Just when is enough, enough?

Over on the Better Bibles Blog Wayne Leman says as part of a post;

"FWIW, Dr. Grudem has been practicing this kind of negative subjective dismissal of the TNIV for several years. I wish he would stop. His cause would be enhanced if he would just present evidence for his claims rather than trying to divine the motives of those with whom he disagrees."
and
"He does so with his long lists of supposed "inaccuracies" in the TNIV. He provides little, if any, evidence to support his claim of inaccuracy. The fact is that those are not necessarily inaccuracies, but differences of opinion about what is a better translation wording."

Now, in the first quote we are told that Dr Grudem should present evidence of his claims and then later in the same list of comments we have the second quote commenting on the evidence that doesn't exist.

Now, I have to say that I personally own books by Dr Grudem that supply not just the requested evidence (from the first quote), but do so with extensive references and notes, which also negates the second quote.

The evidence may not be to the liking of those that object, but it does exist and is very extensive.
As well as the books there is plenty of online material pointing out what worries Dr Grudem (and many, many others) with explanations, references & notes.

A visitor!!!

Wow, excellent, a visitor - to my blog - a rare experience indeed and a welcome one.
Wayne Leman is one of the saner voices on the egalitarian side of things, although let me be quick to say that there is much more to the man than a single issue. (see Better Bibles Blog)
Others on the BBB are, shall we say, more strident in their viewpoints.
Do I agree with him on a lot of issues, no, to put it simply.
I am sure we could find some common ground on which to agree, but when it comes to issues of leadership in the Church, we do not agree at all.

I have been away so long, yet it is all the same

Well, well,
I have been away from things for a while and even considered giving up on this blogging lark. (Not that I was that regular with posts anyway)
Also it seems to be the same old things going round and round in cycles or just on and on in a mindless line.
T4G caused a storm by adding one sentence at the end of their Conference Statement which got many egalitarians in a fluster, but then when aren't egalitarians in a fluster?
They seem surprised/indignant that anyone would have the temerity to point out that ignoring Gods clear teaching in the scriptures concerning the leadership of His church should be designated as potentially harming the witness of the Gospel.
They, as always, seem equally mortified that not everyone is falling in to line with their mis-interpretation, or outlandish (in a few cases) mis-reading, of scripture.
Wild claims are made about certain Greek words which, in their eyes, don't really mean what every one thought they did for the last 2000 years.
Ann Nyland is a case in point. According to her

'Anthropos has no male nuances, no male overtones, and has nothing to do with maleness'

Yet in Thayer "in regards to sex, a male"
Also see the following from the Septuagint:
Deuteronomy 17:5. "Then you shall bring out that anthropos or that woman, and you shall stone them with stones"
Deuteronomy 22:24. "They shall be stoned with stones, and they shall die, the young woman, because she did not cry out in the city, and the anthropos, because he violated his neighbor's wife."
There is much more evidence that there is indeed a male componenent to the word 'Anthropos'.

She also trys to claim that 'Aner' primarily means 'a person generally'.
Yet the main meanings of 'Aner' are; with reference to sex
1) of a male
2) of a husband
3) of a betrothed or future husband
4) with reference to age, and to distinguish an adult man from a boy
5) any male
6) used generically of a group of both men and women

These statements by Ann Nyland can be found in her book 'More than meets the eye' which has found enthusiastic support from some in the egalitarian camp, but then it says what they want to hear, so it must be true.

This is just the tip of an incredibly large iceburg which seems to be built upon the premise of 'we don't want these words to mean what they do, so they must mean something else'.

The material coming from the complimentarian side is of a much higher quality and does not stoop to the name calling that is evidenced in Ann Nylands book and in other works from the egalitarian camp.

There are of course elements on both sides of the fence who should not be given any space at all in a reputable debate and who are only out to cause offence.

Unfortunately there are many who are presented by egalitarians as being of the 'cream' who still resort to personal attacks and blanket denials in there work and articles.

For a balanced and well referenced work you would find it very hard to beat Wayne Grudem's book called: 'Evangelical Feminism & Biblical Truth'.

Other authors to seek out are Thomas Schreiner, Bruce Ware, Andreas Kostenberger, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Susan T Foh, Richard Hove, Carolyn Mahaney, Susan Hunt, Sharon James, William D Mounce to name just a few.

I will come back to this in another post