tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46815442283561386972024-02-06T22:08:07.397-08:00This, That, and the Other ThingWhat you get here: this comment on religion, that comment on government, and the other thing on them both.gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.comBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-73444581092053683742017-08-16T11:03:00.000-07:002017-08-31T06:01:32.737-07:00Show Stoppers – Kephale Redux: Heading to a Head on the Heady Heading of “The Meaning of ‘Head’: leader or not”.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" ,;">Back in 2010, I wrote a series called “Show Stoppers” where I explored some of the biblical passages and concepts that divide the church when it comes to gender relations. One of those posts dealt with the Greek word <i>kephale</i>, which translates as “head” in English. Specifically, I addressed this word as it is used by Paul in his head/body metaphors. I did not address other meanings of the word, noting that “the ongoing debate between [other] definitions is at the forefront of discussion of the difficult text of 1 Corinthians 11” and that those distinctions will need resolving at some future point. Apparently that time has come<span class="fullpost">, as I continue to hear Christians use 1 Corinthians 11 as a proof text that husbands are designated to “lead” their wives.<br />
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The fundamental question at issue here is: does <i>kephale</i> have a meaning of “leader” in Greek? Before any interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11 (and also Ephesians 5) takes place, we need to know what “head” means. If it does not mean “leader”, such a meaning should not be forced into the text of scripture and interpretations and teachings of certain passages need to be adjusted accordingly. If it does mean “leader”, then based on 1 Corinthians 11 complementarians have a legitimate claim to male authority in marriage. Such a chasm is why the meaning of a single word turns into a show stopper.<br />
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Back in that 2010 post, I also wrote this in regard to definitions: “both sides have their favorite lexicon which they say proves their point.” Most Christian lexicons grant an authoritarian meaning to <i>kephale</i>. Here are the Thayer definitions as shown on <a href="https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2776&t=KJV"><u>blueletterbible.org</u></a>:<br />
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1. the head, both of men and often of animals. Since the loss of the head destroys life, this word is used in the phrases relating to capital and extreme punishment.<br />
2. metaph. anything <i>supreme, chief, prominent</i><br />
a. of persons, <b><i>master, lord</i>: of a husband in relation to his wife</b><br />
b. of Christ: the Lord of the husband and of the Church<br />
c. of things: the corner stone<br />
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Definitions 2.a. and b. are derived directly from 1 Corinthians 11. I would argue that they show interpretational bias. In other words, the definition is being driven by a historical interpretation, not the other way around. But maybe <i>kephale</i> has a broad meaning of “leader” in ancient Greek. What do more general Greek lexicons have to say about the word?<br />
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The definitive Greek lexicon for research and study purposes is the Liddell-Scott lexicon, which can be viewed online at <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu"><u>http://www.perseus.tufts.edu</u></a>. It incorporates all of the Greek literature from ancient times, including the Greek New Testament from Westcott and Hort. Certainly, if <i>kephale</i> means “leader”, we would find that usage in other texts that are contemporaries of the bible. Yet the entry for <i>kephale</i>[1] in Liddell-Scott shows no such meaning anywhere in ancient Greek literature (including the New Testament). The basic meanings in Liddell-Scott are: anatomical head; the top, end, or leading edge of objects; and source, origin, or starting point of something. Nothing in the extensive entry comes close to showing authority of one thing over another.<br />
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So how do we resolve this discrepancy? I would suggest we should go to a third source – one that is contemporaneous with and even contributory to the New Testament, and which has biblical relevance. That other source is the Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Why is such an investigation helpful? Because Hebrew also has a word for “head”, namely <i>ro’sh</i>, and that word definitely includes meanings that convey authority. The question is: in contexts where the Hebrew word <i>ro’sh</i> means some kind of leader or authority, is it translated as <i>kephale</i> in Greek, or is another Greek word substituted? If <i>kephale</i> is the translation, then the ancient Greek translators recognize “leader” as a legitimate definition for <i>kephale</i>. If not, they recognize the opposite: that <i>kephale</i> does not include “leader” as one of its meanings.<br />
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The Hebrew word <i>ro’sh</i> shares much with the English word “head”. As it is in English, <i>ro’sh</i> has a wide variety of meanings. In the NASB translation of the Old Testament, <i>ro’sh</i> is translated using 41 different English words and expressions. A sampling:<br />
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• beginning<br />
• captain<br />
• census<br />
• chief (i.e. foremost)<br />
• chief[tain]<br />
• company (i.e. military group)<br />
• end<br />
• exalted<br />
• finest<br />
• first<br />
• head (of human or animal)<br />
• head of...(i.e. start, source, or origin)<br />
• head of...[some group]<br />
• head of...house[hold]<br />
• leader<br />
• master<br />
• sum<br />
• summit<br />
• top<br />
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One would assume that if <i>kephale</i> had as broad a range of meaning, we would see a similar translational pattern in the New Testament. But the opposite is true. In the same translation, the NASB, the word <i>kephale</i> is translated as “head” in EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE except where an Old Testament Psalm is quoted. That same pattern is true regardless of English translation. Why would the translators not use “leader” or some equivalent if they felt that the meaning had an authoritarian component? They did for <i>ro’sh</i> in the Old Testament, so why not for <i>kephale</i> in the New Testament? The only conclusion is that unlike <i>ro’sh</i>, the Greek word <i>kephale</i> has a very narrow set of meanings.<br />
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That is not conclusive, so back to the Septuagint we must go. Forget English translations, how did the Septuagint translators handle the transition of <i>ro’sh</i> into Greek? If <i>kephale</i> was universally equivalent to <i>ro’sh</i>, we would see a one-to-one pattern of translation. Again, we see the opposite. In the Septuagint, <i>ro’sh</i> is translated into 22 different Greek words, with a range of meanings similar to the range in English.<br />
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That is still not conclusive as it does not address the Greek translation when the meaning points to some kind of leadership or authority. So we dig deeper. Of the 596 occurrences of <i>ro’sh</i> in the Old Testament, 128 indicate some kind of leadership or authority. Significantly, almost half of those occurrences refer to the “head of…father’s households”, which has particular application in family relationships. Other occurrences refer to military and civic leaders. (It goes without saying that all of these leaders are men.) Obviously, there was ample opportunity for the translators to make a connection between <i>ro’sh</i> and <i>kephale</i> in a leadership context if such a link was appropriate. So did such a linkage occur? By now the answer should be obvious. In all but a few verses in Judges and one in Lamentations, the translators chose words unrelated to <i>kephale</i> to convey a meaning of leadership. And in those rare instances where <i>kephale</i> was used, it is unclear if leadership or prominence is the actual intended meaning of <i>ro’sh</i>.<br />
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The Greek translators of the Old Testament, who were contemporaries of Paul, have made clear through their translation of <i>ro’sh</i> that, when “head” in the Hebrew means leader or authority, <i>kephale</i> is not an appropriate equivalent in the Greek. Put simply, <i>kephale</i> does not mean leader or authority as evidenced by those who spoke the language at the time. Imposing a definition of “leader” on <i>kephale</i> is a misapplication of one of the English meanings of “head” and represents an interpretational bias. Greek has different words that are used when such a meaning is intended and Paul certainly would have used those alternates if he had meant to convey leadership in 1 Corinthians 11[2]. What <i>kephale</i> does mean, a meaning it shares with <i>ro’sh</i>, is source or origin. It is that definition that should be applied in 1 Corinthians 11 and interpretation and teaching should follow[3]. Insistence on an authoritarian definition despite the evidence is a show stopper, and aborts any meaningful discussion on gender relations.<br />
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Notes:<br />
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1. Here is the Tufts URL for the <i>kephale</i> entry in Liddell-Scott: <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dkefalh%2F"><u>http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dkefalh%2F</u>
</a><br />
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2. The most common Greek equivalent to <i>ro’sh</i> in authoritarian contexts is <i>archon</i>. Does Paul know the word <i>archon</i> and does he use it extensively? Yes to the first and no to the second. Paul uses it only four times. In three he is referring to the “princes of the world”. But that is not definitive. Paul rarely talks about leadership or authority in any contexts, and never addresses it directly in marriage except in 1 Corinthians 7 where husbands and wives mutually have authority over each other’s body.<br />
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3. An exhaustive study of 1 Corinthians 11 including the meaning of <i>kephale</i> in context has been undertaken by Cheryl Schatz at her Women in Ministry blog. In lieu of a separate Show Stoppers post on the 1 Corinthians passage, I highly recommend the reader go to Women in Ministry and review all the material there. You can access the blog at the following URL: <a href="https://mmoutreach.org/wim/"><u>https://mmoutreach.org/wim/</u></a>.
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gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-77610038221548338582015-01-09T07:35:00.000-08:002015-01-09T10:21:20.094-08:00Naming Eve<span style="font-family: arial,san-serif;">Back in 2008, I wrote a series titled “Equality in the Original Marriage Design”. In one of the posts, I addressed several arguments that are used to support a hierarchy in the first marriage; one where Adam has authority over Eve. That original post can be <a href="http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2008/09/equality-in-original-marriage-design.html">found here</a>. <br />
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I was recently listening to a sermon series from a prominent LA area mega-church where one of these arguments was used to maintain that husbands have a superior position in marriage and are designed to “lead” their wives. Specifically, the pastor was using the “naming” argument to claim male authority. The argument goes like this: <br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Naming is an act of authority over the thing named. </li>
<li>Adam named the animals, establishing his authority over them. </li>
<li>Adam then named Eve in the same way, establishing his authority over her. </li>
</ol>
Those who follow this blog should not be surprised that I had a rather visceral response to that sermon. Apparently this argument is alive and well even in laid back So-Cal evangelical churches. This experience prompts me to write an even stronger rebuttal to this erroneous conclusion about the text of Genesis 2.
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I am going to repeat and enhance the rebuttal from that 2008 post and then add 2 more reasons why the “naming” argument is incorrect and even dangerous. <br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>“Your Delta Tau Chi name is…”</b> <br />
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In the movie Animal House, there are several ways in which the fraternity members exercise authority over their new pledges. One of them is by giving each pledge a new name. This concept of “naming = possession of/authority over” is certainly not new. Like birthright, it has been a staple of societies throughout history. Even our common practice of having the new wife “take the name” of her husband is a faint reflection of the patriarchal notion that a woman is the property of her husband. So goes the naming argument when applied to the first marriage. Because Adam named Eve (twice, no less), he automatically assumes a position of superiority, authority, and ownership over her, and she becomes subservient to him. So what is wrong with this reasoning? <br />
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First of all, it is man-made. God has never said that naming something gives you dominion over that something. Apologists for this line of reasoning admit no less. They say things like “in the culture of the day, naming….” or “it was a common practice to name….” or “in the ancient world, to name….” In other words, it was a practice of fallen man, not a teaching of God. There is a further problem with this. In the garden, there was no ancient world, no common practice, no culture of the day to appeal to. Even if naming did become an established exercise of authority over time, Adam certainly could not have looked at it that way. Where was his frame of reference? Only if God had decreed that it was so could Adam have viewed his naming of the animals as an authoritarian practice. If God had meant it as such, certainly he would have said so. Of course, God had a very different purpose and outcome in mind for Adam when he brought the animals to him to be named. More on that shortly. <br />
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While naming may have cultural significance, in reality it holds no power at all. Humans don’t have dominion over the animals because Adam named them; they have dominion because God delegated it to them. The dominion would exist whether Adam named the animals or not. The naming of the animals was simply a function that Adam performed with no authoritarian weight to it. Moreover, the dominion role was given to all humans, male and female. Presumably, if there were animals left to name, Eve would have been just as qualified and empowered to name some of them. <br />
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In fact, nowhere in the bible does it say that it is the male’s unilateral job to name anything, nor does it teach that naming something gives you authority over or possession of that thing. As we have learned, that is a cultural standard, not a godly standard. In fact, there are many significant cases of women naming things (mostly children). Are we to assume that Eve had sole dominion and authority over Able and Seth (Genesis 4:1, 25) because she named them instead of Adam? What about the command of the angel that Mary was to name Jesus (Luke 1:31)? Did that cut Joseph out of the picture in terms of having authority over his son? In reality, the naming of something does not grant any authority that does not already exist. Parents have authority over their children not because they name them but because they simply are their parents. Humans have dominion over creation not because we name the animals but because God has designated us to rule over the earth. (As a side note, I’m sure the animals, in whatever way it is expressed, have names for us too). Naming is simply a necessary task with no inherent godly grant of superiority associated with it at all. The fact that we attach human significance to the act of naming does not impress God. <br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>A Rose by any other Name</b> <br />
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Even if naming did ascribe some form of authority to the namer, did Adam actually “name” the animals in line with the cultural practice? In fact, Adam didn't “name” the animals at all, he categorized them. For example, he didn’t call the male and female lions Simba and Nala, he called them “lion”. Claiming authority in Adam’s actions would be like saying you have authority (as does anybody else) over your child because you call it a “child”. Adam’s “naming” of Eve was actually a categorization of her in line with what he had been doing with the animals. Adam doesn't “name” Eve until Genesis 3 after the fall; his first act of <i>ungodly</i> authoritarian rule over her. <br />
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Furthermore, Adam’s act of categorizing the animals wasn't an act of authority; it was an act of discovery. Note the purpose for God sending the animals to him: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). No other reason or circumstance is given to explain God’s purpose. Do not miss this. There was only one thing in all of creation that was “not good”. Adam’s authority over the animals was perfectly intact. There was no need to establish that. Only his alone state needed to be addressed. God’s exercise for him has no other purpose than to solve that one “not good” thing. Therefore, God sent the animals to Adam to be investigated, observed, and cataloged. What did this accomplish? First, it allowed Adam to see that there were no other animals morphologically like him. Second, it allowed Adam to see that every other animal had a mate except him. God’s entire purpose was to show Adam that it was not good that he was alone. This revelation leads to Adam’s exclamation when Eve is finally presented to him. His subsequent categorization of her is to point out that she is what the animals were not – someone just like him – “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” (Genesis 2:23). It isn't an expression of authority; it is an expression of joy. <br />
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<b>Woman! Know Thy Place</b> <br />
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Perhaps the most disturbing and even dangerous result of the “naming” argument is the position in which it leaves women. <i>If</i> Adam’s naming of the animals is an expression of his authority over them and <i>if</i> his naming of Eve is a parallel act, then it leaves Eve at the same level in the hierarchy as the animals. This would be in direct contrast to the declaration in Genesis 1:28 that men and women equally rule over the animals. <br />
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The naming argument also infantilizes Eve. Even if you are not bold enough to lower Eve to the level of the animals (the correct conclusion to the naming argument), at best you reduce her to the level of a child. Even in ancient culture, peers did not name each other. The practice, in human circles, was limited almost exclusively to parents naming children. If Adam’s “naming” of Eve is a legitimate practice of authority, it is the authority of a parent over a child. Are our women, and especially our wives, equal only to our children? We say “of course not” but the naming argument says definitively “yes!” <br />
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The sad reality is that this paradigm is exactly what we see since the fall. Patriarchy through the ages has treated women as no more than chattel (talk about your cultural “norms”). The “naming” argument supports this patriarchal position. God told us, because of sin, men would “rule” over women in a domineering, ungodly way. Patriarchy is the ultimate expression of that rule. The “naming” of Eve is one of the fundamental debating points in support of patriarchy. Yet this sinful rule of women is clearly in contrast to the pre-fall gender relationship and the naming of Eve (if authoritarian) is clearly in contrast to the gender-equal dominion granted to humans in Genesis 1. Pay attention to this point. If the naming argument is correct, then Genesis 2 is a complete repudiation of Genesis 1 and puts the garden relationship on par with the Genesis 3 post-fall relationship. <br />
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Put simply, the “naming” argument contradicts everything we know about God’s purpose for Eve and God’s designed gender equality <i>before the fall</i>. Only after the fall do we see gender inequality. The naming argument is an appeal to gender inequality, is completely man-made, and has no place being applied to the wonderful, symbiotic, loving, equal relationship God designed in the Garden.<br />
</span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-58853890971615581482013-04-09T12:44:00.000-07:002013-04-09T12:46:02.755-07:00David and Jonathan - Part IIc<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">...a continuation of the detailed analysis begun in this post: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4681544228356138697#editor/target=post;postID=2834422527901182714;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=3;src=postname">Were David and Jonathan Gay Lovers?</a><span class="fullpost">
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Another claim arises from this last verse that we have examined. In the first half it speaks of how “pleasant” Jonathan was to David, but in the second half of the verse, we read this:
