I don’t think this ruins my argument exactly, but I think it challenges my provided reason why authentein came to be translated just as ‘authority.’

Well worth the read!

I look forward to continuing to read your dialogue here as I am scheduled to teach the last in a series of three classes on the topic of “Women in Ministry” in our Critical Issues in Christianity class at a small church in the LA area in California.

First, Tom. Great stuff. I don’t know JACK ALL about readin Greek (It’s all…no…I won’t). But, I do know that you are building a positive case for something that people have jumped to.

I think the main problems I’ve seen with the ordination of women and inclusion in control of church government is that feminism was an issue. People thought, ‘Well, women can work, they can earn a living, they can abort their children, they can be cops and army men, and firefighters. We should let them be preachers and deacons and stuff too.’ That is bad, and faulty reasoning.

I think that the Bible is pretty clear that women have a right to work in the church, and even lead people, including men. The fact that John’s narrative deconstructs divisions within the body (thank you for that JR), there are more than a fair share of priestess and prophetesses in the OT, and other such, I think is great proof of this. But, when it has come to arguing the case against more conservative thinkers, I’ve never been able to make a case that separated me from the pop-feminists they thought I was (m)ali(g)ned with.

I say all of that to say that this: ‘Thank you for this study.’ And to say: ‘Exegesis is cool even for people who know JACK ALL about it.’

I am right there with you, with wanting more exegesis.  However, it is only one step in the hermeneutical process.

Having read where Tom is going with this on his previous blog, I think you'll see that the exact meaning isn't terribly important - what matters is that the word does not mean merely "authority". Rather, Paul is exhorting women at Ephesus not to dominate or take authority that is not necessarily theirs.  Of course this begs the question of what authority (if any) is rightfully theirs (as Honzo pointed out).

Very interesting and I am excited to see what you further have to say. I just want to make sure that you will include in the six posts why in this context the word means "dominate" and not "usurp authority." Sometimes a person will open up a lexicon and see a possible meaning and then run with it when there are reasons why a word means what it means in that particular context (i.e. tetagmenoi in Acts 13:48). I wish we would have more discussions like this on the blog, exegeting Scripture.

Thank you for your post. As a former complimentarian, I used to read such texts as the one you are looking at, along with many other passages from Paul (or a follower of Paul’s) with dismay. I used to wish that it said something else because from what I understood about God (and Paul) did not make sense with what I was reading. As I am looking at the historical context and meaning of the words used, I am becoming more hopeful.

I remember conversations with my then saying, “I don’t like it, but the text seems to exclude you from leadership and authority. It does not make sense, but who am I to argue with God?” Since then I have begun to see where the text might not be as straight forward as it might seem at first.

I have read some pro-eglatarian material in the past and they have not impressed me much. I am thinking of Loren Cunningham and David Joel Hamilton’s Why not Women?. However, studies such as yours and T. Bristow’s in What Paul really said about Women have have helped me - just wanting to say thanks.

However, while you have successfully argued against the use of authority as we Americans use the term in Tim, a positive case for the “authority” of women has not yet been constructed. If a woman does not dominate me, she would also not have authority over me… or at least, I could read the text that way. Now, I fully realize that this is part 1 of 6, so I don’t expect you to have built a case yet, I am just looking forward to it!

On a side note, an interesting work to read is Ordained Women in the Early Church by Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek. In the work, the two go through the evidence for women in ministerial positions in the ante-nicean period. The results were surprising. One of the claims that they demonstrated was how Deacon was used instead of Deaconess to describe women deacons from the 100’s until the 300’s where deaconess began to be used.

Also, for our complimentarian readers, I would be interested in a presentation of your case as well.