Authentein as Murder

Over the past two decades, an extremely aggressive and clamorous battle of Biblical scholars has occurred over the meaning of one word in I Timothy 2:12: the Greek word authentein, which is translated as “usurp authority” in the KJV, as “have authority” in the NIV, as “assume authority” in the TNIV, and as “domineer over” in the New English Bible. This extremely rare word appears only here in the entire NT and is key because this verse is the one used most often by heirarchicalists to shut women up in churches and to doom them to a life of sole (as opposed to mutual) “Christian” gendered submission.

In an article called Dealing with Abuse, Dr. David H. Scholer shows some of the historical evidence that ties abuse against women directly to Christian teaching. He also takes up the recent Biblical scholar battles over the Greek words kephale (headship vs source) and authentein (have authority vs to murder or to domineer). He gives credit to Dr. Catherine Clark Kroeger for starting the authentein debate in a 1979 article in the Reformed Journal, but believes that the most important article was Leland Edward Wilshire’s “The TIG Computer and Further Reference to authentein in 1 Timothy 2:12,” New Testament Studies 34 (1988): 120-34. In it, Wilshire is the first to use the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) computer database, which contains virtually all three thousand ancient Greek authors from Homer to A.D. 600. The database showed that authentein and its cognates occurred about 330 times and over a large number of centuries almost exclusively meant “a perpetrator of a violent act, either murder or suicide.” If this Greek word has this negative meaning, then Paul is advising the widows of 1 Timothy 5 who were speaking on behalf of the false teachers to not instigate violence in the church, but to be silent. This would be evidence for the position that many denominations hold that Paul’s commands in this passage are for the local Ephesian church only and not to be extended for centuries into the future and to all cultures everywhere.

Just think of all the women’s spirits who have been murdered due to this power/authority teaching.