SUFFER NOT A WOMAN:Three men tackle 1 Timothy 2:11-15

This May 10th, it’s officially Mother’s Day in over 90 countries.  In honor of that occasion, I’ve kicked off my mom shoes, propped up my feet, and I'm letting men do all my blog-writing work this month.

The topic – 1 Timothy 2:11-15:

“Let a woman learn in silence with full submission.  I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.  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, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”

My three guest contributors are by no means newcomers to Bible interpretation.  Our multigenerational panel includes a Baby Boomer bishop, a Gen X pastor, and a Millennial Bible College graduate, all of whom do the hard work while I sit back and sip on an extra-spicy Virgin Mary mocktail stirred with a celery stalk.

And while I remain in silence, of course.

Since I know all these gentlemen through the virtual world of Second Life, I’m using either their real-life or their Second Life identities, based on their preference: the Reverend Brad Bailey, the Reverend Michiel Alarie, and Mr. David Busscher.

So, gentlemen, take it away...

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REV. BRAD BAILEY (Rev Brett in Second Life) has served in ordained ministry under appointment by the bishop of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church for the past thirty years.  Having earned a degree in Business Administration, he annually fulfills all continuing education requirements for his ongoing ministerial appointments.

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BRAD: I have an interesting, probably surprising take on 1 Timothy 2:11-15.  I tend to be, as you well know, a somewhat conservative individual when it comes to interpreting scripture.  I'm a literalist, and it's hard sometimes for me to explain things… because it seems like sometimes the Bible, God's Word, is seemingly contradictory. And I don't believe that it is.  I believe that, when properly fleshed out, everything is as it needs to be.

Having said that, 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is a very controversial passage of Scripture because a lot of people have applied meaning to it that's not there.  I hate for people to use this as an example, or an instance, of finding something contradictory in the Bible that's not there.

For example, there is a couple in the book of Acts, a very prominent couple, Priscilla and Aquila.  And I want you to note that I find it interesting that everywhere Priscilla and Aquila are mentioned in the book of Acts, Priscilla is always mentioned first.  We see that Priscilla, along with her husband Aquila, straightened a man named Apollos out.  They took him aside and taught him some things.  So, right there is an example of a woman, Priscilla, being instrumental in teaching a man, Apollos, some things about Scripture.  And Paul does not – we see nowhere in Scripture – Paul does not chastise Priscilla for her outspokenness regarding Scripture.

Another interesting character is Lydia.  Lydia in the book of Acts was a businesswoman, a “seller of the color purple,” and she was a founder and a leader there in the church in Philippi.  In the book of Acts, Paul says some really great things about her.  So here you have another example of a woman in the New Testament community, in the early church age, that was very instrumental in the church.

But there was a gentleman who's mentioned there in Scripture, Philip, who had four daughters, and they were described by Luke in the book of Acts as prophetesses.  Well, what's a prophet?  A prophetess, someone who speaks on behalf of God; a prophetess, someone who teaches and brings revelation on behalf of God.  This guy had four daughters… and they were prophets.  All through the book of Acts, all through the New Testament, we see examples of women being leaders in the church, being spokesmen and teachers for God.  So, obviously there's something unique about this particular passage of Scripture, 1 Timothy 2:11-15, that doesn't necessarily apply across the board everywhere.

When you do a Greek word study, you find that the word Paul chose to use for “authority” in this passage has a very interesting meaning.  It doesn't necessarily mean normal, basic authority.  It’s more like an overpowering, more dominant, more controlling type of authority.  So that softens it a little bit when Paul says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or assert authority.”  I think he means a dominating style of teaching or a really controlling type of personality.

Now, let’s talk about “cultural arguments” related to this passage.  Honestly, I don't like the cultural argument that people make about 1 Timothy 2 because I believe that God is the same today as he was yesterday when 1 Timothy 2 was written, and as he will be two thousand years in the future if we’re here that long.  I don't think God is going to speak something or put something in His Word that is cultural-specific, that doesn't have the ability to translate across the years.  So, I don't particularly like cultural arguments.

But to comment on that just for a moment: Timothy was put in charge of the church of Ephesus.  And Ephesus was a pagan city.  The goddess Artemis was very strong there, and it was a very female-oriented cult.  Their leaders were priestesses.  When it comes to the aspects of women’s clothing and the gold and the braided hair and all of that stuff, I think Paul may have been speaking specifically with that church to keep the pagan culture of Ephesus from spreading over into the church.

I would like to conclude by saying that the Bible is very clear.  Paul says that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, there is no male or female in Christ – no distinguishing difference between male and female – and there's no slave or free.  Paul's very emphatic about that.  So, if in Christ there is no male or female, then what is all of this other stuff that he's talking about in Corinthians and Timothy about how women need to be?  It’s interesting.

In light of all of this, I’d like to go back to the prophet Joel.  He was speaking about how the Holy Spirit was to be poured out upon the church.  In the great sermon that Peter made on Pentecost, he said, “This is that which the prophet Joel spoke of, saying that your old men will dream dreams, your young men will have visions”… and it talks about on “your sons and daughters.”  They will prophesy.

It just doesn't make sense to believe that anywhere in Scripture women are excluded and women are told to be quiet.  I think there's a lot more to this passage of Scripture than what we first think.

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REV. MICHIEL ALARIE is an ordained bishop serving the Churches of God in Christ of East Central Florida.  He has 49 years of pastoral and ecclesiastical experience and is working his calling in virtual reality to share the Gospel as pastor of Second Life’s Holy Presence Church. 