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Quote:<br />
2 Sam 1:26b Your love to me was more wonderful Than the love of women.
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Is David saying, in the midst of his mourning over both Saul and Johnathan, that he prefers sex with Jonathan over sex with women? I suppose, if one were to take just that phrase alone without context one might raise an eyebrow. But a more complete read of the text makes the meaning clear. David starts the verse off with the words “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan.” David declares the relationship here. If he had said “my lover Jonathan”, we could throw out everything I have said to this point. Instead, David’s own words confirm that which the scripture has already informed us: David and Jonathan had a brotherly love for each other. What David is telling us now, is that brotherly love has dimensions that exceed the bond and companionship that even a wife can provide. There is nothing to suggest that this refers to a "better" sexual love than sex with a woman. In fact, it reflects a stark non-sexual contrast to the sexual love between man and wife. David knew both the romantic, sexual, marital love of a woman (with Jonathan's sister, no less) and the “comrades in arms” love of a brother. David’s last words regarding Jonathan prove their love was of the latter type.
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One last word on words before I tackle the last minor argument. I have demonstrated how NONE of the words and phrases used in the text are universally or even remotely related to romance, sex, or marriage. But that doesn’t mean the bible doesn’t talk about those things. There are plenty of Hebrew idioms for, as well as direct discussions of, sex and marriage throughout the bible, including, importantly, descriptions of homosexual sex. But not a single one of them are used do describe David and Jonathan’s relationship. So, not only does the text not say what homosexual advocates say it says, but it is completely void of those expressions in the bible that do mean what they want it to mean.
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There is one final argument that I have heard regarding David and Jonathan. It is a minor consideration but I will cover it simply to avoid it coming up later. There are some who claim, through a very selective parsing of the text of 1 Sam 18:6-13, that Saul kept David under surveillance and then kicked him out of the palace because of Saul’s displeasure with David and his son’s sexual relationship. Here is all the pertinent text for review. The context and reason for Saul’s actions should be clear.
<br /><br />
Quote:<br />
1 Sam 18:6 It happened as they were coming, when David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments. 7. The women sang as they played, and said, "Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands." 8. Then Saul became very angry, for this saying displeased him; and he said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me they have ascribed thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?" 9. Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on... 12. Now Saul was afraid of David, for the LORD was with him but had departed from Saul. 13. Therefore Saul removed him from his presence and appointed him as his commander of a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people.
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Saul’s motivation is clearly jealousy over David’s fame, not any kind of anger over his relationship with Jonathan. In fact, at this point in the text, it is not even clear if Saul knew how close David and Jonathan were.
<br /><br />
Conclusion
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To conclude, there is simply no scriptural foundation to the theory that David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers. You may believe the theory if you want to, but do so knowing that you have no rational, factual basis for those beliefs. Enjoy your fantasy, but I prefer the truth.
</span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-49098009768358107962013-04-09T12:38:00.000-07:002013-04-09T12:46:14.752-07:00David and Jonathan - Part IIb<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">...A continuation of the detailed analysis begun in this post: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4681544228356138697#editor/target=post;postID=2834422527901182714;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=3;src=postname">Were David and Jonathan Gay Lovers?</a><span class="fullpost">
<br /><br />
The next set of arguments focuses on three words in three verses which supposedly insinuate romantic or sexual relations. The verses are:
<br /><br />
Quote:<br />
1 Sam 19:2b ...But Jonathan, Saul's son, greatly delighted in David<br />
1 Sam 20:3a Yet David vowed again, saying, "Your father knows well that I have found favor in your sight...<br />
2 Sam 1:26a I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me.<br />
<br /><br />
It is suggested that the first word, translated “delighted”, refers to sexual intimacy. This is another one of those generic words that can refer to many kinds of delight, desire, or preference. The context determines who delights in whom or what. Sometimes it refers to a husband’s delight in his wife, but even those cases are not specifically sexual. It refers more to whether or not he is generally happy with her. Esther 2:14 may possibly refer to, or emphasize, the sexual component of a woman’s appeal to King Xerxes as he seeks a queen. But that is not clear. Otherwise, it is used in many, many different ways. We delight in God, God delights in us, kings delight in their subjects, fathers delight in their sons, etc. It should be noted that this very same word is used in the previous chapter. 1 Sam 18:22 says – “And Saul commanded his servants, [saying], Commune with David secretly, and say, Behold, the king hath delight in thee, and all his servants love thee: now therefore be the king's son in law.” Clearly, this has no sexual overtones to it at all. So, the Hebrew word translated “delighted” is not an idiom for sexual intimacy and may very likely never refer to sexual intimacy, or, if it does so, only does so once out of 75 OT occurrences.
<br /><br />
The next suggestion is that the “favor” David found in Jonathan’s sight was of a romantic nature, as if to say Jonathan was romantically smitten with David. As with the other words or phrases we are examining, we need to see if such a use for the word exists elsewhere. The word translated “favor” or “grace” occurs 69 times in the Old Testament. It is almost always used to refer to the “favor” a person in authority shows to a subordinate. Even the few times it is used within a martial context, it reflects the patriarchal notion that the inferior wife finds favor in the superior husband’s eyes. There is never a sense of any romance involved. In addition, as we have found with most of these words and phrases, we have an example right within the 1 Samuel narrative we are reviewing which clearly shows the meaning of the word. 1 Sam 16:22 says – “And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me; for he hath found favor in my sight”. As even a casual reader of the Old Testament knows, Saul had NO romantic feelings for David.
<br /><br />
Finally, it is suggested that the “pleasant” company that Jonathan and David kept has romantic or sexual overtones. A scriptural review of the word is once again in order. This word occurs only 8 times in the OT in its verbal form, and 13 times as an adjective. Two times in Song of Solomon it refers to the feelings of one of the lovers to the other. All other references to human relations are decidedly not romantic. Two such uses stand out. In Psalm 133:1, David exclaims “how pleasant it is For brothers to dwell together in unity!” Here, David himself, the composer of this lament that we are looking at regarding Saul and Jonathan, uses the same expression to refer to the bonds of brotherhood. But we don’t even need to go outside of the lament in question. Just 3 verses earlier (v. 23), David says “"Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their life, And in their death they were not parted…” There is no reason to believe that the pleasantness David speaks of in verse 26 is any different than the pleasantness he speaks of in verse 23 (which also includes Saul), where it is not romantic in any way.
</span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-81348401854271186882013-04-09T12:31:00.000-07:002013-04-09T12:46:59.014-07:00David and Jonathan - Part IIa<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">In the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4681544228356138697#editor/target=post;postID=2834422527901182714;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=3;src=postname">previous post</a>, I gave a brief, verse by verse, breakdown of the claim and the facts surrounding the preposterous idea that David and Jonathan were gay lovers. Below and in the next couple of posts is a more detailed exegetical analysis.<span class="fullpost">
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The first verse relating David and Jonathan is 1 Samuel 18:1. It supposedly contains three such "proofs" that their relationship was romantic and sexual. (Also listed are the two other verse that echo one of the "proof" phrases.)
<br /><br />
Quote:<br />
1 Sam 18:1 Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself.
<br /><br />
Quote:<br />
1 Sam 18:3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.<br />
1 Sam 20:17 Jonathan made David vow again because of his love for him, because he loved him as he loved his own life.
<br /><br />
Proponents of the theory say that:
<br /><br />
1. the "love" that is mentioned is inherently romantic,<br />
2. that the phrase "knit to the soul of" harkens back to Genesis 2:24 and the "oneness" of marriage,<br />
3. that the phrase "loved him as himself" is a marital idiom. (this is repeated in 1 Sam 18:3 and 1 Sam 20:17)
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The Hebrew word translated "loved" is 'ahab (and the noun derivative 'ahabah). It is like our word "love" in that it can mean many things and many kinds or degrees of love. Although it can mean the romantic love between two spouses, it does not inherently mean that. Context, primarily the participants in the love, determines what particular "flavor" of love is involved. So, we need to look at the rest of the text to determine that context. Let us see if there is anything in the surrounding text which suggests, even remotely, that romantic, sexual, or marital relations are being discussed.
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The Hebrew word translated "knit" is qashar. It is a verb meaning to bind or tie together. It can also mean to conspire against. In terms of human relationships, it is used 18 times in the sense of a group in a conspiracy. It is only used 2 other times for human relationships and both times it references this binding of two souls. The one time is, of course, in the reference to David and Jonathan. The other occurrence is in Genesis 44:31 referring to the relationship between Jacob and his son Benjamin. After Benjamin had been framed for stealing, Judah is imploring Joseph (who the brothers do not recognize) to allow Benjamin to return to Jacob, for if he doesn't, Jacob will die of grief over the loss of his only other son by Rachel (the first being, of course, the very same Joseph). Judah describes this unbreakable father son bond in this way: "Now, therefore, when I come [i.e. return] to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since his life is bound [qashar] up in the lad's life; It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad [is] not [with us], that he will die". Unless one is to suggest that Jacob and Benjamin were incestuous gay lovers, the indication in this verse is that this "knitting of souls" is a father/son, or brother to brother type of bond. At any rate, that expression is never used in reference to husband/wife, marital bonds anywhere in the OT. And what of the leaving, cleaving, and oneness in Genesis? Well, those are completely different Hebrew words and expressions that are never used to describe David and Jonathan's relationship. The scriptural evidence demonstrates that this expression is not romantic in any way and enforces the fact that David and Jonathan were "as close as brothers".
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The third expression referring to Jonathan loving David as he loved himself occurs in three verse. The assertion is that this phrase mirrors Ephesians 5:28 - "So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;" and therefore is an idom for the marriage relationship. Of course, on the surface the two don't match up well because the verses related to Jonathan speak of his "soul", not his "body". Paul also goes on to make further reference to the church "body" and to Christ and the church. But Paul does also reference the Genesis 2 marriage declaration. Still, a comparison to similar wording in the New Testament is simply a diversion. The real issue is how the Hebrews of the Old Testament would have viewed this phrase. This form "loved...as...own...self/soul/life" only occurs four times in the Old Testament. The first three are, of course, the three verses noted above pertaining to Jonathan. But the forth is highly significant because it also uses this phrase AND speaks of the marital relationship. It is Deuteronomy 13:6 - "If your brother, your mother's son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice you secretly..." Note that the expression is here used to describe only friendship. It is expressly distinguished from the marriage relationship within the same verse. Here, we see that an expression that supposedly describes a marital relationship not only doesn't do so but is specifically contrasted with it.
</span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-28344225279011827142013-04-09T12:19:00.000-07:002013-04-09T12:24:14.098-07:00Were David and Jonathan Gay Lovers?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: arial,san-serif;">*sigh*<br /><br />
The gay marriage debate has brought up this very tired and sordid old lie about David and Johnathan and I feel compelled to respond with an old post of mine from christianforums.net to refute it. We should be past having to deal with this nonsense but alas, we are not. Get ready for a several part article.<span class="fullpost">
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This claim pops up from time to time in the forums as homosexual advocates struggle to find anything positive in scripture regarding homosexuality. I wrote a long refutation in a thread which I will repeat here and in the next few entries. The thread itself lived a very short life, probably due to the length of my commentary, and did not produce any tangible counter arguments (it didn't produce any debate at all). I think that means the reasoning was rather sound (*pats self on back*). Never-the-less, I wish to reproduce it now for posterity.
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Part I - An overview of the relevant scriptures.
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There are many here, including many of the more liberal Christians, that claim that not only is homosexual sex not universally condemned in the bible but that there is a homosexual relationship that is blessed by God. That is the supposed gay love affair of David and Jonathan. They go as far as to claim that David and Jonathan had the equivalence of a "marriage" and that it would be recognized by God as such. Although such speculation has always seemed preposterous to me, I had not ever actually done an exegesis of the associated texts to see if the claim had merit. That is until now. Below I will break down the "proof texts" that are claimed by proponents of this theory and show that there is absolutely no support or justification for their claim.
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For reference, the main chapters that relate David and Jonathan's relationship are 1st Samuel 18, 19, and 20, and 2nd Samuel 1.
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First let's take a 10,000 foot approach to the text. One of the claims is that God "blessed" this supposed affair and that God recognizes it as a "marriage". Since 1st and 2nd Samuel are books of history, we would need a direct confirmation that God weighed in on the events and relationships at hand. For example, in 1 Samuel 9:17 we have this - "And when Samuel saw Saul, the LORD said unto him, Behold the man whom I spake to thee of! this same shall reign over my people." Although this is a historical account of the ascent of Saul, we also know that God ordained Saul because God said it directly. Later, in 1 Sam 15:11, God says directly to Samuel - "It repenteth me that I have set up Saul [to be] king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night." God is interjecting His opinion into the history. Then God says in 1 Sam 16:1 - "And the LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons."
