204 FEMINIST VIEWS BASED ON UNTRUTHFUL CLAIMS
confirms that the meaning of authenteøis primarily positive or
neutral.^14
I should also mention one more egalitarian claim about the mean-
ing of authenteø: Catherine Kroeger proposed in 1979 that authenteø
really meant “to thrust oneself” (in sexually immoral practices in a
pagan cult), and thus 1 Timothy 2:12 means, “I forbid a woman to teach
or engage in fertility practices with a man.”^15 This argument by Kroeger
has been almost universally rejected by other writers from both com-
plementarian and egalitarian camps.^16 So far as I am aware, she is sug-
gesting a meaning for authenteøthat has never been found in any
lexicon, ever.
However, in spite of the fact that Kroeger’s 1979 article has not
withstood any scholarly scrutiny, I have been both amazed and disap-
pointed to hear of a number of instances where this very article has been
accepted as fact by several unsuspecting lay persons who have no abil-
ity to check the actual ancient texts in which Kroeger claimed to find an
erotic meaning for authenteø. When the texts she mentions are
inspected, Kroeger’s article turns out to be a bizarre proposal based on
flagrant misrepresentation of obscure evidence that is accessible only to
scholars.^17
Once again the question must be asked of the egalitarian claim:
where is the evidence? Where are the actual examples of authenteøthat
show that it must take a negative meaning in 1 Timothy 2:12, when
the positive or neutral sense is so well established? Should a claim
without clear factual support be repeated so often as if it were proven
fact?
(^14) Al Wolters, “A Semantic Study of authent∑s and Its Derivatives,” Journal of Greco-Roman
Christianity and Judaism 1 (2000): 145-175. Initially, this journal was available only online
(http://divinity.mcmaster.ca/pages/jgrchj/index.html). However, the article has now been
reprinted in Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 11/1 (Spring 2006): 44-65.
(^15) Catherine Kroeger, “Ancient Heresies and a Strange Greek Verb,” The Reformed Journal 29
(March 1979): 14, italics in original.
(^16) See William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 46 (Nashville:
Thomas Nelson, 2000), 127; and I. Howard Marshall, in collaboration with Philip H. Towner,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (London; New York: T & T
Clark, 2004), 457; both with notes to other literature. See also Grudem, Evangelical Feminism
and Biblical Truth, 313-314n107. The rejection of this strange argument by even egalitarian
scholars is a welcome exception to the pattern of silence that I mentioned above (page 150).
(^17) Full discussion of the texts can be found in Armin J. Panning, “AUQENTEIN—A Word
Study,” Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly 78 (1981): 185-191; and Carroll D. Osburn,
“AUQENTEW(1 Timothy 2:12),” Restoration Quarterly 25/1 (1982): 1-12.