Response to the Open Letter Part 2

In my recent post Response to the Open Letter I responded to three of Dr.Grudem's challenges in his Open Letter to Egalitarians. Mike Seaver of Role Calling has kindly agreed to an exchange of posts on this topic.

Mike has also posted his own open letter here. I have responded with a couple of comments but I realize that I have not completed my response to the original open letter. Here are the three points in Grudem's letter that I had not responded to. First, Dr Grudem's question and then my answer.

Dr. Grudem writes,

3. “or’’ (Greek ē): In 1 Corinthians 14:36, some of you argue that the Greek word ē (“or’’) shows that the preceding verses are a quotation from the Corinthian church which Paul denies. Therefore you say that Paul is not really telling the Corinthian church, the women should keep silence in the churches. ...

Will you please show us one example in all of ancient Greek where this word for “or’’ (¯e) is used to introduce what the readers know to be false, so the author can deny both what goes before and what follows?

In the notes of the NET Bible, we find this conclusion, regarding 1 Cor. 14:34-35,

The very location of the verses in the Western tradition argues strongly that Paul both authored vv. 34-35 and that they were originally part of the margin of the text. Otherwise, one has a difficulty explaining why no scribe seemed to have hinted that these verses might be inauthentic.

The notes clearly suggest that these verses were in the margin, based on manuscript evidence, and then argue from silence that Paul must have written them. (Let me add that there is no consensus among complementarians or egalitatarians on the status of these verses.)

Until there is a consensus on the placement of these verses in the original, we cannot do more than speculate on the meaning of the word "or" in this passage.

Dr.Grudem writes,

5. “neither X nor Y’’: In 1 Timothy 2:12, where Paul says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man,’’ the grammatical structure in Greek takes the form, “neither + [verb 1] + nor + [verb 2].’’

Will you please show us one example in all of ancient Greek where the pattern “neither + [verb 1] + nor + [verb 2]’’ is used to refer to one action that is viewed positively and one action that is viewed negatively?

In my previous response I explained that there is no evidence for a positive connotation for authenteō in 1 Tim. 2:12. BDAG cites its meaning as "to assume a stance of independent authority, give orders to, dictate to." In fact, Dr. Kostenberger comments,

owing to the scarcity of the term in ancient literature (the only NT occurrence is 1 Tim. 2:12; found only twice preceding the NT in extrabiblical literature) no firm conclusions could be reached on the basis of lexical study alone.

In fact, no one has provided an occurrence of authenteō at the time of the NT which has a positive connotation. However, there is an example of a negative occurrence for didaskō (to teach) here in Titus 1:11,

They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

In conclusion, there is no positive occurrence for authenteō (to dominate see BDAG) and there is a negative occurrence for didaskō (to teach). It is therefore probable that both verbs were meant to be taken negatively.

Dr. Grudem writes,

6. Women teaching false doctrine at Ephesus: In 1 Timothy 2:12, where Paul says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man,’’ many of you say the reason for Paul’s prohibition is that women were teaching false doctrine in the church at Ephesus (the church to which 1 Timothy was written).

Will you please show us one reference in all of ancient literature, whether inside or outside the Bible, that states that all the Christian women at Ephesus (or even that any Christian women at Ephesus) were teaching false doctrine?

This is an argument from silence. What we do know is that there was a goddess Artemis worshiped at Ephesus. She was the patron goddess of women in childbirth and there were priestesses in her service. This was clearly a very contentious issue and caused a considerable commotion in Acts 19:34.

But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!"

It is therefore possible that Christian women at Ephesus were still faithful to Artemis in some way.

While any answer to these three questions of Dr. Grudem's can only be speculation, I hope that I have demonstrated that the balance of the evidence does not support the complementarian view to the exclusion of the egalitarian view.

Response to Grudem's Open Letter to Egalitarians

A few years back, CBMW posted an Open Letter to Egalitarians by Wayne Grudem. Linda Belleville responded to Grudem and he responded and revised it.