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MICHIEL: Let's take a look at the scripture we're considering, 1 Timothy 2:11-15:

“Let the women learn in silence with all subjection.  But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

               For Adam was first formed, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

               Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."

This particular passage of Scripture that I've read comes from the Bible that I use, the King James Version.  This is a very popular scripture, often quoted and often debated amongst Christian scholars all over Christendom.  And I have a particular viewpoint: that God's ultimate will is for leadership to be based on spiritual gifting, not gender.  And I will share the reason that I feel this way in two different parts.  

Firstly, if we look at the Scripture in Galatians 3:28, it states that in Christ there is neither male nor female, which suggests that biological distinctions do not limit one's calling or authority in the church.  And then there are contextual mandates in restrictive verses like this passage in 1 Timothy, as directed at specific temporary problems in the early church – in this case, women spreading heresy – rather than acting as universal bans for all time.

There is biblical precedent in which we see God's will evidenced in his choice of female leaders throughout history, such as in the scripture where Deborah was a judge.  There's also Phoebe, who was a deacon.  And then there was Huldah who was a prophetess.  All of these were leadership positions.

Consider the prophet Joel in the Old Testament.  In Joel 2:28, we read “And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” And then in verse 29, “and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days, will I pour out my spirit.” Both upon servants and handmaids.  In those verses, God speaks through the prophet not only that He will use both male and female genders to share His will, but He also gives context to a time when he would do so.

Female leadership was my first point.  My second point is that I feel 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is one of those instances where the apostle Paul expresses his personal feelings.  This is shown in verse 12 where he specifically mentions “I suffer not a woman…”.  The word “I.” There are several examples of Paul's expressing his personal feelings in the Scripture rather than direct commands of the Lord.  And while it should be understood that Paul believes he was guided by the Holy Spirit in his instruction, there were instances where he expressed his personal opinion.  And he always gave a reference when that was the case.

These examples are a few.  For instance, concerning marriage and singleness in 1 Corinthians 7:6, 7:12, 7:25, Paul advises that his preference for celibacy is a concession rather than a command.  He distinguishes between the Lord's command – no divorce – and his own advice for a believer married to an unbeliever.

Then, another example is Paul’s wishes on ministry in 1 Timothy 2:8-13.  Paul expresses personal desires regarding how men and women should conduct themselves in worship, which some interpret as personal counsel rather than absolute, universally applicable commands.

Then, also, there’s the case of the widow in 1 Corinthians 7:40.  Regarding a widow’s remarriage, Paul suggests it is better to remain single, noting, "I think that I too have the Spirit of God," suggesting a confident personal opinion.

Then there is Paul's perspective on Apostolic Authority.  In 2 Corinthians 11:17, he writes, “That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were, foolishly.” In this verse, Paul explicitly notes that he is speaking NOT "after the Lord" but confident in his own reasoning during a boastful appeal.

In reference to our selected scripture of consideration in 1 Timothy 2:14-15, Paul is not saying that Adam was not without guilt or sin.  The commandment of not eating of that specific fruit was given to Him, which he shared with Eve.  That's right, God gave him the specific commandment not to eat that particular fruit, and he shared God's commandment with Eve.  She may have been deceived by the serpent, but both knew full well of God's will concerning the fruit.  Paul concludes that statement sharing that women still have hope of God's mercy if she continues in faith, charity, holiness, and sobriety – virtues which ALL Christians should practice, not just one gender in particular.

To sum up my thoughts concerning the 1 Timothy passage, let me say this: To say Paul was wrong to suggest a lesser role in the church for women would not be fair.  He spoke his heart.  He spoke from his own experience and the culture which he was a part of.  Paul, originally Saul of Tarsus, was a Jew and a Roman citizen.  He knew he was teaching an infant church, a body of believers who would spread across the globe with the help of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, of course.  And that's very important.  We thank the Lord we have the Holy Spirit's guidance as Paul did.

It was also Paul’s understanding that his views on doctrine would not be the only words to be considered moving forward.  More would come after him… and more have.

I hope these few words will be a help to someone.

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MR. DAVID BUSSCHER is a lay believer residing near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He attended Bible college to better serve his local Dutch Reformed church as an educated layperson.  After years of study since, he is completing final edits of his first book, Blueprints for the Sacred.

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DAVID: What do I think 1 Timothy 2 teaches about women, silence, and authority?

Before we crack the spine on 1 Timothy 2, we have to talk about the man behind the curtain.  Who wrote this?  In New Testament scholarship today, 1 Timothy is what they call a "disputed" letter.  If you compare it to the heavy hitters like Romans or Galatians, the vocabulary and writing style are... well, different.  It is almost like listening to an artist you love suddenly drop a jazz album when you were expecting rock.  The flavor and tone has shifted.  And for many critical scholars, that is enough to say Paul did not write it – that some later follower was overcorrecting and putting out local fires in Paul's name.

I get the argument.  But I am not ready to go full liberal and toss the whole thing into the "man-made" bin.  My starting point is that there is some type of inspiration here – a baseline that this text is trustworthy and intended for us.

Why do I still land on Paul being the guy?

First, the Scribe Factor: In the ancient world, it was common for a writer to use an amanuensis, a secretary or scribe, who had the freedom to put the author's core thoughts into their own words.  Paul even names one in Romans 16:22: "I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter." So, the soul is Paul, but the polish could easily belong to a scribe.  That explains the different Greek style without resorting to forgery.

