A Review Of Andreas Köstenberger And Thomas R. Schreiner, Eds. "Women In The Church: An Interpretation And Application Of 1 Timothy 2:9-15." Third Edition. Wheaton: Crossway, 2016. 432pp. $18.99. -- By: Scott Corbin
Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 21:1 (Spring 2016)
Article: A Review Of Andreas Köstenberger And Thomas R. Schreiner, Eds. "Women In The Church: An Interpretation And Application Of 1 Timothy 2:9-15." Third Edition. Wheaton: Crossway, 2016. 432pp. $18.99.
Author: Scott Corbin
JBMW 21:1 (Spring 2016) p. 112
A Review Of Andreas Köstenberger And Thomas R. Schreiner, Eds.
Women In The Church: An Interpretation And Application Of 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Third Edition.
Wheaton: Crossway, 2016. 432pp. $18.99.
Assistant Operations Director
The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Louisville, Kentucky
On the writing of books on gender there is no end. Book after book passes through bookstores, into personal libraries, and back into used bookstores in karmic circularity; first editions become seconds, seconds become thirds—and does anyone really want thirds?
The other curious fact is that for those huddling together under the complementarian banner—as one of the editors of this volume has suggested elsewhere—the arguments for the complementarian position have changed little since the clunky term found a home in the late 1980’s. Why then a third edition of Women in the Church? Does anyone really want thirds?
In this third edition of Women in the Church: An Interpretation & Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, Köstenberger & Schreiner are hoping to introduce a “substantially new” edition of Women in the Church because they “believe that as those committed to historic Christianity, we cannot afford to take our cue from the rapidly changing culture.” Indeed, “being a Bible-believing Christian in this world—or taking one’s cues from Scripture alone—means swimming upstream and being counter-cultural.” (21)
What one finds, then, is not merely old chapters with new typesetting but a substantial revision indeed. Whereas the second edition clocks in right around 180 pages, readers of the third edition will traverse 350 pages (including an appendix) of densely argued, textual evidence for the contributors’ complementarian rendering of a most difficult passage. Virtually every chapter has been updated and expanded to include recent scholarship.
Summary Of Contents
On a structural level, this book helpfully moves from “behind the text” reconstruction (chapter 1), to
JBMW 21:1 (Spring 2016) p. 113
textual and syntactical issues related to interpretation (chapters 2 and 3), engagement with reception history and recent scholarship (4 and 5) and then current issues and application (6 and 7). In that way, the book has a hermeneutical movement from “behind the text” to “in front of the text” discussion, helping to highlight the interpretive issues at each level.
The table of contents for the third edition of Women in the Church closely corresponds to the second edition, the main diffe...
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