Household: Excursus on 1 Timothy (Part 3)

Previously, I took a first pass at interpreting 1 Timothy 2:8-15. I want to reflect on a few more aspects of verses 11-15 in this passage.

A Woman

Verses 9-10 talk about "women." Starting at verses 11-12, the passage talks about "a woman" in the singular. Verses 13-14 talk about a single woman, Eve. Verse 15 reverts back to "women." What is going on here?

I think Andrew Perriman has the key (Speaking of Women, 159). If we remove verse 12 as a parenthetical, the following chiasmus emerges:

1 Tim 2:11, 13-14

A  11 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. ...
     B  13 For Adam was formed first,
          C  then Eve;
     B’  14 and Adam was not deceived,
A’  but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

A is the prescription for A'. B explains why B' happened. Eve is the focal point of the analogy. Verse 12 is inserted to make explicit the occasion of this instruction. The shift to a singular woman in verse 11 is to make the grammatical comparison between a generic woman and the woman Eve in chiasmus.

I have also read that there may be significance to the verb plasso ("formed") in verse 13. If we are speaking purely of creation, kitzo would seem to be the likely expression for create.

1 Corithians  11:9

Neither was man created (kitzo) for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man.

One use of plasso is to describe what happens as a teacher works with his student and "forms" his thinking.

When we see this chiasmus, it moves verses 11, 13, and 14 to the foreground of the passage, and verse 12 becomes commentary. Verses 11-14 are about making sure women have proper instruction.

Verse 12 Alternatives

Ben Witherington points out that verse 12 does not begin by saying, "I do not permit a woman to…." It says, "I permit no women to…." Constructed in this way, the sentence does not have the connotation of "I will never permit…." In other words, it could be a temporary injunction, and Paul later will permit the behavior (say, after receiving sound instruction.) Witherington does not explain how this interpretation would be meaningful in understanding authentein, which he identifies as a negative action. (Paul would later allow women to usurp authority?) I'm not enough of a linguist to parse this in various ways that might work. Of course, if authentein means authority, then there is no problem. He might later allow teaching and authority after instruction.

Gnostic or Gnot

Okay, it is time for me to confess here. I wrote two posts earlier:

“It is impossible to put all the pieces together with certainty but it appears that there were women (young wealthy widows?) spreading false teaching and Gnosticism (or proto-Gnosticism) was a very significant problem.”

But is the "appearance" correct? I'm here to tell you honestly that I don't know.

Scholars I greatly respect, like the late Stanley Grenz, Linda Bellville, and Catherine Kroeger, would say yes. Whether or not they would call it full-blown Gnosticism or the early stages of Gnostic development, they certainly seem to think it was present and that the cults of Artemis and Isis were at work in the false teachings. The NIV Study Bible and the Harper Collins NRSV Study Bible speak of the Gnostic or Gnostic-like tendencies at Ephesus. Craig Keener does not seem to make a case for Gnosticism, but he does think verse 15 was to counter prayers women offered to Isis and Artemis for protection in childbirth. On the other hand, Ben Witherington rejects that Gnosticism has anything to do with this letter unless we believe 1 Timothy was a second-century document. All the teachings supposedly attributed to Gnostics could be attributed to various Hebrew heretical teachings. He is not alone.

The "Gnostic influence" theory, most significantly championed by Catherine Kroeger, posits that both Isis and Artemis worship had elements that emphasized a primal feminine origin. Through mystic practices, women could access secret knowledge unavailable to men. Women were the authorities in some of these cultic practices. There were role reversals in Gnostic literature. The good guy is made the bad guy, and the bad guy the good guy. But there was no uniform text to look at and say, "here is what Gnostics taught." Kroeger identifies texts showing multiple versions teaching Eve as prior to Adam, including instances where Adam is deceived into believing he was created first. There were rituals where women pursued men and exercised influence over them (including through the use of sexuality). So what does this have to do with the passage?

The theory is that women in the Church were formerly worshipers at the local temples. They presumed to be able to teach others and saw themselves as the ones with greater mystical and spiritual knowledge. They usurped the authority of the men in leadership based on their Gnostic understanding. Therefore, Paul tells them to sit and learn quietly. They are not to teach nor are they to authentein men. Wealthy women were especially attracted to these cults. So, in addition to the presumption of status, they presumed to be spiritually superior as well. This is the false teaching Paul is reacting to.

