Monday, February 15, 2010

Lexicons are out. It's official

John Hobbins, in a comment on this post, answers a query and writes,
    I read the unit as grounding the prohibition of women from leading and teaching men in three ways: (1) the creation order; (2) the first sin of Eve being that of having been deceived; (3) the woman's assigned creation purpose being that of childbearing; as a practical matter, that would have been understood to be (and was, and to a certain extent still is) incompatible with the kind of commitment office-based (i.e., continuous) leadership involves.
But the BDAG has provides no meaning of Christian leadership for authenteo. Instead it says,
to assume a stance of independent authority, give orders to, dictate to.

I hold these arguments of Paul in the "highest respect" but I freely admit that I do not understand this passage. However, I do know for a certainty that the usual interpretation of this passage cannot be constructed using what we now know about the verb authenteo. It is not respectful to simply ignore the lexicons and other scholarly research on this word authenteo.


8 comments:

Lydia said...

Very strange that "prohibition" did not go as far back as Deborah who was both political leader of a Theocracy and Prophtess.

That does not make a lot of sense.

EricW said...

Call me dense, but I'm not sure I understood what Hobbins was saying in his response, or whether he was being serious or facetious.

Gem said...

Odd. Isn't his wife a Methodist Pastor. I wonder if he is conflicted about his wife's vocation? I wonder how his wife feels about his comment?

believer333 said...

I wonder how far his authority as a husband goes toward his wife's ministry as a pastor. He seems to hold two opposing views comfortably.

gengwall said...

I did a 6 part, word by word, commentary on 1 Tim 2:11-15 as part of my Show Stoppers series. Already in the couple of comments I have received, feigned ignorance of the grammer of key words like authenteo is a usual tactic leading to red herring arguments.

But this statement by Hobbins is just plain wrong: "(2) the first sin of Eve being that of having been deceived;" Being deceived is not a sin, and the text doesn't say anything of the sort. With such a false representation of even the worst translations of 1 Timothy 2:14, one wonders if he has ever opened a lexicon, let alone disregarded one.

Suzanne McCarthy said...

I believe that John is in full support of his wife's vocation and is not conflicted about it.

I am not comfortable with discussing people's personal circumstances. That is what has generated so much bad feeling in the past.

I must offer others what I want for myself.

This is a complex discussion about whether one can affirm Christians who subordinate women. I argue that we should not, but others disagree.

Donald Johnson said...

I think it is a serious distortion of following God to think that a group of adults are subordinate to others permanently, but there are a LOT of people with a lot invested in thinking that this is normal and good, so some are simply following some teaching false things, unfortunately, even when it takes them away from Christ.

Gem said...

"I believe that John is in full support of his wife's vocation and is not conflicted about it."- Suzanne

Hmmm.
Actions speak louder than words (1 John 3:18).

So, perhaps he is not saying what it seems, or perhaps he is just making an academic observation of how some justify their beliefs (but not him)?

Per 1 Cor 13, I'll have to assume the best, and believe that he is a man of single eye who practices what he preaches.

Does anyone know if his wife has a blog? I would love to read it!