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Wrestling with 1 Tim 2.11–15, A Case in Point

Though evangelical theological argumentation is still blackened by an inherited predilection for objectivity and proof-texts, it is not to be supposed that the NT authors were fazed by either of these two concerns. By contrast, they unabashedly read their own situations into their texts and made a very full use of their Scriptures (and other sources) when interpreting and citing texts in support of a specific conclusion.1 In fact, the scientific impetus of evangelical hermeneutics seems inordinately strict when compared with extant examples of ancient exegesis. For this reason, evangelical hermeneutical practices pose problems with regard to the authority of Scripture in a more urgent way than did those of early Judaism or the early church. That varieties of Second Temple “non-scientific” hermeneutics have found their way into the NT has not yet been taken seriously with respect to the way it ramifies biblical authority.2

What follows is an investigation of the exegetical argument of 1 Tim 2.11–15. The motivation is that evangelical readers might begin to (1) realize just how scientific their own interpretive expectations have become, (2) reexamine the nature of the authority of Scripture in light of ancient interpretive practices, and (3) reconsider what issues are at stake in the women’s debate. The thesis offered here is that irrespective of what position an evangelical takes in the women’s debate, the authority of Scripture is compromised. The first section begins with a brief survey of contemporary approaches to the issue of women’s ordination and argues that egalitarian positions relinquish evangelical claims to an authoritative Bible. The remainder and bulk of this discursus assumes for the sake of argument that, at least on the face of it, Paul’s argument is based upon Scripture and that he is appealing to Scripture in order to make a theological point.3 A suggestion is made that, in order to appreciate Paul’s exegetical argument, evangelical readers need to suspend their scientific demands of inner-biblical exegesis. Pains are then taken to imitate the hermeneutical mindset of a first century exegete, offering an imaginative, but representative, example of the types of things that Paul could have been thinking in 1 Tim 2.9–15. During the course of this section of the book, two main points are made: (1) Paul’s exegetical argument depends upon non-scientific text associations and (2) Paul was arguing theologically for a perpetual patriarchy amongst God’s people on account of his understanding of gender traits. Complementarians are then asked to explain how Scripture can be considered authoritative today in light of the “non-scientificality” of inner-biblical exegesis and especially the particular example of Second Temple theological argumentation given in 1 Tim 2.9–15.

I. Egalitarian Evangelicals and the Authority of Scripture

Egalitarians, for our purposes, are those who are for the ordination of women. Many evangelical egalitarians have rightly argued that the socio-cultural dimension of Paul’s injunctions against women in 1Tim 2 and elsewhere cannot be denied. Two predominant egalitarian arguments are that Paul intended his restriction to affect only one specific Christian community or that Paul was forced to prohibit women on account of various cultural factors that are no longer operative. Craig Keener provides an example of the first when he writes:

It would be surprising if an issue that would exclude at least half the body of Christ from a ministry of teaching would be addressed in one text, unless that text really addressed only a specific historical situation rather than setting forth a universal prohibition.4

Brian J. Dodd is typical of those who proffer the second:

. . . it may be that Paul’s later restrictions on women’s behavior were necessary because of the implications his converts were drawing from his very progressive views on such things [gender roles]. When Paul saw how far they were taking his teaching and the effects it was having on those he was seeking to convert, he may have pulled in the reins . . .5

Scholars have taken diverse approaches and have begun to ask very complex questions by connecting the issue of women in ministry to prevailing sociological patterns. In response to a declaration issued by the Roman Catholic Church some scholars have deliberated as follows:

Only within some heretical sects of the early centuries, principally Gnostic ones, do we find attempts to have the priestly ministry exercised by women . . .

How are we to interpret the constant and universal practice of the church? Does the negative fact thus indicate a norm, or is it to be explained by historical and by social and cultural circumstances? In the present case, is an explanation to be found in the position of women in ancient and mediaeval society and in a certain idea of male superiority stemming from that society’s culture?6

A different approach would be to take a step back methodologically and to begin asking pragmatic questions like, What would prompt a person to question the universality of the prohibition in the first place? One obvious answer is that the prohibition seems nonsensical or worse, unconscionable, given the reader’s own cultural context. Such tremendous tension inevitably exerts considerable pressure upon the reader’s pre-understanding in light of what a particular text apparently teaches. This conflict between the reader’s sensibilities and a text’s time-conditioned hortatory message has engendered at least two hermeneutical responses. The first is to challenge the cultural understanding of the biblical writers; the second is to neutralize the content of a text in such a way that its apparent message ceases to be its actual message.

