Index: CBMW, Grudem, kephale

Everything I have written on kephale has been in spontaneous posts in response to posts elsewhere in the blogosphere. I have never had any intention of examining this issue in depth and I deeply regret that I have not so far organized my material on this topic.

I have also written on several other aspects of the CBMW platform and Grudem's books. Let me summarize.

Anthropos

I first became aware that there was a belief among some in the Christian community that the Greek word anthropos meant "man" as in male, and this was one reason for why the TNIV was a "gender neutral" version. I found that the ESV had translated 2 Tim. 2:2 anthropos (pl) as "men" and in that way gave the impression that the scriptures did not give women the command to teach.

Dr. Packer and 2 Timothy

I was truly disturbed when I read this. It was one of the times Ifelt that the campaign against women was deliberate and involved waffling on the actual meanings of Greek words.

Adelphos

Around the same time, I read the TNIV and the Gender Neutral Bible Controversy. There, on page 426 I read that Grudem had drafted the guidelines for the TNIV without checking meanings in the Liddell-Scott Lexicon. He admitted that in May of 1997 he did not know that adelphos (pl) meant "brothers and sisters." I was stunned. How could a Bible translator not know the most basic meanings of very simple words?

Brothers and Sisters: Colorado Springs

Since then I have come to believe that each of the guidelines in the Colorado Springs guidelines is based on a faulty premise.

Colorado Springs Guidelines

I have summarized a few notes on the CSG here.

Summary of the Colorado Springs Guidelines

Creation

Another teaching of Grudem's has been the subordination of woman in creation. I have responded with some notes here.

What subordination in Creation
Subordination of Christ and Woman

Aner

The CBMW had criticized the TNIV translators for translating aner (man. citizen, person) as "person." In this case, I wrote a full article on the subject. It became evident to me as I wrote this article that Grudem has not followed up on all the examples of aner in the LSJ lexicon but had jumped to the conclusion that aner always referred to a male. That does seem obvious. It is, however, not factual.

The CBMW, Grudem and the TNIV: the lexicography of Aner

Junia

In the ESV and the NET Bible the reference to Junia in Romans 16:7 says that she is "well-known to the apostles."

I wrote 17 posts here and added more content in comments on other blogs. The best printed material on Junia to date is by Linda Belleville. See the bibliography in my post below.

Junia, the apostle: Index

After several exchanges with Grudem and Burer, I wrote,

Junia: A Reponse to Michael Burer

This is a highly technical argument, but the upshot is that neither Dan Wallace nor Michael Burer have responded to Linda Belleville's excellent critique of their work in attempting to prove that Junia was not an apostle. I reference the work done by Belleville, Epp and Bauckham. However, my writing benefited from what they wrote, and has additional content. The conclusion is that Chrysostom, a native speaker of Greek,recognized Junia as a female apostle and he was a native speaker of Greek.

Submission

Grudem claims on the CBMW website that submission is always submission to an authority, and therefore, wherever there is the word "submission" in Greek, we must assume that the other person has "authority over." In that case, there is no such thing as mutual submission. However, we do find that submission in Greek can be mutual. Here are some useful posts.

Grudem puts Foh before Calvin
Authority 7: One another
Authority 6: Trampling or loving one another
Mutual Submission in Clement

Ezer and Boethos

"Champion" and "Defender" in Clement


Kephale

Once again we are back to rough notes. To a certain extent, I am expressing some tentative opinions here. I have since come to the conclusion that while the head, in Greek, was sometimes but not always considered the ruling part of the person, the expression kephale (head) was not used to indicate the authority of one person over the other. The examples offered by Grudem to prove this case have not been accurate representations of the Greek.

Exchange with John Mark Reynolds
Grudem and kephale
Grudem and Ptolemy
Grudem and Glare
The Omitted Citations
Kephale in the Literature

I am unwilling to get into kephale any deeper than this. The foremost example which Grudem uses to prove that kephale means "authority over" is,

“the king of Egypt is called “head” of the nation”

Grudem used this quote on Jan. 19, 2008, on the Gender Blog. However, in Appendix 1A of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, he wrote,

19) Philo, Moses 2.30: As the head is the ruling place in the living body, so Ptolemy [Ptolemy Philadelphos] became among kings.

Cervin does not think that head means ruler here because Philo says that Philadelphos is the head of kings, not in the sense of ruling them, but as the preeminent king among the rest. Philadelphos is the top of the kings just as the head is the top of an animal’s body. . . . This example is therefore to be rejected (p. 100).”

Grudem continues in RBMW Appendix 1B to discuss this example. However, he fails to show that it means "authority over." This is Grudem's best piece of evidence and proves the opposite of his thesis, which is that kephale means authority. It obviously doesn't. The rest of Grudem's examples are similar. However, what is the point of quoting them if Grudem just recycles rejected evidence?

Authentew

Here are a few posts on the Greek word authentew - to usurp authority or dominate. This is the word commonly translated "to exercize authority" in 1 Tim. 2:12. However, the Latin Vulgate translated that word as dominare. The notion that this verse had "exercize authority" in it is relatively recent. What follows is a rather academic look at the lexical evidence for the meaning of authentew.

Authority:1
Authority:2
Authority:3
Authority:4
Authority:5
Authority:6


I will be adding material here from time to time as well as editing the post.