Originally posted by Esther
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You say that the instruction is "clear" and "not needing interpretation."
But "interpretation" is involved even in the process of translating it.
ESV -- 1Tim 2:12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.
ISV -- 1Tim 2:12 Moreover, in the area of teaching, I am not allowing a woman to instigate conflict toward a man. Instead, she is to remain calm.
CEB -- 1Tim 2:12 I don’t allow a wife to teach or to control her husband. Instead, she should be a quiet listener.
NIV -- 1Tim 2:12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
KJV -- 1Tim 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
We can discuss it further if you like. The point for now is that it is not so "clear" an free of need of "interpretation."
Some consider 1 Cor. 14:34-35 to be related to that bit from 1 Tim. 2. Here is a fascinating, albeit technical and nerdy, article about that. I'm able to understand it, but the details about the Greek are beyond what I can *evaluate*.
On Piper's message -- Everything about it is "interpretation," and much of it speculative. I find it frankly weird that he went so quickly to genitalia as the "root" of the "vessel" metaphor. That is not part of the basic meaning of the word, and few if any of the almost two-dozen occurrences in the NT even suggest that.
It's certainly true that men are typically larger and stronger than women physically. In ancient times, it was normal for women to be financially and socially dependent on men. (Normal, but certainly not universal. Nympha and possibly Lydia were of sufficient means to be householders of homes large enough to host local churches, and Phoebe was a "prostatis," a position of social prominence and in some sense leadership.) In any case, it's not at all clear what that has to do with hierarchy of authority.
I do agree with his opposition to the modern trend of trying to portray women as comparable to men in every way, including physical abilities. That's silly. It was silly when Billy-Jean King "won" that fake tennis match with Bobby Riggs, and it's silly now.
Roger Olson expresses my views well:
"I believe in absolute equality of men and women, boys and girls AND in real differences between the genders, differences that complement each other. And I know there are many people who embrace within themselves aspects of both genders. But that does not diminish the reality of sex-gender. In other words, I still refuse to reduce gender to social conditioning." -- From his article in response to the Five Factions article.
Marg Mowczko always has interesting things to say. Here she has some stuff about 1 Pet. 3:1-7. (I have not read that particular batch of her stuff yet.)
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