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In all of these texts, it is clear God is the one doing the blessing and rejecting, ordaining and dethroning. But, when one reads the texts regarding David and Jonathan, God is silent. Nowhere does it say that God blesses, ordains, or institutes their relationship. But God is not completely silent in the entirety of these passages. There is plenty of evidence that God blessed David in his military endeavors. But nowhere is such a blessing given for David's and Jonathan's relationship, per se. David and Jonathan do swear a covenant between them to the Lord. But that is for the prosperity and continued existence of their families in light of the imminent danger posed to David by Saul; kind of a "You watch my back, I'll watch yours" agreement. (We see David later honoring this covenant with Jonathan's son). So, regardless of what kind of relationship it was, the bible is meerly giving a historical account. The claim that God blessed the "love" relationship is without basis and the claim that God recognized it as a "marriage" is pure fantasy.
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Now let's look at the specific verses, phrases, and words that are claimed to show that David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers. There is a lot of analysis so I will summarize the findings first. In the second part I will give the detailed analysis of each claim.
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Claim: The use of "love" to describe David and Jonathan's relationship points to the romantic aspects of it.<br />
Truth: The Hebrew word is used for all kinds of love - romantic, brotherly, Godly, selfless (agape). Context decides.<br />
Ref: 1 Sam 18:1,3; 1 Sam 20:17 and others
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Claim: The phrase "the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David" alludes to the cleaving and oneness of the martial relationship as exemplified in Genesis 2:24.<br />
Truth: The phrase in this form relating to the knitting of two souls is used only one other time and that is for a father son relationship (Jacob/Benjamin). It is never used in scripture to describe romantic or marital relationships. The Hebrew word translated "cleave" in Genesis is a completely unrelated word.<br />
Ref: 1 Sam 18:1
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Claim: The phrase "he [Jonathan] loved him [David] as his own soul" is a marital idiom.<br />
Truth: This phrase is never used in OT scripture to describe a marriage relationship and in fact is used only one other time outside of the Jonathan and David narrative. There it actually unequivocally differentiates the love between close friends (the kind Jonathan and David had) from martial love (Deut. 16:6)<br />
Ref: 1 Sam 18:1,3; 1 Sam 20:17
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Claim: The phrase "Jonathan...greatly delighted in David" is a sexual innuendo.<br />
Truth: Like "love", the Hebrew word translated "delighted" is a generic term and context determines its use. Significantly, it is also used in the midst of the David/Jonathan narrative for Saul and the people's delight in David (1 Sam 18:22). It is never used in the OT to refer to sexual intimacy (a possible exception may be Esther 2:14), but instead refers to one person’s non-sexual (i.e. relational) satisfaction with another.<br />
Ref: 1 Sam 19:2
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Claim: The phrase "Your father [Saul] knows well that I [David] have found favor in your [Jonathan's] sight" is romantic.<br />
Truth: This is typically used as an expression between a subordinate and their superior, as in "let me find favor in your sight, O my lord, the king" (2 Sam 16:4). Saul even says of David in 1 Sam 16:22 that "he has found favor in my sight".<br />
Ref: 1 Sam 20:3
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Claim: The phrase "You [Jonathan] have been very pleasant to me [David]" refers to sexual intimacy.<br />
Truth: There is only one instance, in Song of Solomon, (a poetic book with clear sexual context vs. this historic book), that the word translated "pleasant" might be referring to sexual intimacy. Otherwise in scripture, it simply means delightful and is used non-sexually for both people and things. Significantly, in Psalm 113:1, it is used to describe the company of brothers.<br />
Ref: 2 Sam 1:26
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Claim: The Phrase "Your [Jonathan's] love to me [David] was more wonderful Than the love of women" is comparing the homosexual relationship to David's heterosexual relationships.<br />
Truth: This occurs in a lament over Jonathan's (and Saul's) death. The verse starts "I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan" clearly establishing that the relationship is brotherly. Rather than compare two types of sexual love, this verse contrasts brotherly love from sexual love.<br />
Ref: 2 Sam 1:26
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Claim: Saul was wary of David and first kept him under a watchful eye and then had him removed from the palace because of Saul's displeasure over David and Jonathan's homosexual affair.<br />
Truth: The surrounding verses make it clear that Saul's actions were out of jealousy that David was being so militarily successful and was receiving so many accolades from the people.<br />
Ref: 1 Sam 18:6-13
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The next few posts give a detailed breakdown of each of the above claims.
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gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-54492284732571295042012-10-30T12:16:00.004-07:002012-11-01T08:25:06.594-07:00“We’re Just Friends”: Opposite Sex Interaction Outside of Marriage - OR - How Wrong Is Really Right and Not Wrong Is Actually Wrong.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: arial,san-serif;">I’m fixin’ to make a speech…<br />
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This goes out to all the young husbands and husbands to be who believe their wives are unjustifiably trying to control and change them because their wives don’t like that they have social interactions with other women. YOU’RE ALL BUTT-HEADS. I will explain in a moment.<br />
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Let me preface my remarks by saying that I once felt the same way. Not that I had a lot of friends that were women, but I do get along with women pretty well. In all modesty, I’m a pretty charming guy. And, at least according to my wife, I’m also a pretty nice guy. And when I was young and first married, I saw nothing wrong with spending social time with other women from work or other social spheres. After all, they seemed to like having me around. And since I loved my wife and would never cheat on her, what could be the harm. I simply couldn’t understand why it bothered my wife. I would argue: “I’m not doing anything wrong”, the rallying cry of the mind stuck in singleness mode. But that was then…when I was a butt-head…just like you. I was wrong, and here is why..<br />
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<span style="font-size:1.5"><b>The situation…</b></span><br />
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You’re married (or in a serious, "leading to marriage", relationship), but you also have this girlfriend…er…friend who is a girl. She may be a new acquaintance or a lifelong pal. She may even be an old flame (which moves you up a class to stupid butt-head). You probably have no romantic interest in her at all, (although, if you have even the slightest twinge of attraction to her, you move up another notch to complete moron butt-head.) You and this girl are maintaining a social interaction* with each other, and your wife is none too happy about it. In fact, she’s very upset. Your description of her reaction is probably something like “psycho crazy jealous”. It makes no sense to you because you and this girl “are just friends”, and you “haven’t done anything wrong”. You feel your wife is just flat out wrong about you and this friend and you wish she would stop trying to control you and change who you are. Sound familiar, butt-head?<br />
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<span class="fullpost">
<span style="font-size:1.5"><b>Why your psycho crazy jealous wife is really right…
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When you make your wedding pledges, one thing that you promise to do is some version of: “forsaking all others, keep myself only to you (your spouse).” I have two bits of insight into women for you. First, they take that pledge very seriously. That should be no surprise, as I’m sure you take it just as seriously in regard to her monogamy. The second insight will probably be more startling – she considers that “forsaking” and “keeping” to go well beyond the sexual. Basically, your wife wants to be the ONLY woman in your life of any consequence (also why you must “leave” your father and, especially, your mother, and “cleave” to your wife). While she understands that you have to have business and other more formal interactions with women, she expects that in ALL social situations, you will “forsake” all other women and direct not only all of your affection but also ALL of your ATTENTION toward her. When you make your wedding vow, that is what you are promising from her perspective. ANY social attention toward another woman is attention taken from her and a violation of your promise to her. You may think that is crazy, but that is reality. If you aren’t ready to fulfill that promise, you aren’t ready for the type of oneness that marriage demands.<br />
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So, if you are carrying on a close social relationship with another woman, you are breaking your vow just as much as if you were sleeping with another woman. You may not see the connection but your wife sure does. And the betrayal she feels can be just as painful as it would be if you were engaged in full-fledged adultery. That is why your wife is perfectly justified in being “crazy psycho jealous”. Be honest now. If the tables were turned, you would probably be just as upset. Why? Because you’re a man and you know what men are thinking and even if you trust your wife, you don’t trust those other men. How come you think it should be any different for a woman? I got news for you; it isn’t.<br />
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Not only that, but she is justified in attempting to “control” you (she is actually just trying to bring order to the marriage) because your behavior is in fact, out of control. Frankly, if you can’t stop a trivial interaction with another woman, how can she be sure you can stop ANY interaction with other women? You need boundaries. It is truly unfortunate that you don’t have other men in your life to show you that because it leaves her to be the “bad guy”, but it is a lesson you need to learn anyway. I hate to be the bearer of such bad news but being married means that you can’t act the same way with women that you did when you were single.<br />
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Finally, she is justified in trying to “change” you, (or really, trying to show you what rightly needs to change in your life). What?!? You didn’t know you would have to change when you got married? You figured you could just go your merry way as if you were still single? Who did your marriage counseling anyway? Sorry to tell you this butt-head, but marriage is not a relationship where two people pursue their own agendas. It is a relationship where they forsake (there’s that word again) their individual pursuits and submit their lives to the good of the whole. That requires change, particularly in areas that are counter to oneness.<br />
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I hope that you see that, even though your wife is in essence wrong about you and your friend, she is actually quite justified in her reaction to your extra-marital relationship. “But”, you are probably screaming right now, “I still haven’t done anything wrong”. Ah, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t wrong.<br />
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<span style="font-size:1.5"><b>Why you are actually wrong, even though you haven’t done anything wrong…</b></span><br />
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There are three specific ways that your extra-marital relationship causes harm and therefore is quite wrong, even if you and the other woman are, at least currently and from your perspective, “just friends”.<br />
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<b>“Cruel to be kind”</b> - It is time to burst your bubble butt-head. Maybe you are just a “good guy”. I know you think you are charming and nice and understanding and all, and you are just trying to be a decent person by letting this other woman cry on your shoulder or blow off steam or have a good clean time or whatever. Guess what? Secure women don’t need you to be their friend. They are fulfilled by their husband or boyfriend or other women in their life. In most cases, the kinds of women who seek out the attention of a married (or otherwise off-limits) man are those who are actually looking for such a man to bond to. They are needy, and insecure, and desperate for love and attention (this even includes many married women). Such relationships can only end one of two bad ways. One possible outcome is that you get sucked into their needy world and forsake your wife even more. The cruel irony is that you will claim that you are just trying to help a friend when in fact you are enabling that person, deceiving yourself, and abandoning your wife. The other, only slightly less harmful outcome is that you wake up and realize what is going on and greatly harm the other person in the process of breaking off the relationship. In essence, if you are truly devoted to your wife, and would never cheat on her, then you are leading another woman on by giving her the kind of love (non-sexual) and attention that should be reserved for your wife. How cruel of you to let this woman think that you are some knight in shining armor when in fact you will never give her the devotion that she is so desperately seeking. Even though you aren’t doing anything wrong (that you can tell), what you are doing is wrong.<br />
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<b>“Pride goes before a fall”</b> - The annals of history, not to mention marriage therapists’ notebooks, are filled with accounts of marital affairs which started as “just friends” relationships. How many men (or women) have boasted “I never would cheat on my spouse” only to stumble down the road when the going got rough or the grass looked greener? In the previous paragraph I presumed you are a good guy, and that may be so, for now. But let’s be honest – you still are a flawed human being, just as are your spouse and your friend. Nobody can claim to be immune from cheating. How many truly good, wholesome, people – pastors, neighbors, relatives – that you know have fallen? 1, 5, 10, 100? To assume, especially now in your butt-head state, that you have some inherent anti-cheating gene that makes it impossible for you to ever betray your wife (even more than you already are) is so ridiculously naïve that it makes one wonder if you have ever matured past the age of 16, when you most certainly knew that you were indestructible, invincible, and oh so absolutely right about everything in the universe. You think you are special? I’m here to tell you that you are wrong, even though you aren’t currently doing anything wrong.<br />
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<b>“Live with your wife in an understanding way”</b> – Men are given two very important and specific sets of instructions in the Bible on how to be a loving husband. (NOTE - these are not inherently religious instructions, but practical instructions which apply to any marriage, Christian or not.) The first is in Ephesians 5, where Paul orders husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church. In a nutshell, give up your entire life in service to your wife. Everything you do should revolve around making her life better. Ask yourself butt-head, is your relationship with another woman, no matter how innocent, exhibiting sacrifice and service to your wife? In fact, it is the opposite. It is an act of sacrifice and service TO THAT OTHER WOMAN! What betrayal! No wonder your wife is so mad.<br />
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The second instruction is found in 1 Peter 3, where Peter tells husbands to “live with your wives in an understanding way”. The literal translation is “live with your wives according to knowledge”. In plain English, don’t be a butt-head when it comes to your wife, her feelings, and your life together. The reader’s Digest version: use your head, man! While you don’t necessarily have to “understand” how she feels or why she feels that way, you do have to be understanding of her feelings. Why doesn’t it matter to you that your behavior is upsetting? Is it so important to you that something make sense in your butt-head mind that you would purposely be mean to her out of spite? So much for the “good guy” image you perpetuate. It is fundamentally wrong for you to disrespect your wife with such a total disregard for her feelings and it is doubly wrong for you to do it while feigning innocence by claiming you are doing nothing wrong.<br />
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<span style="font-size:1.5"><b>Always treat a gun as if it’s loaded…</b></span><br />
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In conclusion, I would like to help you to not be a butt-head by suggesting a course of action via this analogy. I come from a hunting family. To get a hunting license in MN as a youth, you must go through gun safety classes. To hunt with my family, you have to go through the much more rigorous family gun safety training. The overriding principle of our family’s gun safety training is this: the gun is always loaded. I know that is a cliché, but we take it very seriously. In fact, we are almost obsessive in our unwavering application of this attitude (I won’t even point a fake gun at a person, just out of principal and to set the proper example for anyone who is watching). The reason is simple: we don’t want anyone to get hurt and the only way to ensure that happens is if you always, ALWAYS, treat the gun as if it is loaded..<br />
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Some people may think that is silly. Guess what. People get shot every year by guns that everyone thought were empty. Think it is silly to avoid social interactions with members of the opposite sex. Guess what. People get divorced every year because of acquaintances that started off (or even remained) as “just friends”. Just like my family’s gun safety rules, you must adopt an unwavering principle when it comes to this issue: I will not enter into close social relationships with members of the opposite sex, ever, regardless of how harmless they seem. If you don’t adopt this position, sooner or later, that “unloaded” gun is going to hurt someone..<br />
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EPILOGUE – While the main focus of this post has been husbands and their treatment of their wives, don’t assume this phenomenon is restricted to the martial dynamic or a male to female gender direction. While this situation occurs most often under those circumstances, it is by no means restricted to them. Nobody is immune from the danger and pain of an opposite sex relationship with someone who is not your significant other, no matter how innocently it may begin or appear to be..<br />
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*Social interaction is ANY kind of interaction, whether face to face or not. That includes calling, texting, Skypeing, chatting, Face Booking, tweeting, or snail mailing. It obviously includes personal meetings, even those where your wife is present. It is basically any kind of one-to-one, personalized, contact other than purely professional contact.
