A Biblical Case for Women Pastors, Elders, and Deacons

By Seth M. Knorr

An argument for Women Pastors, Elders, and Deacons based solely on the Bible and backed by historical evidence.

After discovering a textual variant in early Greek manuscripts, which were supported by early Greek scripture quotations from the early church fathers, the author realized this variant reading provides the important c

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eleutheros Publishing
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987686737

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until you put her in hot water. —Eleanor Roosevelt

Many Christians believe that a doctrine must be true based solely on the fact that the view has been held for a very long time. Based on this metric, the Reformation would have never happened nor would slavery have ever been outlawed.

A Methodist bishop, Benjamin Titus Roberts (1823–1893 A.D.), was one of the earliest modern-day theologians to champion the cause for women holding the same leadership positions as men. This view is called egalitarianism. In his book Ordaining Women, he states:

We cannot ascertain the truth of an opinion by inquiries about its age. Let us decide that as the Church did, for ages, misinterpret the teachings of the Bible on the subject of slavery, so it may now fail to apprehend its teaching on the question of woman’s rights.¹

Whether a woman can become an ordained pastor, elder, or deacon has been a topic of heated debate for seventeen hundred years. Since I believe in sola scriptura (the Bible is the sole source for doctrine), I had been on the fence for some time. I grew up in an independent fundamental Baptist church that didn’t believe in the ordination of women. As I got older and studied the Bible for myself, the issue got much cloudier. Once I learned the Koine Greek in which the New Testament was written, it became murkier still.

Many years ago, a leader of a church I attended was offered a job at a church that gave women a more prominent role than he was accustomed to. He asked my advice on whether a more prominent role for women was biblical. I had to concede I just wasn’t sure. I had always wondered if Bible verses used to argue against women in leadership were in fact a reference to all women or to a wife usurping the authority of her husband, especially one who might himself be a pastor, elder, or deacon.

Those who treat this issue as something cut-and-dried either haven’t studied the issue impartially or are ignoring the mountain of evidence found in the Bible that suggests women can hold prominent leadership positions. Linda Bellville, a leading egalitarian scholar and professor of New Testament at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, points out:

One or two debated passages cannot hold hostage a host of clear passages. Yet this is precisely what all too often happens. Firm decisions about meaning are reached, translations are made, and the church is left to believe that all is crystal clear.²

This book will put to bed once and for all the two biblical passages most debated on this topic by laying out biblical and historical evidence that they are being mistranslated, thus ending the debate.

When I was younger, I believed every doctrine just as I was taught them in church. After several instances of other Christians properly correcting my doctrine, I made it my task in life to find out what the Bible really taught. I didn’t care if the view was popular or not. I only wanted to believe what the Bible truly taught. We are so steeped in tradition that sometimes we put tradition on a pedestal above the Bible.

I think all would agree there are excellent women teachers, many of whom teach in our Christian schools and colleges. But many Christians base their view of excluding women from leadership on just three verses in the New Testament epistles of the apostle Paul. Namely, 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

Setting cultural arguments aside and relying solely on the text of Scripture, do these passages really prevent women from being pastors, elders, and/or deacons? I have long felt God was calling me to study this issue more thoroughly, and by that I mean like a forensic accountant. One day I was reading 1 Timothy 2:12, and I felt God telling me it was mistranslated. I stared at the Greek for an hour trying to figure out how a mistranslation could be possible. Honestly, I just didn’t see it. The only other option I saw didn’t make sense.

For Christmas that year, my wife gave me the two book set The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts. In the book, I found a textual variant that wasn’t listed in any of the textual variant apparatuses I had looked at, including the United Bible Society’s Fifth Edition Textual Apparatus (UBS5).

The discovery of this variant completely changed my thinking. It became the cornerstone of this book and prompted a thorough study on the topic. After my in-depth study, I concluded that there is zero biblical evidence based on the original text of Scripture to support prohibiting women from holding leadership positions of pastor, elder, or deacon in the church. On the contrary, we find in Scripture women who held these leadership positions.