Then there’s the "Wait, I've Heard This Before" Factor.  The message about order and quietness is not a new invention in 1 Timothy.  In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is dealing with a similar brand of "dumpster fire" chaos in the church, and he tells women to be silent there, too.  The beat is consistent.

And there’s also the “church's receipts,” if you will.  For nearly 1,800 years, the church was virtually unanimous that this was Paul.  The generations closest to the source confirmed it.  That doesn’t settle the debate, but it means the burden of proof is on those who say it is a forgery.

So, for the rest of this interview, I’m going to assume Pauline authorship and inspiration.  Not because the critical questions are invalid – they are real – but because my interest here is in what the text means, not just who wrote it.

This will take a little detective work in the Greek.  When you look at 1 Timothy 2:12, the word translated as "exercise authority," authentein, is what scholars call a hapax legomenon.  Loyal readers of Yolanda's blog will recognize that from her previous blog, that it’s just a fancy way of saying it appears exactly one time in the entire New Testament.

Now, why does that matter? It matters because when Paul wants to talk about "normal" or "neutral" authority, the kind of authority a pastor or a leader should have, he almost always uses a different Greek word: exousia.  But here, he reaches for a word that is, put this in quotes, "weird and rare."

When we look outside the Bible at other Greek literature from around that time, authentein doesn't usually describe a healthy, orderly leadership.  Instead, it carries a much darker flavor.  Most lexicons and contemporary sources suggest it means "to domineer" or to exercise control in a way that is overbearing.  It often refers to "usurping authority," taking power that hasn't been given to you or grabbing the steering wheel from someone else.

So, if we just translate this as a generic ban on "authority," we’re probably missing the "local fire" Paul was trying to put out.  It’s not that he’s saying women can never have a seat at the table; he’s saying he doesn't permit them to usurp or domineer.

What do I mean by “local fire”?  Ephesus wasn't just any city; it was the world headquarters for the Artemis cult.  We’re talking about a culture where the massive Temple of Artemis was the center of everything, and female priestesses held the highest religious status.  In that world, the women were used to being in charge, and they were often seen as the true source of spiritual enlightenment.

Some scholars argue that there was even a “New Eve” myth floating around.  Some of these local teachings suggested that Eve was actually created first, or that she was the one who brought true gnosis, “knowledge,” to the world by eating the fruit.  Imagine these "rowdy females" bringing that culturally conditioned, domineering attitude into the early church.  They weren't just participating; they were likely usurping authority and spreading a doctrine that placed women above men based on these Ephesian myths.

This is where Paul pulls out his winning move.  He doesn't just say, "Stop it because I said so."  He appeals to the creation order.  When Paul says, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve" (1 Tim 2:13), he is slamming down a "trump card" against the Ephesian myth.  He’s looking at these women who claimed Eve was the source of enlightenment or was the firstborn and saying, "Actually, let’s go back to the baseline.  Adam was formed first."  He is appealing to the telos of things—God's original design and order—to correct a specific historical myth that had inverted that order.

And look, this isn't just a one-off trick Paul does.  He uses this "creation principle" all over the place.  In Romans, he uses the story of Adam to explain the universal reality of sin and salvation.  In 1 Corinthians, he appeals to creation to handle the "local dumpster fire" of conduct and order in that church.  And, of course, he uses it here as well.

So, where does that leave us? We have a universal principle, the creation order, being used to put out a local fire, the rowdy, domineering situation in Ephesus.  Universal and local, two distinct things.  My position is that you can’t just pick one and ignore the other.  It’s a conjunction.

Paul is taking a foundational truth about how God ordered the world and applying it to a specific local fire where that order was being completely usurped.  By pointing back to Adam and Eve, he isn't just giving a local opinion; he is appealing to the telos, the design plan, that he taught across all the churches.

This view has its own tension points.  This is where I have to give a nod to [renowned evangelical theologian] Don Carson.  Carson famously asks: “If the problem was just domineering behavior, why does Paul only tell the women to knock it off? Aren’t there men who domineer too?”

Here is my retort to that: if the Artemis and "New Eve" myths were the driving force behind the chaos, then women were the specific ones causing the disorder in that assembly.  It makes sense to single them out because they were the ones actively flipping the script based on their cultural background.  If a specific group is starting the fire, that’s the group you address.  It doesn’t mean men can’t be domineering, but in Ephesus, the rebuke had to go to the source of the chaos.

If we say it's a universal ban on all women speaking ever, we struggle with the rest of the New Testament, where we see Priscilla teaching Apollos, Phoebe serving as a deacon, and women hosting the very home churches Paul is writing to.

So, here’s my bottom line.  In 1 Timothy 3, Paul lays out the job description for the office of overseer, and it is explicitly gendered.  He refers to the candidate as a "husband of one wife" and a man who "ruleth well his own house." He even asks, "if a man knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?"

Here is where I land.  Paul's creation order wasn't just a reaction to rowdy women in Ephesus.  It was the blueprint for how he structured leadership in all the churches.  This passage addresses the public teaching office in the gathered assembly, not a total ban on female authority everywhere.  We see Phoebe and Priscilla active in the church.  But for the public office?  Paul ties it to the telos of creation.  That is what I think the Bible teaches.

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My deepest thanks to Brad, Michiel, and David for their viewpoints and work digging into this passage.  This is the kind of biblical investigation I most enjoy as part of my faith walk!  I'll be back next month, Lord willing, to break my Mother's Day silence and again put pixel to pantalla.  Until then...