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gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-7183924226895386942012-10-09T08:40:00.000-07:002012-10-09T13:19:36.902-07:00Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 1.5em;">Dogberry on the Obama Campaign</span></b><br />They have committed false report;<br />moreover, they have spoken untruths;<br />secondarily, they are slanders;<br />sixth and lastly, they have belied a candidate;<br />thirdly, they have verified unjust things;<br />and, to conclude, they are lying knaves</center>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">If you stretch the facts a little and creatively manipulate data and statistics to make your point, you are called an obfuscator, which is a fancy word for being not exactly accurate. If you transition into telling blatant falsehoods, you are called a liar. If you double down on those lies by calling the person exposing your lies the real liar, you are a lying liar. And if you persist in perpetuating those lies even though they have been universally refuted by objective fact checkers, you get the prestigious Dogberry award for being the lyingest lying liar of them all. Congratulations to President Obama and his campaign team, the newest Dogberry recipients for their unashamed and persistent lies about Mitt Romney's tax plan despite all facts to the contrary </span></div>
We were in Iowa this last weekend for a wedding and, Iowa being a battleground state, we were bombarded by presidential political ads on t.v. (We get no such ads in MN since it seems clear our home state will continue the Democrat zombie walk it has engaged in since Carter.) The Obama campaign's post-debate ads continue promoting the claim that Romney’s tax reform plan will give a $5 trillion dollar tax cut* to the wealthy funded on the backs of the middle class. This blatant lie is perpetuated despite being rebutted by Romney himself in the debate, and soundly debunked by every fact-check that has addressed the issue. Why do I care, if it is so patently false a claim? Well, I’ll tell you.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />Unfortunately, I have many friends and relations that only get their news from MSNBC or the propaganda firm of Colbert, Stewart, and Maher. They only read liberal rags like the New York Times, Washington Post, or our own Minneapolis Star and Sickle…er…Tribune. And they only follow left wing hack columnists like Andrew Sullivan, Ezra Klein, E.J. Dionne, and Paul Krugman. So they only hear the lying liars' lies claiming Romney lied in the debate. Hence they will believe these ads without giving any scrutiny to Romney’s actual plan. Luckily, despite all the misinformation they are absorbing, they may, due to our relationship, tolerate and give some credence, however slight, to a blog post from me. So my friends, here is the truth.<br /><br />Mitt Romney has proposed a 5 point plan for creating 12 million new jobs. Anyone can look at this plan on the Romney web site. I suggest everyone look at Romney’s full plan and judge its merits on its face, not based on what Romney’s enemies say about it. Here is the link to the plan, so you have no excuse for remaining ignorant: <a href="http://www.mittromney.com/jobsplan">http://www.mittromney.com/jobsplan</a>.<br /><br />The tax proposal which is being mischaracterized by the left is part of point 5 of the plan: “Champion Small Business”. The pertinent bullet point is: “Reduce taxes on job creation through individual…tax reform”. (There are corporate, capital gains, and other tax components to the proposal, but it is the individual tax rate reduction that is the focus of the “$5 Trillion tax break for the wealthy” claim.) The specific proposal has two parts: “Reduce individual marginal income tax rates across-the-board by 20 percent” and “Broaden the tax base to ensure that tax reform is revenue-neutral”.<br /><br />In the debate, Romney expanded on the “broaden the tax base” part of the plan. Not only is he counting on increased employment and production to bring in more tax revenue but he also stated that he would close loopholes and remove deductions in an effort to reform the tax code and eliminate tax avoidance (not tax evasion, which is illegal, but tax avoidance, which is the legal tax gymnastics which help reduce an individual’s tax burden, a practice which overwhelmingly favors the wealthy). He stated two absolutes about these effects. 1) They would net to a near zero reduction in taxes for the wealthy, and 2) they would not result in net tax increases for the middle class. In fact, he said he would not sign any legislation, no matter how closely it followed his plan, if it raised taxes on the middle-class or did not result in net deficit reduction. In essence, he is saying he will only do it if it does what he says it will do - lower taxes AND increase revenue with a net effect of reducing the deficit.<br /><br />“How can you do both?” you might ask (especially if you only listen to the left who say that it is impossible). Well, the simple answer is “the same way Reagan did”. Most people will recognize this as supply side economics. You know, that form of economics employed by Ronald Reagan which ushered in the longest sustained period of peace time economic expansion in the country’s history. It works because, combined with the other elements in Romney’s 5 point plan, it will increase employment and domestic production dramatically. Tax reductions for both corporate and individual small business owners will encourage hiring and expansion. Tax reductions for the middle class will increase household income and spur purchasing, leading to more production. More people working and more companies producing means more tax revenue. The tax cuts will be “paid for” by economic growth, as well as by the tax reform that will eliminate tax loopholes for the rich, which ironically, is exactly what the left has wanted for years.<br /><br />Now, people can disagree about the feasibility of this plan. Many people still don’t believe that Reagan’s economic policies worked (despite all the empirical evidence to the contrary). Others will say that deficit reduction is impossible even with such economic growth. (Please read the whole Romney plan, as this is only one part which contributes to, but is not the be-all-end-all of, deficit reduction.) That may all turn out to be true, but this post is not an argument for the Romney plan. I simply want to point out how the Obama campaign is lying about the Romney plan. There is nothing in this plan that produces a $5 trillion tax cut for the wealthy, or increases taxes in any way on the middle class. In fact, the plan will be implemented in such a way as to minimize the NET tax benefit for the wealthy while maximizing it for the middle class. Anyone who claims otherwise is blatantly lying or woefully ignorant.<br /><br />This brings up a more serious point regarding the campaign. The Obama camp is claiming that Romney lied in the debate and that he has reversed course from policies he has been touting for over a year. Yet you can read the plan for yourself. You can see that Romney portrayed the plan accurately in the debate and that the plan has been in place for a good deal of time. On the other hand, it is clear that the Obama campaign is purposely perpetuating a bold faced lie in their campaign ads. Is that the kind of President we want?<br /><br />*The $5 trillion figure is based on the projected tax savings which result from the 20% reduction in individual marginal tax rates. The figure is cumulative over 10 years, even though the Obama campaign ads make it seem like it is an annual savings. Nobody disputes this figure, but it is only one half of the equation.<br /><br />For more fun on the Obama campaign’s attempt to keep you in the dark on the facts, read this new article from “Iowahawk”: <i><a href="http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2012/10/white-house-scientists-struggle-to-contain-outbreak-of-scrutonium.html">White House Scientists Struggle to Contain Outbreak of Scrutonium</a></i>. A teaser:
<blockquote>
WASHINGTON DC - Engaged [in] a relentless battle against time and fatigue, a select group of message scientists assembled by the White House's Center for Narrative Control say they will take "all steps necessary" to contain a recent outbreak of scrutonium, a deadly poll-eating supervirus that attacks the immuno-hope system, leaving victims vulnerable to material facts.</blockquote>
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gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-1893145606763872502012-10-01T13:07:00.001-07:002015-04-28T07:22:26.339-07:00Minnesota Amendment 1 - Why I'm Voting "NO"<span style="font-family: arial,san-serif;">
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<b>Update 11/7/2012: The Amendment failed. Also see update to note 5 below regarding this issue and the courts.</b><br />
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I admit for the longest time I wasn’t sure how I would vote. I thought maybe that I wouldn’t make up my mind until I got into the booth. But some serious discussions, and some serious introspection, have led me to the conclusion that, to stay true to myself as well as my faith, on this issue, in this context, I have to vote “no”.<br />
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<span class="fullpost">Some who know me (mostly the afore-mentioned family and friends), will be baffled that this is even a question to be pondered. To them, a “yes” vote is a no brainer, and they would expect that I would concur(1). Many others who know me just as well will not be surprised at all that I am voting “no”. In particular, my younger daughter will applaud this decision (having voted similarly on the California proposition) and consider it to be an encouraging turning point in my Libertarian development. Neither side, I suspect, will appreciate the deliberation I went through to get to this point. So in order to avoid disownment (or misplaced praise), and hopefully provide a little enlightenment, I offer this post.<br />
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This will be a long post so I will summarize first. You can slog through the arguments at your leisure. <br />
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Biblical marriage and civil marriage are not the same institutions. Since the government has decided to regulate certain civil unions, including bestowing certain privileges and imposing certain obligations on the participants, they should do so without prejudice. The fact that government has decided to use the term “marriage” to describe these licensed, contractual arrangements is irrelevant (or maybe, unfortunate), and certainly does not justify limiting those arrangements on a gender basis any more than it would justify limiting them on a racial or religious basis. Regardless, it has no bearing on the biblical institution for which religious people use the same term and therefore is of no consequence to our citizenship in God’s Kingdom. Never-the-less, as Christians we are sent into this world to witness even though we are not “of the world”, and part of that witness is upholding the laws of the world, often in spite of our personal opinion on their worthiness.<br />
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Some background information for those who aren’t familiar with the amendment or me:<br />
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Minnesota already has a law that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. The purpose for enshrining this into the MN Constitution is to avoid what happened in Iowa a couple of years ago, where the Iowa Supreme Court struck down the similar Iowa statute. Minnesota conservatives want to make sure that “the courts” do not circumvent “the will of the people” of Minnesota. I don’t disagree with this course of action on a fundamental, constitutional basis. <br />
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As for me personally, it should be clear from many posts on this blog that I actually do consider marriage, at least in the biblical sense of the word, to be strictly between one man and one woman. In fact, as far as the bible is concerned, “gay marriage” is an oxymoron at the very least, if not a completely nonsensical term, and the “one man/one woman” structure of marriage is a simple, unalterable fact. As a Christian, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my personal position</i> on marriage unwaveringly reflects the text of the proposed amendment. With that in mind, here are my reasons for voting “no”.<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In this world but not of it</b><br />
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When Jesus was praying to the Father for his followers, he described his disciples as being sent into the world but not being of the world (John 17:14-17). This is understood as the “dual citizenship” of the Christian. We simultaneously exist as citizens of secular society (Minnesota-America-Earth) and of God’s kingdom. We are to keep these citizenship spheres distinct from each other, and as long as they don’t conflict, we are to maintain a balance between the two. Only when society imposes upon us rules that violate our faith are we allowed to disobey.<br />
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As citizens of these two worlds, we have two primary guides to inform our behavior. As a citizen of the world, I have the law, and specifically in America, the Constitution. As a citizen of God’s kingdom, I have the Bible. And while the law has very little to say about the Bible (thankfully), the Bible has plenty to say about the law. Paul and Peter make it very clear that, as citizens residing in this world, we are to obey all of the laws and the authorities. Jesus is truly our model for this behavior, as he obeyed the law of the land (Roman law at that!) even while being falsely accused and sentenced to death. None of the New Testament writers ever called upon the Church to write the law or even make any effort to change the law, regardless of how good or bad, moral or evil, the law was. Significantly, neither did Jesus. Indeed, this indifference to affecting the law is what we see in the early church. Only after Constantine did the church and the state become intertwined, to everyone’s detriment. <br />
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Sometimes, society and the Christian disagree on principal. That is alright as long as neither tries to impose their will on the other. I am perfectly comfortable with society defining marriage differently than I do, as long as they don’t require me to believe their definition. As long as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the Church</i> is not being required by law to marry gay people, it is of no concern to us as citizens of God’s kingdom. We may be required to extend certain civil rights to those married gay people, but that is part of our societal citizenship and we are obligated not only by law but by scripture to comply.<br />
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As a society, America provides the best possible environment for us to exercise our dual citizenship. Nowhere on earth is it as permissible for me to outwardly disagree with the law (note - disagree does not mean disobey) than here. Society cannot legislate my faith. But, that freedom from intrusion by society into my godly citizenship is a two way street, because my faith also cannot legislate society. In our free society, if I am free to believe what I believe about marriage, then others are as free to believe something else about marriage. This is the blessing and curse of liberty. As long as the law doesn’t dictate either of our beliefs, and neither of our beliefs tramples on the rights of the other’s, liberty is preserved. <br />
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As Christians, we need to face two facts: society has decided to involve itself in the marriage business, and gay people have marriage-like relationships. To be fair, as far as our marriages are concerned, the first fact doesn’t much impact us as our definition of marriage is inherently part of the regulatory scheme. What we need to decide is whether or not other civil marital arrangements harm us in either citizenship realm. If they harm us societally, then the scales of justice are tipped and the law is unconstitutional. If they harm us spiritually, then society is intruding on our godly citizenship and we are allowed to disobey. If we are not harmed in either way then, like it or not we are compelled to obey the law. <br />
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Frankly, I don’t see how gay marriage impacts me at all, either positively or negatively. Some Christians will argue that it corrupts society(2). Maybe so, but what is that to us? We are not of this world! We should expect corruption in society. We are to be the antidote for that corruption (how are we doing BTW, hmmm). That is why Jesus sends us <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">into</i> the world. Moreover, and this is crucial to understand, our calling is NOT to overturn the worldly law, even if it allows actions we consider corrupt, or even that we simply disagree with, as long as it doesn’t corrupt US. I repeat – Jesus NEVER directed us to change worldly law. To attempt to do so in the name of Jesus…well…I won’t say more other than to say there is no justification in scripture for such activity(3). We are required to obey laws (or lack of laws) that may lead to societal corruption as long as they do not corrupt US. Frankly, if there were no corruption, there would not be much point in us remaining here to show the world a better way.<br />
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More to the point, what possible impact can the attachment of a word to a relationship have on any corruption that relationship may bring? If you view two gay people in a relationship as a corrupting influence on society, does it matter what you call their relationship? Does the word alter the relationship’s impact on society in any way? As Christians we are sent into this world to be salt and light with the full expectation that we will be living amongst people who conduct their lives in ways that we abhor. Who gives a rip what words are used?<br />
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Others worry that allowing gay marriage in society will start us down a slippery slope where eventually, we will be forced to perform and recognize gay marriages in our churches (although some already do). I don’t fear this slippery slope as long as the Constitution remains in place. I also see no evidence that gay rights activists want to strip the Church of its right to define marriage its own way. But let’s say that we do plummet down that slippery slope. What that fundamentally would mean is that the Constitution’s protection of religious liberty has been removed. If that ever happens, all bets are off(4).<br />
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All of the above might lead me to simply not vote at all on the amendment (equivalent to a “no” vote), but I have to consider one more issue. As Americans who are compelled by Scripture to obey the law, what is our duty to that law? Let’s not forget, in America we live in a society which believes in liberty and equal protection under the law for all people. If this society is going to regulate certain civil relationships with certain obligations and privileges, it needs to do so without prejudice. We need to support that principle. How can we claim liberty for ourselves but deny it for others? What is “Christian” about that? We may believe that there is no such thing as “gay marriage” in the biblical sense, but we are blind if we believe there are no such things as gay unions. People in those civil unions deserve the same legal rights as people in parallel civil unions. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That includes the right to use the same terminology</i>(5,6). If Christians should be mad at anything, they should be mad that government co-opted the term “marriage” for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">heterosexual civil unions</i> in the first place. This would all be a moot point if all such contracts were called “civil unions” from the beginning. But they aren’t. We need to let it go.<br />
