share them here, with examples from the NT. But remember that exegesis is not the same as translation.
I think Bultmann should not be used as a typical example. He was so very wrong on so many things.
On another topic, do search out Mascall’s ‘Bultmann’ Christmas carols – they are a scream.
I used Bultmann as an example of someone who was linguistically very well informed in his knowledge of Koine but historically mistaken on so many things – as well as being beholden to Kantianism and other philosophical currents besides Heidegger. Tony Thiselton is very good on this.
So I was connecting linguistic and historical competences.
James, if I did give you some examples would you discuss them? I’m asking because you have never *discussed* examples I have given in the past.
I wonder though whether you do really understand language and translation as much as you claim. For example:
‘Bible translators already understand these basic ideas’. Why then have people like Ernst August Gutt and Stephen Pattemore (google them) and Margaret Sim bothered to write as they have? Why then do courses in language development (preparing people to be involved in translation or literacy) include Pragmatics in their curricula?
I would ask the same curriculum question about your ‘When it comes to accurate Bible translation the fundamental requirements are a deep knowledge of grammar, syntax and the correct use of lexicons.’ Of course I do agree with your ‘grammar, syntax’ (i.e. linguistics which includes semantics/pragmatics) but I wonder then why you keep insisting that talking about linguistics in comments on Ian’s site is teaching grandparents to suck eggs?
And I would add another question — would (grammar, syntax, dictionaries) be the ‘fundamental requirements’ for ‘successful’ language learning? If so, good luck!! Or is language learning something completely different from translation?
And since Christopher likes statistics, my guess would be that your ‘The better a translator is in Koine Greek or ancient Semitics generally, the better his or her work will be’ is about 100% wrong. You could check with people like Gutt, Pattemore or the Sims about this.
To help with context, my reference to Margaret Sim alludes to her little book *A Relevant Way to Read* that I have recommended before. Gutt, Pattemore and Sim are all involved in Bible translation and write with that in mind.
Bruce, yes, go ahead and give us actual examples from contemporary Bible translation to tell us ehwt your concern is,
Women and Worship at Philippi: Diana/Artemis and Other Cults in the Early Christian Era, by Valerie A. Abrahamsen. Portland, ME: Astarte Shell, 1995.
Abrahamsen, a well-known author on Macedonian religious practices, especially early Christian, has produced a work that intends to show the role of women in cults of the Christian era and in the early Christian church itself.
Abrahamsen gives an invaluable summary of the cults at Philippi with a special emphasis on the acropolis, with its temple complexes dedicated to Sylvanus and Isis, and the open-air shrine to Diana (130 of the nearly 200 rock reliefs at this shrine are of female figures) ”
Feminism is an ancient cult from before Christ and was a culture
Widespread in the world of Paul’s ministry and out of which came early church converts.
It should come as no surprise that Paul would teach a Christian view of Christian marriage and behaviours.
Other feminine cults within Paul’s purview include: –
Bona Dea (“Good Goddess”): A strictly all-female Roman cult that worshipped a deity associated with chastity, fertility, and healing. Like the worship of Diana, this cult provided a space for female-only religious practice and empowerment.
Hecate: Frequently linked with Diana and Artemis as part of a “triple deity” (alongside Luna). Hecate shares the association with the wilderness, crossroads, magic, and, in her earlier forms, acted as a “mistress of animals”.
Isis: An Egyptian goddess whose cult spread throughout the Roman world, including Macedonia. She was revered by women for her protective powers and was sometimes equated with Artemis/Diana, particularly in her role as a universal mother/protector.
Brigid (Celtic): Similar to the goddess-centered, naturalistic cults, Brigid (or Brigantia) was a goddess of the north associated with natural power, fertility, and creative arts. [Beyond Paul]
Leto (Latona): The mother of Artemis/Diana was often worshipped in local cults (like at Ephesus) as part of the Artemis cult complex, representing a more nurturing, maternal aspect of the divine feminine compared to the virginal Artemis.
Cybele (Magna Mater): While often more orgiastic and distinct from the virginal focus of Artemis, the cult of Cybele in Asia Minor was a massive, women-centric cult focusing on the fertility of nature.
Common Features of These Cults:
Women-led: Many of these cults had all-female priestesses or were focused on feminine life-stages, such as the cult at Brauron where young girls were initiated.
Liminal Spaces: Worshipped in nature, such as groves, marshes, or outside city walls, similar to Diana’s grove at Nemi central
Italy.
Hello Ian, thanks for the blog, and everyone, thanks for the interesting comments!
Ian, may I ask how the context of false teaching women arises from the text of 1 Timothy in the way that primogeniture doesn’t in Genesis? As I read both texts I could be persuaded that both primogeniture and false teaching might be in the minds of original audience and so not need to be spelled out. But at the moment it seems that both inferences are taken (rightly or wrongly) from other parts of scripture/history/archeology? (Which I’m all for using in helping understand the Bible better, just engaging with Andrew’s first point about lack of text based evidence). Thanks (and apologies for spelling mistakes!)
Thanks Pete. I would simply note that there is zero language of primogeniture in Gen 2, as Andrew Bartlett points out.
Paul’s concerns for countering false teaching is all over the Pastorals. The first subject heading in my Bible in 1 Tim says ‘Warning Against False Teachers’!
Does that help?
Thanks Ian, I may have misunderstood Andrew’s article so my question may not make sense – I thought Andrew was saying that there was a specific problem with women who have been deceived and are therefore teaching bad things. Ie a specific local context calling for a specific prohibition for that situation. Is there textual evidence for that in 1 Tim?
As the primogeniture case from Genesis does not have textual support it shouldn’t control our interpretation, but wouldn’t the same go for Andrew’s argument (if I have understood it) about false teaching women in ephesus?
Canons of Statutory Construction.
As a starter here is a link from the USA.
John Story in his first edition of Basic Christianity, set out some.
There are also rules for the interpretation of Testamentary Dispositions in England and Wales.
Not sure what Andrew Bartlett’s legal specialism is/was.
The Holy Bible- God’s testamentary dispositions.
https://judicature.duke.edu/articles/a-dozen-canons-of-statutory-and-constitutional-text-construction/
John Stott. Auto correct doesn’t recognize Stott. Cultural revision/ deletion?
From Stott to Story. What does it mean to you?
Thank you for this Geoff. But how do these all apply to interpreting Scripture with its multiple genres? In particular does #5 say anything to your approach to typology?
Determining the will of the legislature/ testator, (God) across the whole gamut of the canon of scripture. Scripture interpreting scripture.
Though I’m really unsure of your intention in asking the question, seemingly to undermine a canonical biblical the theology, which is not new, applied by many.
Hope that helps.
Geoff, I don’t think you have dealt with the question of genre.
In John’s gospel women seem to be portayed as more astute, spiritually discerning, and effective in ministry than some of the men. The woman at the well understands Jesus’ teaching of the kingdom (unlike Nicodemus who doesn’t seem to) and she becomes a very effective evangelist. It is a woman – Martha – not a man who offers a model confession of faith – ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.’ And Mary Magdalen becomes the first witness of the resurrection – she is sent by Jesus to tell ‘my brothers’ (presumably the disciples?) and so becomes an apostle to the apostles. Should John’s evidence about women and their ministry be part of the conversation?
Were they ordained teaching ministries?
Compare and contrast Archbishop elect, Dame Sarah Mullally, interviewed on BBC 1 TV news at lunchtime today. No mention of Jesus, as she embarked on a walk to Canterbury notwithstanding some possible heavy editing.
It would be barely credible for the late Queen not to have mentioned Jesus.
Skimming a Christian bookshop, Schreiner is a well published Christian theologian, including commentaries. And yes there is a fallacy lurking there, but he is well established with more than a single topic spread of scripture.
Still waiting for Bruce to give examples of how his interest in pragmatics makes a big difference to Bible translation.
(Incidentally, Bible translators knew about Austin, Gadamer etc 50 years ago.)