Later, Mike Seaver posted Grudem's letter, and that was when I asked him if he would be interested in a response from me. He was very gracious in interacting with me on this issue. Thank you, Mike.

Here are the two posts I wrote in response to Grudem's Open Letter to Egalitarians.

Part 1
Part 2

Response to the Open Letter

In 1998 Dr. Grudem wrote an Open Letter to Egalitarians. Mike Seaver of Role Calling has copied it onto his blog. I have asked if Mike would consider my response to this letter. Here is a copy of the original letter with responses by Linda Belleville and Dr. Grudem's rebuttal.

I would also like to make an attempt to put the answer to three of the points in this letter in a fairly simple form, and have people respond to this.

1 Kephale [head]

Dr. Grudem writes,

Specifically, we cannot find any text where person A is called the “head’’ of person or persons B, and is not in a position of authority over that person or persons.

One occurrence of kephale that Dr. Grudem often cites is,

The King of Egypt is called "head" of the nation in Philo, Moses 2.30, "As the head is the ruling place in the living body, so Ptolemy became among kings."

The full citation for this is,

the whole family of the Ptolemies was exceedingly eminent and conspicuous above all other royal families, and among the Ptolemies, Philadelphus was the most illustrious; for all the rest put together scarcely did as many glorious and praiseworthy actions as this one king did by himself, being, as it were, the leader of the herd, and in a manner the head of all the kings. Moses 2:30

Philadelphus is described as the head of all the kings, because he is the most illustrious. The kings, of whom Philadelphus was the "head," are the other kings in the family of the Ptolemies. This reference includes Ptolemy 1 Soter, who was the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty and the father of Philadelphus.

Philadephus was, for two years, a co-regent with his father, but he was not the authority over his father. This passage also refers to the descendants of Philadelphus, who were kings and queens after him. The king of Egypt was not the "head of the nation" as Dr. Grudem cites, nor was he the authority over the kings that he was head of.

We can rightly say that,

Person A, Philadelphus, was called the "head" of person B, Ptolemy Soter, and Philadelphus was not in a position of authority over his father, Ptolemy Soter.

2. Hupotasso - [to submit, yield]

Dr. Grudem writes,

Will you please show us one example in all of ancient Greek where this word for “be subject to’’ (hypotassō, passive) is used to refer to one person in relation to another and does not include the idea of one-directional submission to the other person’s authority?

Here are two clear examples,

1 Clement 38.1:

“So in our case let the whole body be saved in Christ Jesus, and let each man be subject (ὑποτασσέσθω) to his neighbor, to the degree determined by his spiritual gift,”

2 Macc 13.23,

”[King Antiochus Eupator] got word that Philip, who had been left in charge of the government, had revolted in Antioch; he was dismayed, called in the Jews, yielded (ὑπετάγη) and swore to observe all their rights, settled with them and offered sacrifice, honored the sanctuary and showed generosity to the holy place.”

In the first case, Christians are to be subject to their neighbour, and in the second, the king is subject to his subjects.

We can rightly say that (hypotassō, passive) is used to refer to a Christian in relation to his or her neighbour and it does not include the idea of one-directional submission to that other person’s authority.

3. Authenteo - 1 Timothy 2:12 "to have authority" or "to dominate"

Dr. Grudem writes,

Our problem is this: we have never seen any clear example in ancient Greek literature where authenteō must mean “domineer’’ or “misuse authority." Whenever we have seen this verb occur, it takes a neutral sense, “have authority’’ or “exercise authority,’’ with no negative connotation attaching to the word itself.