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One last word about that pivotal word: “marriage”. Very few Christians are aware of an obscure biblical fact. The word “marriage” does not exist in the Old Testament, and doesn’t really occur in the context we are using it here even in the New Testament(7). Simply put, the word we are making such a fuss over is actually never used in Scripture. Oh, to be sure, the relationship to which we attach the word is abundantly present in the Bible. But we have done the attaching; it isn’t a native biblical term. It should be neither shocking nor concerning to us that other people use the word for other relationships. In fact, the term “marriage” is used figuratively for many kinds of paired relationships outside of the intimate human context. Christians, (or more correctly, religious people), do not own this word, nor is it particularly religious in its breadth of meaning. And to reiterate, it isn’t even biblical.<br />
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Notes:<br />
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(1) I have heard many of my fellow brothers and sisters recount interactions they have had or witnessed with “no” voters. In those recollections, they shared some of the arguments given by the opponents of the amendments – arguments that, to me, seem rather sound and at least worthy of consideration. But my friends summarily dismissed those arguments without, seemingly, giving them a fair hearing at all. Truly, to many conservative Christians, this is a no brainer.<br />
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(2) This is often aggravated by the “homosexuality”=”super sin” mentality of many in the Church. I would argue that divorce and fornication (both legal) are equally if not more corrupting on society yet the Church has a disturbing tolerance for those two activities, probably because of the rampant practice of them within the Body.<br />
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(3) Those who want to legislate Christian morality need to be careful what they wish for. Ask yourself first which Christian sect gets to make the rules. If it is the Catholics, birth control would be banned. If it is the Baptists, dancing might be prohibited and prohibition returned. Even more conservative denominations may try to outlaw even more activities most of us consider amoral, or impose activities to which we object. If it is the Mormons (I know, not Christians), coffee and coke are off the menu. And what if another religion takes the reins? Want to live under Sharia law? God tried a Theocracy once and humans made a horrible mess of the whole thing. We are ultimately too fallen to agree on a universal moral code. Some people think that the legal system in America is based on biblical principles and morality. They are wrong. The legal system in America is based on a balancing of rights. It is secular, and should remain so. If you don’t believe that, ask the Danbury Baptists and Thomas Jefferson. <br />
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(4) Of course, we Christians know that this persecution against the Church will come someday, but we also know that gay marriage is not going to be the cause. Besides, the persecution is unavoidable, regardless of how anyone votes on this cosmically trivial amendment. <br />
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(5) <b>UPDATE 12/7/2012: The SCOTUS has indeed agreed to hear both gay marriage cases this term. The docket numbers are 12-144 and 12-307. TTatOT will be paying close attention as this makes it way to the court.<br />
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<b>UPDATE 6/10/2013: Oral arguments on the cases were heard March 26th.<br />
The Supreme Court will eventually deal with this issue and I firmly believe that they will affirm the use of “marriage” as a legal term of art for gay civil unions, thereby striking down state gay marriage bans, just as in the past they struck down laws banning inter-racial marriage and laws refusing to recognize marriages of couples from non-Judeo-Christian faiths. It could come up as soon as this next judicial term with the California Proposition 8 case.<br />
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UPDATE 4/28/2015: The beginning of the end.<br />
The Supreme Court hears argument today on four consolidated cases brought by states asking the court to uphold traditional marriage. Virtually all commentators expect the court to, instead, uphold gay marriage on 14th amendment grounds, thereby making it the law of the land and striking down any state laws and constitutional amendments which define marriage as only a heterosexual union.<br />
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(6) To be fair, I also do not buy the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">outrageous</i> outrage on the part of gay marriage advocates over <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> being able to use the word “marriage”. It is equally as silly. They claim that using separate terms for gay vs. heterosexual unions is tantamount to the “separate but equal” policies of racial segregation. I find little merit in that argument. <br />
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(7) Some translations will use the English word “marriage” for certain Hebrew and Greek words, but further word study reveals that these translations are presumptuous paraphrases. The relationships described might be marriages, but the actual Hebrew and Greek words used are not those languages’ equivalents of the English word “marriage”. In fact, the creation of a particular equivalent of “marriage” in the source languages may be a post biblical event. </span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-68008609000861206912012-09-11T10:51:00.001-07:002012-09-13T06:44:45.452-07:00The Big Lie About Heartless, Greedy, Eeeeeeevil Health Insurers<span style="font-family: arial,san-serif;">A couple of posts back I did a brief series on some big lies related to executive salaries and taxes. A recent post on Facebook elicited a response from an old friend that highlights another "big lie" I believe needs debunking - that of the heartless, greedy, eeeeevil insurance company that only cares about its bottom line and its shareholders.<span class="fullpost">
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Let's start with the post and my friend's response. I posted the following quote "diagnosing" ObamaCare from a Dr. Barbara Bellar, who is running for the IL state Senate:
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So, let me get this straight. This is a long sentence. We’re going to be gifted with a healthcare plan that we’re forced to purchase and fined if we don’t, which purportedly covers at least 10 million more people without adding a single doctor but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a President who smokes, with funding administered by a Treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government that has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese, and finally, financed by a country that’s broke.</blockquote>
I got this response from a high school friend in which he offers a "defense", of ObamaCare, I think, based on an apparent disdain for those heartless, greedy insurance companies:
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The only thing I can offer in defense is that it is recklessly foolish, naive, and dangerous to assume that any privately owned or publicly held insurance corporation would ever have your best interests in mind when it comes to your health, your ability to pay, or your circumstances. They exist purely to service their shareholders and their corporate officers. I, for one, have no desire to see my health, my life, and the lives of my children in the care of companies that behave little better than sociopaths.</blockquote>
Ouch! Considering I work for the country's largest, and therefore I assume most heartless, greedy, and eeeeeeevil, health insurer, I felt quite taken aback (ok - not really, but still, I think a response is necessary). I would like to assure my friend that he is quite wrong, and even more importantly, the alternative is significantly worse. So here goes.
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Starting at the end, my friend says: "I, for one, have no desire to see my health, my life, and the lives of my children in the care of companies that behave little better than sociopaths". Putting aside actual health insurer behavior for the moment, let's consider the alternative. Would you rather put your and your family's health and life in the hands of a bureaucracy that views healthcare as simply a line item on a budget - easily discarded or cut if the cost of that care goes into the red? (Note - there is a significant difference between insurance and government run healthcare(1)). I can't think of anything more heartless than that. Granted, insurance companies <i>may</i> have conflicting priorities when it comes to their money (we shall soon see), but can a person really claim that government is more warm and caring? That certainly isn't my experience or anyone's I know.
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Whose "care" do you put your health and life in anyway? People seem to have a mixed up view of who does what in the health care industry. There are providers and there are payors. The insurance company doesn't "provide" your healthcare, they simply pay for it. While they do exercise some control over what they are going to pay for, and how much, that is outlined in your policy and known (if you bother to read it) up front before you buy their product. The horror stories that people tell are very rare exceptions (and in virtually all cases, explainable and/or avoidable if one understands their policy). Bottom line, your health and life are not "in the care of" the insurance company, they are in the care of your doctor. The insurance company simply pays your doctor for that care according to your policy.
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Now let's talk about accountability? Certainly insurance companies are accountable to their stockholders but it doesn't end there(2). They are also accountable to state insurance and health departments which require proof of financial responsibility and customer satisfaction on a yearly basis in order to retain their license to sell their products. And, as a provider of a service, they are also accountable to their customers. That may not translate directly into care, but it ultimately leads to that as customer satisfaction is directly related to the patient experience. If you don't provide good service for your customers, you won't have any customers.
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Conversely, how accountable is government? Ever heard of anyone getting a complaint resolved when it comes to their Medicare or Medicaid coverage? I haven't. You are a captive audience with no choices when it comes to government run health care. If you don't like it, you can't simply change carriers as you can in the private sector. You are stuck and if the government fails to "have your best interests in mind when it comes to your health, your ability to pay, or your circumstances", it's tough luck.
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So now we return to, and address, the beginning of my friend's "defense" of ObamaCare - cold, uncaring, greedy corporations. To refresh, he claims that insurers do not "have your best interests in mind when it comes to your health, your ability to pay, or your circumstances. They exist purely to service their shareholders and their corporate officers." Do insurance companies want to make money? Of course they do. So do doctors and hospitals and so do the patients who are seen by them. This is, after all, a capitalist nation. Does a profit motive, though, make an insurer "little better than sociopaths"? I don't know - does it make your doctor that? Does it make you that? Just because a company, any company, designs products to make themselves money doesn't mean that they don't care about the customers who consume those products. It would be suicidal to have such an attitude. So let's take a look at how profit motives and consumer "best interests" are BOTH "in mind" to a health insurance company.
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Do insurance companies have your best interests in mind when it comes to your health? From a certain perspective, it can be argued that your health is the insurers primary concern. Why? Because an unhealthy customer is a less (or non) profitable customer and a dead customer is a lost customer. I will grant that a profitable bottom line is the end result of a healthy customer base, but to say that patient health is not in the best interests of the insurer is actually the more naive belief. Why else would health insurers in the 80's and 90's begin introducing concepts like preventative care benefits for adults and best practice guidelines? Why else would HMO's have designed the gatekeeper model of health plan to better triage and direct patients to the most appropriate level of care? All of these innovations and many more have been born out of, and continue primarily to be driven by, the payor side of the industry. Insurers are VERY interested in their customers' health and finding ways to improve it. One can cynically say that a profit motive underlies all of those efforts, but that doesn't change the fact that consumers are better off, health-wise, because of it.
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Even today, the payor side of the industry leads the way in innovation. My employer, and many other insurance and managed care companies across the country, are continually working with providers, states, and local communities to better ensure that the right care is delivered at the right time in the right setting by the right provider at the right price. We work with Medicaid plans in a number of states to create community health centers that cater to local needs, even going as far as putting "boots on the ground". We are developing pilot projects with large provider contingencies in several states on a new "collaborative care model" which better coordinates care and communication between local providers and hospitals. The payor side of the world will ALWAYS be on the forefront of improving patient health because, frankly, it is in the best interests of both us and our customers to do so.
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Do insurance companies have your best interests in mind when it comes to your ability to pay? My first question back would be "pay what"? If the issue is your ability to pay for your health care, then, I would answer that that is in fact the purpose of insurance. It insures you against unforeseen costs. It ensures your ability to pay for health care services that would normally be beyond your means. So, obviously, your best interests related to ability to pay for your health care is the essence of the insurer's product and therefore certainly "in mind" to the insurer (unless you think insurers design their products mindlessly).
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Or is the issue your ability to pay for the insurance itself? That is a bit trickier, but the answer is still that the consumer's best interests are in mind. Put simply, if an insurer can't create affordable products, they won't be in business very long. I don't believe people know how very competitive this industry is. I also don't think people realize how low the profit margins are in health insurance. (see <a href="http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2011/08/big-lie-about-health-insurance.html">my first "Big Lies" post</a> for more info.) Insurers are constantly striving for ways to reduce both their administrative costs and their claims costs, as well as design more tailored products, so that they can offer more competitive pricing. ObamaCare, actually, will curtail these efforts (don't believe the hype about lowering the cost curve) by mandating "one size fits all" insurance products and implementing counterproductive cost controls (counterproductive because they will drive providers out of the industry, creating lower supply and higher demand, and therefore driving costs up). There are free market ways to make insurance even more affordable. The key to implementing them is not to heap more government regulation on an already overregulated industry, but to get government out of the way to let the innovators and entrepreneurs lead.
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Do insurance companies have your best interests in mind when it comes to your circumstances? I'm going to assume that this has something to do with covering pre-existing conditions. That does pose a dilemma for the insurer, but it is no different than the problem "pre-existing conditions" pose for any type of insurance. The thing to keep in mind is that this is insurance. The insurer takes risk based on certain underwriting assumptions about the costs a certain person or population will present. The more costly the insured, the higher the risk, the more expensive the insurance product.
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Let me illustrate with an example that people might be far more familiar with: car insurance. Should a car insurer be forced to sell an insurance policy at the same price to two individuals, one who has a perfect driving record and another who has had several accidents and DUI's? Even with a rudimentary understanding of insurance, I would hope that the common sense answer from anyone would be "no - obviously they should be able to sell the product at higher premium to the driver who poses the higher "risk" of incurring a claim." Insurance 101.
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The same principal holds true for health insurance. The solution in the insurance world is "risk pooling". You put together a group of people, some who are high risk and some who are low. They "average out" to a risk level that allows pricing that is somewhat higher for some people and somewhat (sometimes significantly) lower for others. Overall, if designed right, it should be "affordable" for everyone. ObamaCare attempts to force this scheme on the industry by means of the individual mandate. If everyone has to have insurance, insurers can spread their risk and collect premiums across a greater pool of consumers and therefore be able to offer plans to people with pre-existing conditions at an affordable cost. This is actually true. Of course, most people weren't told that ObamaCare was essentially a subsidy to the insurance industry. What? You thought ObamaCare was designed to punish those greedy insurers for their draconian practices? Buwahahahahaha! Not!
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Anyway, although the individual mandate is <i>one</i> way of spreading risk and bringing about more affordable insurance for everyone, it is certainly not the only way. Again, free market approaches could have been applied to accomplish the same goals without government intervention and without forcing you, the consumer, to buy a product you may not want or need and penalize....oops, sorry...tax you if you don't.