Still nothing? Oh, well.
I am still waiting for you, James, to tell us why Gutt, Pattemore and Sim thought it necessary to write stuff introducing Relevance Theory into work on Bible translation and interpretation. Also, James, you should remember ‘context’ — it was a Sunday that had no reply.
For translation, is NRSV ‘I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities’ a ‘better’ translation than NIV of Amos 4:6?
For interpretation, forgive me for cutting and pasting from a previous comment:
“So in doing exegesis from an inferential perspective we can think about a number of areas. One is in the little words that a speaker/writer uses to guide a hearer/reader in how to understand/interpret what they are saying. So some have suggested that rather than look at the dictionary meanings of words like (in Greek) gar, hoti, hina etc. we might ask what is the *function* of those words (what are they *doing* rather than what do they *mean*).
Another area is that looking at the ‘meaning’ of words through how they are used in other contexts *may* help us to understand that ‘meaning’ in the particular utterance we are considering but that also *may* be quite irrelevant, since context (which is more than just the surrounding words) is *so* important in our inferring what a speaker/writer is saying. (In NT Greek, think kefale). Also using different words does not necessarily mean talking about different things. (In NT Greek, think ‘submit’, ‘love’).
A third area is in asking what a writer/speaker is *doing* in a particular utterance. This means something similar to looking at the *function* of the little words as above, but why are bigger chunks of language there. This is an offshoot from earlier Speech Act theory being built on the same sorts of phenomena – how do we use language to actually do things, like make promises, make bets, or ‘I pronounce you husband and wife’ and why is there mismatch between the forms of statements, questions and commands and their use/meaning, — ‘It’s cold in here’, ‘Could you please shut the window’, ‘Close the window!’
How does this work? A couple of examples from Colossians. In Col 4:17 Paul says ‘And say to Archippus …’. Commentators often introduce wide ranging inferences to explain the words Paul uses – like ‘Paul wants the entire community of believers to participate in this reaffirmation of Archippus and his calling’ (Arnold, p.785). But, the most straightforward context to understand or explain why Paul asks the ‘Colossians’ to ‘Say X to Archippus’ is that Archippus was not at Colossae. Where was he? Since just before this Paul talks about swapping letters with the Laodicean church, maybe he was at Laodicea.
In Col 4:9 Paul gives two bits of information about Onesimus: ‘a faithful and beloved brother’ and ‘who is one of you’. Commentators often take this as saying Onesimus was from Colossae. But this is not necessarily so – he could have been from the wider area. But especially if he were from Colossae why did Paul need to tell the Colossians that? If we use minimal encoding to convey our thoughts why would Paul cause his readers extra cognitive effort to tell them what they already knew – unless, maybe there might be some in Colossae or Laodicea who assumed that Onesimus was no longer ‘one of us’, let alone a ‘faithful and beloved brother’. Clinton Arnold would reject such an understanding since ‘Epaphras is also described by Paul as [‘who is from you’] (Col 4:12)’. (Arnold p.766 n44). But this simply doubles the ‘redundancy’ rather than explaining it.
Maybe, then, if Archippus is in Laodicea and Onesimus somehow has a bigger place in Paul’s mind in what he is writing about to the Colossians, then Philemon just might be the mysterious ‘letter from Laodicea’ (Col 4:16) after all.”
I will not be reading those books, Bruce. I don’t have access to them nor the time to invest. If you think they are important, you can summarise them and say why they matter to you. That’s what I try to do (I don’t instruct readers to go off and consult chapters of Waltke’s Biblical Hebrew Syntax or Black on Greek, then report back to me, I tell them what I understand and why it matters.) The examples you give above are actually quite tangential and hardly crucial to understanding Colossians. Whoever Archippus was or where he was is not really important to the central messages of that letter.
Believe or not, biblical studies have known about pragmatics and linguistics more generally for close on 50 years. I saw this more than 30 years ago reading Moises Silva, as well as Thiselton and Vanhoozer (‘Is There A Meaning In This Text?’), who had absorbed a lot of J L Austin on speech acts and Gadamer on hermeneutics. The importance of such work isn’t really in translation but in commentary, where the fruits (and uncertainties) of exegesis are displayed. Pragmatics doesn’t significantly change the way we interpret the New Testament documents or their doctrinal content. The central skills needed will always be competence in the languages (so a strong grasp of BH or koine is a sine qua non, which includes relevant synchronic literature and cognate languages) and a strong grasp of ANE history and culture and the first century Greco-Roman world.
Yes, James, just as I thought. You are not interested in discussing issues about interpreting actual examples of scripture texts. I note you didn’t say anything about Amos 4:6 in NRSV nor Onesimus in Colossians.
James, I didn’t ask you whether you would read Gutt, Pattemore & Sim. I asked you why they would bother to write books introducing Relevance Theory into Bible translation and exegetical practice if translators already knew all there was to know about pragmatics.
‘hardly crucial to understanding Colossians/Laodiceans’. Well, maybe not. But then again maybe the relationship between ‘Colossians’ and Philemon may give us clues to understanding Colossians/Laodiceans? Or does context not really matter in understanding something?
‘Believe or not, biblical studies have known about pragmatics and linguistics more generally for close on 50 years. I saw this more than 30 years ago …’ Believe it or not, James, from my 40 years’ experience teaching introductory linguistics to language development people, if by ‘known about’ you mean understanding, I simply do not agree with you. To witness, many of the remarks about language and linguistics by some commenters on Ian’s blog. Even as late as this last discussion on Andrew Bartlett’s article which is my justification for trying (yet again) to suggest we might need to think a bit more about language especially how we humans use context in interpreting and understanding it.
James, you might also consider Doug Moo’s presentation to the 2014 ETS Annual Meeting — if you don’t want to read the whole article, maybe just reflect for a while on the title of Moo’s presentation: ‘We Still Don’t Get It : Evangelicals and Bible Translation Fifty Years After James Barr.’
Bruce, you have confirmed to me that any contribution pragmatics can make to understanding the great doctrines of the Bible is very minimal at best. Nothing of importance hinges on the meaning of “cleanness of teeth” or the whereabouts of Archippus. A recondite journal article, perhaps, to put on someone’s CV but nothing important. I could tell you many more obscure things from the Scriptures.
I have no idea why Gutt et al wrote their books but I’m not your student. If you think it’s important, tell us what they said and why it changes the way I should read the Creeds and the way I should preach. I guarantee that 99% of chuchgoers, probably more, never give a moment’s thought to Archippus, though I have no doubt we will meet him in glory.
Give me some meaty stuff, about where we have been getting Christ and the Cross or the nature of Christian ethics seriously wrong because of our defective translations (or “reading strategies’).
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Barr had much to say about pragmatics. His 1961 book was about synchronic semantics, on which he was basically correct.
James, strange that you do not encourage people to read and understand scripture itself but as long as they understand the major Bible doctrines and the Creed that is enough. So it’s ok if the message they are to take from Amos 4:6 is that God was going to replace bread with toothbrushes? Or that maybe Colossians has more to do with the returning Onesimus than some false teaching?
Yes, Barr was talking about semantics. But, James, just maybe what some people have talked about since his time might be also relevant. The gist of Moo’s talk to ETS was that three of Barr’s ‘complaints’ about how people used semantics in exegesis, preaching, discussion etc have largely been ignored. Hardly ‘recondite’. But completely relevant especially when examples of what Barr was complaining about turn up in what people (including commenters on Ian’s blog even in this current discussion) say about words, syntax and meaning. If we haven’t taken on board what Barr said about how preachers and commenters use semantics what chance is there for pragmatics — looking at how we ‘use’ language (which is much more than ‘reading strategies’).
Also James, I understood that we were talking about Bible translation and interpretation not how we understand the creeds nor how you should preach. And I thought that Gutt and Sim as translation consultants for SIL and Pattemore as a consultant for Bible Society just might have some ideas about what Bible translators might need to think about. Silly me, when James knows that all they need is a knowledge of words and cultural background.