Marana Tha,

YoYo Rez / Cosmic Parx / Yolanda Ramírez

Individual sections of this blog ©2026 in the names of each separate contributor.

Stuff the Bible Just Made Up

Every now and then, the writers of the New Testament simply made words up.

Not often – but enough to make things interesting.

You see, as steady and stable as the language you speak feels, it’s really in a constant state of change.  If, for instance, you were to time-travel back to 1960 to tell your grandparents your employer “downsized” you, they might guess you’re on some new workplace diet; someone made that word up well after their time.  Jump to the 1980s and you’d get blinked at for calling anything “bodacious.”  And before the 2000s, you couldn’t be “ghosted” for being seen vaping in your “selfies.”

Language evolves.  A’ight?

 

NOT ONE MORE WORD, YOU!

This month we’re talking about hapax legomena (which in its singular form is hapax legomenon).   That term’s an eyeful – is it a new villain in the Transformer movies?  The latest strain of coronavirus?  Something RFK recommends as part of your diet?

Nothing so fanciful.  Hapax legomena are what Bible scholars call any words that occur only once in the biblical text.  That’s what those two ancient Greek words mean – hapax legomena, “once spoken.”  A handful of those Bible words are so distinct, you can’t find them anywhere else in the ancient Greek literature we currently know of.  They appear to have been coined by the writers themselves.

Weird.  Why would writers of the Bible – writers of truth, we Christians insist – use what sound like “made-up” words, terms they’ve just invented?

And that’s the very question that makes trained linguists like me all tingly.  Why, indeed?

 

HEY, HERE’S A THOUGHT …

Sometimes it’s obvious why someone has to create a new word.  For example, if I invent a communication device that interconnects everyone into a network of data sharing, I may spin a whole new term around it, at first calling it an interconnected network and then simplifying that to internet.  On the other hand, I might have an idea everyone already understands, but I want to freshen it up with a new term so that you think about it more deeply, as Robert A. Heinlein did with his new word “grok” in the novel Stranger in a Strange Land.

The first example is a blended term, a compound, and it’s the type you’ll see most often in the writings of Paul and in the book of Hebrews.  The second example, called a “neologism,” gives Bible translators the most trouble.  They have to figure out what that invented word means based on all the other words around it, and deriving meaning from context isn’t always the most reliable way to translate a word.

 

A QUICK PRE-QUIZ:

Which part of the Lord’s Prayer do you guess is from a hapax legomenon, a word invented by Jesus?  (Stay tuned!)

 

Consider: When Christianity is reaching into a pagan world to give it entirely new ideas, there will be times when the words you've got handy simply won’t suffice.  Paul says as much when he refers to God’s grace as “his inexpressible gift” (2 Corinthians 9:15).  You’ll simply have to create your own word so that readers and listeners can grok the new thoughts more deeply.

 

I’LL TAKE MINE RARE, PLEASE

Let’s take a close look at five New Testament hapax legomena that are either new compounds, extremely rare terms, or pure neologisms.  Some were invented on the spot by the speakers or writers.  Others existed in earlier Greek writings but are used just once in Scripture, almost like a power-punch to drive a message home.

 

Hapax #1, “ektromati” – aborted fetus, miscarriage

In 1 Corinthians 15:8, Paul calls himself an ektromati, a word that occurs nowhere else in the New Testament.  We know what the word means, though, because plenty of other Greek writers had used the term before he did.  Paul is calling himself an “aborted fetus.”

You don’t remember reading that one?  That’s probably because your translation of the Scriptures tiptoes around it, having Paul call himself “one born out of time” or “born in an untimely manner.”  As far as I can tell, only the GOD’S WORD® Translation uses the literal “aborted fetus” translation in English.  It was a medical term, and it seems Paul made a deliberate choice to use it for its shock value.

Context: In this passage, Paul is speaking about the callings of the apostles.  He’s humbly putting himself last on the list, but rather than emphasizing the timing of his coming to Christ (“I came late to the party!”), he’s actually humbling himself more than most Bible translations make clear.  “Those other guys hung out with Jesus in his lifetime,” Paul seems to be saying.  “Me?  I was just a late-term abortion in this apostolic birthing process.”

Paul, I suspect, meant for people to go, “Whoa!”  It’s the New Testament’s only use of Greek’s medical term for an abortion or miscarriage.  Even Paul’s traveling pal Dr. Luke probably sat up and took notice.

 

Hapax #2,  “theostyges” – God-hater or hated by God

In his powerful opening chapter in Romans, Paul calls to task those who have ignored the Creator to instead worship created idols, despite knowing God is real.  Paul describes those people with a brand-new word: theostyges, which can mean either “God haters” or “those hated by God” (Romans 1:30).  The grammar of the invented word is ambiguous, so it could mean either that they hate God or God hates them.  English translations seem to opt universally for the first version, even though all Greek translators are aware that it could mean either.

Given two translation options, I’m the sort of person who goes looking for a third.  My guess – and this is just my opinion here – is that Paul meant both.  After all, he invented the word by putting two other Greek words together, God (theos) and hate (styges).  Why do it that way if you don’t want your new term to carry fuller meaning?  These God-rejecting idolaters certainly hated God, and God could very well have hated them back since, as the passage makes clear, God had given them every bit of evidence they needed to believe in and worship their Creator.

