This is a response to an article called “A Deeper Look into: 1 Timothy 2:12” by an author posting by the email address of carmradio@ymail.com on September 23, 2008.  I will leave his name off this post.

There are so many fallacies in the article that I hardly know where to start.  However, let me start with the area that caused so many problems a year ago and I will give here what I should have said in the debate.  The section I will be addressing is called:

What the Term “Quiet/Silent” Means

**See comments at the end**  The author of this particular piece receives much of his information from an individual and ministry that he is very supportive of.  His mentor in a debate a year ago made it clear that silence in 1 Timothy 2:12 does not mean complete silence, but rather quietness.  He stated in that debate that if Paul was stopping a false deceived teacher from teaching her error to her husband (as I have shown from the context of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and as he was trying to refute), then Paul used the wrong word and it should have been the Greek word meaning complete silence, otherwise, as this person said in our debate, it would mean that Paul is saying that this deceived woman can teach her error to her husband “just a little bit“.  Hear the short audio clip here where this mentor denies that the word from 1 Timothy 2:12 means silence. Click here:  Denial that 1 Timothy 2:12 means silence

This clip was taken from our audio debate a year ago.   For the reasons why I am refuting a particular person’s theology but not using their name, please refer to this statement.

Well, let’s just take the reasoning and apply it to his own interpretation to see if doing something “just a little bit” will work for him.  This “author”** writes:

This term “silence” is again used in 1 Timothy 2:12, but we can see Paul is using it in the opposite manner as opposed to 1 Tim 2:2. 1 Timothy 2:12 says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over men, but to be silent.” It says not to have authority over men, but to be silent. In other words, quietness/silence here means the opposite of having authority over man. So it reads, do not exercise authority over men, but instead be silent.

Here he is saying that quietness means the opposite of having authority.  But how can this be since his mentor very carefully made the observation that Paul isn’t saying complete silence but Paul said only quietness when he had his debate with me?  If I could, I would ask his mentor, so is Paul saying that women are allowed to have authority over men “just a little bit”? If his reasoning that “quietness” would mean that a woman can teach her heresy to her husband “just a little bit”, than by his own words and his own reasoning “quietness” must also mean that women can take authority over men “just a little bit” in the exact same way.  Now it is up to him to explain why Paul did not use the word for complete silence, but instead he used the Greek word meaning quietness.  So women can teach with authority over men “just a little bit”?

In the quote from the article, this author now wants quietness to be opposite to authority.  This is where he runs into all kinds of problems.  First of all the “normal” word for authority is not in this passage.  Whatever “authenteo” means in 1 Timothy 2:12, we know for certain that Paul never authorized men to “authenteo” anyone whether man, woman, or child and it is not a “normal” word in any sense of the imagination.  Secondly “quietness” is not opposite of authority even if the “normal” word for authority had been used.  Complete silence would be an opposite to teaching but quietness would not, nor is it clear how “quietness” could be opposite to authority.  Again I ask this author, is Paul giving women the liberty to have authority over men “just a little bit”?

The next thing that we note is that there are two things forbidden in the passage not one.  Is he claiming that “quietness” is also opposite to teaching?  If so, then the author’s mentor has contradicted himself, because he allows women to teach men the bible as long as they do not teach with authority.  So women can teach “just a little bit” as long as they do not teach with authority, according to this author,  but then using his own logic, women can have authority over men “just a little bit”.  His reasoning falls to the ground “just a little bit” 🙂

**Apparently this blog is written by a young man by the name of Jeremy who doesn’t know why his comments are coming up with the email address belonging to another apologist and with the other apologist’s name.  Google is sending the alerts out as the “unnamed” mentor as the author.  While the author certainly should be refuted, his mentor also needs to be corrected.  In fact these things should have been posed to this unnamed mentor a long time ago.  I will accept Jeremy’s explanation that his post was his own writing as a compliation of other authors original writings including the unnamed person that I refer to.  In future, I will quote Jeremy as the author on any new posts that I reference and hopefully he can find a way to have his own email address and his own name listed in his blog so Google can correctly identify Jeremy as the author 🙂  **