Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Carson on authenteo

John Starke has published this segment of Don Carson's talk at the Different by Design 2009 conference. Here are some relevant points with reference to this video.

1. Carson says that "the verb authenteo in most instances has a neutral or positive overtone. But there is a handful of instances where you can at least make a case that it can have a negative overtone."

In fact, there are no cases near the NT in time, where authenteo has a positive overtone. I repeatedly asked John Starke to supply even one, but he declined to do so. ( I know he has a new baby, and I am very happy for him. However, he found time to make the clip of Carson on authenteo for CBMW.)

2. Köstenberger insists that both verbs must be either positive or negative.

Yes, most scholars agree with this.

3. All sides agree that "teach" by itself has a positive overtone.

I find this odd because Köstenberger on his blog has written the following,

    A case in point is I. H. Marshall. In his 1999 ICC commentary on the Pastorals, Marshall at the outset indicates his acceptance of the findings of my study by noting that it has “argued convincingly on the basis of a wide range of Gk. usage that the construction employed in this verse is one in which the writer expresses the same attitude (whether positive or negative) to both of the items joined together by oude.”

    Yet Marshall proceeds to opt for a negative connotation of both terms “teach” and “have authority,” because he says false teaching is implied in the reference to Adam and Eve in verse 14.
Two out of three of the points that Don Carson made about authenteo were not accurate. I don't think this video makes a good case for why women should not teach men.




7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It SEEMS to make a good case when one does not study both sides of the issue. He mentions Payne only to claim Payne lost and does not mention others like you at all. Scholarship with blinders on is not scholarship, no matter its pretensions.

Don

Bryon said...

They already posted on this in the past. The whole mp3 is on the front page. I see they’re going to try and drive a point home with another posting. Carson is one of my favorites. I don’t have the knowledge to challenge him but if the CBMW is going to put something out, the least they (Starke) can do is be familiar with the subject matter!

Lydia said...

This is always frustrating. Our scholars simply refuse to see what does not fit their premise. That would mean they are not scholars.

Too bad so many will believe anything they say because of who they are.

TC ROBINSON said...

Carson let me down on that authenteo. At least Marshal takes a better approach. I'm with your conclusion Suzanne.

Anonymous said...

Lydia, I would point out that Suzanne states that Carson is wrong, but, that it is only her unwillingness to except something that does not fit her starting premise.

I also note that the comments here do not interact with the details of what Carson said, but just indulge in derisive comments attempting to dispute his abilities as a scholar.

I suppose that is expected to pass for 'scholarship' on the part of the commenter's?

Suzanne McCarthy said...

Lydia,

You are most welcome to provide any occurence of authenteo in Greek literature near the time of the New Testament which demonstrates that the word has a neutral or positive overtone.

Even one. I wouls not be at all unwilling to acknowledge such an example if it existed.

I have read the examples and studied Baldwin's work at length and simply cannot find any. Kostenberger's agrees completely that there are none.

Anonymous said...

Of course women cannot teach men. All hail the male!