It was originally thought that there were two occurrences of authenteo preceding the epistle to Timothy. Here is the first one,

Philodemus (1st cent. BCE): “Ought we not to consider that men who incur the enmity of those in authority (συν αυθεντουσιν) are villains, and hated by both gods and men”;

In fact, this is from a reconstructed fragment. The text cited is from a short summary of the reconstructed text. It is not a translation and there is no connection between the reconstructed phrase συν αυθεντ[ου]σιν and "those in authority." συν αυθεντ[ου]σιν occurs near the beginning of the fragment, and "those in authority" is at the end of the summary.

The only other occurrence of authenteo during this period is provided by Grudem as,

BGU 1208 (27 BCE): “I exercised authority (Καμου αυθεντηκοτος) over him, and he consented to provide for Calatytis the Boatman on terms of full fare, within the hour.”

In fact, the translation "exercised authority over" is not the usual translation for authenteo in this citation. Other scholars suggest "prevail on" "compel" and "made him." In the footnote of Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, page 680, Dr. Grudem mentions that this letter refers to a "hostile" relationship, and the meaning "compel" seems appropriate. If it is a hostile relationship, then one presumes it has a negative connotation.

Here is a clearly negative use of the word authenteo from the 2nd/3rd century,

Wherefore all shall walk after their own will. And the children will lay hands on their parents. The wife will give up her own husband to death, and the husband will bring his own wife to judgment like a criminal. Masters will lord it over their servants savagely, and servants will assume an unruly demeanour toward their masters. Hippolytus, On the End of the World 7.

Clearly authenteō has an negative connotation. It is the way a master rules a slave. Is this the proper exercise of authority in the church? In fact, these are the only occurrences of the word authenteo from the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century AD apart from its use in an astrology text.

We can rightly say that the word authenteo has a negative connotation attaching to the word itself.

Grudem, Ptolemy and kephale

This post is a review of what Grudem wrote in his Open Letter to Egalitarians. Grudem wrote,

But we have never been able to find any text in ancient Greek literature that gives support to your interpretation. Wherever one person is said to be the "head'' of another person (or persons), the person who is called the "head'' is always the one in authority (such as the general of an army, the Roman emperor, Christ, the heads of the tribes of Israel, David as head of the nations, etc.) Specifically, we cannot find any text where person A is called the "head'' of person or persons B, and is not in a position of authority over that person or persons.

I think it is important to make it clear that of these examples, none use the word kephale to say that any person was the "head" of anything. For example, the citation about the general says that the general is like the head of the body. There is no instance in ancient Greek where the general is called the "head of the army" as we might say in English.

Two of the examples here, David, and the "heads" of tribes, are both embedded in obscure translation Greek, and in fact, one says "heads of rods" and the other says "head of gentiles/nations."

There is only one case in all of Greek literature where kephale is used to say that a person was a leader, and this is in reference to Jephthah. He was called the head of the tribe.

In another case, in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Grudem cites Philo. Here is the Greek and the English, from Fitzmeyer, page 86,

Philo speaks of Ptolemy II Philadelphus as one who was outstanding among the Ptolemies and expresses it thus,


genoumenos kathaper en zōō to hēgemoneuon kephalē tropon tina tōn basileōn

being, as the head is the leading part in a living body, in some sense the head of kings [of the Ptolemaic dynasty]. (De Vita Mosis 2.5.30)

Grudem perhaps is depending on the same interpretation as Fiztmeyer. Here are my concerns with this text.

First, in Philo, we do see the head - kephale - used as the ruler of the body. The question is whether a person who is referred to as a kephale, is a ruler, or just a very prominent person.

1) Philadelphus II, is, as his name suggests, NOT the head of the Ptolemaic dynasty at all - his father was. So, Ptolemy is referred to as kephale, but he is not in authority over his father.

2) Philadelphus is being described in this passage as more illustrious than the other kings for doing a good deed, for having the Hebrew scriptures translated into Greek. There is no reference in this passage to Philadelphus being the ruler over other kings.

3) Philadelphus is not actually called "head" - this has been inserted in translation. Its a comparison or analogy. There is no phrase here which can be translated as "head of kings" or "head of the nation."

