Books At a Glance (Fred Zaspel)
Hi, this is Fred Zaspel, editor at Books At a Glance, and we have with us today Andreas Köstenberger, co-editor with Thomas Schreiner of Women in the Church: An Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15. This is its third edition. Andreas Köstenberger is professor of New Testament at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Tom Schreiner, who is not with us today, is professor of New Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Andreas is here to speak for both and for their team of scholars for the book, Women in the Church.
Andreas, great to have you with us today – thanks.
Andreas Köstenberger:
Great to be with you – thanks so much for having me.
Zaspel:
Since your book is about 1 Timothy 2:9-15, maybe it would be helpful to start by reading the passage. Would you read it for us?
Köstenberger:
Sure, I will read from the ESV, beginning at verse 8:
I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness– with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing– if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1Ti 2:8-15 ESV)
Zaspel:
Okay, good. Again the title of the book is Women in the Church: An Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15 – a contemporary subject and a very important passage for contemporary discussion if ever there was one.
Okay, Andreas, your title says it rather plainly: but tell us what your book is about – and maybe why it was needed in 1995 and now again in 2016.
Köstenberger:
Our book is about the role of women, and men, in the church. It covers, fairly exhaustively, the most important passage on the issue, 1 Timothy 2:9–15, from every conceivable angle: the ancient background, the meaning of the rare verb authenteō (commonly translated “exercise or have authority”), the larger discourse context, the exegesis, the hermeneutics, and the application of the passage. Those who disagree with the natural reading of the passage – “I don’t permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” – continue to advance novel proposals that would subvert the plain meaning of this important apostolic command. Thus it is vitally important for the best of scholarship to be applied to respond to these proposals and to return to the question at hand: what does 1 Timothy 2:12 mean and what are the implications for the roles of women and men in the church?
Zaspel
This new book has a bit of history behind it – 1st edition 1995, 2nd edition 2005, and now the 3rd in 2016. How is this 3rd edition different from the earlier editions?
Köstenberger
After it first appeared in 1995, the book established itself as the standard treatment of 1 Timothy 2. The second edition, ten years later, kept interaction with the literature current and canvassed responses to the first edition. Now, another decade later, the third edition is doing the same thing, and then some. There are brand-new articles on the meaning of authenteō (Al Wolters) and on Bible translation (Denny Burk). The essays on background and hermeneutics were completely rewritten. I reran hundreds of lexical searches in the massive TLG (Thesaurus Linguae Graecae) database and found dozens more parallels to the syntax of 1 Tim 2:12. The chapter on exegesis was significantly updated as well. But perhaps the most helpful addition was a virtual roundtable on the application of the passage with participants such as Rosaria Butterfield, Mary Kassian, Gloria Furman, Darrin Patrick, Tony Merida, and others. I think readers of our book will find a wealth of practical insight in this volume that they can put to use in serving Christ more effectively in the church today.
Zaspel
The opening chapter by S. M. Baugh talks about the culture of 1st century Ephesus – what is the purpose of this chapter with regard to your topic?
Köstenberger
As I’ve sought to demonstrate in my book Invitation to Biblical Interpretation, properly reconstructing the historical-cultural background of any biblical passage is a very important part of interpreting it correctly. With regard to 1 Tim 2:12, some have argued that somehow Ephesus was a unique or unusual city with regard to women’s roles. So the myth of “feminist Ephesus” was born in an effort to show that Paul’s prohibition of women teaching or exercising authority was embedded in an environment where women were dominant and must be put in their place. However, as S. M. Baugh shows, Ephesian society was generally patriarchal, just as other comparable cities in the Greco-Roman world of the first century. It follows that Paul’s instructions in this passage were not temporary measures but meant to be applied “in every place” (1 Tim 2:8).
Zaspel
Okay, the big question in 1 Tim. 2:12 is the meaning of authenteō. Talk to us about this word, its meaning, its translation history, and the debate that surrounds it today.
Köstenberger
The word authenteō is found in the New Testament only in 1 Tim. 2:12. Even in extrabiblical literature, it is extremely rare and appears only once or twice prior to its use by Paul in our passage. (This, by the way, is why discourse context is extremely important in construing the meaning of the term; see more on this below.) Al Wolters, in a compelling and painstaking chapter, surveys all the available instances of authenteō in the first few centuries and concludes that the word refers to a person’s exercise of authority in a non-pejorative, non-ingressive sense. Translated into non-technical language, this means that women were not merely forbidden the improper exercise of authority but any exercise of authority over men in the church, even the kind that would be appropriate for men to exercise over the congregation. Wolters’s research also casts doubt on the NIV rendering of the term, “assume authority,” because he shows that the word does not refer to women taking up authority (as in “assume” authority) but to their exercise of authority over men in the church in general.
Zaspel
Beyond the meaning of the word itself, give us a brief survey of some other factors in this passage that are significant in this discussion.
