Theology in the Raw - Are Husbands the "Head" of Their Wives? The Meaning of Kephale, part 1: Preston Sprinkle

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

I've been researching the meaning of the Greek word kephale ("head") for the last several months and I've been blogging about my findings over at  theologyintheraw.com This podcast episode is the first (quite long) summary of how I understand the meaning of kephale in extra-biblical Greek literature; namely, the LXX, secular Greek literature, and the early church fathers. In the next episode, I'll work through the meaning of kephale in the book of Ephesians; specifically, its use in 1:22, 4:15, and especially 5:23. Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hello friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. This is going to be a different sort of podcast for several reasons. Number one, I do not have a guest on the show today. This is going to be a solo podcast where I'm going to discuss my recent research on the meaning of kephale, which is translated head, and a few, well, two really important contexts in the New Testament, which I'll get to in a second. Two really important contexts in the New Testament, which I'll get to in a second. 1 Corinthians 11.3 and Ephesians 5.23. So this is part of my ongoing research project on the question of women in church leadership.

I know a lot of you are familiar that I'm in the middle of this massive kind of research project that will take me about three to four years. I'm at least two years in now into this research project. And some of you have been following me along and are eagerly waiting to see where I land. So let me just give you the super brief background. I was raised very strongly complementarian. Only men can occupy positions of church leadership, including teaching, preaching, pretty much anything kind of from a stage of the church that's reserved for men only. That's the background I'm coming from, like a lot of you. But over the years, I realized that there's a lot of people I respect, a lot of biblical scholars I respect that are solid evangelical believers who believe in the authority of scripture, who do not hold to that view. And there's not just two views, like complementarian, egalitarian. There's various shades of each of those perspectives.

I was on the far side of the complementarian side of things growing up. That's the view I sort of just absorbed growing up. But I really early on admitted, I haven't studied this out. I read the Bible through that lens. And the verses, as I read them in English, seem to fit that viewpoint. But I never really dug into the scholarly debates. So I would say, maybe like 15 years ago, I started to stop calling myself a complementarian. And I didn't call myself an egalitarian. I just said, I haven't studied this enough to have a strong opinion one way or the other.

And for the last several years, I've been involved in other research projects and writing projects and books and different issues I've been working through. So I just haven't had the time to sit down and just wade through all of the various exegetical questions that come up in this debate. I almost called it a conversation. Sometimes it's a conversation. Mostly it's a debate. And so I just said, I don't know where I land.

I don't. I'm a big fan of having the strength of my opinion match the depth of my study. And since the depth of my study is basically nothing, I'm not going to have a strong opinion on where I land on this really important issue. And I have people I respect on both sides that have dug into many of the exegetical questions at stake. And on that note, I do want to say what is driving my curiosity is first and foremost, and is exegetical, meaning I'm very interested in what the ancient biblical authors believed and wrote about the topic. That doesn't, no, I'm a Christian. So obviously what the biblical authors believed and wrote about the topic. That doesn't, no, I'm a Christian. So obviously what the biblical authors wrote and what they meant by what they wrote on the topic, I think that will have profound implications for how we do church today and how we do the home today.

That's a weird way of putting it, but you know what I mean. That's a weird way of putting it, but you know what I mean. So I'm obviously very aware and very excited to explore some of the implications, the ecclesiological implications, the home implications of, what the biblical authors meant, and live in that world for a while so that you're not putting the cart before the horse, so to speak, like reading the Bible through a particular lens. Now, I've gotten critiqued, well, for many things, but for saying things like that, because some people have taken that to mean that I am claiming to be without bias, that I'm claiming to have neutrality in how I'm reading scripture. I am not claiming that I have a view from nowhere, that I have no personal context that I'm bringing to the text. Obviously, I do. I'm a middle-aged white man living in 21st century America. That is a lens through which I'm reading the Bible. And you might have a different context, and that is your lens through which you're reading the Bible.

there is, that have no biases, that have no contextual factors that go into my interpretation. What I am saying is I truly don't know yet what I think the biblical authors, where they land on the question of women in church leadership. I don't, from an exegetical standpoint, I don't have all of my exegesis worked out in some of the key passages like 1 Timothy 2 or 1 Corinthians 11 or, well, Ephesians 5, I feel like I do. And we'll get to that at the end of this, what I'm sure is going to be a very long episode. And I have worked through a lot of this stuff in 1 Timothy 2. And the more I work through it, the more I see there's a lot of exegetical complexities here that I want to be a very sensitive to. I want to look at, I haven't really ironed out what I think Genesis one to three contributes to this conversation,

which obviously contributes a lot. I haven't worked through all of the many, many passages in the gospels in particular, and in the new Testament, testament i mean in the bible as a whole that talks about women occupying certain positions that could be considered leadership positions could be considered certainly our prophetic positions um there's female prophets in the old and new testaments um there's obviously jesus elevated the status of women profoundly um i haven't teased out all of the exegetical implications of the scene of Mary and Martha and all the many women that surrounded Jesus and Luke 8, 1 to 3,

where women were funding Jesus's ministry and the role of Mary and Elizabeth and the women at the tomb and the women being the first ones to take the gospel to the nations, the implications and the women, you know, being the first ones to take the gospel to, to the nations, the implications of the Samaritan, uh, women who went back and evangelize the kind of the first evangelist in

Samaria and so on and so forth. So I'm aware of the passages and questions and debates. Um, and I've, I've, you know, certain of these passages I've worked through more than others, but I'm still working through what is a very complex and highly disputed body of exegetical or textual literature that we now call the Bible.

So when I say I don't know where I'm at now, I truly don't. I don't know. People are like, no, you do. You have a leaning. I might have certain leanings. It depends on which passage you're talking about, which question you're asking. But my leanings have kind of shifted and changes over the last couple of years as I've researched different passages.

So I truly don't have a conclusion that I'm bringing to the text. I don't. You can say, yes, you do. And I'm going to say, I actually don't. I don't know. I'm undecided on some of the more significant exegetical questions. So that doesn't mean I don't have my biases and context and a view from nowhere. I would say that I don't have any objectively verifiable socioeconomic or ecclesial or even relational things in my life that would predetermine where I need to land on.

Let me just briefly tease that out a bit. I have no income that would depend on me needing to land on a certain position or the other. I'm not employed by a church or a denomination. I run a nonprofit that I created. We allow for egalitarian and complementarian people to work for the nonprofit. Our board is, I think, has a mix. Our employees have a mix. I mean, every, yeah, from, this isn't the primary conversation we're involved in. So we allow for both views. When I go speak at churches, I speak at churches that are all across the map. I speak at complementarian churches. I speak at soft complementarian churches.

I speak at soft egalitarian churches. I speak at strong egalitarian churches. Like I've never in all of my speaking and teaching in different churches, which has been like a 10 year journey. I've never once been asked, where do you land on women in leadership? Never been asked that. I am starting to get more questions from churches now. I used to typically speak on questions related to sexuality and gender.

And those are typically all the questions I get when I go speak. And now just in the last couple of times I've spoken, a couple of churches in particular, some of the questions that came up are, so where are you at on women in leadership? So, so it is starting to come up a little bit, but again, it's not like the people bringing me in to speak, need me to be, to have a certain position or another. What else? I, my, my podcast isn't like egalitarian, commentarian. I have both on the podcast. So there's no, there's nothing riding on that. The church I attend is commentarian, but I don't, I'm not involved in any kind of leadership position. There's nothing, they've never once asked me my view on, on the issue.

And basically my church, my church situation personally won't be affected. Like I don't, there's not a single relationship I can think of at church where it would change or, or, or a typical, you know, any kind of involvement that I have or don't have it in church, there's nothing that would change based on where I end up landing. Again, I literally, literally have never been asked the question, like, what do you believe about women in ministry? Uh, what else? So, yeah, so, so economically there's nothing riding on it. I'm not going to, uh, pastorally, like, because I'm not a pastor, nothing would be effective wherever I land. I can't think of any real relationship I have that would change depending on where I end up landing on this question.

I'm just scanning through. A lot of the people that I would consider good friends are either undecided or lean one direction or the other, but they would they would see it as you know they would see the they would appreciate the complexity the exegetical complexity enough to say yeah the good people are on both sides so so again so that that that doesn't i'm not again claiming interpretive neutrality i'm just saying i can i there is no identifiable socio-political ecclesial relational economic factors in my life that need me to land on one

position or the other. To put this in conversation, like if I was teaching at the Southern Baptist Seminary, where you have to be complementarian to teach, and I said, I'm going to do an exploration on women in church leadership, that would be a different situation. I'm not saying they, you know, you couldn't do honest sex with Jesus. I'm saying you would have to find another job if you became egalitarian. That is an identifiable socioeconomic factor, an ecclesial factor that should at least be acknowledged and considered in terms of one's exegetical approach. Vice versa, if you're teaching at Fuller Seminaryary which i think last time i checked you have to be egalitarian to teach there um i remember i applied for a um this is way back in the day

it's probably 15 years ago i applied to teach adjunct at fuller seminary and i sat down with um joel green was interviewing me which was intimidating because he's like one of the most one of my most highly respected New Testament scholars. And Joel, from what I hear and from what I experienced in that conversation, he's a straight shooter, sat down, had a coffee, says, okay, where do you stand on women in leadership? And at that time, I'd kind of like, I kind of assumed complementarian because that's the tradition I grew up with, but I didn't make a strong view. I was kind of like, I haven't really studied this.

I think that's maybe where I land. with, but I didn't make a strong view. I was kind of like, I don't know. I haven't really studied this. I think that's maybe where I land. And I remember he asked me a question. So, so what do you do when a female student comes up to you and says, do you think God has called me to ministry? And I hesitated. I was like, well, and he jumped in and said, you can't hesitate. Can't get the job. Basically like your hesitation is like you're disqualified for the job. And we had a great conversation. It was like, yeah, we can. And I said, no, I would have no problem teaching somebody who felt called to ministry. Women can be called to ministry. I don't have any problem because I don't have a strong view on this to be in an environment where the students are egalitarian.

I wouldn't. And he's like, that's not enough. It's not enough to just be kind of a soft complementarian and be okay with egalitarians. You need to be like, if a woman says, do you think I'm called to ministry? You need to be able to say, yes, you are called to ministry, you know, in as much as they would be qualified for that for other reasons. But yeah. So say I was employed at Fuller Seminary as an egalitarian and I said, I'm going to study the issue of, I'm going to write a book on women in leadership and explore these exegetical issues. There's obvious socioeconomic factors that are kind of like, could be motivation to read the text a certain way.

Because again, if I didn't land on the position that I started from, egalitarian, if I was employed at Fuller, I mean, that would cost me my job. And then maybe I started from, egalitarian, if I was employed at Fuller, I mean, that would cost me my job. And maybe I'd have another job waiting, whatever. There could be reasons why somebody would roll those dice and depart from their previously held view. So I don't have any of those identifiable, objectively identifiable socio-ecclesial economic factors that are bending my interpretive lens a certain direction. Okay, so that's where I'm coming from. So over the last five, six, I would say seven months, has it been that long? Six or seven months, I have spent the bulk of my research time looking at the meaning of the Greek word kephale,

which is translated head into important passages in this conversation. So first Corinthians 11, three, this is, I'm just going to read the NIV. There's different translations and different translation really does matter here. And I'll come back to the specific,

the best way to translate the Greek here in future posts. But 1 Corinthians 11, 3, NIV says, but Paul says, but I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is man and the head of Christ is God. That's a profound verse with so many questions, right? What in the world does it mean that the head of Christ is God, first of all? What does it mean that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is man? Is that men are the head of all women? Is this talking about men and women generally or husbands and wives in particular? Most people say this is talking about men and women, not husbands and wives in particular. But in particular, the most, you know, the crux of a lot of these questions comes down to the meaning of head, kephale here.

Does this convey some sense of authority? Authority over? That man is in authority over a woman, that God is in authority over Christ, or is it conveying some sense of source, that man is the source of woman? And in this context, 1 Corinthians 11, if you read on a few verses later in verses 8 and 9, you do get kind of an allusion to the creation account where the woman was, you know, woman came from man. And so a lot of people appeal to those later verses as proof that head here means source. Another possible interpretation is that head doesn't mean authority or source. It means prominence. The one who occupies a prominent position in that social environment. But the two main

interpretations that, well, there's a good number of scholars who hold to the view of prominence. The classic kind of debate is, does head mean source or authority here? The other passage that is crucial for the question at hand is Ephesians 5, 23, again, reading from the NIV. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the savior. Now, I actually have several problems with that translation,

but we'll come back to that. I don't need you to get too deep in the weeds right now, but just to kind of have a clear understanding of the two really key passages where the Greek word kephale is significant for male and female relations. You know, here is a saying that as Christ is in charge of the church, as Christ is in authority over the church, so also the husband is in authority over his wife. What is the significance of the church Christ analogy as applies to wife-husband relationships in Ephesians 5? I have not worked through 1 Corinthians. I'm right in the middle of 1 Corinthians 11 in my current study.

I'll tell you up front, I'm not sure how to render this passage. It raises more questions than answers to me. I do feel like I have a decent grasp on what's going on in Ephesians 5, 22 to 33, or 21 to 33. That's a debate. In general, and in particular, the meaning of the Greek word kephale. And in particular, the meaning of the Greek word kephale. So I do want you to know that I will, at the end of this episode, have some kind of tentative conclusion about the meaning of head in Ephesians 5. But it's going to take me a while to get there.

And so I do want to add a really significant caveat up front of this episode. This episode is not going to be everybody's cup of tea in the sense that if you're, well, in the sense that I'm going to go very, very deep in terms of the historical and exegetical questions that we need to wrestle with in order to be in a good position to understand what Paul means by head in Ephesians 5 and what he's doing with that term and concept in this really significant passage about husband and wife and Christ in the church. So it's going to be deep. Okay. So we're going to talk about lots of stuff that maybe even most of you, you're going to be like, okay, just tell me what the answer is. Like, don't take me through all these ancient texts and stuff. So, but we're going to go through

all the ancient texts just for the sake of thoroughness. I just, I, and I don't think every single Christian needs to go through all this stuff in order to have an opinion about their view on women in leadership or role relations in the home. But this is the journey I'm on. I really want to do my due diligence. I don't want to leave any stone unturned. I want the depth of my study to match the strength of my passion in this very important issue.