For example, evangelicals have experienced ceaseless controversy concerning the lack of agreement between the current scientific consensus and the Genesis creation account. Evangelicals who disagree with the historically popular, literal, 144-hour interpretation have tended to re-examine the opening chapters of Genesis in order to determine whether there are any viable alternatives to the literal approach. Each alternate reading “neutralizes” the text, quelling its hitherto apparent force and discovering a different meaning altogether. By contrast, others have admitted that the Genesis account is a stubborn one that does not submit to fresh re-readings. In this case, an evangelical may elect to analyze the cultural assumptions that are implicit within a given text. He might then proceed to filter out an abiding “word from God” that survives the contingent historical and cultural vicissitudes that occasioned its inscripturation. He might argue that because the creation account is time-conditioned, its true meaning is rooted “behind” the given text in a way that is practically independent of and/or virtually unaffected by the cultural milieu during which the text itself was written. Those evangelicals who do not accept the literal view typically explore one (or both) of these two options.7

A third approach, however, is to critically examine the cultural assumptions of the contemporary reader.8 It is now common knowledge that a contemporary reader possesses a historical consciousness that can either grant her tremendous access to the text or effectively bar her from it. Scholars have argued for both positive and negative consequences of a historical awareness, but the moral seems to be that the historic process can work both positively and negatively and indeed may work both at the same time.

For example, Mardi Keyes believes that the gospel was intended as good news for women, but that unfortunately the church has become bad news for many women.9 She contends that Scripture is always contrary to sinful cultural practices and assumptions and that the blame for ongoing social injustices based on gender lies in the patriarchal system of the church. She asserts that the “clear” New Testament evidence should not be silenced by others that are riddled by problems.10 She continues:

You may be surprised that what I am saying does not match the practice of much of the church throughout history or even today. Too often Christians have fallen captive to human traditions that conflict with the radical New Testament message.

Judging from her writings, what may partially motivate Keyes is the perception that Christianity has grown out of touch with contemporary mores and that one inexcusable cause for this is the church’s historic decision to restrict ordination to men. Her strategy is to divide the church from the Scriptures and argue that the church “fell captive” to its historic moment, whereas the Scriptures, however, have always taught the truth (i.e., Keyes’ egalitarian position). In other words, the church’s practice has become an unnecessary obstacle to a contemporary hearing of the gospel, but it is not the case that the Scriptures have ever endorsed the church’s practice. It is obvious to us now—or so the argument goes—that it was a thorough-going patriarchy that supported the practice, while Scripture, of course, embraced no such arrangement.

To her credit, Keyes has rightly recognized that each generation of Christians will most likely consider only those interpretations that are culturally plausible and that unbelievers will only consider those religious options that are culturally plausible. Hence, Christians need to be aware of cultural factors. Unfortunately for Keyes, however, by allowing her historical consciousness to accomplish the separation of generations of believers from the true meaning of the biblical text, she has at once undermined her own cultural right to the meaning of biblical texts. What I mean is that Keyes’ clear texts may very well have been our predecessors’ obscure texts and their plain ones, Keyes’ obscure ones.11 These conjectures can only be offered as hypotheses here, but still, this is no small dilemma to ponder, for it seems to imply that the Bible will mean different things to different people at different times. In other words, Keyes’ argument would be helped along if she proposed that at present it seems that the Bible supports such and such a stance and not that it has always taught such and such a teaching (or that it always will).

It is no secret that today’s cultural ethos is such that it cannot provisionally entertain Paul’s prohibition, much less seriously accept it as presently binding. In fact, with so many scholars and clergy obsessed with the correction of male oppression (especially white male oppression), 1 Tim 2 as a durable injunction is utterly unthinkable, indeed, a major embarrassment or even deeply offensive.12 This contemporary disposition rings so truly that many evangelical thinkers are seeking to ground the disposition itself in Scripture. Thus, it behooves faithful Christians (so the argument goes) who are committed to Scripture’s authority to account for Paul’s teaching in some way that does not offend and yet at the same time does not detract from Scripture’s divine authority. The former is understood to be the crucial lifting of an unnecessary obstacle; the latter is taken to be a rudiment of orthodoxy. The perplexing dilemma that many evangelicals precariously bear follows naturally: how can one steal the sanction of Scripture from Paul’s prohibition against women without robbing the sacred writings of their divine punch? Resolution can take interesting turns when the invalidity of Paul’s prohibition is pre-understood as an unnecessary obstacle. The most consistent way to achieve these desired results is to revisit what is meant by the authority of Scripture. Countless Christians have been more than willing to do this, some with more caution than others.