Additionally, I will demonstrate conclusively that these two key passages (1 Corinthians 14:34-35; 1 Timothy 2:12) have been mistranslated for the last seventeen hundred years. This book lays out the evidence I uncovered. It is above all an in-depth answer to the question of whether women can hold the same leadership positions in the church that men currently hold. While there are other books that focus on the greater egalitarian debate (equality of men and women in leadership and marriage), that is not the focus here with the exception of areas where these topics cross over.

My aim in this book is to present a case that both scholars and laypeople alike can understand clearly. While many discussion points are based on the original New Testament Greek and its associated grammar, I will endeavor to present these in a way that is easily understandable.

Many Christians might argue that this topic isn’t pertinent to salvation so isn’t an issue that needs urgently addressed. I would disagree. If God calls women to preach the gospel and they are being prevented from doing so, then this prevents the lost who might have been reached from hearing the gospel and being saved. What’s more, if women are indeed called to preach, imagine the impact on the spread of the gospel preventing them from exercising this spiritual gift has caused over the centuries.

The metric I follow first and foremost in this book is that the Bible in its original form was and is without error or contradiction. Therefore, we must take all of Scripture in context to determine any specific doctrine. In my research, I found that much of the evidence against egalitarianism stretches fairmindedness and that there is extreme translation bias when it comes to Scripture passages dealing with leadership positions.

We must also recognize, as the apostle Peter pointed out, that some of the things the apostle Paul speaks of in his letters to the churches are hard to understand, things the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they also do to the rest of the scriptures (2 Peter 3:16b, NET). Peter spoke New Testament Greek and was a contemporary of Paul. So if he could be confused by what Paul wrote, how much more so might it be possible for us today to misunderstand Paul’s intent in some passages? So we should tread lightly and cautiously while keeping an open mind.

1

TERTULLIAN PROVES EGALITARIANISM

The Monatist movement within the church overemphasized the prophetic ministry of women and the leadership roles they held. Until this movement gained a foothold, we don’t see the issue of women in leadership being a debated topic in early church writings. Bruce Shelley was a professor of church history at Denver Seminary. In his book Church History in Plain Language, Shelley explains that sometime between 156 and 172 A.D. Montanus came on the scene with his two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla. He goes on to state:

[When] Montanists insisted that opposition to the new prophecy was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, many churches split over the question ... The fresh music of the Spirit could override important notes of the Christian gospel; Christ was no longer central. In the name of the Spirit, Montanus denied that God’s decisive and normative revelation had occurred in Jesus Christ.³

Many early church fathers pushed back against Montanism. The early church father Tertullian (160–220 A.D.), an influential leader from Africa, took on the fight. Instead of simply condemning the teaching, he went after the female prophetesses who were the primary teachers of this doctrine. In chapter 17 of his book The Power of Conferring Baptism, Tertullian writes:

quam enim fidei proximum videtur ut is docendi et tinguendi daret feminae potestatem qui ne discere quidem constanter mulieri permisit? Taceant, inquit, et domi viros suos consulant.

Linguist and textual critic Canon Ernest Evans translated this as:

How could we believe that Paul should give a female power to teach and to baptize when he did not allow a woman even to learn by her own right [Latin: constanter]? Let them keep silence, he says, and ask their husbands at home.

Our own bias has led to a misunderstanding of Tertullian’s statement. He asserts that Paul said women were not permitted to learn. But where did Paul ever prohibit women from learning? If we examine all modern English Bible translations, the answer is never. Additionally, the reasoning behind Tertullian’s argument is baffling. His only quotes from Paul are let them keep silence and ask their husbands at home.

Such an assertion misses the obvious disconnect here. If Tertullian was trying to prove that women are not permitted to teach, why didn’t he just quote 1 Timothy 2:12 (ESV), i.e., I do not permit a woman to teach?