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In the end, I can say without reservation, working in the industry, that insurance companies really do have their customer's best interests in mind when it comes to their health, ability to pay, and circumstance. There may be a profit motive behind that, to be sure, but profit is not bad. More importantly, a healthier, more prosperous America is very good. ObamaCare will not bring about a healthier or more prosperous America. All it will do - and here is another long sentence - is force people to buy a product they don't want, with benefits they don't need, at an ever increasing cost, brought about by greater demand for services, due to an increased patient pool, coupled with a shrinking supply of providers, due to doctors leaving the market because of reduced reimbursements, resulting in the wrong care, at the wrong time (if you get it at all), in the wrong setting, by the wrong provider, at the wrong price.
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Notes:
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1. The important distinction between insurance and a government run program is that the insurance company has to pay for their liability, regardless of whether they have the money in revenues to cover the cost (that is why insurers are required to have "reserves" - money held back to cover excess costs). That is the "risk" that the insurance company bears. The government, on the other hand, simply rations care if there is not enough in the "budget" to cover care. Need your gallbladder out? If there is no money in the budget for it this year, you go on a waiting list. And heaven forbid you get too old to make that surgery cost effective. "Here's another pain pill - live long and prosper".
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2. It should be noted that not all health care payors are out for profit. For example, in my (and my friend's) home state, HMO's must be non-profit.
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</span></span>
gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-64270641805503689822012-06-28T09:40:00.000-07:002012-06-29T08:28:02.466-07:00"Individual Mandate Survives as a Tax"<span style="font-family: arial, san-serif;">The headline jumped off the scotusblog.com live blog and you could hear the cyber *gasp* from the nearly 1 million viewers getting the first hand news of the most anticipated Supreme Court decision in decades. A few posts later, the even more shocking news came to light. The swing vote in the 5-4 majority was not Anthony Kennedy, as most expected, but George W Bush appointee Chief Justice John Roberts. Immediately on the open thread at hotair.com, the Roberts bashing began. "John Roberts sucks", "Roberts is now a bigger scoundrel than Souter", "Another Bush Justice lets Conservatives down and moves left", "Roberts stabs Constitution in the back", "Roberts you socialist scumbag", "Drop dead, Roberts", "Roberts can kiss my a**", "Roberts is a red", and many more unrepeatable comments were spewed out by the downcast and disillusioned conservative community. But is this a correct judgement of the Chief Justice and his opinion? I'm not so sure.<br />
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In fact, John Roberts may be sly as a fox.<br />
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<span class="fullpost">
The more I think about it, the more I think this decision actually accomplishes several things for conservatives.<br />
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1. The Commerce Clause power is checked. Both the Robert’s opinion and the dissent state clearly that there must be positive commercial activity before the Commerce Clause can be invoked. This was the argument against the mandate all along – that it regulated inactivity, not activity. The ruling basically affirms that argument and should preclude the Federal Government from successfully enacting any more such mandates.<br />
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2. The left cannot use the “court is illegitimate and political” argument now. That will bode well for decisions down the line. I really think that Roberts knew that a 5-4 decision against the law would seriously damage the court’s credibility, at least with the left half of the country (which includes the media and academia). If he couldn’t get at least 6 votes against the law, he was bound and determined to side for the law but write a very narrow opinion that wouldn’t hurt the cause of liberty or do violence to the Constitution. He actually, in a way, succeeded on that front even though this will be viewed generally as a setback.<br />
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3. Roberts has basically called Obama a bold faced liar for promising no taxes in the 2008 campaign. The breaking of the “No new taxes” pledge by Bush senior is what doomed his reelection bid and it may very well doom Obama’s too. If this is a “win” for Obama, it is a pyrrhic one. <br />
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4. The decision will energize conservatives and independents to turn out and vote for Romney in the upcoming election as they will see repeal as the only way to get rid of this very unpopular law. While I don’t think that is the only alternative left (see next point), it matters not if it causes another Republican tsunami in November.<br />
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5. The decision now opens the door to challenge the tax as illegal. There are many flaws in the “mandate penalty as a tax” argument and I suspect the law suits are already being written to overturn it on those grounds. And since the court also declared that the tax could be challenged before the tax takes effect, we don’t have to wait 2 years before those law suits can be filed. So Roberts basically “kicked the can down the road” a little ways, but so be it. In the end, he may have provided even a more solid basis for challenging the law.<br />
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(update) 6. As many commentators are pointing out, the shift of the mandate to a tax makes the entire law that much easier to repeal or at least gut. Tax votes in the Senate require only a 51% simple majority, and are therefore filibuster proof. Now only the Presidency and a pick up of 4 Senate seats by the Republicans is needed to send ObamaCare to the trash heap of history.<br />
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The bottom line is that this decision may have doomed Obama’s reelection and doesn’t ultimately protect the law. Pretty clever...if it turns out that way. Only (more) time will tell.<br />
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UPDATE - Some pertinent quotes from the Chief Justice's opinion:<br />
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The power to regulate commerce presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated. If the power to “regulate” something included the power to create it, many of the provisions in the Constitution would be superfluous.<br />
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The proposition that Congress may dictate the conduct of an individual today because of prophesied future activity finds no support in our precedent.<br />
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The Commerce Clause is not a general license to regulate an individual from cradle to grave, simply because he will predictably engage in particular transactions. Any police power to regulate individuals as such, as opposed to their activities, remains vested in the States.<br />
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No matter how “inherently integrated” health insurance and health care consumption may be, they are not the same thing: They involve different transactions, entered into at different times, with different providers. And for most of those targeted by the mandate, significant health care needs will be years, or even decades, away.<br />
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The text of a statute can sometimes have more than one possible meaning...And it is well established that if a statute has two possible meanings, one of which violates the Constitution, courts should adopt the meaning that does not do so.<br />
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Rather, it makes going without insurance just another thing the Government taxes, like buying gasoline or earning income. And if the mandate is in effect just a tax hike on certain taxpayers who do not have health insurance, it may be within Congress’s constitutional power to tax. The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a “fairly possible” one.<br />
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The Government asks us to interpret the mandate as imposing a tax, if it would otherwise violate the Constitution. Granting the Act the full measure of deference owed to federal statutes, it can be so read, for the reasons set forth below.<br />
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It is of course true that the Act describes the payment as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” But while that label is fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act, supra, at 12–13, it does not determine whether the payment may be viewed as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power.<br />
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...taxes that seek to influence conduct are nothing new.<br />
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Neither the Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS.<br />
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Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in §5000A under the taxing power, and that §5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. That is sufficient to sustain it.<br />
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Sustaining the mandate as a tax depends only on whether Congress has properly exercised its taxing power to encourage purchasing health insurance, not whether it can.<br />
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The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.<br />
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But the statute reads more naturally as a command to buy insurance than as a tax, and I would uphold it as a command if the Constitution allowed it. It is only because the Commerce Clause does not authorize such a command that it is necessary to reach the taxing power question. And it is only because we have a duty to construe a statute to save it, if fairly possible, that §5000A can be interpreted as a tax.
</span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-27543902032256127502011-08-18T10:52:00.000-07:002011-08-18T11:10:22.437-07:00The Big Lie About Deficit Reduction and Taxing the Rich<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">Following up on my post about Health Insurance Companies and Executive pay, I thought I would take a look at another liberal meme related to “the rich” and the budget deficit. This takes one of three forms: the rich are tax dodgers who use loopholes and other “tricks” to get out of paying taxes, the rich do not pay their “fair share” and can afford to pay more, or the Bush tax cuts, especially for the rich, are what are causing our large deficits. I’ll tackle each of these in turn.
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<br />Refer to the chart below. It gives revenue data from the IRS for 2009 (the most current year available). I have broken the data up into three income classes: poor, middle, and rich. The “rich” are classified as making $200k and above in adjusted gross income (AGI). The poor are classified as making $25k or less and the middle making everything in between. (Click on the chart to see it full size.)
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz97Ua1PBdN-HLpB__qzNN502w_L9GObh8Yan8PDQHqmRciIDiIil6MYelbW0MzUvh3vrtiTdjwW7Y2qEl0dDlQ8Cn8gIzdSU7RaCezrDYep7D11hD0-8Yh_IsT2TvWMTJpoAKawMgwz8H/s1600/Tax+By+AGI.GIF" target=_blank><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz97Ua1PBdN-HLpB__qzNN502w_L9GObh8Yan8PDQHqmRciIDiIil6MYelbW0MzUvh3vrtiTdjwW7Y2qEl0dDlQ8Cn8gIzdSU7RaCezrDYep7D11hD0-8Yh_IsT2TvWMTJpoAKawMgwz8H/s400/Tax+By+AGI.GIF" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5642256808693742258" /></a>
<br />The first complaint about “the rich” is that they use accounting tricks, loopholes, and down right criminal actions to dodge paying their taxes. Actual IRS reporting of the taxes paid by people making over $200k AGI shows this to be completely false. Let’s look at two concrete proofs.
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<br />Look at the column under Income Tax labeled “As Percent of AGI”. This is the actual tax paid as a percent of AGI. Note that EVERY income bracket pays less in actual tax percent of AGI than the tax bracket they are in. But “the rich” pay far more than any other class overall. Moreover, when looking at the gap between actual percent of tax paid versus tax bracket, “the rich” are much less “tricky” in reducing their tax liability than any other income group. Clearly, “the rich” are not evading paying taxes.
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<br />Even more conclusive is the column under Taxable Returns labeled “As Percent of Returns in AGI Category”. This is the actual returns that had payable tax as a percent of all returns filed in the income bracket. EVERY “rich” income bracket has payable tax on greater than 99% of the tax returns filed. The percentages drop dramatically from there. Clearly, the rich are not using accounting tricks to avoid having any tax on their income.
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<br />So, it is a lie to say that “the rich” are avoiding paying their taxes. But are they paying their fair share of taxes? We turn to that charge next.
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<br />As noted above, “the rich” pay between 19 and 26% of their AIG in taxes – far more than any other income bracket. But what is their overall contribution? Just because they pay a “larger” share of income doesn’t mean it is a proportional share compared to the revenue burden carried by the other classes?
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<br />Look at the following columns. Under Total Returns, look at “As Percent of Total Returns”. Under Income Tax, look at “As Percent of Total Revenue”.
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<br />The first column shows what percent the tax filers are in a particular income bracket or class of the total tax filing population. “The rich” make up roughly 3% of all tax filers.
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<br />The second column shows what percent the taxes paid are of total revenue. “The rich” paid roughly 50% of all taxes (actually, just over 50%).
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<br />The standard way of putting this is “the rich” make up only 3% of the tax payers but pay over 50% of the taxes. Put another way, a very small minority of tax payers bear more than 50% of the tax burden. Is that fair? It is a very subjective question. But by any measure, it is very clear that “the rich” pay a significant “share” of taxes. Their “share” of the tax burden is enormous. In fact, their “share” constitutes “most” of the taxes paid.
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<br />Conversely, the poor make up 42% of tax payers but their “share” of the tax burden is only 1%. Is that fair? Again, it is a subjective question.
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<br />Moving on to those evil Bush tax cuts. Another claim is that the ballooning deficit is due primarily to these reductions in tax rates for middle and upper income tax payers. We will see in a moment exactly what that impact is, but let’s deal with the cuts first.
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<br />The tax cuts provided a 5% reduction for most low income earners, a 3% reduction for most middle income earners, and a 4.6% reduction for most upper income earners. In theory, these cuts were to be offset by increased economic activity and therefore, essentially, they would pay for themselves. This is classic supply side economics. There is no direct way to really measure if they did in fact pay for themselves, although general income tax revenues went up each year from 2003-2007. At best, we can probably say only that the impact, if negative at all, was only slightly so.
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<br />In general, it is at best unfair and at worst a complete lie to say that “the rich” are avoiding paying taxes, don’t pay their fair share of taxes, or benefited to the detriment of the country from the Bush tax cuts. Even still, our annual budget deficits are out of control. Surely if the rich (and to a lesser extent all other tax payers) were taxed more we would be able to bring our budget into balance, wouldn’t we? Let’s see. Please refer to the last three columns in the chart where I analyze the impact of two revenue increase scenarios on the budget deficit.
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<br />The column labeled “Eliminate Bush Tax Cuts” looks at the revenue increase if we adopted Presidents Obama’s approach during the budget debates of 2010 and eliminated the bush tax cuts for the middle and upper income brackets. What I have done is increased revenue in the “middle” class by 3% and the “rich” class by 4.6% to approximate the effect. The total reduction in the deficit brought about by this increase in revenue would be $400B. That is a pretty big number, until you realize the deficit in 2009 was $1.41T. So, the Presidents proposal would only cut the deficit by apx. 28%.
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<br />The next column labeled “All Pay ‘Fair Share’” takes an even more drastic approach, at least for the lower and upper classes.
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<br />For the lower class, I increased their tax rate another 1%. Considering the majority of “the poor” pay zero in taxes (only 25% percent of filers have any tax payable) and the most any of them pay of AGI is about 1%, I think this is only fair. After all, how can $0 be considered a “share” of anything, let alone a fair share.
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<br />For “the rich”, I doubled what they pay. That means that most people earning over $200k AGI would be paying just under HALF of every dollar they make to the government (and getting little to nothing in return for it). Is that fair? I certainly don’t think so, but, after all, they can afford it so why not.
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<br />What is the impact of this “fair” revenue collection? The total reduction in the deficit brought about by this increase in revenue would be $758B. Now we’re talking! Yet that still only reduces the deficit by a little more than half. In fact, in order to eliminate the deficit through revenues, you would have to increase tax rates on the rich by more than 3 times their current level to roughly 77% of AGI, a level that even socialist, nanny state Sweden would be ashamed of.
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<br />What is the moral of this story? Our deficit is NOT A REVENUE PROBLEM. The reason the deficit is out of control is we are spending way too much. Eliminating the Bush tax cuts won’t solve it. Heck, even imposing ridiculous tax rates on “the rich” and making “the poor” pay way more than they ever have won’t do it. Unless we significantly reduce our spending, we will never have a balanced budget in this country and each year we will get closer and closer to being the Greece of the Western Hemisphere.