The sundry arguments that posit 1 Tim 2.12 was situational and limited in scope converge, for the most part, on one consideration: Paul was as successful as he was in missionary endeavors because he did not allow any other obstacle to belief other than the cross. Richard Hays, for example, in The Moral Vision of the New Testament, is so disturbed by 1 Tim 2.12 that he disallows Pauline authorship for that particular verse.13 He is critical of Paul for those portions that he has written when he writes:

Paul wrestles constantly with the hermeneutical task of relating the gospel freshly to the situation in his target churches; 1 Timothy assumes that the norms must be merely guarded and passed along. Indeed, there is a positive impatience with theological argumentation: Those who disagree with the officially sanctioned “sound teaching” are said to manifest “a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words” (1 Tim. 6:4). It is difficult to imagine Paul dismissively avoiding theological controversy in this manner. Do we see here the evidence of a bad case of apostolic burnout?14

In other words, Paul does not seem to be as nuanced here as he should have been. His game was clearly off.15 An otherwise admirable saint should not be emulated for his work here. An instinctive evangelical rejoinder might very well carry the following sentiment: “Well, drastic situations call for drastic measures—if a Pauline text offends you, cut it off; perhaps, it is better to enter the twenty-first century without 1 Timothy then to be politically cast away with an intact Bible!” We should note again, though, that it is contemporary extrabiblical knowledge and sensibilities that are prompting changes in interpretation. This is only natural; perhaps, conservative evangelicals should be more sympathetic.16

Hays is, after all, wrestling with the same dissonance that (egalitarian) evangelicals are. He expresses particular concern with 1 Tim 2.11–15 because “the peculiarity of the passage has given rise to various imaginative exegetical attempts at damage control, but the overall sense of the text is finally inescapable: women (or perhaps wives) are to be silent and submissive and to bear children.”17 If Hays is right here, his conclusion is unavoidable for those who reject the possible contemporary applicability of 1 Tim 2.12 in one way or another: 1 Tim 2.12 is not a legitimate part of the canon.18 Though the majority of evangelicals would never openly stand for so flagrant a dismissal, they are actually in the same boat as Hays. In fact, his conclusion seems to follow necessarily for evangelicals because, on account of the evangelical methodological insistence, existing tensions are magnified between what the text actually says, the authority with which it says it, and the reader’s expectation of what the text should say and how it should say it. This is an especially grave predicament to a constituency that is committed to scientific hermeneutics. In other words, egalitarian evangelicals must secretly cast their ballots with Hays (with whose conclusion they do not agree) precisely because they agree that the text is not authoritative here even though it is an otherwise authoritative text. The paradoxical situation is such that these evangelicals must both aver their allegiance to the text and surreptitiously endeavor to undermine it for the sake of their commitments to an authoritative Bible and an egalitarian interpretation. They have somehow retreated from the text in such a way that they are evangelical and non-evangelical at the same time. Surely, this poses a serious problem with regard to an allegedly authoritative Bible.

II. Complementarian Evangelicals and the Authority of Scripture

Complementarian evangelicals are those who agree that the 1 Tim prohibition somehow binds the church today. We shall now explore Paul’s exegetical arguments for his prohibition. The plan is to point out how Paul’s argument depends on non-scientific exegesis and then ask how scientific evangelicals who would not otherwise accept his line of argumentation can nevertheless profess the validity of his conclusion.

By coupling the beginning of 1 Tim 2.11 with the end of v 12, the verses evince the following structure: “Let a woman learn in silence . . . she is to keep silent” (gunh en hsuxia . . . einai en hsuxia). A sequence of contrasts is presented: silence/teaching; submission/authority; women/men and the prohibition begins and ends with “in silence.”19 The former in each of the three pairs correspond as do the latter in each pair. The structure of the text reinforces the surface meaning: men can teach and have authority; women should be silent and submit.

What the text says is more than evident to complementarians; however, these evangelicals are encouraged to take Paul’s exegesis of the Eden narrative more seriously and less naively. In fact, given Paul’s record with controversy, it would appear that that is precisely what he anticipated that his hearers/readers would do.20 The two arguments that he employs are based upon his own reading of the Genesis creation narrative according to complementarians. They are (1) “Adam was formed first, then Eve” and (2) “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became the transgressor.”