And so I'm going to go as deep as I possibly can. That's why it's taken me several years to wade through all of the literature, wade through all the issues and be slow and patient at forming my, um, interpretive opinion on the other side of my study. And there, in case you don't know, there is, gosh, a wealth. Some might say too much, um, scholarly literature that's been devoted to this topic. I don't know if it's possible to read everything, like literally everything on this topic. There's just so much out there. But I'm going to do my best to read as much as I can to consider all viewpoints on every passage that's significant for this conversation. So that's why, I mean, it took me literally four or five months to wade through, well, no, six or seven months to wade

through as much of the literature just on the Greek word kephale as I possibly can. And just on the meaning of kephale, there has been thousands of pages devoted to this term. Yeah. Let me just give some big picture thoughts on how to even approach this debate about the meaning of kephale. And I'll stop translating kephale. Hopefully by now you know kephale means head. So I'll just say kephale. you know what it means. The meaning of Kefale has been a matter of debate in the scholarly realm, intense debate for the last 70 or so years, especially, and I'm dating that back to a pretty significant article written in 1954. So it's actually exactly 70 years by a a guy named uh steven um i don't know how to pronounce his last name uh bedal beetle in my mind i always see his name as beetle

but don't think of the bug but b-e-d-a-l-e it's actually a very short article it's it's it's a you know what five six pages or something it's not It's not that long. Or five pages, I think. And he was the first one to suggest that kephale does not actually mean authority or leadership. I don't know if he's the first one, but his article cited as kind of like sparking this conversation where he argued that the meaning of source rather than some sense of authority is more common for kephale than the translation of leader or authority. Now, he kind of elevated the option of source being a meaning of kephale, but he didn't actually say to the exclusion of all notions of authority authority which is

some people miss that but anyway that's what kind of sparked this conversation and there has been so much literature devoted to the meaning of kephale ever ever since that 1954 article i would say especially in the 80s and 90s. There was just a flurry of scholarly literature devoted to the meaning. And this is what can be really discouraging for people who aren't knee-deep in this debate is that there are good scholars who look at the same texts

who come to very, very different conclusions on the meaning of kephale. Some people will say kephale, when it's used metaphorically as in not a literal head, always means source, or in almost every case means source. And other scholars looking at the same ancient texts will say the exact opposite, that kephale hardly ever means source. It almost always means leader or authority. That's why it's taken me so long to kind of wade through all this. I'm like, okay, I guess I have to inch my way through all of the relevant texts to look at them as closely as I can, rather than kind of relying on some modern scholar's opinion on the

matter. So yeah, and that's why this episode will be long, because I do want to kind of, at the very least, at least expose people to some of the complexities to maybe produce a little more exegetical humility. Because if you just read a modern scholar that you like, and I like scholars on both sides of this debate, if you just read them and trust them, trust one over the other, I think sometimes you don't realize some of the complexity here

in why people land on different views on Keflai than they do. So yeah, let me just give some general thoughts on Keflai then. So there's several bodies of literature that we need to work through. One significant body of literature is what's often called the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. So I want to spend a good amount of time on the use of Kefale in the Septuagint. Then we just need to look at the wider world of Greek literature, extra biblical Greek literature, um, that would have kind of contributed to the linguistic environment that Paul is breathing. Okay. And then we need to look at, uh, some later, uh, Christian literature, early church fathers, and look at how they interpreted these passages,

Ephesians 5, 23, and 1 Corinthians 11, 3, to see how they understood the Greek word kephale. Now, when we get to later literature, literature written after the New Testament, no longer can these texts obviously be a source of Paul's thought, but they can add helpful ancient interpretations of Paul's thought that will be helpful to consider. And then I want to look at how kephale is used in the book of Ephesians. It's used not just in 5.23, it's actually used in 1.22 and 4.15 in a non-literal way. So there we can look at, okay, let's look at other texts within Paul's letter to help us determine what he means in 5.23. And then I want to look at some of the background issues to Ephesians 5,

in particular, the household codes of ancient Greco-Roman literature. That's one of the more significant things I think to look at is to see how Paul is conversing with other ancient household codes because Ephesians 5, let's just say 22 to 6, 9 is a household code. It's written in this kind of genre that other ancient writers were writing in to talk about how the household should be run. And Paul is clearly participating in that ancient genre. So it'd be important to see what kind of household, how other household codes compared to Paul's. And then I want to look at Ephesians 5 in particular. It's going to take us a while

to get there. Okay. I also want to say upfront that, well, let me say this too. Like I'm in all honesty, I'm not going to come down super dogmatic on how I'm reading every single ancient text that we're going to look at. I, you know, some I think are more, the meaning is a little more obvious than others. Others, I'm like, I don't know. Here's where I lean, but what do you guys think? I actually want to just lay out the issues so that you can wrestle with them as I'm wrestling with them as well. I'm not going to say, here's how you must read this passage. I'm going to say, here's how I think this passage should be interpreted, but I'm going to let you wrestle with that as well. And then some of them, I'm just undecided on this. I don't know. It's just not clear to me. I also want to say up front, I don't think, I personally don't think that how you render

kephale should determine your view on male-female relations in the home or especially male-female relations in the church, in particular, the question about women in church leadership. I think sometimes people enter into know, enter into this debate with a committed view of commentarian or egalitarian, and then they feel like they have to read the text a certain way. So I know some, you know, egalitarians approach this question, it feels like to me that they carefully can't mean authority because that would be a, that would prove commentarianism. So they, whether they say that out loud or they just kind of feels like they're doing that in how they approach the topic, they, they just, they can't go to the

other side. Like they, they, they, they're egalitarian and they need to be egalitarian and they are egalitarian and they believe the Bible teaches that. And so when they come to questions like Kefale, they assume that it cannot mean authority. I don't think that's true, actually. And I would say vice versa as well. I don't think if you're a commentarian and you don't want to change your viewpoint on that, that you need kephale to mean authority. So I want us to have the freedom to explore what I would consider a rather exciting exegetical adventure for the adventure's sake. Let's actually look at what this word means by these ancient biblical writers, by situating them in the ancient context. And let's not get too worried that if we lean exegetically

toward a certain viewpoint on Kephali, that this will necessarily have to sort of change our position on women in church leadership or role relations in the home. Let's see. Oh, if you hear me pause and stuff, it's because I'm looking at a series of blog posts that I wrote on this issue. I should mention that now. So everything I'm going to say in this episode is drawing from an eight-part, I think around a 40,000-word blog series that I'm currently working on. So if you want to follow... So some of you are like, what's your source for that?

Or can you send me the reference or whatever? I'm not going to send you anything because it's all written. It's all public. In fact, I don't? I'm not going to send you anything because it's all written, it's all public. And in fact, I mean, I don't think I'm going to say anything terribly. Well, I might interact with how some people have commented on these blog posts. So this is kind of a fresher version

of what I've written. But I started back in November blogging extensively through this question. And my blogs are, they're not even like typical blogs. I mean, are... They're not even typical blogs. I mean, they're more like journal articles posted online. I mean, some of them have 30 footnotes each. Some of them are... The last one that I just wrote, post 8, I think it's 7,000 words, which breaks all the rules on how to blog. Okay, don't do that. Blogs are supposed to be like 800

words and I just don't care. I'm not aiming that these blogs would be popular. I just, I don't care. I just, I'm not, I'm not trying to, I'm not aiming that these blogs would be popular. I just want to get my thoughts publicly so that they're open to public scrutiny so that I can iron out my thoughts better. That's the purpose of these blogs. So I did err on the side of thoroughness in these blogs. And even then you should know that each one of these blogs could be a book in and of itself. So the first post, I'm drawing on the first post right now where I give some of the same preliminary thoughts that I've already talked about. I cover the different interpretations. So why don't I just go there? Let's look at the different interpretations. So one interpretation of kephale is that the sense, when it's used non-literally,

When it's used non-literally, that the sense of the term conveys something that has to do with authority or ruling over somebody else. Now, this is very typical. This understanding is typical with the English word head. We talk about the head of the committee, the head of the planning party, the head of the household. When people use that phrase, they mean somebody who is in charge of the household. That is what the English word head often can mean when used metaphorically. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Greek word kephale needs to mean that. This is one of the most problematic issues when people read their English Bibles, is that they're reading the English word head

and they automatically think of the modern English sense of head as we use it today. Because today we do use it to convey authority. That doesn't necessarily mean that's what the Greek word means. And yet we are just so programmed to read English words the way English words mean to us today. So that's one of the biggest problems is that, especially I think commentarians or people raised in that context, kind of look at, they read the Bible and say, man is the head of the woman. Like, sorry, but what's the debate here?

Just said it right there. He's the head of the woman. Like that means authority. Well, it's not so simple. Once you look at how the Greek word kephale is used in the ancient world, it doesn't necessarily map on how the English word is used today. So several scholars who take the view that head, when you use non-literally can,

and some, and often does mean authority, convey some sense of authority is how I put it. Some of the scholars in this, on the, on this side are Wayne Grudem is probably the most well-known, most prolific. He's written tons and tons of,

well, pages on this topic. I mean, several articles, some of them are incredibly lengthy, like 60, 80 page small print articles. He's been writing on this for a couple of decades at least. And he argues that Kefla means conveys some sense of authority. Joseph Fitzmeyer,

a great Catholic biblical scholar, uh, James Hurley, uh, also holds to this view. Um, and honestly, I mean,

I, I think every, is it every almost, I'll just to be safe, almost every, if not every, um, complementarian scholar would say the Greek word Kefla means authority.

Okay. And I just, I'll say it one more time. I, but that doesn't mean while um complementarian scholar would say the greek word kephale means authority okay and i'll just i'll say it one more time i but that doesn't mean while every complementarian scholar says it means authority that doesn't mean everybody who says it means authority is complementarian if that makes sense so it's yeah another interpretation of kephale is that it means something like, it can mean source or origin or beginning. So some people say that, you know, 1 Corinthians 11 is simply saying that man or husband is the source of the woman or wife in light of Eve being created out of Adam in the creation account. And again, you see this right there in 1 Corinthians 11, 8 to 9. Now, whether verse 3 means that, you know, we need to wrestle with the text a bit more. But that's one piece of evidence that people use to say that kephale means source. So, several scholars argue for source.

means source. So several scholars argue for source. Again, Stephen, I'm just gonna say Stephen Beadle, Jerome Murphy O'Connor, Catherine Kroger, and most prolifically, Philip Payne. And you're going to hear probably me mention Philip Payne quite a bit. He's kind of like the egalitarian version of Wayne Grudem. Neither of them will like that reference. So I apologize to both Wayne Grudem and Philip complementarian uh stephen philip pain is strongly egalitarian and you know uh grudem uh very passionately says that kefle means authority and philip pain very passionately argues that it means source um so you might hear me reference their their work uh often throughout this episode there is view, a third view that says that Keflaid means neither source nor authority over, but something along the lines of preeminence or prominence or foremost. Now, this might sound very close to the authority view, but it actually is kind of different. You know, like a mountain peak can stand out as prominent among other mountains in the range, but that doesn't necessarily mean this doesn't necessarily mean it's exercising

authority over the other mountains. Certain baseball players like Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Clayton Kershaw, Shohei Otani, and others, you know, might be prominent among other baseball players, but this doesn't mean they're exercising authority over Corbin Carroll, Christian Walker, Zach Gallen, or other Diamondbacks. Still bitter about the October playoffs, which is going to go very differently this year, I promise you. Anyway, there's, I would say, maybe a growing number of scholars who take this view.

Uh, some that come up in the conversation, uh, Richard Servin, Andrew Perryman, Judith Gundry-Volff and, uh, Anthony Thistleton and his magisterial commentary on first Corinthians 11, um, has a really good kind of excursus where he goes into great detail on the meaning of Kephala and lands on the view of prominence. And I, you know, I don't know. It does seem to be scholars that do end up landing on an egalitarian view that take this position. And I want to, you know, I think they're probably on the face of it. I'm saying this is the best exegetical way to understand this, this, this,

this, this word. I do wonder if there is, they're destined to be a growing, well, it seems that from my anecdotal vantage point, it seems like there's a growing number of egalitarians who are not satisfied with the exegetical arguments for kephale meaning source and prominence is is kind of a way to understand the word without it meaning authority over but not having to argue that it means source because i think it seems like there's a growing number that see the source interpretation

as not as exegetically compelling that's again this is my opinion maybe every single one would say no that's not why we're going there. And maybe that's true. Words can have different meanings, different senses. Typically, they have one meaning, one sense in a particular context, but another context may allow them the same word to have different meanings. For instance, if I was going to say, gosh, he's such a pig, what does that mean? It really depends on the context. There's the metaphor pig. He's such a pig. What aspect of pigness is being conveyed when I say, he's such a pig? Well, if I'm watching a guy across the cafeteria and he's just shoveling tons of food into his mouth, then he's such a pig refers to maybe the quantity of food he's consuming.

Or if I'm looking at a two-year-old in a high chair and I say, wow, he's such a pig and he's got mushy peas all over his face, all over his chair, all over his bib, his hair. Well, that doesn't necessarily mean the quantity of food. It could, but given the context, it probably means just the messiness, like the aspect of pigness that is being conveyed, that is being used to describe this situation is the messiness of pigness that's being transferred over to mean, to the meaning. Or say I was, um, looking at some guy who just broke up with his fifth girlfriend

this month and treat her like crap at each one. And I said, gosh, he's such a pig. That has nothing to do with his eating habits. The guy can be super skinny and be, you know, uh, be fasting for land or something. It doesn't have anything to do with eating eating habits the guy can be super skinny and be you know be fasting for land or something he doesn't have anything with eating it just means he's not treating women well so and there you know i don't know what why the word pig came to be used to describe you know men who treat women badly um but we all know just intuitively you know it would be i think it'd be a dead metaphor something that has has just been kind of, well, I don't want to get into all that just yet, but that would just be, that would require a different context to understand what is being meant by he is such a pig.

So now sometimes you can have kind of both, a couple different senses at work. If I said, let's go back to the cafeteria situation i said he's such a pig and he's shoveling large quantities of food down his mouth and he is has food everywhere you know just like every time i eat ribs basically that like my face is just plastered it's not it's not a cute sight Anyway, it could be both messy and quantity. But other contexts, it may be messy, not quantity. And other contexts, it might be quantity and not messy. So all that to say, words can be capable of different meanings, different senses.

And we have to look specifically at the context to see which sense is being conveyed. Typically, there is one main sense. And I think maybe asking the question, does this exclude other notions? And here is where if Kefla, let me say this, Kefla can mean authority, it can mean source, it can mean prominence. As we'll see, there's examples of those different meanings. But we also have to ask the question, you know, if it means prominence in this certain text, does that exclude all notions of authority? Or if it's being used to convey source, does that therefore mean that this person is the

source and not the authority over somebody else? this person is the source and not the authority over somebody else? Did the meaning of source in the ancient mindset exclude notions of authority? Or did notions of source mean authority? For instance, I mean, you could make the argument that the fact that Adam was created first and Eve was created out of Adam, that according to some ancient perspectives, that would therefore mean Adam is in an authoritative or leadership position. I'm not saying that's true or not true. I'm just saying that is an ancient perspective.

So this is why it's complicated. This is why you can't just look up kephale in a lexicon and say, well, it must mean this. Therefore, it means this in every passage. We do have to pay close attention to each individual context in which kephale is used outside of the New Testament and in the passages that we are primarily wanting to focus on. Yeah, with that, and I'm still kind of drawing on my first post here, part one.

The series is called, or these blog posts are called, what does head, in parentheses, kephale, mean in Paul's letters, part one, and then my, yeah, part one, part two, part three, part one is just introduction where I'm talking about some of these introductory factors. I do want to say, okay, what I say in that first post on the polysemy or polysemy or multiple meanings of kephale, I need to kind of revisit. I had several people with a linguistic background in a very helpful way critically respond to my understanding of metaphors and polysemy and meaning and all that stuff. So here's another point I should make. If you do go read some of these posts, I would highly recommend you pay attention to some of the comments, especially the comments that are critical. I want you to see all the pushbacks to everything I've said because I want you to have all the information in front of you so that you can wrestle with this for yourself.