To make a cohesive argument, Tertullian’s reasoning would need to be based on how the passage was currently understood among his contemporaries. Tertullian didn’t cite 1 Timothy 2:12 because during his lifetime no one saw this verse as a prohibition against women teaching. As I will demonstrate, we are mistranslating the Greek of this passage. I will also demonstrate that Tertullian understood accurately what Paul had written in the passage. He was simply taking Paul’s words out of context.

Of primary concern in interpreting this passage is the meaning of the Latin adverb constanter, which Canon Ernest Evans translated as own right. According to Harper’s Latin Dictionary, this word can mean evenly and uniformly.⁴ So Tertullian’s point here was that Paul did not permit women to learn equally, i.e., in all the same ways men were allowed to learn.

Since his statement was based on how his contemporaries understood the passage, it demonstrates partially that modern versions of the Bible are universally mistranslating 1 Timothy 2:12. Paul was not preventing women from teaching. Instead, this verse should be more accurately translated as I do not permit teaching to a woman. Paul was referring to congregants teaching other women during the service, i.e., talking over whoever was designated to be teaching and thereby disrupting the service for those around them.

Tertullian was taking this out of context and trying to convince other Christians that Paul prohibited all teaching to women during the service. We know this is unbiblical from reading the previous verse. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness (1 Timothy 2:11, ESV).

Tertullian in chapter nine of his discourse On the Veiling of Virgins, as translated by Sydney Thelwall, stated:

Let us now see whether, as we have shown the arguments drawn from nature and the matter itself to be applicable to the virgin as well (as to other females), so likewise the precepts of ecclesiastical discipline concerning women have an eye to the virgin (9.1).⁵

Tertullian’s commentary was written in Latin, and I would translate the next section as:

Non permittitur mulieri in ecclesia loqui, sed nec docere nec tinguere nec offerre nec ullius virilis muneris, nedum sacerdotalis officii sortem sibi vindicarent.

It is not permitted [even] to speak to a woman in the church! [For this reason we can imply], they cannot even teach, nor baptize, nor do dedications, nor perform any manly duty, and therefore, it goes without saying, the priestly office cannot be claimed by her (9.2).

Scholar and translator Sydney Thelwall offered a translation of the Latin phrase Non permittitur mulieri in ecclesia loqui as It is not permitted to a woman to speak in the church. This translation has become universal among modern translators and is certainly a valid way of translating the phrase. In fact, this translation has been accepted without questioning by much of the church in recent history. However, my own translation, It is not permitted [even] to speak to a woman in the church, is an equally valid translation.

Tertullian was once again using a single Scripture passage (you can’t speak to women) just as he had in his commentary on baptism, then extrapolating that this means a woman can’t teach either. But if this is what Paul meant, he could have just quoted 1 Timothy 2:12 (ESV): I do not permit a woman to teach. If you are trying to prove that a woman can’t teach or hold leadership positions in the church, a passage on women not speaking is hardly a supporting argument even if translated properly. Especially since Paul also stated that women can prophesy in the church (1 Corinthians 11:5).

Tertullian’s arguments against women teaching aren’t based on Scripture but purely on conjecture. Furthermore, his list of prohibitions against women, which included teaching, baptisms, dedications, performing manly duties, and holding priestly office, are not found in the Bible. These were mere extrapolations based on Paul’s prohibition against speaking to women in church. My own interpretation is supported further by another passage from Tertullian, which states:

Aeque praescribens silentium mulieribus in Ecclesia, ne quid discendi duntaxat gratia loquantur, caeterum prophetandi jus et illas habere jam ostendit, cum mulieri etiam prophetanti velamen imponit, ex lege accipit subjiciendae foeminae auctoritatem, quam ut semel dixerim, nosse non debuit, nisi in destructionem.

It is equally commanded that women should be silent in the congregation. [Even] learning is not allowed for any of them, except [them learning how to properly have a] speech of thanksgiving [see 1 Corinthians 14:16-17], which should be applied [to their] right to prophesy when their [heads] are covered. As it has been shown already, with women who are prophesying, [it should be done while] wearing a veil. Wives receive the command to be in submission from the law. Once and for all, in talking about [them] learning: she should not be prevented [from learning] except from [learning based on] refutation [i.e., they shouldn’t be refuting others during the service or asking questions] (Tertullian, Against Marcion, Book 5, Chapter 8).