4) The Greek phrase en zōō to hēgemoneuon is extremely obscure and has been translated elsewhere as "leader of the herd." [edited] It says, "just as the head is the leading place of the living creature, so [Philadelphus] of kings."

I hope this gives you some idea of how obscure and tenuous these citations are. Although the head is considered the leader of the body in Philo, there is no expression in Greek which uses the word "head" for a person who is a leader. There is no expression "head of state" or "head of the army." It is not until a century after the NT, that there occurs only once in all of Greek literature, the expression "head of the house." This appears to be a passage written in Rome and perhaps influenced by Latin, which uses caput frequently to denote a person who is a leader.

I don't think that the examples of kephale in Greek literature support Grudem's thesis. However, that does not mean that the author of Ephesians does not see the wife as having a different status than the husband. It is quite possible he does. This is the way it was then. Does that justify it?

In my opinion, we should not seek to put the wife on a different level from the husband, any more than we should aspire to return to slave labour. Perhaps the author of Ephesians does think of a wife as entirely dependent on her husband, as someone who must fear and reverence her husband. Each generation has to work out how to translate this into a relationship that is not based on "fear."

Authority 4: The fragment's non-existence

I was made aware recently that the Philodemus Fragment does not actually exist, although there is a hand-made copy of it. It is hard to see how this fragment could be called evidence for anything.

However, I find that it is mentioned at least twice on the CBMW website. Wolters mentions it in A Semantic Study of authentes and its Derivatives,

It is possible, however, that the text should read authent[ai]sin instead of authent[ou]sin, in which case we have a form not of the verb authentew, but of the noun authentes.64 If we do read the verb, then its meaning here, according to standard lexicographical reference works, is ‘rule’ or ‘have authority over’.65

65 See S. Sudhaus (ed.), Philodemi Volumina Rhetorica (2 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1896), II, p. 133, lines 12-15. The Herculaneum papyrus fragments in question (now known as P.Herc. 220) are no longer extant, although a hand-drawn copy was published in the nineteenth century. For an extensive bibliography on P.Herc. 220, see M. Gigante, Catalogo dei Papiri Ercolanesi (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1979), pp. 107-108. It is usually assigned to Book V of Philodemus’s Rhetorica, which is being prepared for publication by Matilde Ferrario of Milan; see her ‘Per una nuova edizione del quinto libro della “Retorica” di Filodemo’, in Proceedings of the XVIIIth International Congress of Papyrology, Athens, 25–31 May 1986 (2 vols.; Athens: Greek Papyrological Society, 1988), I, pp. 167-84. However, P.Herc. 220 has been tentatively referred to Book VII in T. Dorandi, ‘Per una ricomposizione dello scritto di Filodemo sulla Retorica’, ZPE 82 (1990), pp. 59-87 (85)

There is no internal evidence which makes the meaning of authent[ai/ou]sin explicit and certainly Hubbell's translation for authent[ou]sin is "powerful" and not "exercise authority." Note that Wolters does not make this clear, but only says "then its meaning here, according to standard lexicographical reference works, is ‘rule’ or ‘have authority over’". This quote does not actually support any particular meaning at all, as far as I know, since too little of the fragment was ever available. This citation simply must be dropped from the debate - it cannot be used by either side.

However, more has been written about this fragment. In An Open Letter to Egalitarians (Revised 2003): A Consideration of Linda Belleville's 2001 Response Grudem writes,

In the third (the fragmentary manuscript), the meaning, "authoritative lords" makes good sense, and it would be impossible to demonstrate the meaning "lords who misuse authority." Baldwin's gives the translation, "those in authority."²³

Baldwin may have given the meaning "those in authority" but clearly Grudem has not yet understood that Baldwin misunderstood the translation. Quoting an error is unhelpful, but it seems that readers are willing to take Grudem's word that Baldwin's study has validity. "Authoritative lords" might make sense, if we knew the word was authentew and if we knew the word following was, in fact, "lords." I suspect that the fragment would sound just as good if we translated the word in many other ways. It is irritating to see the flawed study by Baldwin being quoted as evidence for anything. I would like to see something a little more scholarly.

