οὐδέ

There has been a debate about the meaning or force of οὐδέ in 1 Timothy 2:12 -:

διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός, ἀλλ’ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ.

I do not permit a woman to teach, nor to exercise authority over a man, but to be in quietness.

In 1986, Philip Payne presented a paper called ‘οὐδέ in 1 Timothy 2:12’ to the influential annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta. He argued that in Paul’s epistles, οὐδέ is used to combine two elements to express a single idea. In a subsequent revised version of the paper, published in the Journal of New Testament Studies in 2008, he claimed that Paul is not prohibiting women from teaching but only from ‘assuming for themselves authority to teach men.’

As I pointed out in my post entitled ‘The meaning of οὐδέ in 1 Timothy 2:12‘, there is no evidence from the lexicons and grammars that οὐδέ does this. On the contrary, it is simply a negative conjunction that adds one negative element (word, phrase, clause or even sentence) to a previous one. On this page, I will upload some of the relevant papers on the subject, and extracts from commentaries and books which address the issue. I start with Philip Payne’s 2008 paper, which as I understand it is broadly similar to the 1986 one.

2008. Philip Payne. ‘1 Tim 2.12 and the Use of οὐδέ to Combine Two Elements to Express a Single Idea‘ [Journal of New Testament Studies, April 2008]

Thomas Edgar, Professor of New Testament at Capital Bible Seminary, wrote a response to Payne’s 1986 ETS paper, probably in 1987: 1 Timothy 2.12: An analysis of restrictive interpretation

I wrote a response to Payne in 2005, which is referenced at three places in ‘A Complex Sentence’ by Andreas J Kostenberger, Chapter 3 of ‘Women in the Church‘ by Kostenberger & Schreiner (3rd edition. Crossway, 2016):

Payne’s misunderstanding of BDF §445:

Distinction between different ways in which two ‘elements’ can be combined into a ‘single idea’:

Concerning the use of καί in negative sentences:

Long version:

2015. Andrew Chapman. ‘Οὐδέ in 1 Timothy 2.12‘. Unpublished.

I also wrote a shorter version intended for publication in New Testament Studies:

2015. Andrew Chapman. ‘Οὐδέ in 1 Timothy 2.12‘. Unpublished.

 

ORIGEN

Origen quoted the relevant part of 1 Timothy 2.12 in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 14.34-35, as follows:

ὅτε ἐλάλησε Μαριὰμ ἡ προφῆτις ἄρχουσα ἦν τινων γυναικῶν· αἰσχρὸν γὰρ γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, καὶ διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω ἁπλῶς ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός. Καὶ ἄλλοθεν δὲ τοῦτο παραστήσω, εἰ καὶ ἐκεῖνο ἀσφαλέστερον εἴρηται περὶ τοῦ μὴ τὴν γυναῖκα ἡγεμόνα γίνεσθαι τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ ἀνδρός· πρεσβύτιδας ἐν καταστήματι ἱεροπρεπεῖϲ, καλοδιδασκάλους, ἵνα σωφρονίζωσι τὰς νέας, οὐχ ἁπλῶς ἵνα διδάσκωσιν. καλοδιδάσκαλοι μὲν γὰρ ἔστωσαν καὶ γυναῖκες, οὐχ ἵνα ἄνδρες καθήμενοι ἀκούωσι γυναικῶν, ὡς ἐκλειπόντων ἀνδρῶν τῶν δυναμένων πρεσβεύειν τὸν τοῦ θεοῦ λόγον.

The whole passage can be found in C. Jenkins,  Origen on 1 Corinthians, IVJournal of Theological Studies 10 (1909) 29-51.

HENDIADYS

Philip Payne has suggested that οὐδέ joins the two prohibitions of 1 Timothy 2.12 into a single prohibition in a way that is comparable to the known linguistic phenomenon of ‘hendiadys’. Sansone’s article on the Greek hendiadys is helpful, since it indicates when a hendiadys is possible, and when it is not. Basically, according to Sansone, it is limited to two substantives, placed side by side and joined by καί or τε:

D. Sansone, ‘On Hendiadys in Greek‘, Glotta 62 (1984) 16–25.

Denniston sees a comparable tendency with verbs, but in all his examples they are placed close together and are joined by the positive conjunctions καί or τε:

J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) pp 34-37, 62-63

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