So, and especially, so Philip Payne, who I interact with in my posts and oftentimes disagree with things that Philip has said, he commented extensively on the post. I would highly, highly recommend that you read his comments so that you're not just believing what I think. Because again, what I think is kind of like, I'm leaning certain directions here and there. Like Philip has worked through this stuff much more extensively. Even in reading some of his comments, I'm still not convinced that some of his interpretations are correct. And maybe we can kind of agree to disagree. But Philip has done more work on this question than any other scholar I know. So the fact that he took time to write extensive comments, sometimes his comments are longer than my post, literally.

And so I'm just super honored and will be a better thinker as a result of his comments. So all that to say, my understanding of how metaphors work, it's in flux. I keep learning. Every time I write something on it, I get a linguist who says, well, it's in flux. I keep learning. Every time I write something on it, I get a linguist who says, well, that's not quite right. And they add their feedback. And one of these posts, I think it's post five, is a guest post from Dr. Kevin Grasso, who is a linguist.

And he wrote a whole guest post on how we should understand metaphor and kephale from a linguistic point of view. My friend Greg Coles is also a linguist. He deals with rhetorical theory. And he added a really helpful comment in a recent post. I think it's part eight he commented on. No, part seven, post seven. So again, I would take my thoughts on linguistics and metaphor theory and rhetoric as my kind of thinking out loud journey through some of these really complex issues.

I don't think, and we're going to turn to the Septuagint here in a second. I don't think simply determining the lexical meaning of kephale is enough. I do think, especially when it comes to Ephesians 5, that Paul's interaction with the household code genre is extremely important. So I'm interested in what he means by the individual word kephale, but I'm also interested in the head-body metaphor that he uses in that passage. I'm also interested in how he situates the head-body metaphor in the rhetorical movement of Ephesians 5 as it pertains to how he's interacting with other household codes. So there's a lot of rhetorical questions, broader rhetorical questions, I think, that are very important for understanding kephale, not just in what kephale means, but with what Paul does with that meaning on a rhetorical level in Ephesians 5.

If that sounds kind of vague, I guess it is. We'll get there at the end of this episode where I summarize some of my findings in my eighth post, which deals directly with some of these questions. Hey friends, my book, Exiles, The Church and the Shadow of Empire is out now. I am so excited and a bit nervous about the release of this book. This is a topic I've been thinking about for many, many years and finally put pen to paper to write out all my thoughts. Specifically, I'm addressing the question, what is a Christian political identity? As members of Christ's global, multi-ethnic, upside-down kingdom scattered across the nations, how should we as members of that kingdom think through and interact with the various nations that we are living under? So the book is basically a biblical theology of a Christian political identity. We look at the nation of Israel. We look at the exile of Israel. We look at several parts of the New Testament, the life and teaching of Jesus,

several passages in the book of Acts, the letters of Paul, do a deep dive into first Peter and the book of Revelation, and then explore some contemporary points of application. So I would highly encourage you to check out my book, Exiles, and would love to hear what you think, whether you hate the book, love it, or still thinking through it, would love to hear what you think by dropping a review on Amazon or, I don't know,

post a blog, just ripping it to shreds. I don't really care. I would love for you to just wrestle with this really important topic in this really volatile political season that we're living in. Okay, so let's dive into the meaning of kephale in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, which is often called the Septuagint. And I want to give a few preliminary observations up front. Again, just by way of reminder, I am going to be very thorough.

I'm going to read a lot of texts because I want you to see the evidence for yourself so that you can kind of make up your own minds, have your own interpretive opinions over whether you feel like I'm reading these texts correctly. So a few points, a few preliminary points. And sorry, again, a preliminary, preliminary point. I am going off of my blog post that's titled, What Does Head or Kefla and Kefla Mean in Paul's Letters, Part Two, the Septuagint. So this is my second post along these lines. This one was published on November 6th of 2023. So if you want to follow along my train of thought, you can go to that blog post and kind of see where, kind of what I'm drawing on here.

So a few preliminary points of Septuagint. First of all, you know, we often refer to it as the Septuagint as if, you know, first century Christians sort of went to church with, you know, we often refer to it as the Septuagint as if, you know, first century Christians sort of went to church with, you know, some like Greek translation under their arm or something to, to synagogue or to church or whatever. But that, you know, we can't think of the Septuagint in the first century as some standardized like NIV version. There's just kind of like totally, you know, everybody's kind of reading out the same thing. Like there were Greek translations of various books of the Old Testament and it

was standardized. And there's experts in the field that would be good to fact check this with, but I believe around the time of, by the time we get to origin, maybe earlier, so second, third century, there was a more standardized Septuagint. And then origin, he does a ton of text critical work on the Septuagint. If you're interested in this, I do have some lengthy footnotes in my blog post. Specifically, footnote 8 is pretty long. Footnote 7, no, not 7. Yeah, footnote 8 and 17 deal with some more critical questions regarding the Septuagint.

I don't want to go into all the details here on this post because I think if I talk through some of the nitty gritty, that would be incredibly boring and no one is going to care about that. So if you do care about that, I would highly recommend going to the blog post, looking at some of the footnotes. Or there's a really good introduction to the Septuagint by Moises Silva and Karen Jobes. I think it's called An Invitation to the Septuagint. And there's also another introduction by Jennifer Dines that I found helpful. It's pretty short. So if you're interested in what is a Septuagint, what is the nature of the Septuagint, what do we mean when we call it the Septuagint? I'll leave that for the four of you that want to go and explore that. Septuagint studies is its own kind of field of study. This

is something I learned during my PhD research where I had to have a whole chapter on the Septuagint. And I realized there are scholars that are like Septuagint scholars. Their whole entire scholarly career is devoted to the Septuagint. So it their whole entire scholarly career is devoted to like the Septuagint. So it's its own field. I dabbled in it. It's been a while since I did. So I don't claim to be an expert. All I can say is it's a lot more complex

than non-specialists make it out to be. So all that said, even when we say like, how many times did Kefale occur in the Old Testament, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, even there, it's like, we have to have some footnotes to that very statement. Like, well, which Greek translations of the Old Testament, which manuscript representation of the Greek translation of the Old Testament are we going on? And we might get into some of that with some particular verses,

because some manuscripts of the Septuagint include kephale at certain places where other manuscripts don't. Okay, so kephale means head, and it translates, the Hebrew term for head is rosh. And in, so this is the important statistic. In, there's 80, about 80 instances where rosh, head, is the important statistic. There's about 80 instances where Roche head is used metaphorically. Okay. So where it doesn't refer to a literal head of a person, where it refers to something else, the head of a clan, the head of something else, where it's used metaphorically. Around 180 times, you might get slightly different numbers there from different scholars. Now, kephale, I think almost always or always translates Rosh when it's used literally.

Okay. So whenever you see, yeah. Rosh is used metaphorically 180 times. Kephale only translates Rosh anywhere from, well, about 16 times. And again, there's going to be minor differences of how people are adding these numbers up because they're looking at different manuscripts or giving weight to certain manuscripts over others. So the Hebrew word rosh, when used metaphorically, often it means it conveys some sense of authority. Like no one debates that. Like, yes, the Hebrew word rosh, kind of like the English word head, like head of the household and head of the committee. The Hebrew word rosh can oftentimes have that sense.

The question, though, is does the Greek word kephale convey that sense of authority? Some people say, well, it does in 16 occasions. Other scholars will say there's only one time when kephale conveys some sense of authority in its translation of the Hebrew word rosh. Okay. Are you with me? So just if you're like, ah, you're kind of losing me with these numbers and all, you know, how much do I need to know here? Just know that already there is a debate in how many times Kephalet is used metaphorically to convey some sense of authority as a translation of the Rosh. And we're going to go through all the texts so you can make up your own mind. So again, the question is, does Kephalet convey some sense of authority, referring to like

a ruler, somebody ruling over somebody else? Or is it talking about, should it be rendered as source? That kind of like the, you know, if we said the head of a river, you know, it's kind of like the source of a river. It's not the authority of the river. It's the source of a river. So's not the authority of the river. It's the source of a river. So it's kephalese in that sense. Or is it simply used to convey some sort of prominence, preeminence, or foremost without

conveying some sense of authority? So those are our three main interpretive options. We can already cancel out the second option because this is not disputed that kephale is never used in the septuagint metaphorically to refer to source or origin um that again not disputed nobody egalitarians who might render kephale that way in the new testament and other greek literature everybody agrees that it's not used that way in in the Septuagint. Now, some complementarians who render Kefla to mean authority will use this as an argument to say, look, okay, so Kefla is only used around 16 times to convey authority in the Septuagint. That's not a lot of times, but it's never used to refer to source. So, aha, we have a 16 to 0 ballgame here.

Now, egalitarians will respond and say, well, Roche never is used to refer to source. So we would expect Keflaid to be used to refer to source because Roche doesn't use that way. So you can see how things kind of go back and forth. So just because kephale doesn't mean source in the Septuagint, that's not net, that could, depending on how you look at that argument, some people could make a lot of, some people can say, that's kind of a moot point because rosh doesn't mean source. All right, let's go through all of these 16 times that some people claim that kephale does refer to authority on some level. The first one is 2 Samuel 22, 44.

And really, there's an exact parallel in Psalm 17, verse 44. In Psalm 17, verse 44, and I don't know if you know this, but like Psalm 17 is basically repeated as, you know, in 2 Samuel 22. So technically, it's kind of, it's almost like a gospel parallel. It's like, well, Jesus said this, you know, well, kind of like the temptation narrative is recorded in three gospels. All three, all synoptic. No. Is it three? No, two. It's not in Mark, right?

It's in Matthew and Luke. So it's, you know, it occurs twice in the Bible, but it's the same event. So that's kind of like what we're looking at here. So Kephalet technically occurs twice. Well, it occurs, you know, once in 2 Samuel 22 and then another time in Psalm 17, but it's kind of the same passage. So this already kind of can tweak our final number of how many times Kephale is used metaphorically.

So 2 Samuel 22, 4 says, you have delivered me from the attacks of the peoples. You have preserved me as the head, Kep the head of nations. This is David speaking, by the way. People I did not know now serve me. Foreigners cower before me. As soon as they hear of me, they obey me. So what is head of the, when David says God has preserved me as head of the nations, it's not the source of the nations, right? You know that. Does it convey some sense of authority that he is in authority over the nations on some

level, other nations, other peoples? Or is it simply saying he stands out as prominent among the nations without conveying any sense of authority? I think, I think this does convey some sense of authority here. And this is one where most scholars agree, even scholars who think kephale hardly ever means authority in the Old Testament. Most of them will say like this passage, it does mean this. So Richard Servant is a scholar who has critiqued Wayne Grudem. And Wayne Grudem, once he sees a kephala meaning authority in all 16 cases where it's used metaphorically, Richard Servin critiques Grudem.

But he does say, Richard Servin does say that this is one of four instances where it does mean authority. So even scholars that don't agree with Grudem would say this is one exception to the rule here. this is one exception to, to, uh, to the rule here. Um, I think, I mean, I think seeing it as authority makes sense in light of the second part of the verse where it says people I did not know now serve me, foreigners obey me. Um, that, that, that seems more than just David is prominent. It seems that he's carrying some kind of authoritative position. So, so, you know, so even if you say, no, the, the primary sense here is that he's prominent among the nations, it doesn't seem like the best interpretation to say prominence without some sense of authority. Okay.

And then, so Psalm 1744, and I'm going off the English references here. So Psalm 1744 is the Greek translation is Psalm 1843. I'm not going to get into why they're different. So in a sense, there's two instances here where I think kephale does mean authority. Okay. The book of Judges, there's a cluster of several occurrences where kephale is used metaphorically. There is some textual critical issues that we have to kind of deal with here. So Judges 10.18 says, the leaders of the people of Gilead said to each other, whoever will take the lead in attacking the Ammonites will be head and head over all who live in Gilead. That seems pretty clear that head conveys some sense of authority, right? He will be head over all who live in Gilead. He will rule

over all who live in Gilead. Now, how much, how deep do I want to go here? Okay. One manuscript, How deep do I want to go here? Okay, one manuscript, Codex Alexandrinus, 5th century Greek manuscript, has Cephalae here, whereas Codex Vaticanus has Ace Archonta, which that means ruler. So instead of head,

this other manuscript, Vaticanus... Why am I doubting my pronunciation there? Codex Vaticanus. Yeah, Codex Vaticanus. You ever say that when you say a word that sounds funny? You're like, is that the way it sounds? Codex Vaticanus. Does not have kephale here.

Typically, Codex Vaticanus is more reliable than Codex Alexandrinus. Codex Vaticanus is more reliable than Codex Alexandrinus. As far as I understand, when it comes to the New Testament, and maybe in general, but when it comes to the Greek Old Testament, there is a dispute among Septuagint scholars, and there is such a thing called Septuagint scholars, on whether Alexandrinus is more reliable than codex vaticanus and i have a footnote that discusses that very interesting or possibly boring um debate so there's a there is a manuscript dispute whether kefale is even used here uh to me it's it's on the one hand you could say well if we go with codex vaticanus then we don't even have an occurrence of kephale here on the other hand uh regardless whoever penned codex whoever is the editor of codex alexandrinus um did put kephale and he thought kephale was a good rendering of roche which clearly means authority here, according to that translator in the

5th century. And also, some people will argue that in terms of the New Testament writers, Codex Alexandrinus is more reliable or that the New Testament quotations of the Greek Old Testament typically will follow Alexandrinus more often than Codex Vaticanus. That's disputed, and I have footnotes to talk about that in my blog post. Let's move on because I'm already starting to bore myself. Judges 11 verses 8 through 11, you have a cluster of three references to Kephaleh, depending on which manuscript you're reading from.

Verse eight, the elders of Gilead said to him, to Jephthah, nevertheless, we are turning to you now. Come with us to fight the Ammonites and you will be head, ace Kephalon, Kephalin, according to Codex Alexandrinus, ace Archenta, according to Codex Vaticanus. Okay, so you have the same issue here. You will be head over all of us who live in Gilead. Jephthah answered,

suppose you take me back to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gives them to me, will I really be your head? The elders of Gilead replied, the Lord is our witness. We will certainly do as you say. So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead and the people made him head and commander over them. And he repeated all his words before

the Lord in Mitzpah. So the last reference there in verse 11, the last one I read, the last mention of head here. Okay. I mentioned head three times. In the last one, both Alex Adrinus and vaticanus uh both have kephale here okay the first two references in judges 11 8 and judges 11 9 you had the same issue as before you have alexandrinus having kephale and vaticanus having arkhanta so do you have four references to head here meaning authority or only one some people dispute that some people well, we're not going to take into account Alexandrinus because it's a less reliable manuscript. And I would say, well, not so fast.