Some raise linguistic objections to this interpretation because it matches the positive verb "teach" with the negative verb authentein. But as Belleville demonstrated earlier, these verbs function grammatically as nouns. Others make the case that since the context is false teaching (verse 8 linking this passage to "fighting the good fight" against false teaching), teaching should be presumed to have a negative connotation. And on it goes. I'm not even going to try to sort that out here. Suffice it to say that the Gnostic influence theory finds hints of Gnosticism in the prohibition against authentein.

But verses 13 and 14 are the central passages. Here it is held that Paul is correcting false teaching with sound doctrine. Adam was created first, and it was Eve who was deceived. If you read the passage in a linear thought progression pattern, it appears to have a corrective tone to it "This and not that; This and not that." But I think Perriman (above) explains this peculiar phraseology much better.

Finally, there are multiple interpretations of what verse 15 might be getting at. Some suggest that Gnostic asceticism at work frowned on bringing more material beings into the universe. Therefore, the Gnostic goddesses must be appeased when women had children. Other Gnostic expressions were connected with the fertility cults, which no doubt resulted in pregnancies, and verse 15 was assurance that God would see them through. I think Keener's observation that verse 15 was a counter to the frequent prayers to the goddesses for safety in childbearing is the most likely explanation if verse 15 was indeed intended to counter concerns about worshiping other gods.

Richard and Catherine Kroeger's I Suffer Not a Woman (1992) has to be the standard study from this perspective. Whether or not you agree with the thesis, the book has some truly wonderful background on Ephesus and ancient religion. One source I read (written in the late 1980s) remarked that no scholarly book or study had been written on Ephesus and its culture since 1908. We are still learning about these ancient cultures. Personally, I would find it remarkable that in a city so absorbed in Artemis worship (see Acts 19), the Church would not be suffering from the influences of the Artemis and Isis cults. I think some of the debate hinges on semantics in delineating precisely what constitutes Gnostic.

But we also know there were Jews in these congregations. The ascetic Essenes in Palestine were known to have a sympathetic following among urban Jews. Asceticism has many expressions. Witherington and others may well be right.

Yet another wrinkle must be added to the mix. I have long suspected that verses 11-14 were directly connected to the wealthy women mentioned in verse 10. As we saw earlier in this series, the first century was a time of unprecedented freedom (by ancient standards) for women in parts of the Empire. Michael Bird posted a short review of The Letters of Timothy and Titus, by Philip Towner, in which he writes:

“…first, Towner is highly dependent on Bruce Winter’s study about the “new Roman women” who asserted their independence with great flare even to the point of making their sexual status ambiguous by their dress and apparel. Given that Christian worship in the atrium of a Graeco-Roman house in Ephesus was a “public” space, Paul does not want the well-to-do Christian women to bring Christians into disrepute by exhibiting this new liberated femininity in public worship. Second, Towner also maintains that the heresy circulating in Ephesus does influence Paul’s restriction here, but he carefully notes the study of S.M. Baugh that has debunked the often repeated scenario that the women were influenced by the hyper-feminist Artemis cult in Ephesus, and Towner adds that there is no definite evidence that the women were even teaching the heresy. Nonetheless, Towner thinks that Paul’s need to provide instructions about marriage (2 Tim 4:3), his statement about the value of childbearing (2 Tim 2:15), the misreading of OT stories (2 Tim 1:4; 2:13-15; 4:1-5), coupled with the attraction of some wealthy women and young widows to the “new women” paradigm does connect the women to the Ephesian heresy. Thus: “Paul prohibits a group of wealthy women from teaching men. The factors leading to his prohibition are: (1) public presentation – outer adornment and apparel and arrogant demeanour give their teaching a shameful and disrespectful coloration; (2) association with false teaching – they may actually have been conveying or supporting heretical teaching” (200). Third, Towner is convinced that elsewhere women did play a public role in Paul’s churches and he detects an equality principle within the Pauline gospel (e.g. Gal 3:28). …”

That is the best characterization I've heard as to what was going on at Ephesus. Concerning verse 15:

Fifth, concerning the “saved through child-birth” remark in v. 15, Towner thinks that Paul “urges these Christian wives to re-engage fully in the respectable role of the mother, in rejection of heretical and secular trends, through which she may ‘work out her salvation’

One of the teachings we know was at work, whether Gnostic, ascetic, or "New Woman," was that women should not marry (4:3). Leading normal lives as wives and mothers seems to take on a missional focus once again as we see in Paul's instruction:

So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, and manage their households, so as to give the adversary no occasion to revile us. (5:14)

I think verse 2:15 is about safety through childbirth. Still, I do not exclude the possibility that the peculiar wording that seems to indicate women having "the child" relates to Mary giving birth to Christ. I think it is entirely possible that both may be true; that Paul is using a double meaning. He lifts up childbearing as a wholesome and desirable activity while simultaneously linking to the Eve analogy (and Mary's reversal of the curse brought by Eve) he has just presented.