Some readers may disagree with my interpretations of these passages as laid out above. But as we continue, I will lay out overwhelming evidence that we are too often mistranslating and misunderstanding portions of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

2

SHAMEFUL VARIANTS

It is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.—1 Corinthians 14:35b (NET)

The above sentence contains multiple variant readings in the Greek among various manuscripts. This includes two forms of the verb eimi (ἐστι and ἐστιν), the noun gunē (γυναικὶ and γυναιξὶν), and word order (λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ versus ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ λαλεῖν).

What is striking is how many variants there are considering how few words the sentence contains. This is typically an indicator that a scribe had helped the text by correcting the Greek to what they thought was correct and authentic. While these scribes may have thought they were helping, they actually damaged the manuscripts by moving away from the authentic wording in which the text was originally written. Such correction is a real problem and a reason why textual criticism is so important.

What has been largely ignored is that the earliest known copies of Paul’s epistles contain significant variants in the text, yet these early manuscripts all agree on how the original Greek text would have read. These include Papyrus 46 (P46), dated to between 83–200 A.D., the most respected and probably earliest codex, Codex Vaticanus (B), dated 300 A.D., and two scripture quotations found in a commentary written by the early church father Origen of Alexandria (185–253 A.D.).

Each of these documents agree on the wording of 1 Corinthians 14:35b as αισχρον γαρ γυναικι λαλειν εν εκκλησια (aischros gar gunē laleō en ekklēsia). In fact, Origen doesn’t quote the exact Greek wording of this passage found in Vaticanus and P46 just once in his writing but twice. All three of these sources indicate that the verb eimi was not in the original text. Without the verb ἐστι (eimi), this phrase has only one valid translation: It is shameful to speak to a woman in the congregation. There is literally no other way to translate this unless we throw out every Greek grammar book ever written. The accusative αισχρον (aischros) shameful would be the subject of the infinitive λαλειν (laleō) to speak while the indirect object is the dative γυναικι (gunē) to a woman.

Daniel Wallace, professor of Greek at Dallas Theological Seminary as well as founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, stated in a lecture:

[The] manuscript Codex Vaticanus is, I believe, the most important manuscript in the world. The reason I believe that it is [the most important] is because it originally had the whole Bible in Greek.⁶ Vaticanus is better than Codex Sinaiticus. So what this means is if the New Testament is the most important book in the world and this is the best manuscript of the New Testament, therefore, this is the most important manuscript in the world in my opinion.⁷

John Hort and Brooke Westcott were both professors at Cambridge while Westcott was also the bishop of Durham. In 1881, they released the Westcott and Hort publication The New Testament in the Original Greek. Kurt Aland was a German theologian, biblical scholar, and world-renowned textual critic of the New Testament. His wife Barbara Aland was a German professor of New Testament research and church history. The couple co-wrote The Text of the New Testament. In their book, they say of Westcott and Hort:

Codex Vaticanus was their touchstone. They believed they had discovered in it a representative of the Neutral Text which came far closer to the original text than the three forms recognized as Alexandrian, Byzantine, and Western.⁸

Their book also states that the earliest manuscript of the Pauline letters, P46, is dated to about 200 A.D.⁹ The P46 manuscripts are important not only for their age but also for the length and character of their text.¹⁰ These great papyri are just as important, and in many ways more important, than the great uncial [most common book script used from fourth to eighth century A.D.] manuscripts of the New Testament.¹¹

In textual criticism, if the earliest papyrus, most respected codex, and a very early church father all agree, that is called a slam dunk. Scripture quotations in commentaries of the early church fathers are sometimes weighted higher because they were less likely to be corrected by a scribe.