And I thought you were going to tell me how Gutt and Sim changed the way we understood the central doctrines of the Christian faith (as Luther and Calvin did on the meaning of dikaio) or overthrew widespread penitential practices (as Luther did on the meaning of metanoia) or rethought the nature of church ministry (as Tyndale did on the meaning of presbuteros and episkopos ) or as the Anabaptists’ did on the nature of the church (ekklesia) – which of course these excellent modern scholars haven’t done. We can smile at people naively misunderstanding Amos 4.6 but nothing important hangs on that verse. (Scholars always knew what that verse meant, but they live in the past and are familiar with old phrasings.) Give me something substantial, comparable to what the Reformers discovered when they went back ‘ad fontes’.
I’ve asked for this several times but you haven’t offered anything very substantial. So I expect that these worthy scholars will tidy up some of the edges but won’t change anything central. And there will always be little areas of uncertainty because there are many hapax legomena in the HB, especially in the Psalms, where the best we can do is give an educated guess. But these are only decorative features, they don’t affect the foundations of the house, in the way that Tyndale, Luther, Calvin et al did.
It doesn’t help to characterise my concern as just being ‘a knowledge of words and cultural background’. It’s a bit more sophisticated than that.
James, this is what you asked me for:
‘Still waiting for Bruce to give examples of how his interest in pragmatics makes a big difference to Bible translation.’ (March 22, 2026 at 9:40 am)
I suppose creating a smile at naive misunderstanding might be a possible goal for translators, but are you being serious here?
And what you claimed was ‘The central skills needed [BS understood ‘for translators] will always be competence in the languages (so a strong grasp of BH or koine is a sine qua non, which includes relevant synchronic literature and cognate languages) and a strong grasp of ANE history and culture and the first century Greco-Roman world.’
Again, are you being serious? Nothing about understanding how language works or how language is used in communication? Nothing about things like ‘how many pronouns in a text is too many?’, ‘Was this first person plural in Greek inclusive or exclusive’?
My article didn’t say anything about the meaning of hupotassō (Paul’s word for ‘submit’ in Eph. 5:21 etc), but James Thomson has raised a point about it, and how it differs from hupakouō (obey).
I agree with him that hupotassō means ‘place under’, but to appreciate the significance of this word in the context of Paul’s argument in Ephesians 5 we have to consider the fact that this word is apt both for submission to an actual higher authority and for voluntarily placing yourself under another person (treating them as more important than oneself) even though God has not given them authority over you. The use of this term in the latter situation does not imply that the person submitted to has God-given authority over the person who submits.
While words are flexible and it is not impossible for the range of uses of hupotassō and hupakouō to occasionally overlap, the essential difference between them is clear when one considers Eph 5:21. Hupotassō (when used in the middle or passive voice) is the adopting of an attitude towards other people. Hupakouō is an action in response to a command.
Hupotassō makes good sense in Eph 5:21 as referring to mutual submission (much in line with what Paul says about right behaviour for Christian believers in several other places, such as Rom 12:10, Gal 5:13, Phil 2:3). In Eph 5:21, hupakouō would not make sense – how could all believers obey each other?
If hupotassō refers to mutual submission in Eph 5:21, then why not also in 5:22 (where it is implied, and is the wife’s part in mutual submission) and in 5:24 (where it is express, and is again the wife’s part in mutual submission)? Paul is not likely to intend a change of meaning in mid-sentence. In fact, Paul must have in mind mutual submission, rather than one-way-only submission, because he says the wife is to submit “in everything”. If this were one-way-only submission in everything, he would be contradicting what he said in 1 Cor 7:4–5.
To me, it is understandable that in Eph 5 Paul feels the need to give longer and more detailed instructions to the husband than to the wife on how to place himself below his spouse (5:25–33a). Law and custom placed the husband on a high pedestal. Paul’s shockingly countercultural instructions show the husband how to climb down and take the lowest place, placing himself below his wife, serving her in humble self-sacrifice.
A question has been raised about the metaphorical meanings of kephalē in different contexts. There is a lot that could be said about this, but in Ephesians 5 there is a bigger point to notice. Paul does not instruct the husband to rule, lead, or exercise authority over his wife. Nor is there any command from God to husbands anywhere in Scripture that they ought to rule, lead, or exercise authority over their wives. It seems to me that those who insist on such a duty are adding a tradition of men to the word of God.
Thank you Andrew.
Andrew,
I agree with you that hupotassomai means to place oneself in sn ordered, subordinate relationship toward another. It isn’t simply another word for “obey” (hupakou) but the semantic field overlaps with hupakuo (how could one be submissive to a person one constantly went against?) and with phobeo ‘respect’ which is used synonymously for hupotassomai in Ephesians 5.33. (phobeo ‘respect’ here is not the same as timao, it is used with God or the king as the object, persons one is “under” in some sense, whether voluntarily or naturally. )
I actually thing it makes better gammatical and syntactic sense to take Ephesians 5.21 with its present participle to be a summary general comment on the preceding verses, rather than an as an imperative governing 5.22-33, and referring to our submission to each othet generally in the church, depending on our particular competences. (For example, I could never tell a musician how to do her work or a technician how to run the sound desk.) But no matter. The problem with your suggestion is three-fold.
1. In all of the NT’s discussion of marriage relationships, men are never the subject of the verb hupotassomai, only wives. Why is this? Men are told to love their wives ‘as Christ loved the Church and gave herself up for her’, but they are not told to be submissive (hupotassomenoi) to them. If Paul wanted to say: ‘Wives, be subject to your husbands, and husbands, be subject to your wives’, this would be the ideal place to make such a command. It would be perfectly reciprocal (egalitarian, even). But he never does. Instead, he tells husbands repeatedly to “love their wives” in the most thoroughgoing way imaginable – as Christ loved the church. But he doesn’t say “be subject to them’. Why not?
2. The wife’s voluntary submission to her husband is to be “as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5.22). But our submission to Christ isn’t matched by Christ’s reciprocal submission to us. Such an idea doesn’t make much sense and would destroy the very concept of Christ’s Lordship. This is where Ian’s interpretation of hupotassomai above failed: voluntary *self giving for another is not the same as voluntary *submitting to another. When you act as a judge, the parties voluntarily submit to you and your expertise. But you do not submit yourself to their legal opinions (except insofaras you think they are correct) and they cannot overrule you. It is an ordered voluntarily entered relationship but not an egalitarian or anarchic one (in the strict meaning of anarkhe). In the end, you decide, with the awesome responsibility that comes with that.
In the same way, notice that Christ is NEVER the subject of hupotassomai vis a vis the Church. Christ loves the Church not be “submitting” to her but by “washing, feeding and caring for her” (Ephesians 5.29).
3. Paul grounds responsibilities in Christian marriage in Ephesians 5 on the bold assertion that ‘the husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church’ (Ephesians 5.23). Whatever the precise meaning of kephale here, the following points should be clear.
First, the husband is called ‘the head of his wife’ but the wife is not called ‘the head of her husband’. Why not? Clearly there is a relationship here which is not interchangeable or identical.
Second, Paul states that the husband as kephale of his wife is based upon Christ as kephale of the church (Ephesians 5.33). The church is certainly not the kephale of Christ. So once again, we have a relationship (Christ to Church) which is not interchangeable or identical. The husband is commanded to be in some sense as Christ is to the church; but the wife is not given the same command to be the same to her husband. Why not?
Third, the head is not the body and the body is not the head. There is a mutual relationship but it is not interchangeable or identical. Whatever the precise significance of this image, it is clear from the descriptions of Christ as the kephale of the body in Colossians and Ephesians that these do in fact mean some kind of nurturing, directing, giving order – and as Christ is kephale of the church, the husband is told to be kephale of his wife. Ephesians 5.27-29 actually spells out what this means in practice: washing, feeding, caring for one’s wife (as Christ does for us). Quite rightly you wish to reject any idea that Christian marriage allows male bullying or tyranny. Of course it doesn’t, that is not the way of Christ. But your last paragraph is altogether too sweeping and doesn’t engage with the *positive teaching of Scripture that the husband is the kephale of his wife (but the wife is not the kephale of her husband). I have very briefly suggested what this means; your own reflections would be welcome.