Like that's at the very least disputed. In fact, when I read Septuagint scholars who aren't talking about Kefale, they're just talking about manuscripts. The majority seem to say Alexandrinus is just as valid, if not more than vaticanus it kind of depends on which old testament book you're looking at too so again i will at least say you know it's it's it's disputed whether the new testament writers would have been reading kephale here as

metaphorically referring to some of you know jephthah as an authority figure you know was it four times or was it one time it would would be, would be the debate. Some people would even question, some people say, well, Jephthah here, even in the one or possibly four times he's referred to as head, it's, it's referring to his prominence, not his, you know, not the fact that he's a ruler or an authority. I just find that to be a really poor interpretation. To me, that sounds really fishy. I mean, the entire context of Judges 10 to 12 highlights Jephthah becoming a military leader over the people of Gilead in their battle against the Ammonites. They even say early on, come and be our leader, ace Archegon, that we may fight against the

Ammonites, Judges 11.6. And then Jephthah leads them into a victorious battle over the Ammonites, you know, and then the Ephraimites were upset that they weren't invited to join the battle. And they came and complained that Jephthah, who in turn functioned as a leader, when he gathered, quote, gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim, Judges 12.4. And in the end, Jephthah judged Israel for six years. This is another description of leadership. So I just, this seems really clear to me. You make up your mind though, go back and read Judges

10 and 11, that in the uses of Kephali here, it does convey some sense of authority. Okay, let's go to our next reference. This one comes in 1 Kings, and this will also have some text critical issues that we have to at least acknowledge. 1 Kings 8.1 in the English Old Testament. It says, 20 years later, when Solomon finished building the house of the Lord and his own house, King Solomon assembled all the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes in Zion to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the city of David, which is in Zion. Now, there is some text critical issues here. All origin who did a lot of old text critical work on the septuagint it seems like he might have added the phrase and all the heads of their tribes uh codex vaticanus doesn't contain this

uh phrase i i haven't been able to determine whether alexandrinus contains this phrase or not or if it's simply origin who added it in the third century. Okay. So that's one, there's some text critical issues here, whether hefele even occurs. There's also another translation issue where the phrase heads of the tribes in Zion, some people will say it's better rendered that the the term tribe is better rendered staff like they're like a stick like a staff okay um and the greek word rob dos uh translated in this translation tribe it does i think always mean rod or staff in in where when it's used elsewhere now but that does that does produce a kind of a weird reading.

Like if you translate Rabdas as not as tribes, but as the staff, so that this would have the verse meaning King Solomon assembled all the leaders of Israel and all the tops of their staffs in Zion. I mean, yeah.

Wayne Grudem says, did the Septuagint translators really think that Solomon had called together all the elders and all the tops of their staffs? Like that is kind of an odd thing to say. So, so in light of all these complexities, honestly, I don't think we can conclude this reference as a clear evidence for, um, a certain meaning of, of Kefale. Let's move on to the next one. Um,, 8 through 9 occurs, head, according to some manuscripts, occurs four, at least three times, possibly four times here.

Okay. Isaiah 7, 8, for the head of Aram is Damascus. And the head of Damascus is Razan. Within 65 years, Ephraim will be too shattered to be a people. Verse nine, the head of Ephraim is Samaria and the head of Samaria is only Ramaliah's son. If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. So the first, third, and fourth references to Kephali here are in all the manuscript traditions that we have. The second one where it says, and the head of Damascus is only resin, I believe that was added

by Origen later on. Was Origen drawing on some ancient Greek manuscript of the Septuagint that we don't have access to? Or did he just insert it out of his own free will? I don't, I will let the origin slash Septuagint scholars decide that. It does make sense given to parallelism. I mean, Isaiah 7, 8, head of Aram and Damascus, that's, you know, a city is head over Aram. And then, well, actually let's go down to verse 9. Verse 9, where head occurs twice, the head of Ephraim is Samaria. That's Samaria is the city that's in charge of Ephraim. And the head of Samaria is only Ramallah's son.

So now we're talking about a person who's ruling in Samaria. He's the head. So you have a comparison between the human ruler and the city ruling, exercising ruling function over the land. exercise and ruling function over the land. So you have the same parallel in verse eight, where you have Damascus is ruling over Aram and then Rezan is in charge of Damascus. He's the head of Damascus. So leaving aside the question of whether the second occurrence of Kephala is part of the original Greek translation. We have at least three instances where, again, I think Kephala does convey some sense of authority. Now, this is disputed. And I talk about the dispute in my blog. I don't know if I want to get into the details.

But here I interact with three different scholars, Andrew Perryman, actually four, Andrew Perryman, Richard Servin, Philip Payne, and Wayne Grudem. And all these scholars have done kind of this extensive work in all the references of Kephali outside of the New Testament. And they kind of come to different interpretations here. Even if you say it means prominence, like for the head of Aram is Damascus, meaning Damascus is prominent in Aram. Or the head of Samaria is Ramaliah's son. Ramaliah is a king, by the way. And his son's a king. Oh, Pekah.

Ramaliah's son was Pekah, the king who ruled over the northern kingdom for 20 years. Oh, Pekah. Ramallah's son was Pekah, the king who ruled over the northern kingdom for 20 years. The fact that the king is called head, certainly that includes prominence, but I don't think it's valid or convincing to my mind to say it's just referring to some sense of prominence without some kind of his jurisdiction and how he's ruling, really. So I think this is another rather clear instance where hekephalē does mean authority or conveys some sense of authority. I'm not saying we translate it authority. I'm saying we translate it head, but that's conveying some sense of authority to the original audience.

Okay, Jeremiah 31.7. This is in the Septuagint, it's Jeremiah 38.7, but in English Babel is 31.7. This is in the Septuagint. It's Jeremiah 38.7, but in English Bibles 31.7. This is what the Lord says. Sing with joy for Jacob. Shout for the head, Kephalin, of the nations. The head of the nations. Make your praises heard and say, the Lord save your people, the remnant of Israel.

So here, Joseph Fitzmyer says that the notion of supremacy or authority is surely present. And Richard Servin says, I don't necessarily disagree. Servin, so this is another one of the four. So again, Richard Servin doesn't see a lot of cases where kephale means authority. This is one of the four cases where he says it does. Wayne Grudem, of course, is going to see, you know, in every metaphorical use of Kefale, that it means authority. Andrew Perriman, who says it means prominence, he disagrees that it means authority here. He says this, under the circumstances, ideas of authority and leadership are hardly appropriate.

The sense must again be something like foremost or preeminent nation in that Israel was God's chosen people. It is the special redemption and blessing of Israel that is proclaimed to the nations and islands, verses 10 to 14, that not Israel's authority over them. I tend to lean more towards Perryman here. At least I don't think it's as clear as other instances that I looked at that had here is

conveying some sense of authority. Is Jacob exercising authority over the nations? I would invite you to go back and kind of look at the context of Jeremiah 31 if you're interested. I tend to think that while kephale obviously can mean that, we've seen several instances where it does. This one, I don't know. Yeah. I tend to say it seems to be prominence i'm not sure it's very clear that it is conveying some sense of authority here i mean one can enjoy prominence as a nation without exercising authority over other nations and this this verse unlike the previous one that we looked at doesn't have kind of uh another phrase It talks about obedience and service that the nations are giving to the head of the nations. Okay. Lamentations 1.5 says, her oppressors have become the head and her enemies prosper for the

Lord humbled her because of the greatness of her ungodliness. This is another one of Richard Servin's four texts that he thinks convey some sense of ruler. And yeah, I agree with this. I think it's unlikely that her oppressors, Babylon, who had become the head, simply means Babylon is more prominent than Israel. It means they're exercising some authority over Israel. Obviously, it doesn't mean source here. Babylon's not the source of Israel. There are several places in the Septuagint where kephale is used in head and tail metaphors. And this is widely disputed amongst scholars, whether these head-tail metaphors convey authority or something else, prominence in particular. So Deuteronomy 28, 13, the Lord will make you the head, not the tail. This is part of the blessings and curses. Like if you obey me, you'll be blessed. If you disobey me, you'll be

cursed. So if you obey me, God will make you the head, not the tail. What does that mean? If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord, the Lord, or the Lord, your God, that I'm giving you this day and carefully follow them, you always be at the top, never the bottom. What does that mean? I don't, I think it's a stretch to say this means authority. Maybe just kind of an idea of being a blessing. I don't know, being a blessed nation. However we render it, the head-tail metaphor, it doesn't seem clear to me

that it means authority here. You see a few verses later, Deuteronomy 28, 44, they will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, you will be the tail. It's kind of the same thing,

except now it's flipped around. Isaiah 9, verse 14, so the Lord cut off from Israel head and tail. Wait. So the Lord cut off from Israel head and tail palm branch and read in one day, the elder and the honored man is the head here that in here, the Greek word is Archaic. So it shouldn't be almost like, uh, the honored man is, I would translate this kind of the leader. Arche can mean source or leader or beginning. And the prophets who teaches lies is the tail. For those who lead this people will lead them astray.

And those who are led by them are swallowed up. Here, I do think, I think this one, I'm going to lean towards it conveying some some sense of of authority and it seems like the tail actually refers to kind of bad leadership and then the head is kind of good leadership um even servant does not actually disagree with this i don't think he comes ends up coming down that this conveys authority but yeah i would have to go back and look what he says here he doesn't come right out and say i totally disagree with this so i um yeah i tend to i i think in this case this head tail metaphor there's some sense of authority being conveyed there's another one in isaiah 1915 uh there will

be no work for egypt which will make them head and tail beginning and end so here i think head because it's in parallel kind of stands in parallel to begin and end means something like beginning. Okay, so to sum it up. Oh, is there more? I do discuss a few other references that occur in other versions of the Septuagint that are later. I'm not going to get into all that. If you want just a bit more on, on some other possible references, you can go check out the blog. So to sum it up, I see some sense of authority or leadership to be present in, uh, 13 occurrences of Kefale. So the following passages, second Samuel 22, 44,

Psalm 17, 44. Uh, but again,, those are kind of parallel passages. Judges 1018, Judges 11, 8 through 11. There's three times there. Isaiah 7, 8, two times. Isaiah 7, 9, two times. Isaiah 9, 14 to 16. Lamentations 1, 5. And Isaiah 9, 4.

Oh, did I count that one twice? Shoot. Hold on a second. I'm reading out my blog here. Oh, I think that's just a typo. Shoot. Anyway. So, and here's where you can, you can, you can see where people would say, not give you an exact number. So yeah, I'm going to say somewhere, you know, let's just say anywhere from like 10 to 13 times. Um, I think Kefale conveys some sense of, of authority. Now, is that a lot? Like how significant is that? Kefale conveys some sense of authority. Now, is that a lot? How significant is that? Kephale conveys some sense

of authority in 10 to 13 times. Maybe there's some of these manuscripts that the New Testament writers weren't even drawing on. That might kick the number down a little bit. Or maybe they were. That might kick it up a little bit. So I'm just going to stick with 10 to 13. Is that a lot or not too many? So again,

depends on how you look at it. Some people again, will say, well, Roche metaphorically means authority in 180 places. So if the Greek translators thought Kefale was a perfectly fine Greek metaphor for authority, why didn't they translate it 180 times? Why don't we have 180 cases? The fact that we only have 10 to 13 that's hardly any like like obviously they didn't think kefle was the best the most appropriate greek word to render authority other people come along and say that's still 10 to 13 times that's not one time it's not two times um and there's at least 10 to 13 times when you know the greek writer, Greek translators thought it was a perfectly fine metaphor.

So you can kind of see, again, I, this is where it does get, um, either interesting or frustrating, depending on how you look at it. When you read one scholar, you respect, and they're like, ah, Catholic, and it doesn't mean authority means source. You read another one says, no, it means authority, not, not source. And they're looking at the same text. Well, it's like, you can look at the same text and really different levels of significance in these various texts so yeah i i think uh i don't know i think it's a decent argument that in almost in most cases the greek translators

use the word i think it's i think it's archontess, which literally means ruler, to translate Rosh when Rosh is used metaphorically to refer to some kind of leadership. To me, that's not a devastating argument against kephale meaning authority they just kind of reached for a word that very clearly conveyed what the hebrew term rosh was trying to communicate on a more metaphorical level and the fact that you do have around a dozen occurrences of kephale and the septuagint that mean uh authority and we don't have any instance of uh kephale meaning source that that that's that means something you know um there is um i do want to draw your attention to some stuff at the end of this post where uh philip pain again a a scholar who has probably written more on this topic than anybody else. I didn't,

well, I guess him and Grudem and pain argues pretty passionately that Kefla does not mean authority in the new Testament or, you know, in, in the passages, um, in Ephesians five and first Corinthians 11,

and in almost every other instance where Kefla occurs, whereas Grudem would argue the exact opposite. And they both have done extensive research here. Philip Payne points out that the phrase kephala, it's ace kephalan. And he translates ace as as head, not head. Like Jephthah was made as a head, not a head. And he says, therefore, it's not a metaphor. It's a simile and it doesn't refer to authority.

And he has a lengthy comment on the post. I would highly encourage you to go check out and see. I'm scrolling through it now. His comment is, I think, four times longer than my post. I'm scrolling down. It's really long. I'm so honored he devoted so much time to push back on almost everything to read my post and then interact with his comment as well. So again, I want you to see all sides of the debate, this and that, and push back to this, push back to that. So I encourage you to go read that. Okay, so here's what I say in response to Philip's argument

that the phrase ace kephalin kind of nullifies, you know, seeing kephalae as a metaphorical use of kephalae referring to authority. Here's what I say. I say, you know, personally, I don't find this to be a convincing counter argument. First, as or like is a possible meaning of ace. You just picture it, E-I-S, in terms of the transliteration. But it's not the most common, especially when the Hebrew correspondent is a Lamed prefix to Rosh.

And I'll let the Greek and Hebrew readers do their own lexical analysis here. It seems more natural to conclude that the translator used acekephalan simply because that was the best way to translate LaRosh, which means for a leader, as Roche often means. Second, I don't see a huge difference between simile and metaphor here. I guess, and this is where I, again, my posts are first drafts. Well, they're probably 10th drafts. But

as I'm going along in my research, I'm going back to my previous blog posts. And like, you know, I'm in my mind and in my notes, kind of tweaking and editing and improving those posts. So a simile and a metaphor are technically different. I just don't see those difference as significant for seeing head as conveying some sense of authority. Aristotle says this, a simile is also a metaphor for there is little difference. Similes should be brought in like metaphors for they are metaphors differing in the form of expressions is what Aristotle says this, a simile is also a metaphor for there is little difference. Similes should be brought in like metaphors for they are metaphors differing in the form of expressions is what Aristotle says. In any case, whether it's a simile or a metaphor, the point is kephale does not mean a literal head. Jephthah was not a literal head, but conveys some sense of authority or leadership in several passages, especially Judges 10 to 11, as I argued above.

leadership in several passages, especially Judges 10 to 11, as I argued above. If someone were to argue that it actually means top or as a head, not is a head, I'd still want to know what does top or head trying to convey when it's clearly used to describe Jephthah's relationship to Gilead, whom he's clearly exercising leadership over. Therefore, rendering Kephala as top in an attempt to exclude all notions of leadership or authority seems interpretatively unpersuasive in light of the context so uh to sum it all up kephale rarely means authority or leader in the in the septuagint but there are you know 10 to 13 times than it does is that a lot is that hardly any i guess it's a matter of perspective i do do want to point out, as we wrap a bow on the Septuagint, that the occurrences of Kephale and the Septuagint are extra significant because here this doesn't just give us a window into some random Greek literature that exposes us to how ancient people understood Kephale.