Adding a verb that was not originally there creates a construction called a complementary infinitive and expands the ways in which the passage can be translated. Regardless of whether or not the verb is present, this verse can still be translated it is disgraceful to speak to a woman in the congregation.

Complementary Infinitives

Before we analyze this passage, let me first share some basic rules of Greek grammar for those who haven’t studied Greek. In addition to being a professor of New Testament and director of the Greek program at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, William Mounce is also a pastor and president of Biblical Training. He served on the NIV translation committee and was the New Testament chair of the ESV translation committee. In his book Basics of Biblical Greek, Mounce explains:

The primary function of the nominative case is to indicate the subject of the sentence¹² … In Greek, the indirect object is put in the dative case¹³ … If a word is the direct object of the verb it will be in the accusative case¹⁴ … A verb must agree with its subject in person and number. This means that if a subject is singular, the verb must be singular. If the subject is third person, the verb must be third person.¹⁵

In many cases, word order in New Testament (Koine) Greek is inconsequential to translation. Additionally, the subject of the sentence can be placed anywhere the writer chooses without changing how the sentence would be translated. The function of the substantive (noun or any word functioning as a noun) is determined by the case of the word and not by word order.

Conversely, in English word order determines the subject. For instance, if we say Jesus rebuked him, we know that Jesus is the subject because his name comes before the verb. However, in Greek this sentence could be written ἐπετίμησεν (verb, rebuked) αὐτῷ (dative, him) ὁ Ἰησοῦς (nominative, Jesus) and it would still be translated as Jesus rebuked him because the nominative would be the subject and the dative would be the indirect object. So even if this was written αὐτῷ (dative, him) ἐπετίμησεν (verb, rebuked) ὁ Ἰησοῦς (nominative, Jesus), it would still be translated as Jesus rebuked him.

Richard Young is a writer and teacher who received his Ph.D. from Bob Jones University. Young explains that infinitives are classified as verbal nouns and that one way they are used is as direct objects. Most grammars call this a complementary infinitive, which is a syntax in which a verb needs a complement to complete the thought.¹⁶ Young explains:

Natural Complement – Some verbs require an additional thought to complete the verbal sense. Matthew 6:24: οὐδεὶς δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν (no one is able to serve two masters). The fragment no one is able leaves the reader with the question able to do what? Thus a complement to serve is necessary to complete the idea.¹⁷

Young goes on to explain that infinitives requiring a complement fall into several categories, some of which include verbs expressing desire, permission, and obligation.¹⁸ If Matthew 6:24 is broken down, it can be seen to start with a negative adjective, οὐδεὶς, or no one. This is followed by the verb δύναται, meaning is able, then a dative adjective and noun δυσὶ κυρίοις, meaning two masters, and lastly the infinitive δουλεύειν to serve.

Notice that in the translation the objects (δυσὶ κυρίοις, or two masters) follow the infinitive. As with this example, the word order of the original Greek doesn’t generally affect the translation into English. So in this book, I will be placing complementary infinitives in reverse interlinear order, which rearranges the Greek into the technical order of how it would be translated into English.

Before explaining complementary infinitives further, here are three indisputable examples that show the three different variations where objects in a complementary infinitive can be placed in translation. The Greek is from Westcott and Hort while the English translations are quotes from the NET Bible.

Example #1: All object(s) translated as coming after the infinitive. Κἀγώ, ἀδελφοί, οὐκ ἠδυνήθην λαλῆσαι ὑμῖν (1 Corinthians 3:1), which translates in English: So, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you. See in the below chart the same verse in reverse interlinear order:

Example #2: Object(s) translated as coming before and after the infinitive. οὐ χρείαν ἔχετε ὑμῖν γράφεσθαι (1 Thessalonians 5:1), which translates in English: You have no need for anything to be written to you. See in the below chart the same verse in reverse interlinear order:

Example #3: All object(s) translated as coming before the infinitive. οὐ θέλω ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν (1 Corinthians 12:1), which translates in English: "I do not want