202 FEMINIST VIEWS BASED ON UNTRUTHFUL CLAIMS
Another possible interpretation, related to Wilshire’s idea of vio-
lence, has been proposed by Richard and Catherine Kroeger:
Authent∑s is applied on several occasions to those who perform rit-
ual murder.... Such material does not allow us to rule out the pos-
sibility that 1 Timothy 2:12 prohibits cultic action involving actual
or representational murder.... More likely than actual murder is
the “voluntary death” or sham murder which played a significant
part in mystery initiations.... It is at least possible that some sort
of ritual murder, probably of a simulated nature, could be
involved.^8And yet a third alternative has also been proposed by Richard and
Catherine Kroeger. They argue that Paul here uses the word authenteø
to mean, “proclaim oneself author of a man.” The Kroegers then trans-
late 1 Timothy 2:12 as, “I do not allow a woman to teach nor to pro-
claim herself author of man.” The Kroegers understand this to be Paul’s
rejection of “a Gnostic notion of Eve as creator of Adam.”^9
So which interpretation is correct? The bottom line is that it comes
down to a matter of the evidence. The most complete study of this word
shows that its meaning is primarily neutral, “to exercise authority over.”
In 1995 H. Scott Baldwin published the most thorough study of the verb
authenteøthat had ever been done. Several earlier studies had looked at
a number of occurrences of this verb, but no one had ever looked at all
the examples that exist from ancient literature and ancient papyrus
manuscripts.^10 In addition, several earlier studies were flawed by mixing
(^8) Kroeger and Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman, 185-188.
(^9) Ibid., 103. See also Cindy Jacobs, Women of Destiny (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1998), 240-241,
who finds the Kroegers’ proposal persuasive. (For analysis of the Kroegers’ claims that false
teachers were promoting a Gnostic heresy about Eve being created first, see chapter 24, above;
and also Wayne Grudem, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth [Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah,
2004], 284-287.)
(^10) H. Scott Baldwin, “A Difficult Word: Authenteøin 1 Timothy 2:12,” in Women in the
Church: A Fresh Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, ed. Andreas Köstenberger, Thomas Schreiner,
and H. Scott Baldwin (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995), 65-80 and 269-305. Baldwin
updated his analysis in light of more recent evidence in his 2005 essay, “An Important Word:
Authenteøin 1 Timothy 2:12,” in Women in the Church, 2nd ed., ed. Andreas Köstenberger
and Thomas Schreiner (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2005), 39-51. In that same volume,
Köstenberger updated his study of the grammatical structure of 1 Timothy 2:12, interacting
with both sympathetic and critical reviews of his earlier study (see “A Complex Sentence: The
Syntax of 1 Timothy 2:12,” on pages 53-84).