From: Mary L B Pendergraft (pender@wfu.edu)
Date: Sat Feb 14 1998 - 20:06:44 EST
At 12:31 AM 2/14/98 -0500, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>The phrase MIAS GUNAIKOS is used in these three verses:
>
>1Tim 3:2 1Tim 3:12 Titu 1:6
>
>There seems to be a question as to how this is interpreted. Is this any
>less ambiguous than the English phrase "one wife"? I've heard people say
>that it "obviously" means one wife at a time, but I've heard others say
>that it means not remarried, and still others say never divorced.
>
>Does the Greek phrase clearly mean one of these to the exclusion of the
>others?
>
Regrettably, the Greek is as simple--and so as open to varied
interpretations--as the English. The Catholic church uses this as the
basis for requiring that permanent deacons who become widowers remain
single. Knowing that, I had never stopped to think that there are other
ways to read it, and of course there are.
Mary
Mary Pendergraft
Associate Professor of Classical Languages
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem NC 27109-7343
336-758-5331 (NOTE: this is a new number) pender@wfu.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:04 EDT