Bottom Line

When we come down to essential things, I see the following: A) This letter is about rampant false teaching and getting control over it. B) Verses 2:8-15 are directly linked as responses to the "fighting the good fight" against false teaching at the end of Chapter 1. C) The chiasmus of 2:11, 13-14 makes clear that some uninformed women were teaching falsehood and needed to receive sound instruction in a receptive manner. (Much of the rest is varying degrees of speculation, although fascinating speculation, to say the least.) D) The chiasmus, not verse 12, is the focal point of this passage.

Finally, all these shows is that 1 Timothy 2 has little to say about fictive family issues. It does not teach women's subordination or that women cannot be pastors and leaders (and it does not teach that they can either.) It teaches that false teaching should be addressed, and the best remedy is sound instruction. It affirms women as siblings with men in Christ who are to be instructed in the Word and be held accountable for their spiritual training and witness.

Series Index

Comments

[Mike Aubrey]

I would definitely suggest picking up one of Towner's two commentaries on Timothy and Titus. His large NIC volume is more up to date.

Its excellent. I'm about 350 pages through it right now.

[Michael W. Kruse]

"..350 pages through it..."

But pictures? Does it have lots of pictures?

:)

Seriously, I've ordered a used copy but probably won't be able to get to it for awhile.

Thanks for endorsement!

[samlcarr]

Michael, a fascinating and stimulatingly creative summary of a vast amount of actually, confusing data!

One thought for me that has helped to make some sort of sense out of this passage comes out of studies on the precious nature of the oral traditions in which form the 'words of life' of Jesus were transmitted.

Starting with Gerhardsson's study way back when and working through Bailey and now Bauckham, one possibility that struck me is that the "didasko" (to teach) may have been referring here absolutely to the handling and passing on of this precious tradition, which did indeed involve specialised training ("Rabbinic"?) and an educational background, for otherwise the chances of casually and disastrously corrupting this precious Gospel, are just too great.

We know from Paul's own writings that there were a few women who actually had been entrusted with this exacting task, but they would have been in the minority as generally women were simply not given much in the way of formal education.

The 'authentein' then also makes some sense, for it is a strong word.

The possibility, as you point out, for women to take up this task too is certainly also present but predicated on their first being given the proper training.

i also think that 1Cor 11 does offer some helpful hints for what Paul is doing here in 1Tim. In 1Cor Paul puts out a powerful argument for comportment during worship and draws analogies from the creation account. He then goes on tho invite the readers to judge for themselves while also pointing out to them that if they go in a different direction it will be against the trends established in all other churches, i.e. the common practice.

So, while arguing from creation, and sounding quite emphatic, Paul is still leaving the choice to the individual fellowship to work out for themselves.

In 1 Tim, it seems that Paul has an additional problem as Timothy is the one in the hot seat and who needs to be given a strong supporting hand in order to prevail against some pretty powerful and dominating women. Paul's reading of the creation account here is pointed: Please keep quiet and listen., learn first, demonstrate that you are able to handle such onerous responsibilities, not only in a word perfect way, but also with the sort of humility that it requires.

Then, when young Tim is in a really tight spot and they have him over a barrel, he can whip out the letter, quote Paul and hopefully restore a semblance of order.

As to v15, i really am clueless here!

[Michael W. Kruse]

Sam, interesting stuff. I think the "Minister of the Word" that Bailey talks about had to have been someone who heard the words from Jesus. But you are right. This letter was very possibly written at a time after the number of churches had grown and during a time when the Minsters of the Word were dying off but before the gospel accounts had been assembled and circulated. There was almost certainly a significant element of oral instruction going on. How all this worked is fuzzy and largely lost to history from what I can tell.

Thanks for the insights! It is something to ponder.

[samlcarr]

Yes, i should have made that more obvious. Flights of fancy, pure speculation. There is no real evidence that I can point to except that 'didasko' and 'didaskein' do sometimes seem to take on a more technical meaning.

None of the scholars that I am leaning on have used this logic for these verses!

[Michael W. Kruse]

Well I wouldn't say pure speculation. I just keep turning this stuff over and over. It is very hard to get inside these first century minds.

[Sam Carr]

One thing that increasingly impresses upon me is that we are not only thousands of years away in time and in cultural change but that with epistles we are hearing only a small proportion of one side of the conversation and then trying to figure out what it all means.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Amen!