The Septuagint is a source of New Testament thought. It is going to be the most significant body of Greek literature when we're asking the question, what does kephale mean in the New Testament? So if we go to Plato or Aristotle or other Greek readers in the Greco-Roman world. Those are, you know, we look at how they use kephale. Those are important. We're going to get to those in just a second. But how it's using the Septuagint is extra important because this is a direct source of New Testament thought and language.

Okay, so let's go to kephale used in a non-literal way in ancient Greek literature. Okay. So this is, I'm drawing here off my third post. What does head kephale mean in Paul's letters, part three, ancient Greek literature. And this was published on November 14th, 2023. What I do here is I simply go through examples of kephale meaning source. I look at some disputed examples. Like I go through the examples where I do think it means source, other ones that are more disputed. Then I go through the examples where it means either prominence or leader or authority and, you know, go through that.

And then I do look at how the ancients understood the literal head and its relationship to the body, the literal body. And some people say, well, that's a literal use, so that's irrelevant. Well, metaphors are often related to some literal understanding of the head's relationship to the body. So I don't think it's completely irrelevant. And I think actually in this scholarly discussion, if people just limit their survey of kephale to only metaphorical uses, not similes, not the literal head-body metaphor, the literal head's relationship to the body, how they understand this.

I think they're shortcutting themselves a little bit. I think that's not, I think methodologically that's too limiting so that's where i'm going in this post let's look at a few examples here where i do think kephale means uh source herodotus fifth century bc um he says from the sources, or kephalei, plural, of the river, Terris flows the best and fairest of all river waters. Here, kephalei, the plural kephalei, heads, are referring to the source of a river. And, well, I just gave it away.

I think it does refer to source here. It certainly doesn't mean, you know, from the authorities of the river, you know. So here it doesn't mean you know from the authorities of the river you know so here it doesn't mean source uh galen uh a.d second century uh also refers to uses kephale to refer to the source of a river as he says no river that comes from a single spring is smaller at its head than it is thereafter and the context, he's talking about rivers here. So same thing. And he says in another passage, world pools in a river arise when they are warmed by the sun

or its head. And in the context here, I do think it also means like the source of the river. First century Jewish work called The Life of Adam and Eve uses Kephala in a similar way. This one is disputed. It says, for covetousness is the head of every kind of sin.

Is covetousness the source of every kind of sin? I think that's the best reading here. I do think it means source, but that is disputed. I don't know. I'll let you, you know, let's see. I give a footnote here. Yeah. I interact with Joseph Fitzmyer, Andrew Perryman, and I think that's it. The footnote there. You can check out that footnote. I'm not going to read footnotes to you. Okay. So let's just assume it means source here. On at least one occasion, Philo, the first century Jewish philosopher uses Kephala in a way that probably means source. He says, of all the members of the clan, of all the members of the clan here described Esau is the progenitor, the head, Esau is the progenitor, the head, as it were, of the whole creature. So here it seems like Kephaleh is used in apposition to progenitor,

that he is the producer of or the source of the whole clan. This one too is disputed. And I have a very long footnote here kind of interacting with the dispute. Yeah, I'll let you go check out that footnote. It's foot number five on my post here. So even though some people dispute this, I put these in the non-disputed section because I do think that source is the best reading here.

There's also well, and I'm going to talk about this when I get to the literal the ancient understanding of the literal head. You do have a broad medical understanding that the head was, the literal head was the source of the body

where the head was the source of the body, where the head is the origin of the body's muscles, nerves, pleasure, pain, grief, and so on. But as we'll see, I'll interact with some of these below, because some people just kind of point this out in passing. But if you look at all these passages where the literal head is described in a way that could be understood as a source of the body. It also kind of includes notions of authority as well. And I'll point out some examples of that.

Okay, so here's some disputed, widely disputed examples of kephale that could mean source. Some people say it does mean source. Other people say it absolutely doesn't mean source. And there's, I guess, more of a dispute than even the previous ones that are disputed. Okay, there's a widely known saying about Zeus that's cited in several places in Greek literature. And I list all the citations in the footnote. It says this, Zeus was first.

Zeus is the last with white, vivid lightning. Zeus the head. Zeus the middle. Zeus from whom all things are perfected. So Philip Payne says this text identifies Zeus as the maker from whom all things come into existence. And there's many ancient references to Zeus being the source through whom all things come into existence.

And there's other manuscripts that have the same saying where the Greek word arche is used instead of kephale. And some people will say, so this is a clear example because arche means source. And so the fact that you see some manuscripts saying arche, others mean kephale, that they understood kephale to mean source here. The problem with that is arche can also mean authority.

Yeah, I mean, Genesis 1.1, uh, I mean, uh, it means beginning there. Um, Archaic means ruler in Genesis 40 verse 13, uh, 40, 21, Genesis 41, 13, second Maccabees 4.10, Luke 20, 20, and several others. So Archaic can mean source. It can mean beginning. It can mean authority or leader. So to me, it's suspicious if people say, well, because some manuscripts have Arche and not Kephale, therefore Kephale must mean source

because Arche means source. It's like, well, Arche has its own ambiguity. So I don't think that really works. I don't know what to do with this passage. And it's widely known. So it's really significant. And I wish I could find some secondary literature written on the meaning of head in this famous saying about Zeus.

I Googled around a little bit, couldn't find anything. Nobody has cited a full-on journal article or something written just on this passage and what kephalate means. People deal with it kind of in passing. They might devote half a page to what it means. But I would love to get some classical scholars who don't have a dog in the kephalate fight to say, here's what's going on in this saying about Zeus. So I'm kind of undecided on what this means. I don't think it clearly means source. I don't think it clearly means authority. I don't think people could just simply cite this passage as clear proof for one meaning or the other. There is another text that's disputed in Philo. And he says this, for as in an animal, the head is the first and

best part, okay, literal head, and the tail, the last and worst part, or rather no part at all. So in the same manner, what is said here is that the virtuous man shall be head of the human race, whether he be a single man or a whole people, and that all others, being as it were parts of the body, so here we have a head-body kind of metaphor, are only vivified by the power existing in the head, kephale, and the superior parts of the body. So this is an important parallel to Paul's use of head, for instance, in Ephesians 5, 15 to 16, and Colossians 2, 19. Because you have head used metaphorically in relation to the literal head, in relation to the literal body. And so that's similar to what Paul does in those passages.

Joseph Fitzmyer, who argues rather extensively that kefle you know for the authority view of kefle he says this is one case where it does mean one of the few cases where it does mean source uh philip payne says you know um he says it means source since quote the person called head is not in authority over the group identified but is their source of life wayne grudem however says there is a sense here of the members of the body being encouraged and directed by the virtuous leaders who are the head, but there is no sense in which the ordinary people derive their being or existence from the leaders who are the head. Thus, source would be an inappropriate sense of kephalae here as well.

And then Perryman, he strongly rejects the meaning source here. He says, clearly the zealous individual or nation is not meant to be understood as the source of the human race. Philo does not mean that the human race depends on the zealous one for its life, but that such an individual or nation by virtue of his prominence and excellence is able to motivate and inspire others. So he renders Kefale as prominence here. Oh man, I don't know. This one's tough for me. Clint Arnold, who's got an excellent an excellent essay that's sometimes neglected in the literature on Jesus Christ being the head, where he goes into a lot of background literature and then looks at Ephesians,

kind of the use of head in Ephesians. And Clinton is just, I mean, I respect him so much as a New Testament scholar who's well-versed in the ancient world. He says this. He says that the dual notion of leadership and source of provisions is present in Philo's use of kephala here. Elsewhere, Philo refers to the head as the master limb of the members and the first highest and principal part. And the chief, like the citadel of a king has its occupant has as its occupant the sovereign mind so these are kind of ruling images that are surrounding head elsewhere in philo and according to clint arnold quote philo frequently uses the word hegemonic costs hegemonic costs uh and its cognates, meaning the dominant or leading part, to characterize the head. And he lists tons of examples here in Philo where the literal head is described

with leadership type language. So I'm going to lean towards saying kephale means both source of spiritual nourishment in this passage and conveys maybe some sense of leadership as well. I think Clint Arnold's kind of summary is, to my mind, makes the most sense. Another first century Jewish work, the Testament of Reuben says, For seven spirits are established against mankind, and they are the heads of the deeds of youth. Again, I'm listening to this under disputed examples where some people say it means source, other people say it doesn't mean source. Yeah, I do think, and I interact with

all these disputed examples, I try to sum up how different scholars are treating this. sum up how different scholars are treating this. And so here I interact with different people here. I think source is probably the best meaning here. Does this exclude all notions of authority? I don't know. So Perryman says that here the spirits, the seven spirits are established against mankind. They are the heads of the deeds of the youth. Perriman says that the spirits continue to, quote, exert an active controlling influence, unquote, over the youth and therefore are performing some kind of ongoing ruling function. I think that's probably correct here. Hopefully, you guys can see. That's probably correct here.

Hopefully you guys can see. I mean, sometimes with a lot of these ancient references, it's just that the meaning just doesn't leap off the pages, which is why, again, I think respected scholars can come to different interpretive conclusions. in this one writing from second century AD author Artemidorus Daladonis. Artemidorus Daladonis. I don't know how to pronounce his name. You can look and see how you spell it. And this is kind of a lengthy passage. Let's keep going here.

So this says, another man dreamt.t well you do have to get the whole context it's it's really i'll just read the specific passages and then try to explain the context without getting too lost in the weeds here another man dreamt that he was beheaded and real life the father of this man too died for as the head kephale is the source of life and light for the whole body he was responsible for the dreamer's life and light the head, kephale, is the source of life and light for the whole body, he was responsible for the dreamer's life and light. The head indicates one's father. Well, here he clearly says it's source of life. In another passage, a little bit later, the head resembles parents in that it is the cause of one's living.

Parents, cause of one's living. You can get the sense of some sense of source there, source of life. Later on, the head, kephale, signifies the father of some sense of source their source of life uh later on uh the head kephale signifies the father of the dreamer whenever then a poor man who has a rich father dreams that his own head has been removed by a lion and that he dies as a result it is probable that his father will die for the head kephale re-represents the father the removal of the head, the death of the father. I do want to point out that Cynthia Westfall, Cynthia Long Westfall in her really great book, Paul and Gender, argues for an egalitarian position. And I feel like I have to qualify. I call books great,

not because of their conclusion necessarily, but because they provoke a lot of thinking and they make really good provocative arguments. Not that I necessarily agree with them, but that they have really done good scholarship. And I think hands down, her book is really, really fantastic. Even if I end up landing commentary, I would still say this book's really, you fantastic. Even if I end up landing complementarian, I would still

say this book's really, you need to interact with this book. And Cynthia is just an awesome scholar and just an awesome person, really. I've gotten to know her a little bit over the years and she's a rock star. She refers to this passage in her work on 1 Corinthians 11, because you do have a similar thing. You could have a similar thing going on in 1 Corinthians 11, because you do have a similar thing. You could have a similar thing going on in 1 Corinthians 11 with this kind of like, where Paul talks about Kephala in verse, well, Kephala all throughout 1 Corinthians 11, 2 to 16,

and relates it to kind of burying God's image. And I just want to point you to her discussion there, because I think this could be an interesting parallel for that passage. So according to the cited proportions, it certainly seems like it means source here. And some people just quote the sections that I quoted to you. But when you go back and look at the larger context, head is used in a wide variety of different ways in this passage. Let me read to you one, this is the fuller context of the second reference. Okay, the fuller context of the second reference says this, if a man dreams that he has been beheaded, it is inauspicious both, what does inauspicious mean? Both for a man with parents and man with children.

For the head resembles parents in that it is the cause of one's living. Okay, that's where we get this kind of source. It is like children. The head is like children because of the face and because of the resemblance. Okay, well, that's not source anymore. Also, a man who owned a house has lost it. For the head is, as it were, the house of the senses. To bankers,

usurers, men who have collected subscriptions, shipmasters, merchants, and all who have collected money, it, the dream of being beheaded, signifies the loss of capital, because the word for capital is derived from the word for head. To a slave who enjoys the confidence of his master, it,

the beheaded dream, signifies that he will lose that confidence. I can keep going. For the head is the master of the body. Well, that certainly sounds like authority. And when it is cut off, it signifies that a slave, the slave is separated from his master. So here the author uses kephale to refer to a literal head, which symbolically interpreted, you know, it refers to a whole range of things. The house of the senses, the capital, the master of a slave, several superior leaders of a ship, and so on and so forth.

So I just don't think we can, I mean, this doesn't really, this passage in its broader context, I don't think Kephale, I think it just shows a wide variety of how kephalae can be understood. So I don't think it should be clear evidence for source and not authority or not prominence. Okay. Let's turn now to passages where I do think some kind of authority or possibly prominence is where kephalae conveys some sense of authority, possibly prominence. And here I'm just going to say up front that I think there is a lot of instances where Kephale conveys some sense of authority in extra biblical Greek literature. So, for instance, Josephus refers to Jerusalem as the very face and head of the whole nation. Jerusalem is a capital city. and head of the whole nation. Jerusalem is a capital city. And here it does seem that it's, again,

conveying some sense of authority. Jerusalem rules over the whole nation. It could mean prominence. Jerusalem certainly stands out among the nation, but to say prominence and not any sense of authority, I think, would be a stretch. Elsewhere, he says, the royal city Jerusalem was the supreme and rules over all the neighboring country as the head does over the body. This is an important reference. This comes from Josephus, Josephus, his book, The Jewish War, book three, section 54.

The royal city Jerusalem was the supreme and rules, arche, over all the neighboring country as the head does over the body, meaning as the head rules over the body. The very word arche, ruling, is applied to the meaning of the head's relationship to the body. Now, some people say, well, here, head is literal. He's talking about the literal head and the body, so this is irrelevant. I'm like, is that irrelevant? It seems like, yeah, okay, this isn't technically a metaphorical use of kephale, but clearly kephale is being used in an analogous way to the authority and rulership of the city of jerusalem which is ruling over the neighboring country kephale is associated with authority on some level whether you call it a literal use or metaphor similarly or whatever i just i don't think i think it's a little's a little bit pedantic to say this isn't actually a metaphor. Therefore, it's irrelevant for how the ancients

would have understood kephale in a metaphorical sense. Okay. The Jewish book, Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs refers to two kings of the divided kingdom as two heads. Quote, do not be divided into two heads because everything the Lord has made has a single head. He provides two shoulders, two hands, two feet, but all members obey, hupakoe, one head, kephale. So here prominence is certainly present, but the ruling activity of the two kings is clearly the primary meaning in light of the mention of all members obey one head philo he calls uh king uh ptolemy the second philadelphius quote in some sense the head of kings okay i mean head of kings i i again you can say this means prominence certainly that means at least that but i think it also conveys some sense of authority here.