Incidentally, all biblical Christians (and all rational people) should agree that men are not women and women are not men, and Christian marriage is the union of opposites-for-each other, not the union of the same. Proponents of ‘same-sex marriage’ claim that sex (‘gender’l is irrelevant to identity and marriage, but Christian marriage says it is fundamental. Thinking more deeply about the theological nature of marriage has made me question my older easy acceptance of female church leadership. Increasingly I think it was a wrong move that has not strengthened the church,
To amplify my last observation: I never liked it when I heard people say, “If you accept women as your spiritual heads, as rectors and bishops, you have no grounds for rejecting same-sex marriage.”
I instinctively rejected this idea, but as more women became rectors and then bishops and finally Archbishop, I heard the following claim repeatedly made: ‘It doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or woman, it’s whether you can do the job.” In other words, it’s all about function, not one’s created sexual nature.
Further, ‘If sex is irrelevant to Christian ministry, it is irrelevant to Christian marriage.’ We old conservatives instinctively jib at this idea but can we say why? And is it no accident that almost all the women I know in ordained Anglican ministry- including those raised as evangelicals and even glossalalic charismatics – have “no problem” with ‘same-sex marriage”? I do not know of *anyone who supports SSM who opposes women’s ordination – they just don’t exist, because if one’s biological sex is irrelevant to spiritual leadership, it’s irrelevant to marriage as well. But the concomitant of this brave new world is that having babies is also irrelevant to marriage- since partners of the same sex cannot reproduce. (Hence the need for sperm donors or rented wombs.)
Many readers here will not like this trajectory. But it is exactly the track that folk like Andrew Godsall or Penelope have followed, and is exactly the reasoning that the Episcopal Church of the USA has followed. It is consistent in its principles, as Andrew Godsall would agree.
Andrew: 1 Cor 7.4-5 is about husbands and wives not depriving each other of sex – a pretty radical idea then as today, I agree. There were plainly a few anti-sex ascetics making their mark on the Corinthian church then and disturbing marriages, and Paul had to put them right.
James, but you cannot limit it to that. Paul is emphatic: men and women *exercise mutual authority over one another* in marriage, and that has implications for sex.
This is the *only* place where Paul uses the language of ‘authority’ within the marriage relationship.
Ian, 1 Cor 7.3-5 is about the mutual ‘debt’ (opheile, v. 3) husband and wife have to each other, which verses 4-5 specifically defines as their conjugal rights to each other’s body, which should not be ordinarily denied. The husband’s ‘authority’ (< exousiazei) over his wife's body and her authority over his body are grounded on the exclusive one-flesh unity of Christian marriage that Jesus affirmed.
This is clearly about sex and it prohibits either party from extra-marital sex. Whether this mutual veto extends to other areas of their life is something you have to establish exegetically, not from this text.
Thanks James. What I do note is that, in the *only* text where Paul uses language of ‘authority’ in the marriage relationship, that authority is mutual.
And that, as Andrew notes, and contrary to first century culture, Paul never anywhere commands obedience of wives to husbands, nor instructs husbands to exercise authority, rule, or govern, their wives.
The fact that that is so counter-cultural must surely be of import.
Ian: I agree – but as I keep pointing out, ‘hupotassomai’ does overlap to *some extent in meaning with ‘hupakuo’ (and remarkably ‘phobeo’, as the clear parallel in Ephesians 5.33 shows). In the 20 examples of ‘hupakuo’ in the NT with a religious meaning, most of them can be or are synonymously parallel to cases where ‘hupotassomai’ is used elsewhere (e.g. Col 3.20, 3.22 – cf. Titus 2.9; Ephesians 6.1, 5), or refer to ‘obeying (the faith/ gospel/Christ/Paul: Mark 1.27; 2 Thess 1.8, 3.14; Heb 5.9, 11.8; Phil 2.12). 1 Peter 3.6 does use ‘hupakuo’ referring to the marriage of Sarah and Abraham.
But as for ‘hupatassomai’, please note that Christ is *never the subject of the verb vis a vis the church, and husbands are *never the subject of the verb vis a vis their wives. I have been trying to draw out the significance of this fact and to avoid eisegesis (whether from the left or the right).
The relationship of Christ to his Church is not one of equals or equivalence: He is the head, we are the body. The Bible never says, ‘Christ is the body and the church is the head.’ And remarkably, Ephesians 5.23 states that ‘just as (hos kai) Christ is head (kephale) of the church’, the husband is head (kephale) of the wife, so some parallel in relationship is implied. This is a striking – and to be frank, very daunting – comparison that no man is naturally capable of. So if the Christian husband is called to be ‘the head of the wife’, it cannot be by his natural sinful condition, just by being born a male, but only by the redemptive vocation of the Head of the Church. This is what Paul means by Ephesians 5.33. And note that the wife is *not called the kephale of the husband. This fact is surely significant and cannot be punted just because we find it uncomfortable.
Thank you James for your clear and cogent persistence. The question of how is a one which has been used to invert the biblical order, so that it becomes all equal. To look at Ephesians, a husband is in position of Christ with his bride.
The question then becomes, how is Jesus with the church? And that doesn’t mean equality.
Misuse is not of itself a reason for non use, but correct use.
BTW, thank you for your refreshing admission that an error has been made in ordaining women.
Our host has said it was a political error, but has not given reasons. The decision was the political, not merely political.
Is it only due to teaching, to their beliefs?
If it were reduced to false teaching there would be a reduction to som form of equality, though Anthony, days ago, has stated some figures, for belief of women.
Do we believe the Holy Bible across the whole canon, including proverbs, sets out God’s intention, will, correctives, for human relations, in his people in perpetuity, that are not contingent on time and place and people groups.
So men are like God to women?
Despite there being zero indication of hierarchy in the creation narrative?
Curious.
Ian Paul,
What an appalling knee jerk fallacy and made worse because you know it and hrough its use have accepted the burden of my comment which has not been countered.
It also avoids answering the question, why you think it was a political error to ordain woman, which may place you at odds with your cohort in this matter.
Geoff, I think your offensive comment is outside my guidelines. Please retract.
You first Ian. Your statement is a fallacy, which I find offensive. Nor is there any irony to be seen in it.
And you have avoided questions of political error.
I’ll leave it there, even if it results in being banned.
We disagree profoundly over this.
What is more, is that it is more than tangential from the Good News of Jesus, who he is. He is the ‘lens’ through whom we read scripture.
Thank you for your forbearance, ’till now.
Yours in Christ, Geoff
You are usually wrong about why I support or oppose things. But, one reflection – men and women are not opposites. They may be different/other, but their characteristics do not oppose each other. Eve is ‘flesh of my flesh’, unlike the other potential companion animals. That is one argument for ssm.
No it isn’t.
It is m+f , integral to replication of humanity, multiplication, not as sss which is integrally infertile from the outset, telelogical redundant. And m+f marriage is a theological return to ‘one flesh’ in distinction and difference. Similarly the oneness of believers, the Bride, with Christ.
And that is covenantly based, in theological continuity from the OT through the New.
Heaven forfend that the responsive nature of the covenants and their imbalance, is pressed any further.
Jesus and Paul didn’t seem too keen on the replication of humanity, nor does the second creation narrative until after the Fall.
I dont get that argument at all. Flesh of my flesh means she’s another human being as opposed to another animal. They are not opposite but they are clearly different, yet being different they are then designed to become one. It is their difference that makes them compatible, the opposite of ssm.
And there are no differences between two men? Or two women? Adam and Eve share a common humanity in which difference is evident.
Of course there are. But the differences will, on average, be fewer and run less deep.
Over to you, Ian and Andrew. I tried, probably somewhat abrasively but (as Doug Moo said) some people still don’t get it!
