“For Ephesians 5:22, the question is not “what does ‘hupotasso’ mean. It is the fact that “hupotasso” does not appear in the original greek. The English word “submit” was added by the translators.

I agree completely. This was the point I intended to make in my post.

I have just made another post about the effect of bible verses on translation

“Ephesians 5:22 and The Tyranny Of Bible Verses”

Kalinda Rose Stevenson.

”
For Ephesians 5:22, the question is not “what does ‘hupotasso’ mean. It is the fact that “hupotasso” does not appear in the original greek. The English word “submit” was added by the translators.

The word ‘hupotasso” does appear in a number of places in the New Testament, beginning with Ephesians 5:21 (submit to one another) – and a number of other locations in the New Testament that we isolate in the red book in chapter 14 or 15. It is a pleasant word.
Blessings!
Joel and Kathy”

You have raised an important question. I can’t do justice to it at this point, but I do have a few thoughts.

You make the comment, “I am going to have to question how this word is translated in EVERY other NT verse.”

This is a profoundly valid question to ask about any translation. The critical point is that every word in every translation is a translation from an ancient language to another language.

When it comes to Biblical translations, it is all so familiar that it is easy to assume that we know what words mean, without even considering that we are dealing with traditional interpretations. When it comes to something like the idea of submission, it takes a determined effort to step back and ask what the verb meant in ancient Greek and what it was intended to mean in any particular writing.

The problem is further compounded because people consult the same dictionaries to determine the meaning of the Greek words, which only raises questions about the biases, knowledge, and worldviews of the scholars who compiled the dictionaries.

So, simply looking up a word in a Greek-English dictionary doesn’t mean you are going to know what any word “really” meant. It will tell you what particular scholars thought it meant. Maybe they were doing nothing more than perpetuating traditional readings. Maybe they missed the point too.

I say this as one who was trained in Biblical scholarship. Just because scholars share a common consensus on anything doesn’t necessarily mean they are right. The history of any kind of scholarship is a process of examining and evaluating widely held assumptions.

At this point, I encourage you to engage in your own quest to answer your own question.

The best way to find out how this questioning would change your view of theology and scripture is to do your own looking into this question, with an open mind and open heart. Let your goal be to discover if there is a more liberating meaning behind these words than most of us have ever seen before.

I am going to leave it at this. I encourage you to do a study of every place this word is used, in any form. Consult as many serious scholars as you can find, and see what you can discover as a result.

Kalinda

I don’t have a problem with the term “head” because it is clearly intended as “source” or “origin.”

My issue is with the translation of the word “submit.” If I were ignoring verse 21, I might be inclined to just go with the traditional view of submission. But as I read verse 21 that ALL Christians are to “hupotassó” to one another, I must pause. Is Paul using this verb, in this context, to indicate “having an authority over” or “obedience to?” Surely it is translated this way elsewhere in the NT. But I cannot conceive it having only this meaning here.

Otherwise we must assume that Paul is telling us to obey the other believers in our community of believers. I must read this as “to voluntarily defer” because of verse 21. And as we know, if an act is voluntary, it cannot be a requirement.

In addition, it is not a stretch to say that the church is voluntarily subject to Christ (verse 24). We certainly have the choice to submit to him or not and often choose “not.” So, unless there is some spiritual Jedi mind-trickery going on, I am going to have to question how this word is translated in EVERY other NT verse.

I wonder how this would change my view of theology and scripture. It is worth looking into. I cannot conceive that Greek scholars would have no answer for this as we are often told that Greek is a very precise language.

Thoughts?

Men are to focus on agape-loving their wives — submit means “to adapt to”
head means “kephale” or “source of life, source of strength”
and does NOT mean boss or leader or commander

Mutual submission, mutual respect, mutual honor — this makes for a happy and godly marriage.

Please check out http://www.SaveOurChristianMarriage.com

Oops! I meant Dr. Stevenson, not Anderson. I apologize.

Don

I just stumbled across your article.

You are mistaken. A serious study of the original Greek would be incomplete without an understanding of syntactic structure.

In Ephesians 5:21, the verb “submit”, transliterated “hypotassomai” is in the present tense, passive, participle, plural, nominative, and masculine. It is defined (Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon) as “to place or rank under, to subject, to obey.” In the Scriptural context of Ephesians 5:21 it means “put [yourself] in subjection under”. The syntax of the verb is a participle with imperative force. In Ephesians 5:22, the syntactic structure of the phrase “as unto the Lord” implies that the word “hypotassomai” is necessary to be read in conjunction with “as” (hos).

Therefore, the translators are correct. Ephesians 5:22, in fact, DOES command wives to submit to their husbands. This is as irrefutably Biblical today as it was in Genesis and when Paul wrote to the Ephesians. This is the order that God intended. The entire letter to the Ephesians, inspired by the Holy Spirit, should be read for a complete understanding of the context of the message.

Surely you don’t think that ALL the translation and publication decisions of many great bodies of Biblical scholars are wrong because women want to be equal with men? It is not coincidental. What God said in Genesis 3:16 has not changed. “Your desire shall be for your husband” may not mean what some may think. “Desire” means she will want to be the head of her husband. Nevertheless, “he will rule over you”. God does not lie.

Sincerely,
and be blessed,
Don

One realistic way to get out of debt is to pay close attention to the language you are using.

I wrote a little book DEBT OR ALIVE: How To Get Out Of Debt And Feel Abundantly Alive
http://www.debt-or-alive.com/

It’s a simple book, but I do think that the solution you are looking starts with a few simple ideas about who you are, what money is, and your relationship to money.

The basic point of that book is that when you begin with “debt” it is very difficult to get out of debt. The real solution to debt is to start with a different perspective. Instead of trying to get out of debt, start with a vision of your life as financially free.

This is all related to the way our minds work. If you keep telling yourself that you want to get out of debt, you are simply repeating to yourself that you are in debt.

It also means that you are oriented to the problem rather than your real goal.

All the best,
Kalinda