<br /></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-23455230244613698032011-08-10T06:30:00.000-07:002011-08-11T06:38:57.268-07:00The Big Lie About Health Insurance Companies and Executive Compensation<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">We were visited this week by my wife's brother and his wife and in the course of the many conversations we have had we were at one point subjected to the classic "health insurance companies are evil and their executives are greedy crooks who raise premiums to line their pockets" meme. My brother-in-law, of course, knows that my wife and I work for the biggest, baddest, most evil healthcare company of them all. And I know, of course, that he is just repeating what he has been told by the liberal media and elites without actually doing the math. But still, he believes it, and neither my wife nor I had a chance to offer a rebuttal. So I thought I would do it here.<span class="fullpost"http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif>
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<br />Now, before I start, I want to lay some groundwork. I know that executives in healthcare companies, like many industries, make a boat load of money. Our chief executive last year earned $1.3M in salary, $3.5M in bonuses, and $6.0M in stock and option grants, for a total 2010 compensation of $10.8M. That is a LOT of money. We can debate whether or not his and other executive's compensation is deserved. (We could have the same debate about athletes, movies stars, most of the members of congress, of course the President, and, oh, btw, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/matt-lauer-makes-17-million-topping-annual-tv-150858412.html"><u>tv news anchors</u></a>(1).) But that isn't the accusation being leveled by my BiL. The specific charge is that health insurance company greed in general, and executive compensation in particular, are a DIRECT cause of premium increases.
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<br />So, I set out to determine exactly what contribution executive compensation makes to premium cost. I looked at the top executives of our employer because, as mentioned before, we are the biggest healthcare company of them all in terms of revenue and therefore, presumably, are the biggest crooks of all when it comes to compensating our executives on the backs of the little people we insure. I also looked at the general financials of our company to see if we really are gouging our customers to pad our bottom line. Below are the results. (Click on the chart to see it full size.)
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2PcaQ1DmCwIoHMT9yRfqOLMJ0SxpM6hTjKvxXyKF0V6fxXSF3y5KhuKazqbWDiPiduwx-1F0GORqxgr3TdpG-Ro_7PsbkRHelfPiMlHbxGVJmusWfmFoTARVSv_94qKDt5wEl38le4vQa/s1600/uhgfinance.bmp" target="_blank"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2PcaQ1DmCwIoHMT9yRfqOLMJ0SxpM6hTjKvxXyKF0V6fxXSF3y5KhuKazqbWDiPiduwx-1F0GORqxgr3TdpG-Ro_7PsbkRHelfPiMlHbxGVJmusWfmFoTARVSv_94qKDt5wEl38le4vQa/s400/uhgfinance.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5639257972312410434" /></a>
<br />As you can see in the chart above, if we were to completely eliminate the compensation of our top 5 executives and use that savings to reduce premiums, we would be able to reduce premiums by only 4/100ths of a penny per dollar of premium or roughly 4 cents per hundred dollars.
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<br />But total compensation doesn't paint the correct picture. Stock and Option grants are not taken out of revenue and therefore have zero impact on premiums charged. The correct analysis involves only salary and cash compensation, i.e. executive "pay". If we take this metric against revenue, we see that eliminating all executive "pay" would amount to only a 1/100th of a penny reduction per dollar of premium or 1 cent per $100 dollars, or even more dramatic, just a dime per $1,000 of premium. The fact is, the money we pay to our executives is a very small fraction of a percent of premium dollars and in no way influences premium increases.
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<br />Of course, I know this to be true already. I work in finance and see exactly how premium dollars are spent. Look at the item in the chart labelled Medical Loss Ratio (MLR). This is the amount of premium dollars that goes directly out to paying members' medical bills. It is around 80%, and has remained consistently in that range year over year(2). When we do analysis to support rate renewals, this is the item that we focus on. Premium increases (or decreases) are directly proportional to the movement of MLR year over year. The fact is that any increases in premiums that we issue are A DIRECT RESULT of increases in medical costs that we must pay out.
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<br />And what of the charge that we hoard all those premium dollars to increase our profits? Well, as again can be seen in the chart, our profit margin for 2010 was 5.4%. I think anyone would agree that this is a very modest profit. In fact, profit margins in the 4-6% range are the norm across the entire health insurance industry. The fact is that the health insurance industry is one of the most competitive, <a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html"><u>least profitable industries</u></a>(3) in this country. We simply can't raise premiums to pad our profits for if we did, we would get outbid for business.
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<br />The liberal media love to throw out whole dollar amounts to shock people into thinking that health insurance companies and their executives are robber barons. I'm sure if ALL you ever heard was that United collected $85 BILLION in premiums or made $4.6 BILLION in profit, or that its chief executive made $10.8 MILLION in compensation, you would be shocked. And without being told what those dollar amounts were as a percent of revenue, you would be inclined to think that my employer is indeed the epitome of evil "big business" greed. But I implore you, before you jump to conclusions based on the slanted stories you read and see: "do the math". Yes, those are large dollar amounts. But are they a result of gouging our customers? Absolutely not.
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<br />Notes:
<br />(1) Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann made apx the same amount in 2010 as Steve Hemsley, President and CEO of UnitedHealth Group. The next time one of these "news" anchors goes on a rant about evil greedy corporate executives, ask yourself who has earned their salary more: some bloviating tv talking head or the head of a multi billion dollar international company responsible not only for helping manage and deliver care to 75 million Americans but also watching over and guiding the 80,000+ employees who serve those Americans.
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<br />(2) The federally mandated MLR in ObamaCare is 85% for large group insurance, and 80% for small group and individual insurance, and we are currently restructuring our products to meet that guideline. Still, this increased MLR over the 80% "norm" in the industry will cause many, many people to actually LOSE their insurance coverage because, frankly, companies can't remain profitable at an 85% MLR. We are big enough to survive and absorb the increased hit to our finances. But this change will cause some health insurance companies to go out of business (<a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/06/health-reform-business-healthcare-obamacare-wellpoint-cigna.html"><u>it has begun already</u></a>) and others to terminate some plans and members.
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<br />(3) In the most recent data available, the Accident and Health Insurance industrial group ranked 96th , and the Health Care Plans group ranked 144th, out of 216 Industries on the Yahoo Business ranking of profitability.
<br /></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-75787471218399718232011-04-12T07:57:00.000-07:002011-04-12T08:45:21.397-07:00Sharks and Jets on Swing Night at Famous Dave’s<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZelcdSLgxfQ0_dZm_rLLm6oyMrishajVm6KY01qKmCuziLwi7JedOen4f6UxupysOmxalh1pbMHEpwBo9m865laf8QRMIS1ThBMnZrki6H-VcdfioZL0eRnXcfLHzMjae68vbDg88JHFo/s1600/0.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZelcdSLgxfQ0_dZm_rLLm6oyMrishajVm6KY01qKmCuziLwi7JedOen4f6UxupysOmxalh1pbMHEpwBo9m865laf8QRMIS1ThBMnZrki6H-VcdfioZL0eRnXcfLHzMjae68vbDg88JHFo/s320/0.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594712779628408530" /></a><br />No, there were no star crossed lovers or gang rumbles on the dance floor last night at Famous Dave’s in the Uptown area of Minneapolis. But there was a clash of cultures. West Side Story features the irreconcilable differences between two Ethnic cultures. Last night I observed the much less violent and even somewhat humorous intersection of two dance cultures – salsa and swing.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />A little background is in order. The Uptown Famous Dave’s restaurant at Hennepin and Lake in southwest Minneapolis doubles as a live music hot spot. Although mostly a blues club, on Monday and Tuesday nights they offer music and dancing in arguably the two most popular dance genres for young people today: Monday night is swing night; Tuesday is salsa night.<br /><br />My wife and I love to dance. Although we dabble in a variety of dance styles in the general social/ballroom repertoire, we are primarily swing dancers. Now, we won’t pretend to be able to keep up with the 20 something’s who tear up the floor on a typical Monday swing night, but for 50 something’s we hold our own. What I’m trying to say is that in terms of dance culture, we are clearly Jets…er…swingers. <br /><br />This was painfully clear one of the nights we tagged along with our daughters to a Tuesday salsa night at Famous Dave’s. Although I can do the steps and execute the figures involved in salsa dancing, I am no salsa dancer. I don’t get it; I don’t feel it; I don’t live it. One of my daughters succinctly summed up my effort at the end of the night: “Dad, it’s just too ‘swingy’”.<br /><br />Well, last night I saw the other side of the mirror. I don’t know if the guy just got his calendar wrong and thought it was Tuesday, or if he truly just loves to dance so much he is willing to step out of his Sharks' territory and cross over to Jet turf, but he clearly was in culture shock. To paraphrase my darling daughter, his dancing was just too “salsa-y”. Don’t get me wrong, he was a really good dancer. I could see he had all the steps down and all the right moves, but there was something noticeably “off” about his dancing. It just was not swing.<br /><br />“What”, you may ask, “could possibly be so different that you can tell someone is steeped in one style while dancing the other?” Well let me tell you.<br /><br />Salsa and swing styles[1] are polar opposites. They are the ying and yang, the north and south pole, the Sharks and Jets of up tempo social dancing. One might think it is just because the musical basis is different – African/Latin American for salsa vs. jazz/blues/rag time for swing. But it goes far beyond that. At the core, the difference is in the physics of the dances themselves.<br /><br />Salsa is smooth where swing is bouncy. In salsa the woman is continually drawn in where in swing she is constantly being cast out. Salsa is a face to face rendezvous; swing is two ships passing in the night. Salsa is a paper clip; swing is a rubber band. Salsa is a chili pepper roasting; swing is popcorn popping. Salsa is controlled; swing is frenetic. Salsa is all hips and arms; swing is all elbows and feet. Salsa can make you blush. Swing can make you bruise. Salsa is intimate where swing is anything but. Salsa is sexy! Swing is sassy!<br /><br />So, why do I even care? Two reasons. First, I would like to become a better salsa dancer. Although embarrassing my kids is one of the few pure pleasures I have in life (and just compensation for the teen years), I prefer to do it without embarrassing myself at the same time. I think salsa proficiency is within my grasp. <br /><br />Of course, the mirror has two faces. We are travelling to CA next month to visit our daughters and our older daughter would like us to teach her Latino boyfriend how to swing dance. He is a very good salsa dancer, and I’m sure he will have no problem with the steps. It is more a physics problem. After last night’s Shark-Jet encounter, I think I know where to start.<br /><br />Notes<br />[1] For the dance virgins out there - salsa and swing are not just specific dances, they are families of dance. Salsa encompasses salsa, cumbia, bachata, merengue, and others. Swing includes east coast swing, lindy hop, jive, charleston, and others. Here I am referring far more to the families than the individual named dances, as most accomplished dancers in either style shift seamlessly (almost magically) between different dances in the family even within the same song.<br /></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-15367008310496210702011-02-26T14:55:00.000-08:002011-02-26T15:07:10.890-08:00Eve the "Helper" - The Complete Picture<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">In my last post, I dug deep into the Biblical use of the Hebrew word <em>ezer</em> as it relates to God, and subsequently, Eve. But God's intent in his provision for Adam is not fully described by this one word. Now I would like to expand the inquiry to the full phrase that describes what exactly Eve will be for Adam.<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />For this post I will be using, for purposes of comparison and contrast, two translations of <em>ezer k-neged-u</em> from Genesis 2:18.<br /><br />King James Version<br />And the LORD God said, [It is] not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an <strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">help meet</span></strong> (<em>ezer k-neged-u</em>) for him.<br /><br />NIV<br />The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a <strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">helper suitable</span></strong> (<em>ezer k-neged-u</em>) for him.”<br /><br />“help meet” vs. “helper suitable” - there is quite a disparity between the two translations. The King James sounds strange to our contemporary minds. It may surprise the reader that “help meet” is actually a far more literal, and accurate, translation than “helper suitable”.<br /><br />Let's begin with <em>ezer</em> again. There is a subtle difference between the English words “help” and “helper”. The latter is <em>part</em> of the solution to a problem but the former is the solution in and of itself. We see that when the word is used for God. In most cases, God isn't a “helper” per se, leaving it up to us to help ourselves to some degree. No, God is the all inclusive “help”, without which we would be completely helpless.<br /><br />Which state did Adam find himself in, one where he needed a little assistance or one where he was completely hopeless. Remember that Adam did not need help with any domestic tasks. That is not what Eve was created for. Genesis 2:18 is crystal clear that the only condition that was not good and therefore required a help was Adam's state of being alone. In fact, Adam was hopelessly alone and could do nothing on his own to remedy that situation. This became even more stark of a reality when God had him name the animals and he found none that could cure his alone state. So, did Adam need a helper to fix what was “not good”, or did he need an all encompassing “help”. To me, it is clearly the latter. Eve was Adam's “help”.<br /><br />This seems like a nit picky semantic exercise to go through but it is important because of the subtle differences between the English words. To an English speaking mind, helper immediately brings to mind synonyms like “assistant” which leads easily to “subordinate”. It is this very thought process, coupled with the tendency to think Adam needed help with the gardening or something, that leads people very easily to believe that Eve was made to be under Adam's authority. Using “help” instead of “helper”, while a little clumsy linguistically, fits much better with the context and reality of Adam's need.<br /><br />Now on to this other word, <em>neged</em> that translates as “meet” vs. “suitable” in our two example verses. Beginning again with the NIV. To me, “suitable” is a terrible word to describe a person. It makes Eve in the context of the passage sound like some kind of tool. After all, if you need help with domestic chores, the most suitable helper is a domestic servant is it not? Again, it is nit picky, but I really think there are better words than “suitable”, and indeed many translations use alternatives that don't sound quite as domesticating. More on that in a minute.<br /><br />Turning to the King James, a contemporary English speaker is initially quite stumped. What in the world does “meet” mean? Often we jump to a conclusion: “Well, 'meet' must mean that Eve 'meets' Adam's needs”. While that isn't the worst thought in the world, it really misses the true meaning of this word. Often too, people who have just heard the verse without reading it erroneously translate this as “helpmate” (although one translation – Darby – makes the same mistake). This is going in the wrong direction all together.<br /><br />The Hebrew word <em>neged</em> actually means “in front of”, as in “standing face to face”. In negative contexts, it means to “oppose”. In positive contexts, it means one thing compliments or corresponds to another thing. So, literally, the King James translation of “meet” is very accurate. Eve is a “help” that “meets” Adam face to face.<br /><br />Putting that together, can we find a better translation of <em>ezer k-neged-u</em> that removes all aspects of hierarchy and shows the true purpose behind Eve's creation for Adam? I think there are several good candidates.