Köstenberger
Well, because the term authenteō is so rare, other factors take on greater importance. Fortunately, the conjoined expression, didaskō, is not rare at all, in the letters to Timothy and Titus or elsewhere in the New Testament. It clearly means “to teach.” The question, then, becomes what to make of Paul’s prohibition of women from teaching “or” exercising authority over men in the church. In my chapter on the syntax of 1 Tim 2:9–15, I show that Paul’s underlying concern in the entire passage is one of following God’s order in the church, with men being in charge of God’s household (as in the natural household) and with women being in proper submission to the elders’ authority. I also conduct an extensive search of parallels in the New Testament and elsewhere and examine ninety-nine parallels, including thirty-one new parallels not previously adduced. I conclude that authentein andros in 1 Tim 2:12 ought to be understood positively as “to exercise authority over a man,” not merely in the sense of usurping a man’s authority or of exercising authority in a domineering way.
Zaspel
Tell us about the significance of Robert Yarbrough’s chapter, “Familiar Paths and a Fresh Matrix: The Hermeneutics of 1 Timothy 2:9-15.” What is the point he makes?
Köstenberger
Bob’s chapter is fascinating. He discusses how a surprising number of female exegetes have interpreted the passage in non-feminist terms in recent years. He also provides a reading of 1 Tim 2:9–15 from a non-Western perspective, which shows that interpreters in other cultures find the passage much more palatable and congruent with their own setting than those in our Western, egalitarian framework. You’ve got to buy the book and read Bob’s chapter to get the full impact of his analysis. What you’ll see is that the problem is really not that the passage is unclear, as egalitarian interpreters continue to allege, but that the passage is inconvenient (if not offensive) for those whose ideological outlook differs. In non-Western cultures, people very often find the passage very clear indeed; in fact, they heartily embrace its teaching and take no offense whatsoever at Paul’s prohibition of women teaching or exercising authority over men in the church.
Zaspel:
And of course there are many other exegetical issues in 1 Tim. 2:9-15 beyond the meaning of this particular word. Our readers will have to get the book for the details, but can you give us just a brief summary of this passage? Maybe an expanded paraphrase or interpretive rendering?
Köstenberger:
We conclude the exegetical portion of the book with the emphatic conviction that the passage, rightly interpreted, means what it says and says what it means: “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” in the church. In fact, this is the way in which most English translations render the verse (see on this Denny Burk’s chapter on Bible translation). Once we’ve established the meaning of the passage, we then move on to application: what is the passage’s significance in the various settings in which we find ourselves today? Again, you’ll have to read the concluding roundtable to benefit from the beautiful diversity of applications – all based on the interpretation set forth in our volume – shared by our panel of godly women and men from an amazing diversity of backgrounds. Our hope for those who read this book is not merely to inform the academic discussion but to equip a new generation of believers to live out God’s design for men and women in the church.
Zaspel:
You’ve written other books on subjects related to this – on marriage, the family, and so on. And so has your wife, Marny. So before we go maybe you could tell us about these briefly.
Köstenberger:
The main book that I’ve written that deals with God’s plan for marriage is God, Marriage, and the Family. This book has been widely used churches and premarital counseling, and in college and seminary classrooms, and I’ve been very grateful to see it translated into several foreign languages as well.
We have an abridged version of the book under the title Marriage and the Family: Biblical Essentials, and we have found that this is an ideal resource. If you want a quick but accurate review of what the Bible teaches on all kinds of issues related to marriage and the family, such as singleness, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, and even contemporary medical-ethical issues related to marriage and the family.
And last year my wife Margaret and I published a book called God’s Design for Man and Woman that lays out God’s beautiful design for men and women. We traced it all the way from Genesis to Revelation. In the book we show that God’s design is for male leadership and for male-female partnership in the home, the church, and in mission for God.
My wife has also written an important book on feminist views of Jesus called, Jesus and the Feminists: Who Do They Say That He Is? This is a revised version of her doctoral dissertation.
And finally, if you’re listening to this or reading this and you’re interested to study this topic in more detail for yourself, we’ve recently produced a course called, after the book, “God’s Design for Man and Woman” in conjunction with BibleMesh – available through www.biblemesh.com. For this course we recorded over 30 videos, and we have put much of the content of the book on these videos. We think it would be an ideal resource for personal study, small group study, in church, or even for college or seminary credit.
Zaspel:
Great, I hadn’t thought about that one – I’m glad you mentioned it. Is that available also on your website, Biblical Foundations?
Köstenberger:
Yes, www.biblicalfoundations.org.
Zaspel:
Alright. Well, great! We’ve been talking to Andreas Köstenberger, co-editor with Tom Schreiner of the book Women in the Church: An Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15. It’s a great piece of work, solid scholarship, reliable help for understanding this important passage of Scripture. We encourage you to take a look at it.
Andreas, great to have you with us.
Köstenberger:
Absolutely. Anytime.