And he says again, as the head is a ruling place in the living body, so Ptolemy became among kings. So again, people say, well, here he's saying it's a simile. It's, you know, the word kephala here is referring to literal head. So this is irrelevant. But again, the literal heads ruling over the body is compared to Ptolemy and his relationship with the kings. Namely,

he's ruling over the kings. There are several references to military leaders described as the head and their army as a body. Here's one reference to, this comes from Pollyannus. Pollyannus, Is that really his name? He must have had a horrible junior high experience. The phalanx he called the breast, the light-armed troops, the hands, the cavalry, the feet, and the

general, the head. So here you have a head-body metaphor. The general is called the head. Conveys some sense of authority. Another reference from plutarch uh but after vindex as a guy opel had openly declared war he wrote to galba uh is a caesar uh inviting him to assume the imperial power and thus to serve what was a vigorous body in need of a head meaning the gallic provinces which already had a thousand men under arms.

Again, a vigorous body in need of a head is in need of a leader. Another passage in Plutarch, the light-armed troops are like the hands, the cavalry like the feet, the line of men at arms itself like chest to breastplate, and the general is like the head. When a general is being compared to a head, I think again is conveying some sense of authority. Again, people say it's not a metaphor, this is a simile. So it doesn't matter.

And again, I don't want to keep kicking that horse, but I just don't see that pushback as really significant. That we can't even refer to this passage because it's a simile, not a metaphor. Plutarch, let's see, other passages use Cephalade to refer to some kind of ruler or person in authority. Plutarch says, ye cannot have the same man as your ruler and your slave, since in this case also one certainly can apply the fable of the serpent whose tail rebelled against its head and demanded the right to lead in turn instead of always following here you have clear references of leadership head is referred to as leader um another reference from plutarch what a dreadful thing pray said

catiline am i doing if when there are two bodies, one lean and wasted, but with a head and the other headless, but strong and large, I myself become a head for this. Wayne Grudem, I think rightly says that in saying this, Catiline was threatening to become the head of the people and thus to lead the people in revolt against Cicero. Therefore, Cicero was all the more alarmed. And he's drawing here on the larger context of the saying. Some people do dispute this reference. I think Grudem is right here. Labanitis, 4th century AD rhetorician says that people who derided government authorities, quote, heaped on their own heads insults. And in the context, these heads are governor authorities.

And I'll let you, again, you can go to my blog, look it up. In another oration, the same writer calls the emperor a head, Kephale. Philo refers to the eternal logos with Kephale, where is the head of the world? The head of all things is the eternal logos of the eternal god yeah so uh so there's several of these references where military leaders or emperors are described as heads and in the context their ruling function is is brought out and sometimes even even in in the people they're ruling over are described as a body. And again, I keep kind of mentioning that because there's a, at least in Ephesians 5, you have a head-body metaphor, not just the reference to a head. You also have many occasions where the literal head is described as ruling over the literal body.

body. Okay. So Philo says, he says, he says here, head, we interpret allegorically to mean the ruling hegemony, hegemony, hegemony. I think, yeah, anyway, that Greek word means ruling. Head, we interpret allegorically to mean the ruling part of the soul. In another passage, the mind is head and ruler of the sense faculty in us. In another passage, nature conferred the sovereignty of the body on the head. Another passage, and let me just read a little bit more of the context. The soul innervates and strengthens sense perception by directing its energies to what is suitable for it and the participation of the parts of the body. And the center in one meaning is the chief and head as is the leader of the chorus. Plato says,

copying the revolving shape of the universe, the gods bound the two divine orbits into a ball shaped body. The part that we now call our head. This is the most divine part of us and master, despoteo, where we get despot, of all our other parts. So here the literal head is described as being the ruler over our body. Galen, a medical writer says, nor is it necessary that because the brain, like the great king, dwells in the head as in an acropolis, for that reason, the ruling part of the soul is in the brain. He has another similar statement in another passage.

So in summary, as far as I can tell, kephale can mean source, prominence, and leader, or convey some sense of authority in ancient Greek. But the most pervasive meaning is, in as much as I'm reading these texts correctly, I'll let you be the judge, is leader or conveying some sense of authority. Of the five or six references where kephalic, I think, means source, three use kephalic to refer to the source of rivers. These are not describing a person in relationship to another person because that's what we're dealing with, right? In Paul's letters, in the passages that are significant for our study. To me, that's not as significant. Like when he kept saying three of the, let's just say six times it means source, three of them referring to a source of a river, one to the source of sin. Only one reference, in my mind, clearly refers to a source of a river, one to the source of sin, only one reference, in my mind, clearly refers to a person. That's that passage where Esau is the source of his clan. And then

there's another debated example in Philo. So let's just say both those are totally legit. That's only really two times in all of Greek literature. Well, no, sorry. When I say all, in ancient Greek literature, aside from like the church fathers, we'll get to the church fathers in a second because we do have more references to kephale meaning source there. But in extra biblical Greek literature that's not Christian literature, kephale very, very rarely means source, especially when used to describe a person in relationship to other people. But when it comes to references where kephale means authority or leader, we have many more examples. I count about 15 to 20 examples where kephale is used to describe a person or a person's leadership or authority over other people. Several references even use head-body metaphor to convey this idea,

which is probably connected to the literal understanding of the head's relationship to the literal body, where we again see several references even use head body metaphor to convey this idea, which is probably connected to the literal understanding of the head's relationship to the literal body, where we again see several references where the literal head was understood to exercise some kind of authority over the literal body. This doesn't mean such a non-literal use or even literal use of kephale was widespread in ancient Greek. I mean, even a couple dozen examples is still fairly infrequent. But if we're going to ask whether based on just this body of literature, source or leader was a more common non-literal meaning of kephale when it's used in reference to a person's relationship to other people, then based on the evidence, it seems to me that the best conclusion would be leader or conveying some sense of authority. some sense of authority. So this is where I do disagree with, who am I quoting here?

I think I'm quoting Philip Payne. Yeah, I'm quoting Philip Payne here. So here's my concluding statement here is I do find the claim that it was, quote, foreign for Greek to use kephale as a metaphor for leader, unquote, or that, quote, it would probably never have occurred to Paul's typical Greek words, Greek readers that head might mean leader or authority over. I just, I don't find that kind of claim to be substantiated by the historical evidence that it would have been foreign. paul's reader saw kephale used in a non-literal sense in ephesians say 122 415 or especially 523 that the greek reader readers would have been like at a loss like oh what did this can't mean authority like oh that's just kephale was it in many places again let's just say associated with some kind of authority on some level, whether

in a simile, metaphor, or even drawing from the literal use of literal understanding of the head's relationship to the body. I don't know how somebody can get to that conclusion that Keflae, that the Greek reader wouldn't have conceived of Keflae conveying some sense of authority. of Cufferly conveying some sense of authority. Hey friends, the Exiles in Babylon conference is right around the corner, April 18th through the 20th in Boise, Idaho. All the information is at theologyintherod.com. If you do want to attend live,

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Okay, let's move on to a new section here. I want to talk about the use of kephale and early church fathers. The early church fathers, the use of kephale and early church fathers, this is, I'm going to be sort of following along in my fourth blog post that was published on November 15th, 2023. If you want to follow along the kind of written version of this section. Also, I do want to say just a quick word because we're already now over two hours into looking at the use of the Greek word kephale. And we haven't even gotten into the New Testament yet. And some of you might be thinking like, gosh, are you making this too complicated?

You know, the average person just can't, you know, do all this, you know, study of the Greek word, how it's used elsewhere. Like, can anybody just read the Bible and understand it? And, you know, I, if you're feeling that, I do appreciate that maybe even frustration, but I guess I do want to point out that studying the Bible is, yeah, it's difficult. Like, I mean, I mean, just think about, think about this, like your English Bible, if you're a native English speaker, where did your English Bible even come from? Well, it's a product of – it rests on the back of scholars who devote their entire life to understanding Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. And other scholars who spend their entire life specializing in what's called text criticism and looking at ancient Greek manuscripts and which ancient Greek manuscripts are more reliable. And then once we come up with, okay, here is the

Greek New Testament that best represents the original Greek New Testament that we don't have, then you have people that come in and say, okay, here is the best translation of this ancient language into our target language. That takes a lot of work. So even as we open the Bible and read it, we are, in a sense, relying on other scholars who have gone ahead of us and have done a ton of work that we can't do. We're relying on their insight. Also, have you ever thought about the fact that up until the inventing of the printing press, 1450, very few Christians woke up in the morning and read their own personal Bible because most Christians weren't literate prior to their printing press. And even if they were, getting a hand copy of the entire Bible, even portions of the Bible was incredibly expensive.

of the entire Bible, even portions of the Bible, was incredibly expensive. And it wasn't available in most people's native tongues. So for the first 1,500 years of Christianity, most Christians, quote unquote, read or heard the Bible as they gathered in communities, and they were relying on other literate Christians to read the Bible out loud and maybe offer, you know, an interpretation. So, so yeah, we can't understand the Bible by ourselves. We're relying on scholars and text criticism, scholars who specialize in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. And, you know, we're, we're very thankful to the printing press and all that that brought, uh, that we can't, we can actually now read the Bible in our own native language through, through translation. Um, so it is what it is. If you're

like, you know, frustrated that we have to go through such great lengths here to understand Kefale, well, yeah, we do. We actually do. Uh, or we, um, or, or at least we are, you know, we are relying on other scholars who have done this kind of work for us. Now with Kephale, as we now know, scholars who have done the work come to very different conclusions on the meaning of Kephale even before we get to Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11. So that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to open up the door a little bit to how scholars have gone about looking at the meaning of Catholic. Okay, let's talk about the church fathers. When I say church fathers, I'm talking about early Christian leaders who lived, I'm going to say roughly between A.D. 100 to 400. That's my time frame. I'm not going to look at 6th, 7th, 8 seventh, eighth, ninth century fathers, if they're even

called fathers at that point. So, you know, a few hundred years after the New Testament, obviously these are after the New Testament. So these are Greek speaking writers. Some of them are Latin speaking who wrote after Paul. So, so Paul, Kephalet is not going to be a source of Paul's understanding. It's now more the opposite. They are interpreting what they think Paul meant by his use of Kephalet. I don't claim to be an expert at all in this period of literature. My main area of expertise is Second and, and New Testament Christianity. So once the temple's destroyed in AD 70, my knowledge starts to really fade out. So here I'm, I'm really relying on other scholars who have summarized this, this material. Um, so, uh, yeah,

I just want to be honest that I don't claim to be an expert on Chrysostom or Cyril or, you know, some of these Ignatius, these other people that we're going to be looking at I've dabbled in in my research and read various uh books by the fathers but um I'm just I'm going to be going off of my best reading of these texts from from a non-expert kind of perspective I'm going to try to go through every single use of kephale in the fathers. There's maybe a dozen or so, a couple dozen, maybe a dozen or so instances where kephale is used as a, well, as a metaphor or it's early church fathers in like, like trying to understand Paul's use of kephale in first Corinthians 11.3 in particular. That was a really hotly debated text in the early church, but also Ephesians 5.20.23. And I'm basically

relying on other scholars who have done the word search, come up with all the references, and then comb through all the references. In particular, Philip Payne and Wayne Grudem, among others, have done a lot of research in this area. And they come to very different conclusions. So Philip Payne argues that, quote, church fathers overwhelmingly interpret man is the head of woman and the other two kephalae occurrences in 1 Corinthians 11.3 to mean source, not authority. Even though they teach elsewhere that women are inferior and subordinate to men. Another scholar, Kathleen Kroger, the late Kathleen Kroger, I think she's the late. Yeah. Says, similar to Payne, she says that the church fathers argued vehemently

that paul for paul head had meant source on the other hand we have wayne grudem who says basically the exact opposite uh that they're i mean he points out that in peter lamp's patristic greek lexicon this is kind of the authoritative lexicon dictionary, if you will, of the early church fathers. He says that the meaning source for kephale isn't even listed in this lexicon, which focuses on patristic material for the early church fathers. fathers, you know? And then he goes through all the references and in pretty much every, in almost every case says, kephale means authority over or leader. So scholars look at the same text, come into wildly different conclusions. So let's jump in, see which one you think is right. So let's begin with passages in the churchathers that very likely mean source, that are often taken to mean source. First one comes from a guy by the name of Cyril of Alexandria.

He lived at AD 376 to 444. And another thing to point out too, in my translations here of the early Church Fathers might not be the best translation. I don't have a good theological library here in Idaho, the entire state. So I rely a lot on, I mean, whatever I can find in my Bible software, my Logos, or books I own here in my library, which isn't a ton, especially original source i have a ton of you know books or just online translations that i could find now this is why you know usually once or twice a year i pop over to tyndale house in cambridge a shout out to my favorite place on earth tyndale house in cambridge where they have a just a an amazing uh biblical studies library with all the original

sources you can ever want and so i usually you know kind of have a whole thing like i use like you know free translations i can find online and then i when i go over there i kind of go and and and look at all the best translations i can get and kind of kind of clean up my research a little bit and check this check that and it's it's a fun time so what i just acknowledge that my translations might not be the best. I'm relying on, on other, uh, kind of other people's translation or, you know, free sources I find online. So, uh, Cyril of Alexandria, he has a couple important sections where he's interpreting first Corinthians 11, uh, 11, three. He, uh, he says this, and I'm not going to mention the, the exact references. You can find them in the blog posts, largely because they're all in Latin and I can't pronounce

the books that he's writing in. So anyway, in the first reference here, he says, the one of the earth and dust has become to us the first head of the race. That is Archaic. Greek word Archaic. Remember Archaic, you know, can mean source. It can mean beginning. It can mean beginning. It can also mean ruler.

So Adam, you know, the one of the earth and, I'm sorry, the one of the earth and dust has become to us the first head of the race. That is source or ruler, Arche. But since the second Adam has been named Christ, he was placed as head, kephale, that is source, ruler, arche, okay? Of those who through him are being transformed unto him into incorruption through sanctification by the spirit. Therefore, he on the one hand is our source or ruler, Arche, that is head. You see what he's doing here? So see, he keeps defining Arche as head. Now, if you translate Arche as source, then clearly head means source.

Whatever Arche means here, that is what head means. That's what he keeps doing over and over and over. He keeps saying, you know, Arche, that is head. Insofar as he has appeared as man, indeed, he being by nature, God has a head, the father in heaven. So the head of Christ is father in heaven for being by nature, word, God, the word, he has been begotten from him. But that the head signifies the Arche, the sorcerer ruler, the fact that the husband is said to be the head of the wife confirms the sense for the truth of the doubters, for she has been taken from him. Therefore,

one Christ and son and Lord, the one having as head the father in heaven, being God by nature became for us head accordingly because of his kinship according to the flesh. Okay. It does seem rather clear to me that this, that, that kephale here means source. And I would invite you to go, you know, I know sometimes hearing these passages, it just, they might not seem super clear when you're hearing it, at least for me, I like to read it. So I would invite you to go read this text online in my blog post. But when he says, you know, the husband is said to be the head of the wife, this confirms the sense of the truth for the doubters, because she was taken from him does seem to, you know, that he is the source of the woman, therefore he is the head of

the woman. It doesn't seem to convey in this specific passage, a direct sense of authority is, is my initial kind of reading of this passage. Now, Philip Payne, uh, he, he, he says,

you know, he basically says that since RK means source, therefore head must mean source. And, and I think he's, I think he's correct here. Um, I,

I just, I, I, I, I just, I do want to at least acknowledge that RK has its own ambiguity. We can't just assume it means source every time you see RK. I think it does here, though, given the specific context.