Those young in the faith may be startled at the idea of God “hating” anyone.  However, most seasoned readers of the Scriptures understand that the God of love can also hate (mouse over these verses to take a look: Psalm 5:5, Psalm 11:5, Malachi 1:2-3, Proverbs 6:16-19).  What might startle the more seasoned readers of this passage is that all of Paul’s anger and argument in this passage is aimed at them, at all believers.  At me.  The very next thing Paul writes about those sinners (cut off, regrettably, by the chapter breaks later editors imposed on the Bible) is this:

Therefore, you have no excuse, O man,

every one of you who judges.

For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself,

because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

(Romans 2:1)

That follow-up hasn’t been appreciated by enough of us.  We’re slow to realize we’ve been lumped in with the God haters / those hated by God … we who need to continue our walk along the Romans Road to embrace the fullness of salvation found in God's love.

 

STOP TEASING US … THE LORD’S PRAYER NEXT!

Okay, okay, you’ve been very patient.  Here’s the answer to your pre-quiz.

Hapax #3,  “epiousios” – For existence or for tomorrow

The word epiousios occurs two times in the New Testament, but since it’s quoting Jesus twice in the same situation reported by different gospels (Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3), it’s often treated as a hapax in terms of unique usage.  It appears that Jesus made this word up for the Lord’s Prayer, using it as a description of the bread believers are requesting from God.  This is the most famous and most discussed of the hapax legomena.  Traditionally, it’s translated as “daily” for “daily bread.”  But as we’ve seen, there’s often more to the story when we’re translating any of the hapax legomena.

The trouble with translating epiousios – besides the fact that it occurs nowhere in Greek writings before we see Jesus use it – is that it could have either of two different origins:

• It could come from a combination of the Greek words epi (meaning “for”) and ousia (meaning “existence”).  That would make the meaning, “Give us what bread we need for existing, to survive!”  Considering Jesus’ “bread of life” messaging elsewhere in the gospels, a translation like that is more than acceptable.  It fits Christ’s macro-messaging.
• Alternatively, Jesus could have crafted it from the similarly spelled Greek word epiousa, meaning “upcoming” and tied to the idea of an upcoming day – tomorrow, in fact.  So, “give us today the bread we need for tomorrow.”

The first meaning above could be viewed as asking God for what is needed, and only what is needed, to survive for today.  The second communicates a sense of getting (before it’s needed) the bread we’ll be eating tomorrow, thereby granting us peace of mind in advance.  My trick back in the examples of Paul – embracing both translations to get a fuller, broader-reaching meaning of a hapax legomenon – can’t work here.  At a basic level, the two possible translations conflict with each other.  One asks, “give me enough to get by.”  The other asks, “Give me more now, so I won’t have to fret about tomorrow.”  And our current, traditional translation of “daily bread” fails to capture either of those concepts.  It sidesteps the conflict.

There’s no consensus on this issue, and it’s been discussed by translators and scholars.  A lot.  Currently, I prefer the first interpretation.  I lean that way exclusively on linguistic principles.  Arguing for the second reading, that epiousios (Jesus’ hapax) is close in spelling to epiousa (“upcoming”) doesn’t convince me.  Let me show you why in English: The words “batter,” “better,” “bitter,” and “butter” are all one letter off from one another, nearly identical words in spelling.  But they have no commonality beyond that.  It’s a coincidence of orthography, not a connection in meaning, that makes the words even worth mentioning together.  I have the same reaction to two similarly spelled Greek words.  I’d need more proof.

For now, I’m happy to associate the word with the ideas embedded in Proverbs 30:8-9, where the writer asks the Lord for neither poverty nor riches, and asks for just enough food to get by so that he doesn’t become gluttonous and forget the Lord.  It’s a great passage.  Mouse over the link above to enjoy it in full.

 

A SECOND QUIZ: Which book of the New Testament would you guess has the most hapax legomena?  (Stay tuned!)

 

WHOA, THAT WAS LONG!

Yes, that last hapax is the most famous, so I had to give it more word count.  I promise that the final two are shorter.

 

Hapax #4,  “theopneustos” – God-breathed

As I mentioned earlier, theos is Greek for God.  You see that in words like theology (the study of God) and theocracy (a nation run by the religion of a god).  Pneustos relates to breathing, reflected in our medical terms apnea and pneumonia.  Theopneustos, a compound term very likely invented by Paul, is a hapax used in 2 Timothy 3:16, that famous passage about how all Scripture is God-breathed, inspired by God.

In case you wonder how “God-breathed” becomes “inspiration,” note that the word inspiration already has “breathing” built into it.  "Respiration."  "Aspiration."  "Perspiration" (sweat “breathing through” your skin.)  So, the breathing is already in there, both in the Greek word and the English word.

You probably already knew that.  Less well known, though, is the Greek word’s tie to the Spirit.  The Greek pneuma is a word meaning both “breath” and “spirit” (it means “wind,” as well) and Paul uses its verb form pneustos to build his new word: God-spired, if you will, breathed out from God and into the text.  Looking at it this closely makes it more of a reality that a whole Holy Spirit injection is going into the words of the Bible.  God exhaled into it to give it a Creator’s very life, just as Adam got life from that same Creator’s breath.  (You can see a similar connection between breath and spirit in English, too – “inspired by the Spirit” is actually a repetitive phrase.) 

 

Hapax #5,  “polypoikilos” – Many-colored

This last hapax (the last I’ll cover; Scripture has many more) is the one I find most beautiful.