The first argument is a good example of the “prominence” value of New Testament times. Chris Seeman writes, “Prominence implies an ordering of priority on the basis of time, space, or rank . . . This sequencing of priority-evaluation is often indicated in the Bible by the categories ‘first’ and ‘last’.”21 It is important to note that a very high degree of authority inheres in this appeal to the order of creation, for it is an order that no human can or could have altered. 22 The fact that Adam was created first was beyond anyone’s control, and in light of the Scriptural story, it was not merely a matter of contingency. It has traditionally been inferred that since God had created man first that man has been given the priority or prominence. The question that complementarians must answer is, In what way or capacity has man been given priority? Most complementarians do not see women as irrelevant or inferior. They typically tend to mean that compared to the woman, man has a primary “something.” Given the context of 1 Tim 2, Adam is understood to represent Christian men and Eve Christian women in today’s churches. Since the value of prominence itself has also been subject to seething criticism, we shall briefly try to defend its appropriation on behalf of complementarians.23

Others have surmised that general outlines for gender roles are taught in the creation account.24 For our purposes, we shall highlight several features of the narrative to determine whether it is reasonable to conclude that man indeed plays a primary role. The most important feature already appears in our text: YHWH created Adam first and Eve second. Further developments in the narrative also suggest man’s primary role in the creation story. For example, when the serpent set out to deceive, he targeted the woman and not the man, yet it is clear in the story that the man was his ultimate target. If the man was the serpent’s ultimate target, then the man is at least in some sense primary. In addition, the facts that YHWH gave the commandment about the Tree to the man (the woman had not even been created yet); that YHWH brought the woman to the man to see what he would call her, just as YHWH had done with the other creatures; that the man actually did name the woman; that he called her “woman”; that Adam and Eve are often referred to as “the man and his wife”;25 that Adam’s name doubles as a personal name and the name of the race; that the woman was considered to be man’s helper;26 that Adam again names the woman “Eve”; that YHWH comes looking for Adam (and not Eve) in the garden, all (especially when taken cumulatively) seem to support the idea that man is primary in the creation story. The question remains, though, primary with respect to what? Therefore, rather than engage in a confutation of each of the above narrative observations, we shall concede the plausibility of the prominence argument and return to this question (or at least one similar to it) upon examining Paul’s other argument: “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”

What is Paul implying when he writes that the woman was deceived but Adam was not? How did Eve’s deception render her unfit for teaching and how does what happened to Eve relate to every other woman’s ability to teach? Complementarians cannot keep silent here, though they will need to tread carefully as they offer their explanations. They would be wise not to perpetuate the myth that women are more easily deceived than men, especially considering past abuses and today’s cultural climate.27 But do they have any other options? In addition, even if that was what Paul was thinking, exactly how does Paul come to such a conclusion from his reading of the Eden narrative?28 One can imagine at least three main sources for Paul’s conclusion: his culture, his personal experience, and his knowledge of Scripture and tradition. It would seem that complementarians must insist that the prohibition is supported by Paul’s reading of Scripture since the other sources are so contingent and restricted that they cannot possibly bind the church throughout the ages. Though Paul’s reading is indubitably a cultural reading, complementarians must contend that it is not merely a cultural reading, but also a theological one. Hence, we shall, on behalf of a hypothetical complementarian, attempt to contrive an interpretation of the Eden narrative that offers the Pauline argument of 1 Tim 2.14 as evidence against women teachers without wholly succumbing to first (or twenty-first) century cultural pre-understandings. We should, however, be prepared to employ first (and not twenty-first) century hermeneutical methods.

III. Midrashic Interpretation vs. Evangelical Hermeneutics

Complementarians seem to implicitly argue that Paul’s exegetical proof is a legitimate one. We should note, though, that 1 Tim 2.14 is an instance of something like what Gerald Bray has called “scribal (or Pharisaic) interpretation.” One approach within Pharisaic interpretation that appears in our text involves “reading Scripture as a legal document, in which examples of behaviour could be taken out of context and made to apply in ways which went well beyond anything the text actually said.”29 In other words, with respect to the present text, Eve’s deception is being used as a “legal” precedent for Paul’s prohibition. Such exegetical whimsy would most certainly not be accepted from a present-day expositor. The question is, must complementarians substitute Paul’s obsolete line of reasoning with a modern one? Or asked another way, how can a post-Enlightenment thinker really take Paul seriously here? What are the obligations for complementarians to those who disagree with them with regard to accounting for Paul’s antiquated argument style?30 What does the fact that Paul actually employs such argumentation ramify with respect to the authority of Scripture?