Grudem has an interesting point here,

When I referred to the meaning "misuse authority" in my first article, I also used the term, "domineer" to speak of such misuse. This was because the word "domineer" means, "To rule over or control arbitrarily or arrogantly; tyrannize."²⁵ But this English word "domineer" must be distinguished from the word "dominate," which has no connotation of misuse of authority, but just means, "To control, govern, or rule by superior authority or power."²⁶ Because "domineer" (a negative term) and "dominate" (a neutral term) sound so much alike in English, perhaps it is misleading to use "domineer" to indicate a misuse or abuse of authority .

Part of the difficulty is that there is no clear difference between "power" and "authority" in Greek. Possibly authentew could be translated as "dominate" in English and that would be acceptable to both sides. Complementarians would understand by it that a woman could not "govern by authority" , and egalitarians would understand that a woman could not "govern by power", because no one should "govern by power".

I don't see any point in lobbying for any particular interpretation at this point, but as a translation "dominate" seems to be a good "neutral" candidate. Maybe I will see it differently later. The way it stands now, complementarians have their interpretation and it restricts women, egalitarians have theirs and it entails equity. If neither one can be proven then we are each responsible for behaving according to our conscience.

Role Calling

Mike at Role Calling has written a post linking to my Response to the Open Letter. I had read Dr. Grudem's challenge to egalitarians before, and I wanted some complementarians to know that egalitarians have thought about it and responded.

I wrote to Mike and we had a friendly exchange and found also that we have a lot in common. I asked Mike to first read a few posts on my blog, so that he would know that I am strongly confronting the ideological complementarianism which teaches male-based authority. He still agreed to link to my blog. Thank you very much, Mike. Some day soon I will try to post on the remaining 3 points in the Open Letter.

Kephale: A Summary

I have just taken a brief internet survey on kephale and headship, and I seriously doubt that much more can be added to the extensive literature that already exists on this subject. I am going to list a few links here which I found of interest and then pass on the subject.

Recently Metacrock's blog had a series on kephale. He gives a good literature survey. Next, I found Wayne Grudem's article here quite interesting. This article seems to prove both sides inconclusive. The Mennonite Brethren Forum has a discussion on headship and women's leadership. Here is an Open Letter To Egalitarians with a consideration of Linda Belleville's 2001 response.

Probably the best article on headship that I have read is this one in Christianity Today, Headship with a Heart. Here is an excerpt,

"Few phrases are more explosive in our culture than male headship. Feminists claim that patriarchy (the affirmation of male authority over females) is the basis for most social pathology and for virtually all domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault. In their groundbreaking book on domestic violence, sociologists R. Emerson and Russell Dobash assert "the seeds of wife beating lie in the subordination of females and in their subjection to male authority and control. This relationship has been institutionalized in the structure of the patriarchal family" (Violence Against Wives: The Case Against the Patriarchy, Free Press, 1983). Others attack patriarchy even more virulently, calling it a "death sentence" for society (Russ Fink, Stopping Rape: A Challenge to Men, New Society, 1993)."

I was once in a position where this discussion was of utmost importance, when I received a visit from a woman in a church I was attending many years ago. She had suffered physical abuse in the home, which a medical doctor attested to in court. The elders of the church had reprimanded her for her behaviour in not being subordinate and pleasing her husband.

However, it is interesting to read how Tracy then goes on to reclaim the concept of headship, basically by distancing it from authority and focusing on protection. This connects closely to a theme in Aristotle that I have been following. That is the role of the father as the 'soter'. This idea deserves a post in itself.

I shall close with this thought.

So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12 (ESV)

Update:

I am going to add a few more links here once in a while.
What Men Give Up at Christian Egalitarians