Like our first example, it’s not what biblical scholars might call a “pure” hapax, since Paul didn’t make the word up.  It’s only in Scripture once, despite appearing regularly in earlier ancient literature.  In Ephesians 3, Paul delivers that word, polypoikilos, in a beautiful discourse on how all the spiritual powers of the universe will learn of God’s wisdom from the church on Earth.

I adore this passage, so indulge me as I quote it in full:

To me, though I am the least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the polypoikilos wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 3:8-10)

The riches … unsearchable.  The mystery … hidden.  The wisdom … polypoikilos. This is Paul at his most poetic, and his one-time use of this term reaches deeply into a Greek literary tradition.

On its face, the word simply means “multi-colored.”  But a Greek reader sees more.  Paul’s early readers knew that the poet Euripides used polypoikilos to describe strikingly dazzling garments and breathtaking, ornate objects.  They knew that Plutarch, the philosopher, used it as a way to describe profound, subtle, multilayered reasoning.  They knew that the comedy writer Aristophanes wielded it to overemphasize rich, dramatic scenery that went over the top.

It’s impossible for an English translation to capture all the nuance a Greek reader could have picked up from that single word.  To begin to do it justice, we’d have to say something like:

“God’s richly colored, multi-layered, intricately patterned and sublimely subtle wisdom …”

I kind of wish at least one Bible translation had tried that. 😊

 

AND HERE’S THE ANSWER TO QUIZ #2: Of all the New Testament books, Hebrews has the most hapax legomena. The author has a more elegant and more educationally advanced level of Greek than any other New Testament writer, thus allowing him to draw on a far wider vocabulary.  Roughly 15% of the words he uses occur nowhere else in the New Testament.

 

EVERY WORD.  EVERY WORD.

Whether the bread we pray for is daily, for survival, or saved up for tomorrow, we know that we don’t live by bread alone.  We live by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).

Obviously, we can’t do these kinds of deep dives for every powerful word in our Bible translations.  We don’t have the time or the lifespan for that kind of study.

But when we immerse ourselves in the Scriptures, we can do it sometimes.  A word might jump out at you.  You might wonder about it and ponder its surface meaning as well as its deeper ideas.  Words have meanings, yes, and English translations give us all we need for our salvation.  But when you dig deeper, there’s a lot more gold below the surface.  Not different, secret meanings, mind you; fuller meanings.

How can you do that digging for yourself?  Glad you asked!  Since you live in the digital age, you’re luckier than earlier eras of Christians.  Here’s a step-by-step guide for you to get started, including links to tools and a few suggestions from me.

DEEPER into the WORDS of the WORD

STEP 1: A New Testament verse jumps out at you.  Let’s say it’s that 1 Corinthians 15:8 one about Paul being an apostle by “untimely birth.”

STEP 2: Go to Google and type in “1 Corinthians 15:8 interlinear.”  You’ll want that “interlinear” word.  Memorize it.  It will get you to the Greek.

STEP 3: From the search returns, select Bible Hub.  It will be in your top several choices, most likely.

STEP 4: Find your Greek word in the verse!  You’ll see it spelled out in the Latin alphabet (that’s what English uses) above the Greek rendering.  Ektromati is a Latinized spelling of the Greek word you’ve found in this example.

STEP 5: Go back to Google and ask, “What do bible scholars say about the Greek word ektromati?”  Exactly like that.  Read Google’s AI overview.  Click on the side articles offered.  That’s how I first found that ektromati was a medical term for “abortion” and “miscarriage,” discussed in detail earlier.  You can do what I did.  Whatever word is intriguing you, you’re likely to uncover similar treasures.

STEP 6: Ponder prayerfully.  You’re now digging for gold, learning more than the simple translation can tell you.  Not different truths; deeper truth.  You don’t have to be a scholar of ancient languages to do this.  The scholars out there are happy to tell you what they’ve uncovered.

 

We, as believers, really do want to live by every word from the mouth of God.  And every Bible word has more to it than its spelling, its dictionary definition, and its translation when you look it up in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.

I have one hope for this blog post: That it has interested you enough to get you to start digging on your own.

You have the Bible.  You have the tools.  You have the Internet.

So, now you can get out there and start finding the fuller wonders of our gospel and of this beautiful, Spirit-inspired text.

A’ight?

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx / YoYo Rez

BOOTED FROM THE BIBLE?

Booted from the Bible?  Not quite ... but some books had a rough journey.

The internet is chock-full of articles about books “Banned from the Bible!”  This is not one of those articles.

Instead, it’s an article about the New Testament books that almost didn’t make it in … and why.

 

Those Who Made It In Early

If you’re one of the (sadly, small) minority of Christians who regularly reads the Bible for devotion and study, you’ve definitely noticed the stylistic differences between the various authors of the New Testament:

• John’s gospel soars to near-mystical heights with its language, as if rising on high to honor Christ’s declaration “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).
• Paul’s style, while achieving John’s heights now and then, is usually pragmatic, feet firmly planted on the ground of practical matters.
• Luke sports an “international” flavor, with an abundance of stories in his gospel about Gentiles who interacted with Christ.
• Matthew, on the other hand, reveals a solid Jewish education, with far more references to the fulfillment of Hebrew Scriptures than the other gospels.

Spirituality.  Practicality.  Broad outreach.  Depth of scriptural knowledge.  It’s easy to see why the gospels, the book of Acts, and the letters of Paul found early acceptance in the growing canon.

But reaching canonical status wasn’t as easy for other writings we now love and preserve in our Bibles.