These questions do not apply to egalitarians since they not only deny Paul’s argument, they deny his conclusion also. On the other hand, since complementarians accept Paul’s conclusion, they either have to explain how they can disregard an invalid argument while adhering to its conclusion or validate the ancient exegetical strategy to the satisfaction of contemporaries. The best option for the complementarian may be to circumvent these difficult questions altogether by offering an interpretation that explains the Eden narrative in a way that does not rely upon the interpretive method delineated above. We shall offer such an attempt after which we shall posit a conclusion.

In an attempt to consciously avoid the conclusion that women are more gullible than men, we shall take the tact that 1 Tim 2.14 argues the same point as 2.13. In other words, that Eve was deceived and Adam was not is directly related to the fact that she was created second and he first. Succinctly stated, though the woman was deceived and became the transgressor, Adam was held accountable. To begin, we note that when Gen 3.22 explains YHWH’s concern—“the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—the woman is not mentioned. Gen 3.24 relates how YHWH “drove out” the man, but again the woman is not mentioned. Presumably, the woman did not not “become like one of us” nor did she remain behind in the garden. Thus one might infer that the man is the one to whom the main responsibility had been given. It seems quite fair to say that as far as the creation account is concerned, the man is accountable to YHWH in a way that the woman is not. But all this has already been touched upon in Paul’s prominence argument from the order of creation where man was said to be primary with respect to something in a way that the woman was secondary. We shall consider the prominence argument in more detail in order to determine whether it can somehow be related to the deception argument.

An emphasis is placed on the fact that the woman transgressed because she was deceived. The commandment had not been given directly to the woman so readers might infer that she did not apprehend the commandment as well as Adam did. Perhaps, her addition to the commandment suggests this. It is curious, though, that the woman is not once admonished by YHWH for eating the fruit or even for being deceived: it was for giving fruit to the man that she is only implicitly rebuked by the narrator.31 Another oddity is that YHWH gives no reason for his judgment against Eve. It is as if her actions were incidental in spite of the fact that they proved so crucial. This leaves a gaping lacuna in the narrative that virtually every subsequent tradition naturally attempts to fill. For example, Jubilees adds to its retelling of the biblical account that YHWH “was angry with the woman also because she had listened to the voice of the serpent and eaten.” (3.23) Life of Adam and Eve, for its part, records Eve herself relating these very events: “Turning to me, the LORD said to me, ‘Since you have listened to the serpent and ignored my commandment, you shall suffer birth pangs . . .” (Apocalypse 25.1) The writer of the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra portrays Ezra as being upset with God over Eve: “If you had not given him Eve, the serpent would never have deceived her.” The Scriptures, though, are silent with regard to YHWH being angry that Eve had “listened to the voice of the serpent” or even that she had eaten.32 The length of the y k clause in Gen 3.17, especially in light of its absence in v 16, also supports the idea that the man was responsible to God in a way that the woman was not. Hence, Adam was the prominent figure in Eden on account of his being created first, on account of being given the commandment directly and on account of God’s holding him responsible. In sum, we have attempted to present a case where 1 Tim 2.13–14 offers two arguments that make the same point: God has elected men for certain things in a way in which he has not elected women. Men are responsible to God in a way that women are not.

In our exposition, we too have taken Adam and Eve to be archetypes for all humans in our interpretation. If an interpretation like the one offered here is representative of those that a complementarian would offer, it employs the same interpretive generalization that marks Paul’s exegesis. Still, we have not managed to explicitly address what role deception plays in the archetypical analogy. Why wasn’t God (as) angry at Eve? Because she was deceived? Partly. More precisely, and (unhappily) unavoidably, because it was expected that she would be deceived. Commenting on the narrator’s presentation of Eve’s decision and action, Von Rad wrote:

The narrator expresses no shock; he does not expect his reader to become indignant either. On the contrary, the unthinkable and terrible is described as simply and unsensationally as possible, completely without the hubbub of the extraordinary or of a dramatic break, so that it is represented from man’s standpoint almost as something self-evident, inwardly consistent!33