No, Bruce, you didn’t try. You didn’t tell us what Gutt et al said or why it matters. Please do so, as you have read their books.Summarise their chief findings.
You can do the same for Douglas Moo’s article.
Remember, we are not undergraduates being assigned reading lists by their teacher. When I questioned Ian on hupotassomai, I didn’t say, ‘Go and read X’, I summaried the information myself, in a contextual way thst anyone could check with scriptural hyperlinks.
And you didn’t give any examples of doctrines being re-understood because of pragmatics. It just isn’t the tool for that job. Synchronic semantics is a different matter because written words in a text are an objective fact in a way that conjectured social settings are not.
We must not fall into the trap of the man who had only a hammer, so treated everything as a nail.
James, you say: ‘written words in a text are an objective fact in a way that conjectured social settings are not’. You have just shown here why we need Pragmatics. Context is what pragmatics is about. And my continuous ‘beef’ is that context is more than just historical and cultural. Yet we (you) still consider individual words to be the linguistic argument that closes discussion. Your ‘listing’ of the uses of hupotassomai is *not contextual — it is just that — a *list of uses.
Bruce,
No, I have never believed or said that individual words are “the linguistic argument that closes the discussion”. Words belong in sentences, sentences in larger discourse units (whatever we call these), these pericopes within the ‘book’and that within the wider context of contemporary usage. Text within context, in other words. And of course I am always considering the genre of the text: what exactly is this text, who is writing, to whom and why? The broader the question, the more uncertain or speculative the answer.
I am always interested in how a word or a phrase is used primarily in its synchronic context but not forgetting that the NT writers are also consciously writing within a tradition in which the LXX was always present within their thinking and reading. This is particularly important, for example, in understanding what they mean when using expressions in the hilaskomai, diatithemi, dikaio etc word groups. We are fortunate that the NT writers are all from a brief window of first century Koine (c. 50-90) so they are pretty much contemporaneous users of the same language. As it happens, I often read Greek novels from the 1st and 2nd centuries and am frequently struck by the stylistic and linguistic similarities to the NT. ‘Callirhoe’, for example.
On the hupatasso word group, I haven’t investigated how that word is used in first century Koine, perhaps I will one day. I simply looked at every single example of the verb in the NT in context (active, passive, middle, finite, infinitives, participles, imperatives) and considered how the word is used in context, who is addressed and who isn’t (as the subjects and objects of the verbs). I also considered the meaning of synonyms where they overlap with hupotasso in NT usage (e.g. peitho, phobeo, hupakuo) as a further guide to meaning. From this contextual study I deduced a fairly clear grasp of what the word meant to the NT writers who used it.
We don’t live in the first century Mediterranean world, so we have to reconstruct it through its material relictae (writings and physical objects) and by analogy (assuming they were the same as us in many ways). Analogy is a hazardous approach (there are constants in human nature, but we are socially and technologically very different from them and nobody today speaks Koine as their mother tongue ) and physical artefacts (statues, jewellery, ostraca etc) are mute and have to be interpreted. That is why we have to give primacy to written documents from the period.
James, thank you for outlining the steps you take in trying to understand the ‘meaning’ of a word. And thank you for the reference to Callirhoe. Sounds like a good read.
I am interested in your summary: ‘From this contextual study I deduced a fairly clear grasp of what the word meant to the NT writers who used it’. Can I suggest that this summary illustrates one of Barr’s main complaints about linguistics not being used in biblical interpretation. Looking for synonyms, use of a word elsewhere etc. is *not adequate because we are still focussing on what a particular word does in an particular. Barr was saying that we need to look at a whole utterance for interpreting/understanding what is said. The problem is with your ‘what THE WORD meant’ (my emphasis in caps — not necessarily shouting).
You say your study is ‘contextual’ but really it isn’t. Because subjects/objects, part of speech etc do not get at the picture that the writer is relying on for the reader to understand what that word is ‘doing’ in this *particular utterance. In pragmatics this is where context comes in. Context is not only cultural/historical ‘background’ but what cognitive background (our understanding of how things are and work) do the readers need have available to understand any particular utterance. The writer *might give quite obvious clues to this context, but more likely, since utterances are minimal, that the reader will be able to infer the context based on what the writer and reader know of each other.
In the current discussion Andrew and Ian have pointed us to this sort of understanding of context for 1 Timothy. I understand Sandra Glahn has pointed out and discussed a number of these clues. Unfortunately the efforts arguing against what Andrew and Ian have said, have largely shown misunderstandings of language — and unfortunately again the sorts of misunderstandings that were pointed out by James Barr.
Bruce,
You are creating difficulties where they don’t really exist. If a first century Christian church leader sends a letter to a Christian community and includes some instructions like “Children, be subject to your parents in the Lord” or “Slaves, be subject to your masters”, no commentator with advanced ancient Greek and familiarity with first century social structure, education and literature has difficulty understanding these sentences. The rebellious child or the plotting slave is a stock figure in Plautus etc and the theme goes back to Menander and Aristophanes at least. The sassy wife who mocks her husband is also a stock figure in these comedies which were very popular in first century Greek cities. This, for me, is one of the enduring values of the work of F. F. Bruce – he was an excellent classicist before he became an excellent biblical commentator.
This is why biblical studies is first of all historical studies: you have to imagine yourself walking the Via Egnatia or on board a crowded smelly vessel on the Mediterranean or getting up before dark to make a tent properly to grasp what Paul is saying. The nearer we can accurately reconstruct a world, the better we will understand it. This is pretty basic stuff.
The interesting questions begin when we ask questions like these:
– Why are children in the NT told ‘to be submissive’ (hupotassomai) to their parents but not parents to their children?
– Why are slaves in the NT told ‘to be submissive’ (hupotassomai) to their masters but not masters to their slaves?
– Why are wives in the NT told ‘to be submissive’ (hupotassomai) to their husbands but not husbands to their wives?
– Why are husbands in the NT repeatedly told (in Colossians and Ephesians) to ‘love their wives’ but wives are not told to love their husbands?
There is a good principle in understanding ancient moral writings (and that includes first century Haustafel) that if people are specifically told to do X, that is a sign that they are *not doing X!
James, your last statement: ‘There is a good principle in understanding ancient moral writings (and that includes first century Haustafel) that if people are specifically told to do X, that is a sign that they are *not doing X!’
Would you claim that the ‘principle’ is different for understanding *modern moral writings? But either way, I think you are misunderstanding imperatives generally. Or is saying to someone ‘Have a good day’ a sign that they are *not having a good day?
‘There is a mutual relationship but it is not interchangeable or identical. ‘
Indeed. And I (and I suspect Andrew) don’t argue that men and women are identical or interchangeable (though I think some feminists would).
But being nonidentical can manifest itself in many ways; it does not imply unequal authority.
I share with you some reservation about my easier acceptance of women in leadership. But I think the teaching and examples in the NT are hard to avoid. I would now say, men usually lead, but there is no reason why women should never lead.
And just because someone misuses a truth to their own ends should not detract from the truth.
Ian, I have always thought that married couples could be called by the Lord to ministry, together teaching, counselling and praying for others, because this is what I discerned Aquila and Priscilla to be doing, and probably Andronicus and Junia, who seem to be married missionary couple. After all, Paul says in 1 Cor 9.5 that ‘the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas’ were accompanied by their wives. I imagine things were somewhat ad hoc in the early days of the church. But what I cannot see in the New Testament nor in the sub-apostolic period (to judge from the Epistle of Clement, The Shepherd, the Didache, the Letters of Ignatius, and everything I’ve read in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History) anything corresponding to a woman bishop or a woman presbyter as the spiritual head of a congregation. I am certainly open to correction on this, but I just can’t this in the NT or the sub-apostolic church.
I agree with you that there is little evidence in the Fathers.
But then, by the second century, the gifts of the Spirit appeared to have been forgotten, and bishops had turned into monarchical rulers.