 

Books in Dispute

If you had a chance to read last month’s blog, you’ll remember that several books of the New Testament made it into the canon by the skin of their teeth (a fun saying that’s derived from the Bible itself, Job 19:20).  The church father Eusebius dubbed this small collection of books the antilegomena, a word basically meaning “disputed.”  Which books made which church fathers’ disputed lists varied, but their doubts tended to include:

• Hebrews (questioned by churches of the West)
• James (accepted early by the East, but only very slowly by the West)
• Second Peter (perhaps the most disputed of all NT books)
• Second and Third John (too short, and no named author)
• Jude (probably not the apostle, so there’s that issue)
• Revelation (doubted for being just a bit wacky)

Complicating matters were the ancient books that were included in very early editions of the New Testament, ones no longer accepted as part of our canon.  They weren’t rejected for being heretical; they simply turned out not to be “apostolic” enough in nature to win a spot in the final New Testament:

• The Codex Sinaiticus, the name given our most ancient, complete edition of the New Testament, includes two books called The Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas, neither of which is accepted any longer as inspired text.  I’ve linked to online versions of them above, should you ever want to give them a read and consider why they may have been appealing to some early church fathers.
  
  
• The Codex Alexandrinus, compiled mere decades after the manuscript above, which tacks on the epistles 1 Clement and 2 Clement (Clement’s second letter has always struck me as moving and poetic – “For He called us, when we were not, and from not being, He called us to be” (2 Clem. 1:8).
  
  
• The second-century Muratorian Fragment, our oldest existing “list” of approved NT books, which speaks highly of The Shepherd of Hermas (hello, again) and mentions acceptance of the Apocalypse of Peter by some, rejection by others.  Interestingly, the Fragment also references Wisdom of Solomon, popular among Greek-speaking Jews who followed Jesus early on, as part of the Old Testament.  It retains a spot in the Roman Catholic canon to this day.
  
  
• Numerous lists and writings of the earliest church fathers cite other books as Christian scripture – the Acts of Paul, the fragmentary Gospel of the Hebrews, the much-respected Didache, and others.  They were all considered at least briefly by some church fathers for a role in the New Testament’s canon but in the long run were left behind.

 

Phew – Made It!

Obviously, there was final canon acceptance of Hebrews (the epistle, not the Gospel mentioned above), James, Second Peter, Second John, Third John, Jude, and Revelation.  They all appear in the 27-book list famously created in 367 CE by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, and confirmed as canon by the church’s Council of Rome in 382 CE.  Those are the two dates, incidentally, most often cited as “We have a Bible!” moments.  But what hurdles did those books face, and how did they overcome their status as “disputed”?

I covered Hebrews and James last month, so let’s tackle the others.  I’ll put most of my effort into explaining how Second Peter found its way into the text, since its pathway to canonization will shed light on the paths of all the others.

 

Peter, Peter, Who Are You Really?

Maybe, said the church fathers amongst themselves, Second Peter wasn’t really written by the apostle Peter.

Second Peter had numerous obstacles to overcome before it was universally acknowledged as part of the New Testament canon.  Each concern it raised was a straw that might have broken the camel’s back on its long journey to acceptance:

• Would Peter Use That Word?  The ancient church fathers doubted that the vocabulary in Second Peter matched the vocabulary in First Peter, the more accepted of the two works.  That’s a fascinating linguistic observation, and I promise not to belabor it.  But consider: if someone texted you, I have received an additional convocation request whose appointed hour coincides precisely with that of your own meeting, and thusly regret being unable to attend yours, you wouldn’t expect their next text to read, But yo, gurl, ain’t seen you inna minute, so hit me up on the flip side!  Makes you wonder, no?  Similarly, our Greek-speaking church fathers, reading the vocabulary differences between the dual Peter letters, suspected different people were writing those two texts.

• Much More Stylish.  Beyond just the words, the layout and rhetoric of Second Peter is vastly different from First Peter.  The ancients noted this with concern.  You can probably appreciate their apprehension if you consider different sermon styles by different modern-day preachers you’ve heard.  One preacher might prefer grabbing a topic and bouncing all around the Bible to talk about his chosen theme.  Another may prefer to take a passage and do a deep-dive walkthrough of what the scripture writer is saying.  Yet a third may quote just one verse and spend the full sermon relating that to modern Christian life.  Listen to enough preachers, and you’ll be able to tell when one is reading a sermon written by someone else who doesn’t match their style. 😊

• Are the Apostles Gone?  Second Peter has a few places where it sounds too late in time to be written by a living apostle.  The writer’s discussion in 2 Peter 3:15-16 make Paul’s letters sound like collected works.  The problem is, it seems Paul’s letters weren’t passed around in a collected form until a generation after his death.  That means Peter was gone already, too.  In addition, 2 Peter 3:3-4 mentions those who mock the long delay of the Second Coming of Christ, prompting the writer to explain that to the Lord a day is as a thousand years.  That “long delay” further raised the ancients’ suspicions that it wasn’t Peter doing the writing.

• Plagiarism: Second Peter’s second and third chapters copy nearly the entire epistle of Jude.  For the church fathers weighing the canon of the New Testament, that was a red flag.  Was the author trying to make himself seem apostolic by copying a better-known text?

• Nobody Quotes It: Very few church fathers quoted Second Peter or referred to him as having written a second letter.  One exception, Origen, wrote in the early 3^rd century: “Peter has left one acknowledged epistle; perhaps also a second, for it is disputed.”  Was this the same “second letter” as what we call Second Peter?  It’s impossible to say, since Origen quotes nothing from it.  With no undisputed 2^nd century quotations and very thin 3^rd century attestations, it’s unsurprising that 4^th century church fathers raised an eyebrow at the text.  As my young son might have said: “Bruh, that’s sus.”