Now, Wayne Grudem, he agrees with pain, Philip Payne here. It does, it happens from time to time. Not very often, but, you know, the stars are aligned in this case. Time to time, not very often, but, you know, the stars are aligned in this case. He says, you know, yeah, the meaning of source here is possible, but Grudem says this is still not an instance of source of the woman. And then, you know, the father is the source of Christ in the sense that he sends Christ. And also the husband is the head of the wife in the sense that he is the source of the wife. But Grudem says the concept of source itself carries with it some sense of authority. So in the ancient world, when somebody was described as being the source of somebody else,

that notion of source was not understood as not conveying authority. And I'm not sure if Grudem gets into this, but you can almost think of some interpretations of Paul in 1 Timothy 2, where he says, you know, the man was created first, kind of this first born notion carried with it authority. And he, you know, something similar he says is going on here with source, that if a person is a source of another person, then that notion of being the source carried with it authority.

And so, Grudem, he supports this by pointing to other passages where the idea of the woman being created out of man is evidence of her subordination. Other passages in the Fathers. So therefore, the idea that kephale could mean source and not authority, this would not have been recognized by the Fathers, according to Wayne Grudem. So he goes to another passage in another writer. fathers, according to Wayne Grudem. So he goes to another passage in another writer. He goes to Clement of Alexandria, writing, I think, a couple hundred years before Cyril. And Clement of Alexandria cites the same passage, 1 Corinthians 11.3, and he splices it together with 1 Corinthians 11.8, where the woman was created out of man. So here's what Clement of Alexandria says. He says, for I would have you to know, says the apostle, that the head, kephale, of every man is Christ and the head of the woman

is the man. That's 1 Corinthians 11.3. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. That's 1 Corinthians 11.8. Now, Clement immediately, once he says that, he kind of leaves the topic of head. He talks a little bit, you know, and then he comes back to the concept of head a few paragraphs later. And he says this, Clement says this a little bit later on. The ruling power is therefore the head, the ruling power. And if the Lord is head of the man and the man is head of the woman, the man being the image and glory of God is Lord of the woman. Wherefore, also in the epistle to the Ephesians, it is written, subjecting yourself to one another, the fear of God, wives submit to your husbands and as to the Lord, for the husband is the head

of the wife. So later on, at least according to Clement of Alexandria, he does interpret kephale meaning source in 1 Corinthians 11, but he connects that concept of head meaning source as also the ruling power. So later on, he clearly interprets head as conveying some sense of authority uh even after he said it means source so i i think i think grudem here is correct in his understanding of clement of alexandria um that for clement of alexandria head can mean source and authority because the concept of source carried with it a sense of authority. I'm nervous about... So I think that's fine for Clement of Alexandria, but I'm nervous about just jumping so quickly to Clement of Alexandria to interpret Cyril's statement when Cyril of Alexandria didn't connect those dots.

Maybe for Cyril, the concept of source carried authority, but I don't see evidence in Cyril's own writings. And again, if I missed it, then I missed it. But from what I saw, I don't see evidence within Cyril that kephalae can mean source and authority. Another passage in Cyril of Alexandria, he says this. And again, he's commenting on 1 Corinthians 11.3, but I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of a woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. So he's quoting 11.3. The blessed Luke composing for us the genealogy of Christ begins from Joseph and he comes to Adam soon speaking of God placing as the arche of man.

He comes to Adam soon, speaking of God, placing as the arche of man. I'm just going to leave it untranslated. So you can, you know, the arche can mean beginning source or authority or ruler. So I'm just going to leave it untranslated just so I don't bias the meaning here too quickly. Placing as the arche of man, the God who made him. Thus we say Christ is the head of every man for man was made through him and he was brought to birth. The son not creating him in a servile way, but more divinely as in the nature for work man. This translation is just so hard to follow. But the head of woman is the man for she was taken out of his flesh and she has him even as her archa.

And similarly, the head of Christ is God for he is from him according to nature for the word was begotten out of God the Father. For now, for how is Christ not God, the one of whom the Father according to his nature has been placed as head? Whenever I might say Christ appeared in the one of whom the father, according to his nature, has been placed as head. Whenever I might say Christ appeared in the form of man. Okay. Yeah. I think that's good enough. This is a passage where a lot of people say kephale means source, and it's not conveying any clear sense of leadership or authority.

And I do think this is the best interpretation here. I do think Philip Payne and others are correct here. Could it mean beginning or source? I don't know. You know, Archaic can mean beginning. It can mean source. There's a clear correlation between Archaic and Cephalic here. Either way, I don't think what Cyril is trying to

communicate. I don't think, well, I don't think Cyril is interpreting 1 Corinthians 11, 3 as saying that the father is in authority over the son or the man is in authority over the woman. He may believe those things, but I don't think that's how he's interpreting Kephalet here in 1 Corinthians 11. Okay. There's another passage where Kephalet is often interpreted means source. This comes from Theodore of Mopsuestia.

Am I pronouncing that right? He lives AD 350 to 428. So right around the same time as Cyril, 4th, 5th century. In his commentary on 1 Corinthians 11, 3, he says, This he wishes to say that on the one hand, we move forward from Christ to God, out of whom he is. But on the other hand, from man to Christ, for we are out of him according to the second form of existence. For on the one hand, being subject to suffering, we consider Adam to be head, from whom we have taken existence.

That seems to have the idea of source there, doesn't it? But on the other hand, not being subject to suffering, we consider Christ to be head, kephale, from whom we have an unsuffering existence. Again, seems to be source. Similarly, he says, this is Theodore commenting on Paul, also from woman to man, since she was taken existence from him.

Yeah, this seems to be a clear notion of, carefully seems to clearly mean source here. But did, okay, so now let's ask the question though, Theodore's concept of source, does this exclude all notions of authority? of Source, does this exclude all notions of authority? So a few lines later, Theodore appeals to 1 Corinthians 11, 7-8, where Paul refers to the woman being created out of the man, in a way that's similar to Clement of Alexandria, which he looked at above, where Source conveys some kind of authority. So Theodore saysodore says this uh he paul calls the woman glory but surely not image okay this is that weird passage where paul seems to almost say that like women aren't created in god's image which he can't be saying because that would just directly contradict genesis one paul's very familiar genesis one

and there's any other passages where he would affirm that women are created in God's image. But yeah, he has that, you know, woman is the glory of man, but man is in the image of God. It's one of the most just oddest kind of statements in Paul's letters. So that's what Theodore's interacting with. So Theodore says, you know, he calls the woman glory, but surely not image because it applied faintly since glory looks at obedience, but image looks at rulership. So Theodore takes glory to signify the woman's obedience to man and image to refer to the man's rulership. So it's not just that this comes, you know, oh, a few lines after he talked about 1 Corinthians 11.3. Like, 11.3 is linked to what Paul talks about in 11.7-9. So, here I do think that Theodore is expanding on his understanding of the man being the source of the woman.

And here he takes it to mean that a woman should be obedient to the man. Let me pause for a second and just say, I'm not agreeing with these church fathers or disagreeing with these church fathers. I'm just trying to understand how they understood Paul. In my blogs, I think somebody made a comment like, you know, as I'm describing the early fathers, how I think the early fathers are interpreting Paul, they almost took that like this is an accurate interpretation of Paul from my understanding. I'm not saying it's accurate or not accurate. I'm just trying to understand the church fathers on their own terms. Philip Payne, who takes the reference to Kephale and Theodore on 1 Corinthians 11.3 to mean source, he doesn't mention this later statement where Theodore connects the woman's glory to her obedience to the man as teasing out the man being the source of the woman.

So I'm not sure why he didn't mention that and if he did mention it and i missed it then i stand corrected um but i i when he was dealing with this passage he you know it was grudem who pointed out well look let's look at the broader context and there's other contextual factors that would invest kefale with some notion of authority alongside, you know, um, and, and it's under, they would tease out the authority kind of senses of the early concept of source. Okay. On at least two occasions, Athanasius refers to, uh, Arian creeds. Arians were a branch of Christianity, right? That denied the deity of Christ, okay?

So they were kind of a non-Orthodox branch of Christianity. I mean, this is a time when people were working through the deity of Christ and Trinitarian stuff. So, you know, they were still swimming in that conversation. Athanasius refers to Arian creeds that use kephale in a non-literal sense. So here's the first one says, uh, whoever shall say that the sun is without beginning and in generate, did I get that right? Without beginning and in generate. Do these translations, either I misspelled this or that's just a weird word to use here.

Um, as if speaking of two unbegun and two ingenurate and making two gods to be a be he anathema for the sun is the head, namely the arche of all. And God is the head, namely the arche of Christ for thus to one unbegun arche of the universe. Do we religiously refer all things through the sun? This one, I mean, I don't know what Arche means here. In the context, I think it could easily mean ruler or source. And so because

the meaning of head is kind of linked to the meaning of Arche, I kind of like, I have to kind of shrug my shoulders a little bit here and say, I don't know if we can come down super strong on either source or ruler here. Elsewhere, Athanasius says, the son to have been generated before ages and in no wise to be in generate himself like the father, but to have the father who generated him as his source beginning ruler, his arche, father who generated him as his source beginning ruler, his Archaic, the head, Kephale, of Christ as God. So again, connecting head to Archaic. He's citing Arian creeds, so I'm not sure.

I don't... Yeah. Does that make a difference? Is this Athanasius' own understanding of Kephale? And also, I think there's ambiguity here because it's so connected to Archaea. But Archaea in this context, I think it's hard for me to come down really hard on either source or ruler. Elsewhere, Athanasius refers to the bishops of illustrious cities as the heads, kephaloi, plural, of great churches, which there, in that context, head seems to me, you know, that these bishops have some sort of authority over the city.

They're not the source of the city, or they're not the source of the churches. They are in an authoritative position. So at least in one other occasion, at least Athanasius understands kehalidamine authority. Eusebius, another church father says, and the great apostle teaches that the head of the son himself is God, but the head of the church is the son. How is he saying on the one hand, the head of Christ is God, but on the other hand, saying concerning the son and he gave him to be head over all things for the church, which is his body. So, so here he's,

he's, he's wrestling with the use of kephale in first Corinthians 11, three, and also Ephesians one 22, where it says Christ is head over all things. He goes on to say, is it not therefore that he may be leader, archegos, and head, kephale, of the church? But of him, the head is the father. Thus, there is one God, the father of the only son, and there is one head, even of Christ himself, namely the father. father. But if there is one Archaic and head, how then could there be two gods? Is he not one alone? The one above whom no one is higher, neither does he claim any other cause of himself, but he has acquitted the familial unbegun, unbegotten deity from the monarchical authority. And he has given to the son, his own divinity and life who through him caused all things to exist, who sends him, who appoint him, who commands, who teaches, who commits all things to him, who glorifies him, who exalts him, who declares him

king of all, who has committed all judgment to him. Okay. I, yeah, I do apologize on behalf of all the early church fathers. Sometimes it's hard to understand kind of what they're saying, especially if you're just listening and not reading. I mean, I had to kind of read these passages several times. What is it? What's he even saying here? It's kind of just hard to follow, but there is several kind of terms in this context that convey authority, you know, that Jesus may be leader and head of the church, which is, seems to convey authority. He refers to the father as monarchial authority, teis monarchicus exsusius. And talks about the father being the head of Christ because the father caused all things to exist.

And the father sends him. He appoints him. He commands him. He teaches him. Teaches Jesus. He commits all things. These are terms of authority. So head means source in the few instances here.

To me, I think it's a stretch to say source with no understanding of authority, given all the language of authority that surrounds Eusebius kind of teasing out the meaning of the Father being the head of Christ and Christ being the head over all things given to the church. So yeah, I don't think this is a clear instance of source apart from authority. In fact, I think it might be an instance of head meaning conveying some sense of authority. Here's another text that people cite as evidence that the church fathers interpreted Cephalidem in source. This comes from Photius in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 11.3. He says, on the one hand, the head of us who believes is Christ, as we are members of the same body and fellow partakers with him, having been begotten through the fellowship of his body and blood, for through him we all, having been called one body, have him as head, but the head of Christ is God, even the Father as a begetter and originator and

one of the same nature as him. And the head of the woman is the man for he also exists as her begetter and originator and one of the same nature as her. So far it seems to mean source, right? And that's what several scholars, Catherine Kroger and Payne say means source here. But let me keep reading here. I'm going to read a section that's often left out of people's translation, oddly enough. Photius goes on to say, the analogy is suitable and fits together. But if you might understand the of every man, 1 Corinthians 11.3, also to mean over the unbelievers, according to the word of the creation, this meaning is only allowed for having yielded to the man to reign over the others, he allowed him to remain under his own unique authority and rule, not having established

over him another ruler and supreme authority. If keephale means head in the kind of previous context, Photius seems to draw out notions of authority from that concept. Okay, so I think to say source and not authority, I think is a stretch. So that's one problem I have with people who use this as a text to evidence that Kephala means source. So Philip Payne in his recent book, I think the Bible versus biblical manhood and womanhood or something, he says that this is proof that, quote, many church fathers interpreted Kephala to mean source and not leader or authority over. The late Kathleen Kroger also cites this passage as one of many classical Greek sources. Classical Greek sources, that's like ancient Greek,

that use kephale to mean source. Now, I have two problems with this, I guess. For one, just as we said, to say source and not authority, I think is a stretch, but also Photius is writing in the ninth century AD. So I don't know. What's the definition of church father? Is ninth century Christian leaders in the middle ages, are they church fathers? I always take church fathers to kind of like the first few hundred years of, of the early church.

Either way. I mean, once we get into the ninth century, I mean, 900 years after Paulul i i think i don't know like that's not super significant i think it's yeah for kathleen kroger to list this as evidence of classical greek writers is just flat out inaccurate that's just not he's not a classical greek writer so yeah so some funny business going on here i think with how scholars are treating this passage so yeah i think source with authority here but either way i'm like it's ninth century i'm just not gonna take this as super significant okay all right let's look at um okay so from my vantage point the first

two passages from serial of alexandria are the only texts where kephale means source with no clear sense of authority over or leader uh other passages do interpret kephale to mean source, but the larger context suggests that the authors did not see this as excluding notions of authority or leadership. So let's go to other early church fathers, early church fathers,

who refer to kephale in a way that I think does convey some sense of authority. I guess we already saw Clement of Alexandria who said the head is the leading part, which conveys some sense of authority. So that would be one example.