So I am not sure how helpful that is.
And note: Paul does not envisage monarchical rule of congregations by *anyone*, male or female!
Tsk tsk, Ian – surely you know from the Ordinal of the BCP that “It is evident unto all men, diligently reading holy Scripture, and ancient Authors, That from the Apostles time, there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christs Church; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.” – except that these words aren’t actually found in the New Testament …..
But you could make the case that Titus 1.5 gives a trans-local authority to Titus ‘to amend what is defective and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.’ Titus the Archbishop of Crete?
Sarcasm alert needed?
It is certainly true that the outlook we find in Ignatius of Antioch has sharp discontinuity from the preceding – all the worse, therefore, that it is incorrectly pointed to by Catholics as being the way things were at the beginning. It could however be seen that the Pastorals are already on a trajectory towards greater formal organisation which can sometimes end up at that point if people are not careful.
‘But I think the teaching and examples in the NT are hard to avoid. I would now say, men usually lead, but there is no reason why women should never lead.’
I find that an odd conclusion given your support of Andrew’s book and extensive research. I doubt that would be Andrew Bartlett’s view – essentially that women can lead if need be but normally it is men we should expect to be leading according to Biblical teaching – but it would be interesting to know if he agrees.
I would argue given the clear patriarchal nature of Judaism it was inevitable that would continue into Christianity, but that doesnt mean that was God’s will then or today.
Well, I cannot presume to speak for Andrew.
But the two questions: are women permitted to exercise authority in leading and teaching; and, should we expect to see women leading and preaching *in equal numbers to men* are entirely separate, though very often confused.
Most contexts of leadership require particular personality traits, and most often those are traits found more commonly in men than in women.
The idea that ‘Women can lead’ should automatically have the consequence ‘We should see as many women as men in leadership’ is a logical fallacy.
For obvious reasons, women are more often committed to child care, and that removes them from leadership for long periods.
I have written about this quite often in the past, so I am surprised you are surprised!
If Andrew doesnt respond here, perhaps you could ask him?!
James, on your grammatical/syntactic argument about Eph 5.21 (March 23, 2026 at 5:07 am), can you give other examples where the verby part of the first utterance of a new ‘section’ (starting at 5:22) is to be inferred from the previous ‘section’? Are you talking here about what could be called ‘paragraphs’?
A good question – I swing back and forth on whether 5.21 links back to the preceding ‘section’ or forward to 5.22-6.9 (the traditional Haustafel). But here’s a left field idea that has just occurred to me: what if there is no division between the ‘sections’ (paragraphs are our editorial decision, after all) and the whole unit of paraenesis really begins at 5.1 (ginesthe oun …) and extends all the way through to 6.9. So the controlling imperative for the participle in 5.21 “upotassomenoi” would then be the command in 5.18, “plerousthe en pneumati” and the five following participles (speaking/singing/psalming/giving thanks/submitting to each other in the fear of Christ) spell out what being filled in/by the Spirit means? So the verbless 5.22 “wives to their own husbands as to the Lord” would read more smoothly, and the syntax of the unit would be:
“Be filled with Spirit … (by) submitting to one another in the fear of Christ, the wives to their own husbands as to the Lord”.
That makes a long sentence from 5.18 but Ephesians is notorious for that (1.1-14 us one breathless sentence) and it may explain better why 5.21 has a participle rather than an imperative and 5.22 doesn’t have a verb (although some MSS have supplied one to make it clear). This proposal would read verses 21 and 22 together, not as two separate sentences.
James, I think you are misunderstanding the question about *syntax that I am asking. The question (which you haven’t answered) is about *why* ‘5.22 doesn’t have a verb’. But, thank you for your lesson on participles and things.
You are saying that 5:22 takes its verby thing from 5:21. (Yes, of course.) So that verby thing is ‘submitting to one another’, yes? Which is what Andrew and Ian have been saying all along is the SYNTAX of 5:21-22.
What do you think of the idea that paragraphs are units of relevance? And we find such units in spoken language all the time — no indented lines in sight.
Bruce,
If you read my post again, you will see that I have already sugested an answer to your question about why there is no verb in Ephesians 5.22 – it doesn’t need one because 5.22 isn’t a sentence, it’s a phrase explicating the meaning of 5.21 with the same participle semantically carried over into v.22. As you will recall, I proposed reading 5.18-5.22 as one long continuous sentence governed by the imperative ‘plerousthe’ with the following present participles spelling out how this command is filled:
“Be filled in the Spirit …. submitting to one other, the women (submitting) to their own husbands”.
To me this makes smoother grammatical sense rather than taking the present participle in 5.21 as beginning a new sentence and functioning as an imperative. If 5.21-22 was an independent sentence, I think it would read a little oddly because it doesn’t have a finite verb, just a present participle which translators have to render as an imperative. That might just be possible but Ephesians usually uses imperatives, not participles, for this purpose. That’s why I grammatically connect it to the inperative in 5.18. As you will note, this suggestion is different from most translations, which have 5.21 concluding one section (ESV) or beginning a new one (RSV). I suggest instead that there is no break or transition in thought (something we signal in our translations with paragraph breaks) but a continous unit from 5.1 through to 6.9 and a new sentence beginning with the imperative in 5.18. If you think my suggestion is grammatically wrong, I would be glad of your comments.
I know what Andrew thinks. He believes the general expression in 5.21 “submitting to one another in the fear of Christ” really IMPLIES “husbands submitting to their wives and wives submitting to their husbands” – but 5.21 doesn’t actually say that (it’s actually a very general description of the desired behavioural attitude in the church covering any number of relationships) and Andrew has to struggle to read into this a specific duty imposed on husbands vis a vis their wives. When I ask, “Why doesn’t Paul say explicitly “Husbands, be subject to your wives as to the Lord” just as he says explicitly, ” Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord “?”, Andrew says, “He doesn’t need to, it’s already implied in 5.21.” But Andrew fails to see that if his interpretation of 5.21 is correct, the instruction to wives is ALSO implied in 5.21 and doesn’t need to be spelled out either! But it is, numerous times – but nowhere do we read, “the husband is subject to his wife in the Lord”. This fact, and the crucial fact that Christ is NEVER the subject of hupotassomai toward the church, and the striking fact that the husband (but not the wife) is paralleled to Christ, and my survey of every contextual instance of the verb in the NT, lead me to conclude that Andrew has fallen into a bit of eisegesis here. If I was being naughty, I might suggest that lawyers are very good at finding things in texts which the rest of us don’t see! But Ephesians isn’t a legal text, it’s a letter of religious instruction and ethical exhortation. We are not arguing about the syntax of 5.21 but its correct scope.
James, Paul sets out clearly what he wants husbands to do, as kephalē of the wife, in Eph 5:25-33a.
As I said before, Paul does not instruct the husband to rule, lead, or exercise authority over his wife. Nor is there any command from God to husbands anywhere in Scripture that they ought to rule, lead, or exercise authority over their wives. You say this is “altogether too sweeping”, but it is a fact. And it is not my choice or my construct. It is God’s choice not to give any such command. We should respect that choice, which we can be confident is deliberate. If God meant to command men to rule, lead or exercise authority over their wives, he would have done so.
From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, the only person in the Bible who instructs husbands to behave in that way is the loathsome sexual predator King Xerxes. (In the context in Esther, his decree that men should rule over their households is aimed at rule over their wife or wives.)
To obey Paul’s instructions in Eph 5:25–33a husbands must place themselves lower than their wives, treating their wives as if above themselves. This is the very meaning of submission.
I don’t understand why you keep emphasizing the asymmetry or non-interchangeability of Christ and church or of head and body. I haven’t said anything to contradict that. For submission to be mutual, the practical content of the submission does not have to be the same on each side. Husbands have natural and social advantages, rooted in physical difference. This increases their responsibility to give themselves in self-sacrificial service to their wives. (This is in accordance with the principle stated by Jesus in Luke 12:48.)