 

The Writer of Second Peter

It’s no spoiler when I tell you Peter’s second letter did, in fact, get into the canon.  But how?  What changed?

If you’ve gone to Bible college or browsed entries at online apologetics sites, you’ve likely run into the “Silvanus” explanation of why Second Peter has such stylistic and vocabulary differences from First Peter.  In fact, 1 Peter 5:12 actually mentions the man Silvanus (also called Silas) as the vehicle through which Peter’s letter is presented to the readers and listeners.  That could explain the vocabulary and style differences between the two letters – Silvanus helped Peter write the first one, while the second one (which doesn’t mention Silvanus) was written by Peter alone.

However, did you notice how carefully I worded that?  I said, “The vehicle through which Peter’s letter is presented.”  Some Bible translations will directly say “Silvanus helped me write this letter,” while other translations will say “I had Silvanus deliver you this letter.”  You can see the variations here for yourself.  But the Koine Greek is simply dia Silouanou, “through Silvanus.”  The word-for-word Greek of the verse is actually: “To you through Silvanus, the faithful brother as I regard (him), through few words I have written …” and so on.  It’s not clear at all whether Silvanus helped with the writing or whether it was through him, by his delivering the letter, that the words came to the readers … thus the differences among a number of translations.

Modern interpreters who are keen to maintain Peter’s authorship are likely to insist that it means he dictated it with Silvanus as his secretary.  This helps them preserve the idea that an apostle must be the author of a Bible text – they could use backup writers as designated scribes.  But that simply creates a new problem: if the style and words are Silvanus’s, and that’s what we have today, then the inspiration of the Holy Spirit came to Silvanus, not an apostle, and Peter’s original words of dictation were cancelled out.  Are we ready to make a claim that the Holy Spirit had to cancel an apostle to get the words right through a non-apostle?  And should we ignore all the other issues – timing, literary borrowing, and Paul’s letters appearing as collected works?

It turns out all of this discussion is moot when it comes to the topic of our church fathers refining and finalizing the canon.  The Silvanus explanation is largely a modern apologetic and does not appear to have played a role in the early church’s canonical deliberations.  They actually took a less confounding path.

 

“Written by an Apostle” vs. “Apostolic”

As the time of Athanasius’s fourth-century canon list and the Council of Rome’s imprimatur drew nearer, Second Peter’s use in churches spread widely.  Its acceptance seems to have created a more flexible mindset among the church fathers of that age, almost as if they had started asking themselves whether there was any reason not to have Second Peter in the canon.  Being allowed in became less a matter of a resounding “Yes!” and more a recognition that there was no compelling reason to exclude it.

After all, nothing in Second Peter contradicted established doctrines received from the apostles.  It didn’t have any false teachings, and it did a solid job supporting existing beliefs, particularly in its insistence on combating false teachers and embracing the hope of a true Second Coming.  Even if it weren’t the apostle’s direct creation, it was very much in the tradition of the apostles.  It was apostolic in nature.

So, the test question changed.  No longer were the church fathers asking, “Did Peter write this?”  Instead, they asked, “Is this orthodox?  Would Peter have written it?  Is it respectfully within a Petrine tradition?”

No, I’m sure they didn’t use that language specifically.  As I said in last month’s post, they had no checklists.  But those kinds of ideas were behind the adoption of the text of Second Peter and the acceptance of other books of the New Testament, such as:

• Mark’s gospel compilation, reasoned to be a record of the preachings of the apostle Peter
• Texts by Luke (who wrote more words than any single author in the New Testament), thought to reflect the teachings of the apostle Paul and interviews with other apostles
• John’s second and third letters, finally adopted as being within the community and spirit of the apostle John, even if not claimed as his work directly in the text
• Jude’s epistle, judged orthodox and beneficial despite the actual identity of “Jude” being a bit nebulous and not universally accepted as the apostle Jude

 

Even the widely doubted book of Revelation overcame the requirement of proof it was penned by an apostle.  The church fathers were split on its authorship.  Dionysius of Alexandria and Gaius of Rome rejected outright that John the apostle had a role in the writing.  Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian embraced John’s authorship wholeheartedly.  Origen and Eusebius straddled the middle, simply noting that there was a lot of disagreement about whether this John of Patmos was the same John as the Gospel writer.  Its connection to apostolic tradition won the day, however (a recognition lasting until Martin Luther’s doubts about the book emerged a millennium later).

 

So, What Do We Do with All This?

Let’s wrap up with some questions that this kind of in-depth investigation might call to mind.

The Bible speaks in many voices — soaring, practical, poetic, urgent. When other believers worship or serve differently than I do, do I assume something is wrong? Or do I remember that unity does not require uniformity?

Some New Testament books were questioned before they were embraced. When I look at other Christians – or myself – and wonder whether we measure up, do I remember Who it is that makes any of us worthy?

Not every book was written by one of the inner circle.  When I feel outside the spotlight, outside the in-crowd, do I remember that the widow’s penny, the smallest seed, the quietest faithfulness still matter deeply in God’s kingdom?

And not every question about the Bible was neatly resolved.  Do I allow that same grace in my own faith? Can doubt coexist with devotion? When uncertainty creeps in, do I still pray, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief”?

The canon took time.  So do we.

 

Until next time, next topic,

YoYo Rez / Cosmic Parx