Women in the Church

Women in the Church: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15

Andreas J. Köstenberger and Thomas R. Schreiner (eds.)

(Baker Books: 2nd Edition, 2005)

On 1 February we'll be adding my review of this book to beginningwithmoses - here's my intro as a preview.

This excellent book deserves a review on a website devoted to biblical theology for a number of reasons. First, the passage in question ties the issue in question right back to the pre-fall Genesis narrative. This means that, whether being read in a complementarian or egalitarian way, the text itself forces the reader to adopt a way of interpreting the Bible that takes in the big picture and not merely the immediate passage. Following the text, this book actually makes biblical theology key to its interpretation. Second, the reference to Genesis in this passage notwithstanding, the issue of men and women’s roles in Christian ministry is often contested within some pre-conceived framework of redemptive history, usually that provided by Galatians 3:28 and the numerous hermeneutical issues that a text like this throws up. Some form of biblical theology tends to exist in the position we adopt on women in ministry whether we aware of it or not. Third, on the micro rather than macro level, this volume models in an exemplary way the various aspects of a biblical theology that is exegetically responsible in relating the parts to the whole and then vice-versa. This can be seen not just in the way the contributors co-ordinate their exegesis of this passage with the rest of Scripture but also in the way the study deliberately moves from socio-religious-historical-context, to lexical study, then to syntactical exegesis, then to an overall reading, then to a discussion of hermeneutics (that takes in both the hermeneutical approach of the writers and the dominant differing approach), then to application. This is how biblical theology should be done. I will outline a few exceptionally minor quibbles and then review the book’s contents with some comment along the way.