Jesus himself exemplified the kind of submission that Paul has in mind and which he describes in his instructions to husbands. Jesus voluntarily placed himself below others and treated them as more important than himself. He washed his disciples’ feet (John 13:1–15). He chose to take the lowest-ranking place, as the slave of all (Mark 10:42–45; Phil. 2:7–8). This was all part of his calling to be the saviour (Eph 5:23), giving up his life for his ‘bride’.
In addition, it is fallacious to argue from Paul’s non-use of the exact word ‘submit’ directly in relation to the husbands, as if that meant that they have an exemption. He does not need to. They are already included in verse 21. Similarly, he does not use the word ‘love’ in his instruction directly to the wives, but he does not need to, for they are included in the command to love in verses 1-2, from which they are not exempt.
Andrew,
Thank you for replying. First, let us agree that there is no place at all for tyranny or domineering in Christian marriage. However, you go a bit far in your second paragraph (‘Nor is there any command’ etc): marriage in the Old Testament at least was not a partnership of equals; men had (at least in principle) more rights and power than their wives did (dowry, divorce, polygyny etc). If you say some of these things are amended in Christ, I will agree.
It is true that the words ‘rule, lead or exercise authority’ are not used by Paul to characterise the Christian husband-wife relationship, and for good reason. These words are only appropriate to king-subject, master-servant, officer-soldier, teacher-pupil, parent-child etc relationships; and the husband-wife relationship is not one of these.
Instead, it is the union of two lives on the foundation of love. It is, at least in theory, a voluntary relationship entered consensually by mature persons (although in practice it often wasn’t) with vows of personal commitment, sexual and emotional exclusivity and permanence lying at the heart of it, being committed to sharing the same life goals; and for that reason, language of command and authority is quite inappropriate. Even the ancient pagan world knew that if a man married his slave-girl (as they sometimes did), she ceased to be a slave and their children were freeborn. Xerxes is clearly depicted as a buffoon, and the fact that he had to issue an order that wives must obey their husbands showed that he couldn’t enforce it. The author of Esther is satirising the fragility of this tyrant.
So we are not in disagreement here. But when you say, “I don’t understand why you keep emphasizing the asymmetry or non-interchangeability of Christ and church or of head and body”, it is simply because the Bible itself makes this emphasis, and the relationship of Christ to the church and the head to the body is NOT one of ‘mutual submission.
The church voluntarily submits (hupotassetai) to Christ (Ephesians 5.24); but Christ does not submit to the church. Of course, Christ *serves the church by his self-giving work (described in Ephesians 5.25b-27); but the Lord of the church does not obey the church’s commands or exhortations – which is what ‘submission; means. In your own work (if I understand correctly), your litigants voluntarily submit themselves to you and you serve them by coming to the correct judgment on the law. You don’t submit to their legal opinions, rather you listen patiently and thoughtfully, then decide whether they are right or wrong. They have to accept your arbitration, whether they like it or not. They can’t veto you. Your penultimate paragraph is correct in describing what Jesus did but exegetically wrong in describing this as ‘hupotaxis’. Jesus didn’t submit to Peter when he told him not to get crucified.
And the striking (and disturbing) fact is that Paul explicitly compares the relation of Christian husbands to their wives as that of Christ to his church – but not the other way round. You are to hasty in dismissing the significance of this fact. The commands Paul gives to husbands are really quite burdensome; this is as far away from Xerxes and Vashti as one could imagine. I fully believe (and I’m sure you do) that marriage is a partnership and decisions in marriage should be made as much as possible on the basis of consensus. consultation and competence. But even so, sometimes in family life unpopular or difficult decisions just have to be made which involve dying to oneself a bit.
Great summary.
James, you should read Andrew’s *final paragraph carefully. No cultural/historical background anywhere there, but a great explanation of how we use context in understanding a text.
Bruce,
I have read it – and I answer it in my reply March 26 at 12.13 am to your post above. It isn’t “a great explanation”, it’s a lawyer reading a letter of moral exhortation as if it were a legal text, and reading things into 5.21 and 5.22-33 which aren’t (necessarily) there. See my reply above for details. I have the greatest respect for lawyers interpreting legal texts and contracts but that isn’t the best approach for reading a first century letter to converts from paganism. A student of linguistics and genre (not to mention stylistics) should have no difficulty appreciating that point.
Or maybe James, those interested in linguistics, pragmatics, genre (and even stylistics) notice the six parallel vocatives not just through to 5:33 but to 6:9?
Bruce;
Yes, fair enough, provided you translate hupotassomenoi in Ephesians 5.21 as a stand alone imperatival participle (not dependent on plerousthe in 5.18) and you see 5.21 as supplying an unexpressed imperative (hupotassesthe) to the verbless syntagm of 5.22, so that it matches the expressed imperatives in the five vocatives that follow. This is what most translations do.
But none of this changes the basic meaning of this passage. A general plea “Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ” is not followed by mutual exhortations like ‘Parents, be subject to your children’ or ‘Masters, be subject to your slaves.’ That would be very surprising, to say the least. Instead, as in the parallel code in Colossians 3.18-4.1, a passage which is very similar to Ephesians 5-6, wives are exhorted to be subject (hupotassomai) to their husbands, husbands to love (agapao) their wives, children to obey (hupakuo) their parents, parents to bring up their children wisely (ektrepho), slaves to obey (hupakuo) their masters, and masters to treat their slaves considerately (anientes ten apeilen). Different people are assigned different responsiblities.
Ephesians 5.21 calls for mutual submission – but Ephesians 5.22-6.9 doesn’t. So either the writer is immediately contradicting himself – or some interpreters are reading too much into his words in 5.21.
I think it is the latter. In 1973 the US Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade found by 7-2 a ‘right to abortion’ in a ‘penumbra’ of the US Constitution. In 2022 the US Supreme Court in Dobbs found by 6-3 the opposite. What had changed? Not the text of the Constitution, only the way the justices read it: as a ‘living document’ or as ‘strict constructionists’. Similar issues affect Bible reading as well.
James: ‘Similar issues affect Bible reading as well.’ Yes, indeed they do. And I assume that both Geoff and you subscribe to the ‘strict constructionist’ view for interpreting the US Constitution. But I commented to Geoff about this (to which he hasn’t replied) — this seems to represent a serious misunderstanding of genre. How alike are the Constitution and the scriptures?
Let’s consider your discussion of Eph 5:22-6:9 (once again, why not 5:21-6:9 when 5:21 supplies the verby part for 5:22 – you have *not dealt with how the syntax might be guiding us in interpreting these two verses – and yes of course 5:21 is cohering with 5:18 (*and 5:15 *and 5:1-2 *and right back to 4:1). You have concentrated on individual words, not on what the writer is saying in the utterances – the whole statements he is making to the 6 groups of people. So you talk about there not being ‘mutual exhortations’ yet, by ‘mutual’ you seem to mean ‘identical’. Why would this need to be the case? Note what Andrew said: ‘For submission to be mutual, the practical content of the submission does not have to be the same on each side.’ So when you say ‘Different people are assigned different responsiblities’ isn’t it more likely that the writer meant not ‘different responsibilities’ but different ‘things’ that ‘mutual submission’ could entail appropriately for that group? As an example, you cite for parents ‘bring up (your) children wisely (ektrepho), but actually the first imperative addressed to parents is ‘don‘t make your children angry’. So for the somewhat specific imperative you have cited the more general one. So, are your examples consistent?
Thank you for pointing out the ‘parallel’ passage in Colossians. Unfortunately I don’t think this supports your ‘mutual’=’identical’ argument. For example, can the statement ‘with God there is no partiality’ be heard (understood, interpreted…) in different ways? Would it be heard identically by slaves and masters? (as in Col 3:25, Eph 6:9 and bring in all the cultural background you like!). (As a side note, especially in Onesimus’ case — a runaway? who had stolen from his master?) Wow! same words can have different implications (in this case I would say implicatures), just as different words can have the *same implications. Which, again, is what Andrew and Ian (as I understand them) have been saying. Standard understanding of how language works! I wonder, James, whether this is actually also *your practical understanding of how language works — so Geoff may be on his own with the ‘stricter’ view?
