154 FEMINIST VIEWS BASED ON UNTRUTHFUL CLAIMS
of the verse. And then I could make the same change with any other
verses that tell children to obey their parents. Then I could claim, “The
Bible nowhere says that children are to obey their parents. The verses
that say that are all mistranslations.”
However, if my claim is false, if in fact the word hypakouødoes
mean “obey,” then I have undermined the authority of Scripture in
another way. By wrongly changing the meaning of the words, I have
taken away some of the words of the Bible and replaced them with other
words that God did not say. In this way I have violated the commands
that warn against adding to or taking from the words of Scripture:
Deuteronomy 4:2: “You shall not add to the word that I command
you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the
LORD your God that I command you.”Deuteronomy 12:32: “Everything that I command you, you shall be
careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.”Proverbs 30:5-6: Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to
those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke
you and you be found a liar.Revelation 22:18-19: I warn everyone who hears the words of the
prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him
the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the
words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in
the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.A second way I can change the meaning of words is by claiming
there was a special situation that the author was writing to, and that
means the verse applies only to people in that same situation. For exam-
ple, take this same verse:
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right (Eph. 6:1).Now, what if I write a scholarly article and claim that in Ephesus
(and Colossae) when Paul wrote, there was a special problem of violent
children who traveled in gangs, and those were the children Paul was