Another one comes from Irenaeus. Irenaeus says, they go on to say that the demiurge, imagine that he created all these things of himself while in reality, he made them in conjunction with the productive power of Akamoth they further affirm that his mother originated this opinion in his mind because she desired to bring him forth possessed of such a character that he should be the head and arche

of his own essence and the absolute ruler kurios over every kind of operation this mother they called oh whatever um here you know head is connect with rk and that doesn't really help us much but he immediately talks about being absolute ruler of every kind of operation so i contextually seems that head does convey some sense of authority. Another example, Basil the Great of Caesarea. Oh, do I want to read this whole context? Let's see. Oh, it's based on a mistranslation of Psalm 28, where he interpreted it to mean unicorn. He reads the term unicorn in Psalm 28. So that's a miss.

Maybe it's, maybe, maybe there was a Greek word that said unicorn that slipped into some manuscript that he had, whatever, either way, that's what he's trying to tease out here. So don't worry about unicorns here, but he says, therefore the unconquerable nature of the Lord

is likened to a unicorn, both because of his rule, or sorry, both because of his arche. And here, his rule upon everything, and because he has one arche of himself. Okay, so let's back up. Therefore, the unconquerable nature of the Lord is likened to a unicorn, both because of his arche upon everything, and because he has one arche of himself, the father for the head, Kephale of Christ is God. Oh, earlier he described the unicorn as a royal ruling animal, archegos, archegos, not made subject to man, his strength, unconquerable, always living in deserted places, trusting in his one horn, therefore the unconquerable nature.

So when he describes unicorn, he describes unconquerable nature of the Lord. So when he describes a unicorn, he describes it as this kind of conquering, ruling type figure. And he compares this to God for the, or to Christ. And so Christ is compared to a unicorn. And then he says, because the father is, oh, the unconquerable nature of the Lord is like a new unicorn, both because of his arche and because he has one arche of himself, namely the father, the head of Christ is God. So go back and read this.

I know I'm kind of choppy here, jumping around. It seems, again, as far as I can see here, to convey some sense of authority, some rulership. Here's a passage, another passage in Eusebius, but fear, oh man, lest having confessed two substances, you would bring into Arches, ruler source beginnings, and would fall from the monarchical deity. Learn then thus, since there is one unbegun and unbegotten God, and since the Son has been begotten from him, there will be one Arche and one monarchy and kingdom, since even the Son himself claims his Father as Arche, for the head of Christ is God, according to the Apostle. Grudem just has a one-line commentary on this passage. He says, quote, again, Eusebius explains the head of Christ is God to imply that God the Father has supreme authority and the Son is not another authority equal to him.

I think, I mean, Grudem, I think he might be right here, but his interpretation does depend on arche meaning ruler rather than source or beginning. To my mind, it's a little more ambiguous to me. I don't think arche meaning ruler just leaps off the pages here. Eusebius does say that the son has been begotten from him. There is one, turns to be one Archaic. And this seems to suggest Archaic might mean source or beginning here. I just think it's difficult to say. I'm just going to plead the fifth on this one.

Maybe with a lean towards some kind of authority. Okay, here's a really long passage from Chrysostom. Is it Chrysostom or Chrysostom? This one often comes up in the conversation. I see this text site a lot among scholars. It's his commentary, his homily 26 on 1 Corinthians, where he's interacting with 1 Corinthians 11.3. Okay. I'm not going to read the whole thing. It's really long. And I cite the whole thing and I kind of go point by point commentary on

my understanding of kind of the flow of thought from Chrysostom. flow of thought from Chrysostom. In summary, he is responding to Arian heretics who rush upon this passage, he says, to show that Christ is not God. So that's the thing. And again, fact check this, it seems that 1 Corinthians 11.3 became kind of a hotly debated text among those who said Christ is not God and those who believe Christ was God. Those who say Christ is not God would say, see, here you have a distinction between the Father and the Son. The Father, God the Father, is the head of Christ. and the son, the father, God, the father is the head of Christ. So that's making a distinction between, um, God, the divine God, father and Christ, who is who they take it, take him, take, take Paul to say he's not God because the head of Christ is God.

So, so you have a lot of early church fathers that kind of are responding to that, to that interpretation. And so that's, what's going on here in Chrysostom. Now, he doesn't, my understanding here, he doesn't, he could have just said, look, head means source, not authority. So there's no, it's not, you know, he could have easily nipped this whole interpretation of the bud if he just said head means source. He doesn't, he doesn't really say that.

He goes into the kind of long defense on how God, the Father, can be in authority over Christ, and yet Christ still is ontologically equal to the Father. That's what he's trying to show here. So here's my summary, I guess. As far as I can tell, Chrysostom is granting the premise of his opponents that the relationship between the father and son correlates with the husband and the wife, and he doesn't clearly say that kephalae means source in his interpretation. He does agree that head means authority, but he wants to go on to show why this does not imply ontological subordination. show why this does not imply ontological subordination. So, here, let me just read maybe a second here. Do you understand the term had differently in the case of the man and the woman from what thou dost in the case of Christ? See, here's like, what are you saying? Therefore, in the case of the father and the son, we must understand it differently also. How understand it differently? Says the objector, according to the occasion, for Paul

had meant to speak of rule and subjection, as you would say, he would not have brought forward the instance of the wife, but rather of slave and master. So here he, Trisostom seems to distinguish between two kinds of rule and subjection. One is between slave and master, where there is ontological inequality, and another is between husband and wife, where there is still rule and subjection, but it's between two equals. I think this is a key statement here. Chrysostom is wrestling with two different understandings of rule and subjection. One between slave and master, which implies ontological

inferiority. Another is between husband and wife, where the wife still submits to her husband. The husband is still in charge. The husband is still the leader, but such submission is as an ontological equal. And this is what Chrysostom used to say this is similar to the relationship between the father and son. They are ontologically equal to say anything other would be heresy, would be Arian. But there is still the father having authority over the son. He goes on to say, for what if the wife be under subjection to us? It is as a wife, as a free, as equal in honor. And the son also, though he did become obedient to the father, it was as the son of God. It was as God. For if we admire the son that he was obedient so as to come even unto death and the death of the

cross and reckon this the great wonder concerning him, we ought to admire the father also that he begot such a son, not as a slave under command, but as free, yielding obedience and giving counsel, for the counselor is no slave. Then he goes on to interact with 1 Timothy 2, where women are to be silent in church. Ephesians 5, where the wife submits to the husband, and the husband is ahead of the wife. So from my best understanding of this passage, and again, I would encourage you, if you're interested, go read the full, you can find the homily online. Again, I'm not sure if the translation is the best, but if you just Google homily 26 Chrysostom, it'll take maybe 10 minutes to read the whole homily. And because I think the context of the whole homily is important for understanding

how he's wrestling with the meaning of kephale here. As far as I understand Chrysostom, he's arguing that neither the son's submission to the father nor the wife's submission to her husband, both of which are implied in the use of kephale in 1 Corinthians 11.3, he's arguing that this does not imply ontological subordination, which is the heretical view he's attacking. The heretical view that did reach to 1 Corinthians 11. it did reach to 1 Corinthians 11, sorry, yeah, 1 Corinthians 11, 3 to say that the son is not divine on par with the father. So in his entire discussion, he seems to assume that Kefla does convey some sense of authority, not simply source apart from authority. That's my best reading of it. Some people critique me in the comment section, so I encourage you to go and read those criticisms so that you have

a good understanding of how different people are understanding this passage. There's other places where Chrysostom clearly uses tefillah to mean authority. In the homily five on first versus second Thessalonians, he says, thou art the head of the woman. Let then the head regulate the rest of the body. Dost thou not see that it is not so much above the head of the woman, let then the head regulate the rest of the body. Dost thou not see that it is not so much above the rest of the body and situation as in forethought directing like a steersman the whole of it? For in the head are the eyes both of the body and the soul, hence flows to them both the faculty of seeing and the power of directing. And the rest of the body is appointed for service. Later on, he says, he's kind of teasing out this body metaphor.

So let us rule the women. Let us surpass them, not by seeking greater honor from them, but by their being more benefited by us. Kathleen Kroger says that this is clear proof that Kephli means source. And I just, I don't, she actually leaves out some parts here where in this passage, it expands upon men ruling over women. So I think that's something that I was kind of frustrated in my research. Like whenever a scholar references something or cites a passage, kind of frustrated in my research like whenever a scholar references something or cites a passage there's several times when they don't cite certain sections or leave out or stop short of a section

that went against their interpretation that happens on i saw it on kind of both those who want kephalade to mean source and those who want it to mean authority so i i this is where i just i became frustrated like i just i can't trust people's references. They list in their footnotes saying, head means authority. Here's all these passages. And they'll maybe quote one or two and give a list of a bunch of others. I'm like, well, I have to go do my own work here because every time I turn around, it seems like they're just kind of citing passages in a way that supports their argument. Not in every case, but it happened enough to where i just it did get kind of

frustrating kind of like that earlier reference when people cite photius as a classical greek writer when he's writing the 9th century a.d yeah homily okay chrysostom homily uh is this chrysostom yeah chrysostom he refers to the the king is the summit and head of all men on the earth uh of all the cities that lie in the East. Our city is the head and mother. Um, some people say this just means prominence. Maybe it's prominence, prominence without authority though. Like as a King, just simply prominent, not authoritative. Like that seems like a stretch to me. Uh, 20 on Ephesians, Chris Austin says, then after saying the husband is the head of the wife,

as Christ is also the head of the church, he further adds that he is a savior of the body, for indeed the head is a saving health of the body. He has already laid down beforehand for man and wife, the ground and provision of their love, assigning to each their proper place to the one that of authority and forethought to the other that of submission. As then the church,

that is both husbands and wives, is subject to Christ. So also ye wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as unto God. This seems to be a clear instance of head meaning authority. Homily three on Ephesians. I'll let you go look up this reference. I'm just kind of scanning it right now.

Seems to be talking about the exalted position of Christ based on Ephesians 1, 21 and 22. Seems to convey some sense of authority. He's understanding there. There's several other places where the early church fathers seem to use kephale to mean authority or leader. Gregory of Nyssa refers to Peter as the head of the apostles. Pseudochristusum says, did not the pillar of the church, Peter, that foundation of faith, that head of the chorus of the apostles, deny Christ once and twice and thrice?

Again, Peter had a leadership role, didn't he? Among the apostles, whether he was a good leader or not, I don't think he opened the question, but I don't think he was just prominent among the leaders. Certainly wasn't among the apostles. Certainly wasn't the source of the apostles. Tertullian says,

the head of every man is Christ. What Christ? If he is not the author of man, the head here, he has put for authority. Now authority will accrue to no one else than the author. I'm not sure the, oh,

so he's writing in Latin. So some people say, ah, it doesn't count because the Latin word caput, is it caput? Uh, does mean authority. Well,

I think it's at least worth mentioning here that, you know, Tertullian writing Latin, I had no problem understanding Christ as head, meaning authority. Shepherd of Hermes, this is an early Christian writing. He calls the husband the head of his household in a way that suggests authority. Another epigram of Gregory of Nazianzus, 4th century AD. Am I pronouncing that right? Nazianzus of Nazianzus, 4th century AD. Am I pronouncing that right? Nazianzus?

Nazianzus? Gregory is called the head of a wife and three children, which to me kind of seems to suggest authority. Okay. Okay. So here's how I'm concluding the church fathers. My lack of expertise in this material prevents me from making any strong conclusions.

So tentatively, I think it does appear that several church fathers understood the head metaphor in 1 Corinthians 11, 3 and Regents 5, 23 to convey some sense of authority. We do have at least one writer, Cyril of Alexandria,

and perhaps even one creed. Ooh, I didn't read that. I'll let you go back and read that. Which understands kephalade to mean source without any clear notions in the context of conveying authority, while others understand kephalade to mean source, but as grounds for authority. We saw this in Clement of Alexandria and Theodore of Masposes. Other authors, Chrysostom, Basil the Great, possibly Irenaeus, seem to understand kephephale as authority with or without any sense of, or with or without some sense of prominence.

And there's several passages that are complicated with the correlation between Kephale and Arche. So a couple points of conclusion. I just, first, I don't think it's unheard of that Kephale would be used to convey some sense of authority in greek literature including the lxx the early church fathers um so if if in as much as this is capturing the linguistic world of the apostle paul i don't think it's a stretch at all that paul would could at least use kephale to mean authority i i want to be sensitive secondly of the the kind of misogynistic world that the early church fathers were living into here. So, um,

and again, just to repeat what I said earlier, just, just because the early church fathers had some, at least had no problem saying, yeah, husband's the head of the wife. He's an authority over her.

She should obey him. I, I don't want to say like we should adopt that, that that's a, a, a, a correct, uh, rendering or even application of Paul's words. I also don't want to endorse some kind of chronological snobbery where just because they are living in a more misogynistic world that their world is – that they're just terrible interpreters of Paul.

So I want to balance that. I don't want to just take their interpretation for granted just because they're closer in time to Paul. So I want to balance that. I don't want to just take their interpretation for granted just because they're closer in time to Paul, nor do I want to say they have nothing to offer. I do think the early father's interpretation of Kephale is of limited value, not of no value. I just think it's a bit limited because they are writing after the time of Paul. And especially since I think they were interacting with misinterpretations of 1 Corinthians 11.3. They were kind of going out of the way to show that Christ is God in this passage. I think that should at least be considered. So anyway, that's where we're at. I think the one thing we can say for sure is that I don't really agree with either Philip Payne or Wayne Grudem's assessment here.

I think it's a little more complicated. I do think Wayne Grudem is more correct. So when people say the church fathers interpret kephale overwhelmingly to mean source and not authority, I just don't see that from the evidence. I mean, maybe you do. Maybe every passage that I read, you're like, no, I think you're not interpreting it correctly. And that's fair, I guess.

From my vantage point, it seems like there's several passages where kephali clearly means authority. Now, I think Wayne and Grudem, I think, takes a few extra passages to mean authority when I think it's just not so clear. But I think if you compare Wayne Grudem's kind of summary of the church fathers, or his, you know, as he combs through them, I think his interpretation is more often more correct than those who criticize his interpretation. Okay, this is getting super long. Um, we haven't even gotten into

the book of Ephesians and that that's where we're going to go next, but I'm going to close this out here because I want to give us a breather. Um, we've had a lot to digest. Uh, so this is going to be part one of, uh, of a two-part series on the meaning of Kephale in Ephesians. This is all background material. This is just getting our heads around what Kephale means, could mean. So in the next episode, I want to dive into Ephesians. I want to first of all look at Ephesians,

the two other places where Kephale occurs in Ephesians. So it occurs three times in a metaphor. And it occurs first in 122, then in 415, and then in 523. And so I want to look at those first two uses of kephale. Then I want to look at the context of Ephesians 5, specifically its relationship to other Greco-Roman household codes. And I have a whole blog post on that. And then finally, I want to dive specifically into, once we have our minds and hearts and interpretive lenses around Ephesians 5 in the context of Greco-Roman household codes, then I think we can be in a proper place to understand

what Paul means by Kephali in 5.23. The husband is the Kephali of his wife. And not just what Paul means, but what Paul's doing with that meaning. I do think Paul's rhetorical movement is very important in what he's doing in Ephesians 5. So thank you for listening, the three of you who may still be listening right now. And we will see you next time on Theology Draw, where I will dive deeper into the meaning of kephale in Ephesians 5. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.