“So when you say ‘Different people are assigned different responsiblities’ isn’t it more likely that the writer meant not ‘different responsibilities’ but different ‘things’ that ‘mutual submission’ could entail appropriately for that group?”
If you want to call ‘responsibilities’ ‘things’, go ahead, that’s a distinction without a difference. I was just alluding to F. F. Bruce’s NICNT commentary, p. 383:
‘While the household code is introduced by a plea for mutual submissiveness, the submissiveness enjoined in the code itself is not mutual. As in the parallel code in Col. 3.18-4.1, wives are directed to be subject to their to their husbands, children to be obedient to their parents, and slaves to their masters, but the submissiveness is not reciprocated … As for the section dealing with wives and husbands, its distinctive feature in Ephesians is that the relationship between husband and wife is treated as analogical to that between Christ and the church.’
So when Andrew writes, ‘For submission to be mutual, the practical content of the submission does not have to be the same on each side’, he is not using ‘hupotassomai’ as the NT uses this word but inaccurately expanding its semantic field. When Andrew says ‘mutual submission’, he should really say ‘reciprocal duties’. Like F.F. Bruce, I am just paying attention to the actual use of language.
In Ephesians, husbands do not ‘submit themselves’ to their wives, they love them self-sacrificially, to the point of dying for them (an ideal found only among the best exemplars in Greco-Roman literature, but enjoined here upon all husbands).
In Ephesians5-6, parents do not ‘submit themselves’ to their children: they care for them wisely and unselfishly. They should always listen to them – but children don’t have the right of veto over their parents’ decisions.
In Ephesians, masters must not threaten their bond-servants but must treat them considerately – but bond-servants don’t get to veto their masters either. In Paul, masters don’t ‘submit themselves’ to their servants.
And in Ephesians, the church ‘subjects itself’ (hupotassetai) to Christ (Ephesians 5.24), but Christ is never said to ‘submit himself’ to the church. How does the church ‘subject itself’ to Christ, you may ask? The only answer can be: by obeying him as Lord and receiving his life and ordering as Head of the church.
The basic meaning of hupotassomai is not a general term (as Andrew argues) which means variously ‘love’ or ‘serve’ or ‘give yourself [for the good of another]’ or ‘don’t anger your children’ etc; rather, it means ‘place yourself under the ordering [taxis] of another.’ ‘taxis’ entails some kind of decision-making by another (cf. Matthew 8.9), something which sits ill with an individualistic age such as ours (just as Ephesians conflicted with its own violent and misogynistic age where men tyrranised their wives, children were exposed and slaves could be killed with impunity). I have made this point several times and this is my last comment here.
Cura ut valeas, amice!
I return the best wishes to you James.
As my last comment in this exchange I will point out once again my constant refrain
“he is not using ‘hupotassomai’ as the NT uses this word but inaccurately expanding its semantic field. When Andrew says ‘mutual submission’, he should really say ‘reciprocal duties’.”
“The basic meaning of hupotassomai …”
The point that I have constantly made is that while these look like ‘linguistic’ arguments they are not based on a, for want of a better expression, linguistic understanding of language. What does ‘expanding its semantic field’ mean, James? What is ‘the basic meaning’? Is this a linguistic term? And how does the ‘basic meaning’ of a single word help us understand/interpret an utterance?
You say that Andrew should use ‘reciprocal duties’ rather than ‘mutual submission’. But doesn’t the text say ‘submitting to one another’? From a pragmatics POV the question I would ask F.F. Bruce (highly esteemed) is why would Paul *introduce this section the way he does but then not build on the idea of reciprocity?
Another good read on this section of Ephesians is Lynn Cohick.
Is that Peter, the Fatherhood nature of God in Judaism, as in the Triune nature of God? Father to the fatherless.
A brief overview :
https://www.gotquestions.org/father-to-the-fatherless.html
That follows throughout the scriptures.
This may have today’s cultural negative connotations, but not God’s even when imperfectly modelled.
I dont doubt that we should call God ‘Father’, or that that is the primary way in which He is to be viewed. But He also, oddly to some people’s ears, refers to Himself like a mother. And given He is spirit, and thus non-gendered, I think we have to be careful how we understand God.
Like a mother, like an eagle, like a rock, like a warrior, like a shepherd, like a strong tower – yes, lots of similes.
But the way Christians name God and address Him in prayer is the way Jesus did.
(If you want to pray to Him in Aramaic, that’s fine, though a bit challenging for most people today. Paul was happy with Christians using their native language in prayer, so I assume modern English is fine as well.)
Peter, let’s stick with what is known, about God and accepted by Christians, revealed by God, the Trinity of God, Father Son and Spirit.
God the Spirit, is Holy, is not the spirit of the Age, is the Spirit of Truth. which is not mere human subjectivism, but is eternal.
But also let us dwell on the God revealed in the incarnation of the Son, Jesus.
…. That we may live through him
… The true representation of the Father’s glory
…. Having seen him we have seen the Father also
… The express image of the invisible God, representing God’s nature and will to us.
…. The infinite wisdom of God
… The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
… Eternal life is to know the Father and Jesus Christ whom he sent.
… For of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be the glory forever. Amen
… The way, the truth, the life.
… No one comes to the Father except through Jesus
… The only way that we may come to know God as Saviour and Sanctifier… The saving knowledge of Christ.
James,
This was meant as a contribution to your comments with Andrew Bartlett.
As it is a covenant of marriage, it is based on God’s covenantal relationship with his people which is definitely an imbalance, or asymmetrical, Covenantor with Covenantee : God’s people’s relationship is always responsive. Jesus is the groom, covenantor and his bride is in the position of responsive covenantee.
(The illustration of Xerces is ill conceived and misapplied as it is outwith God’s covenantal nature with his people.)
That is the model or pattern, for male and female, groom and bride marriage covenant.
(James, in Trump’s first term there was a kerfuffle over the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsich based on his known method, canon of construction as described in this wikki entry. His interpretion method seems to be apt in this whole discussion. It is well worth reading, particularly the links.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gorsuch
)
And it seems clear that Andrew Bartlett does not subscribed to the same school of interpretation as does US Supreme Court Jusctice, Neil Gorsuch, in this whole topic.
Interesting discussion between BRUCE SYMONS and JAMES THOMSON where, from my standpoint 1) BRUCE SYMONS is RIGHT! and 2) JAMES THOMSON has much better arguments.
On the subject of women in the ministry, I’m aware of people (e.g. my own mother) who came to faith through the ministry of women (in her case the Salvation Army and Faith Mission both of which have absolute equality) and I take this very seriously indeed and this consideration overrules any careful study of linguistics, of language and grammar, etc ….. (I’d also say that for marriage – if ever there is such a sharp disagreement that one of the couple has to pull rank over the other and be ‘obeyed’ then such a couple should probably never have gotten married in the first place. I note with interest that Paul was unmarried – his considerations were therefore entirely theoretical).
There is one issue that absolutely nobody has addressed here – which is that the Levitical priesthood, where the instructions were given through Moses is male-only. My model for Scripture is the standard conservative one, whereby the first five books are based primarily on what was penned by Moses, where he accurately and faithfully communicated the theology that God intended – and (crucially) that there is a consistent logic to it. This means (among other things) that the rules for the priesthood (where female are excluded) are in some sense consequential to creation of male and female in Genesis 2.
Anyone prepared to elaborate on this?
Thanks Jock. There are now only two priesthoods: that of Jesus; and that which all his followers share by virtue of being part of his priestly people.
There is no sacerdotal caste in the NT, so cannot be in the church. So this restriction does not apply.
Yes – of course you are correct about this – but I was more wondering what was the reason for the restriction in the first place.
After the priests and levites had finished slaughtering , burning, disembowling, waving &ct – who do you think did the washing up?