I just received word that my paper proposal for the 2006 SBL meeting in Washington DC was accepted. Here's the preliminary abstract as submitted.

• Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
• Paper Title: Word Groups, Head Terms and Modifiers in the Pastoral Epistles: Insight for Questions of Style?
• Abstract: OpenText.org have completed a preliminary syntactic analysis of the Greek New Testament. One level of their analysis is the Word Group level. A word group is a group of words that consists of, at minimum, a head term. It also contains any terms that modify the head term and additionally specifies the type of modification as that of definer, qualifier, relator or specifier. Heretofore, stylistic analysis has been largely bound to the word level, tracking criteria such as word usage and morphology. The OpenText.org Word Group analysis allows for stylistic analysis of the corpus at a different level. Does head term and modifier usage offer any insight for comparative studies of the Pastoral Epistles and the generally accepted Paulines? This paper will examine word group usage data for both the accepted Paulines and the Pastoral Epistles, and will offer preliminary comparisons between the results where results may offer insight for questions of style.

More information (but not much more) is available on my personal blog.

There are five "Faithful Sayings" in the Pastoral Epistles, each introduced or concluded with the phrase πιστὸς ὁ λόγος. They are: 1Ti 1.15; 1Ti 3.1; 1Ti 4.9; 2Ti 2.11; Tt 3.8. At least, those are the verses that πιστὸς ὁ λόγος occurs in.

Several times, Rev 22.6 is offered as a cross-reference, primarily because the words λόγος and πιστὸς are related:

καὶ εἶπεν μοι· οὗτοι οἱ λόγοι πιστοὶ καὶ ἀληθινοι ... , which is translated in the ESV as "And he said to me, 'These words are trustworthy and true. ... ' (Rev 22.6, ESV)

In church this past Sunday, the message was on Heb 10.19-23. Check out verse 23:

κατέχωμεν τὴν ὁμολογίαν τῆς ἐλπίδος ἀκλινῆ, πιστὸς γὰρ ὁ ἐπαγγειλάμενος, — in the ESV, this is "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." (Heb 10.23, ESV)

As regards vocabulary, Rev 22.6 is the better cross-reference. But as regards structure and grammatical concept, wouldn't Heb 10.23 be a better cross reference? Take out the post-positive γὰρ and it is a dead-on match: πιστὸς plus ὁ plus [masc. nom. sing. substantive]. Right?

• πιστὸς ὁ λόγος
• The saying is trustworthy or Faithful is the word
• πιστὸς γὰρ ὁ ἐπαγγειλάμενος
• for he who promised is faithful or perhaps Faithful is the promiser or even The promiser is trustworthy

I haven't done much examination of commentaries relative to this exact reference (Heb 10.23), but as I recall one issue that is generally raised is the lack of use of similar vocabulary or structure in the NT but the repeated use of πιστὸς ὁ λόγος in the Pastorals. It seems fishy to many folks who posit a later date for the Pastorals. Makes me wonder if they've examined πιστὸς ὁ λόγος in light of πιστὸς γὰρ ὁ ἐπαγγειλάμενος in Heb 10.23

I'll have to check and see if Knight handles it.

I just received the weekly(?) email from Eisenbrauns about New and Noteworthy titles. On title mentioned is from Ray Van Neste: Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles. I've not read this title, but the description piques my interest.

Van Neste examines 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus to determine the boundaries of each discourse unit using cohesion shift analysis. The cohesion of each unit is then analyzed, noting common devices from the ancient epistolary genre, rhetorical devices, lexical and semantic repetition and symmetrical patterns. He also focuses on connections between the units in the letter — connections between contiguous units, semantic chains, and the grouping of units into larger sections. Thus the variety of connections across and throughout the letter are highlighted.

The bad news, of course, is that the book is $135.00 (though $95.00 on sale currently at Eisenbrauns). I think my tax return is going to disappear quickly ...

Stanley Porter's collection of essays concerning various NT passages includes, as its final chapter, an essay on 1Ti 2.15 and being "saved by childbirth". The essay is titled What Does it Mean to be "Saved By Childbirth" (1 Timothy 2:15)". It runs from pp. 255-268.

Porter doesn't have any silver bullets stashed away, but he does take a serious look at the Greek of this verse to determine what it does — and does not — say. This is strictly a look at the Greek, it is not exegesis or interpretation.

Porter's opening paragraph closes with:

The major lexical and grammatical questions raised in this single verse include determining (a) the subject of the verb σωθήσεται with respect to "the woman" of v. 14, (b) the sense of the verb σῴζω, (c) the denotation of the term τεκνογονία, (d) the function of the preposition δία with the genitive case, (e) the shift in number of the verbs from singular to plural, and (f) the use of the third class conditional construction. In themselves, each of these issues may not be particularly complex, but their composite understanding is necessary to avoid irresponsible interpretation. (pp. 255-256)

This book is volume 6 in Peter Lang's excellent Studies in Biblical Greek series.

Köstenberger and his fellow-contributors have put together a solid resource on a tough passage. This is a series of essays examining this difficult-to-interpret passage (1Ti 2.9-15) from a number of different angles.

One essay is on Ephesus and its background, and the degree to which worship of the goddess Diana may have allowed women to play a larger role in the Ephesian society.

H. Scott Baldwin has an excellent essay on the known usages of the word αὐθεντέω from 1Ti 2.12. He discusses everything he can get his hands on and ends up with a solid lexical study of this word and what it can and cannot mean in certain contexts.

Köstenberger follows Baldwin's essay, discussing syntactical issues of 1Ti 2.12 and comparing the syntax with similar spots in the New Testament and other classical literature in an effort to determine the proper way to handle the text.

There is also a survey of other modern literature that interprets these verses and works through them in light of the essays of Baldwin, Köstenberger and others.

There are other essays too — these are simply the ones I remember (I borrowed the book from a friend). If you are looking at this question in 1Ti 2.9-15, then Köstenberger's book is worth looking into.

George W. Knight's NIGTC volume is, as far as I am concerned, the best available critical commentary available that seriously interacts with the Greek text.

Mounce (WBC) is good. Knight is better. Knight deals directly with morphological and syntactical issues when necessary and doesn't have the broad structure of WBC to bog him down. He doesn't get into the contemporary citations so much, but again the focus helps him. If you plan to work through the Greek text, then Knight (combined with SIL's Exegetical Summaries) is your friend.