<br /><br />The New Living Testament phrases it “a companion who will help him”. I certainly agree with the companion part, but I think we can do better.<br /><br />The New King James has “helper comparable”. That's a little better. And even better still...<br /><br />Young's Literal translation renders it “helper -- as his counterpart”. That isn't too bad. It certainly removes any thought that Adam was the boss of Eve. “counterpart” and “partner” are very similar words and they really get the sense of <em>neged</em>. Which leads to...<br /><br />The New American Bible has “suitable partner”. I like “partner”, but as stated before I'm not so keen on “suitable”<br /><br />The New English Translation gets a little wordy with “a companion for him who corresponds to him”. Seems “corresponding companion” would have done just as well. Never-the-less, I like this. “Companion” focuses on the correct context for the help Eve provides and “corresponding” gets the correct sense of <em>neged</em>. All things considered, this is my favorite.<br /><br />Eve was indeed Adam's companion, not his helper. This is the correct understanding of <em>ezer</em> in the context, for the problem Adam needed help with was his alone state. A companion was the very “help” that fixed Adam's “not good” state. And she indeed corresponded to him. She was not his clone, but instead was his “standing in front of him” compliment.</span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-84853354439812838492011-02-14T12:18:00.000-08:002011-02-14T13:25:25.518-08:00Eve the "Helper" - The Wit and Irony of God's Word Choices<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">Much has been made of the designation of Eve as “helper” for Adam in Genesis 2:18;20. Some claim that it means Eve was designed to provide Adam some domestic aid as he went about his preeminent job of tending the garden. Kind of a “maid with benefits”, if you will. On the other end of the spectrum (where I fall), some point out that the word often translated as “helper” is a word in Scripture that is almost universally used for God. If God is not subordinate to us, how could Eve be subordinate to Adam. Those positions have been long discussed, including here, and I do not intend in this post to resurrect that tired debate (especially since it is clearly settled in my mind). Instead, I want to share a small but significant new irony that I have discovered about this little Hebrew word - <em>ezer</em>.<br /><br /><span class="fullpost">As mentioned above, the word <em>ezer</em> more often than not is used of God in scripture. In fact, of the 19 occurrences outside of Genesis 2, all but three are in reference to God. But what does this word say about God? And how is that ironic in terms of how we view both Genesis 1-3 and marital relationships in general? Let’s look.<br /><br />In 5 of the 16 God-reference verses[1], God is spoken of as a “shield of…help” or “help and…shield”. In these verses, God is clearly identified as a protector. He both fights off foes and shields His people from their attacks. One legitimate interpretation of <em>ezer</em>, then, is clearly “protector”.<br /><br />In 7 more of the 16 verses[2], God is spoken of as a provider or supporter. Phrases such as “may he send you help (<em>ezer</em>)…and support”, and “my help (<em>ezer</em>) comes from the LORD” are examples. So, “provider” is another prominent (in fact, the most prominent) general interpretation of <em>ezer</em>.<br /><br />“Provider” and “protector” - there is something very familiar about those two words. When do we often hear them in connection with marriage? It is, of course, almost exclusively in reference to husbands. Culture (and many Christian philosophies) tells us that the males are the sole providers and protectors in the marriage and the females are the sole nurturers. Isn’t it ironic that the bible tells us the exact opposite.<br /><br />Now, to be fair, the translation of <em>ezer</em> as it relates to God that <em>best</em> describes Eve in relation to Adam is “rescuer”, as in “you are my help (<em>ezer</em>) and deliverer”. That occurs in 3 of the 16 verses[3]. The “help” that Eve provides is actually to rescue Adam from his “not good” state of being alone by being an equal partner[4] with him. Still, I can’t help but chuckle that God in His infinite wisdom <em>also</em> turns the concept of gender “roles” on its ear in His provision of Eve for Adam.<br /><br />Notes<br />1. Deu 33:29, Psa 33:20, Psa 115:9-11<br />2. Psa 20:2, Psa 89:19, Psa 121:1-2, Psa 124:8, Psa 146:5, Hsa 13:9<br />3. Exd 18:4, Deu 33:26, Psa 70:5<br />4. The final verse with <em>ezer</em> referring to God - Deu 33:7 - shows God as a fellow warrior, standing side by side <em>as an equal</em> with His people.<br /></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-17794975860219917502010-11-01T13:27:00.000-07:002010-11-01T13:45:21.816-07:00What Will They Be Singing Come Wednesday<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">So, I was thinking about the quintessential song for the day after the election. <br />...<span class="fullpost"><br /><ul><li>I suppose "It's The End of the World As We Know It" would be fitting, especially for Republicans who will crow the tag with glee: "...and I feel fine".</li><br /><li>Democrats may be more inclined to sing "There's Got To Be A Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure. Certainly they will feel like their ship has been flipped by a Republican tidal wave.</li><br /><li>And Independents will probably be belting out "I Did It My Way", considering they have been the determining group for both the Democratic waves in '06 and '08 and now the Republican <em>über</em>-tsunami in 2010.</li><br /><li>Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will surely be crying on each other's shoulder as they moan "Nobody Knows the Trouble I Seen".</li><br /><li>But most sorrowful will probably be the President's song. I can hear it now, softly wafting over the grounds of the White House, that Grandpa Jones classic: "Nobody Loves Me Anymore"</li></ul></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-30326666470860469312010-06-22T07:39:00.001-07:002010-06-22T08:09:42.503-07:00Let's See, Where Was I...<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">I think I'm out of my Obamacare funk and ready to post on non-political matters again. I know, I know, it's about time. Anyway, expect some more marriage posting soon. Considering I just had a nephew get married and will walk my daughter down the aisle in less than a couple of months, I think I am in the right frame of mind for it.</span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-15551739781948537472010-03-24T08:26:00.000-07:002011-11-14T07:15:03.750-08:00Health Care Reform Lawsuits<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">I will keep an updated list of lawsuits against the new healthcare reform law in this post with comments on progress.<br /><br /><em><span style="color:#cc0000;">last updated 11/14/2011</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;">Breaking News</span> - Supreme Court Agrees To Hear ObamaCare Cases.</em><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"><strong><u>The Score Card</u></strong></span><br /><br />Total number of lawsuits - 28<br />Active - 21<br /> Undecided - 7<br /> <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Decided with Appeals - 11</strong></span><br /> Decided pending appeal - 3<br /><span style="color:#999999;"><strong>Decided-Closed - 7</strong></span><br /><br />Decided - 21<br /> <span style="color:#cc6666;"><strong>Dismissed/Judgement for Defendant - 18</strong></span><br /> <span style="color:#66cc66;"><strong>Judgement for Plaintiff - 3</strong></span><br /><br />Decided Appeals - Circuit Court - 5<br /> <span style="color:#cc6666;"><strong>Upheld/Overturned or Dismissed for Defendant - 4</strong></span><br /> <span style="color:#66cc66;"><strong>Upheld or Overturned for Plaintiff - 1</strong></span><br /><br />States that are actively or about to sue (29):<br />(FL et al) AK, AL, AZ, CO, FL, GA, IA, ID, IN, KS, LA, MI, ME, MS, ND, NE, NV, OH, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT, WA, WI, WY (individual suits) VA, MO, OK<br /><br />States that will not (as of today) sue (22):<br />AR, CA, CT, DC, DE, HI, IL, KY, MA, MD, MN, MT, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, RI, TN, VT, WV<br /><span class="fullpost"><br /><b><u><span style="font-size:130%;color:#006600;">State Lawsuits</span></u></b><br /><br /><b>State of FL et al v. US DHHS et al</b><br />3:2010-cv-00091 <a href="https://ecf.flnd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?57507">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/A_Politics/healthcare.pdf">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />3/23/2010 filed - Current plaintiff states (26): FL, SC, NE, TX, UT, LA, AL, MI, CO, PA, WA, ID, SD, IN, ND, MS, AZ, NV, GA, AK, IA, KS, ME, OH, WI, WY<br />National Federation of Independent Business also added<br />Additional interested state parties via briefs<br />For the plaintiffs<br />Govenors: MN, RI<br />For the defendants<br />States' Attorneys General: OR, IA, VT<br />Govenors: CO, MI, PA, WA (in conflict with their AG's)<br />10/14/2010 Motion to Dismiss denied on counts 1 (individual mandate - Commerce Clause) and 4 (medicaid impacts - 10th Amendment)<br />12/16/2010 Hearing on motion(s) for summary judgement<br />1/18/2010 GA AG Joins (Govenor was part of original states), IA Govenor Joins (in conflict with AG). KS, ME, OH, WI, WY Join.<br />1/31/2011 <span style="color:#66cc66;"><b>Summary Judgement for Plaintiffs on count 1 (individual mandate) - Individual Mandate struck down as unconstitutional</b></span><br />2/28/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to 11th Circuit by non-party petitioner.</strong></span> <a href="http://ecf.ca11.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=11-10894&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">11-10894-H</a><br />3/2/2011 Judge stays order......contingent on the defendants submitting a motion for expedited appeal with the appelate court or SCOTUS within 7 days.<br />3/8/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to 11th Circuit by defendants.</strong></span> <a href="http://ecf.ca11.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=11-11021&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">11-11021</a>. <br />6/8/2011 11th Circuit: oral arguments<br />8/12/2011 <span style="color:#66cc66;"><strong>Upheld in Favor of Plaintiff</strong></span><br /><br /><b>Commonwealth of VA v. Sebelius</b><br />3:2010-cv-00188 <a href="https://ecf.vaed.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?252045">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.vaag.com/PRESS_RELEASES/Cuccinelli/Comm%20v.%20Sebelius%20-%20Complaint%20filed%20with%20Court%20_323_10.pdf">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />3/23/201 filed<br />8/2/2010 Motion to dismiss denied<br />10/18/2010 Hearing on motions for summary judgement<br />12/13/2010 <span style="color:#66cc66;"><b>Summary judgement for Plaintiffs - Individual Mandate struck down as unconstitutional</b></span><br />1/19/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Both parties appeal to the 4th Circuit</strong></span> (<a href="http://ecf.ca4.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=11-1057&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">11-1057</a>, <a href="https://ecf.ca4.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=DocketReportFilter.jsp&caseNum=11-1058">11-1058</a>)<br />1/20/2011 Appeals case consolidated into <a href="http://ecf.ca4.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=11-1057&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">11-1057</a><br />1/26/2011 Expedited briefing granted and oral argument scheduled for May 10-13, 2011. Case will be argued in conjunction with Liberty University, Inc. et al v. Geithner et al<br />2/9/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Petition to SCOTUS by Plaintiff</strong></span> <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/10-1014.htm">10-1014</a><br />4/25/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Petition to SCOTUS denied</span><br />9/8/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">4th Circuit: Dissmissed - Standing</span><br /><br /><b>Kinder et al v. Department of Treasury et al</b><br />1:2010-cv-00101 <a href="https://ecf.moed.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?107528">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />7/7/2010 Filed - suit by MO Lt Gov Kinder and others both as a private citizen and in his official capacity of Lt. Gov. as the government advocate for the state's elderly.<br />7/9/2010 Motion to intervene and for partial dismissal filed by MO AG claiming only he can advocate legally for the MO state government.<br />8/20/2010 Motion to intervene withdrawn<br />1/18/2011 Motion to Dismiss<br />4/26/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed</span> - Jurisdiction<br />4/29/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to the 8th Circuit</strong></span> <a href="https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp&caseNum=11-1973&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">11-1973</a><br />10/17-10/21/2011 8th Circuit: oral arguments<br /><br /><b>Pruit v. Sebelius et al</b><br />6:2011-cv-00030 <a href="https://ecf.oked.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?20111">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />Oklahoma suit<br />1/7/2011 Announced<br />1/24/2011 Filed<br />3/28/2011 Motion to Dismiss<br /><br /><span style="color:#006600;"><b><u><span style="font-size:130%;">Individual Lawsuits</span></u></b></span><br /><br /><b>Thomas More Law Center, et al v. POTUS et al</b><br />2:2010-cv-11156 <a href="https://ecf.mied.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?247295">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.thomasmore.org/downloads/sb_thomasmore/TMLCFilesCourtChallengeMomentsAfterObamaHealt.pdf">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />3/23/2010 Filed<br />10/21/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed</span><br />12/15/2010 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to 6th Circuit</strong></span> <a href="http://ecf.ca6.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=10-2388&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">10-2388</a><br />6/29/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Upheld in Favor of Defendant</span><br />7/27/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to SCOTUS</strong></span> <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/11-117.htm">11-117</a><br /><br /><b>Liberty University, Inc. et al v. Geithner et al</b><br />6:2010-cv-00015 <a href="https://ecf.vawd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?76425">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.lc.org/media/9980/attachments/complaint_healthcare.pdf">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />3/23/201 Filed<br />10/22/2010 Hearing on Motion to Dismiss<br />11/30/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed</span><br />12/3/2010 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to 4th Circuit</strong></span> <a href="http://ecf.ca4.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=10-2347&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">10-2347</a><br />1/26/2011 Oral argument scheduled for May 10-13, 2011. Case will be argued in conjunction with Commonwealth of VA v. Sebelius<br />9/8/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">4th Circuit: Dissmissed - Standing</span><br /><br /><b>New Jersey Physicians, Inc. et al v. Obama et al</b><br />2:2010-cv-01489 <a href="https://ecf.njd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?239337">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />3/24/2010 Filed<br />7/28/2010 Motion to dismiss<br />12/7/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed</span><br />12/14/2010 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to 3rd Circuit</strong></span> <a href="http://ecf.ca3.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=10-4600&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">10-4600</a><br />6/22/2011 3rd Circuit: oral arguments<br />8/3/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Upheld in Favor of Defendant</span><br /><br /><b>Baldwin et al v. Sebelius et al</b><br />3:2010-cv-01033 <a href="https://ecf.casd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?323433">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />5/14/2010 Filed<br />8/27/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed </span><br />9/1/2010 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to 9th Circuit</strong></span> <a href="http://ecf.ca9.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=10-56374&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">10-56374</a><br />9/17/2010 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Petition to SCOTUS</strong></span> <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/10-369.htm">10-369</a><br />11/8/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Petition to SCOTUS denied</span><br /><br /><b>Mead et al v. Holder et al</b><br />1:2010-cv-00950 <a href="https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?142530">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.aclj.org/media/pdf/HC-DCT-Complaint_20100609.pdf">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />6/9/2010 Filed - suit by the <a href="http://www.aclj.org/">American Center for Law and Justice</a><br />8/10/2010 Plaintiff Motion for Summary Judgement<br />8/20/2010 Motion to Dismiss<br />1/31/2011 Hearing on Motion to Dismiss<br />2/22/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed</span><br />2/25/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to DC Circuit</strong></span> <a href="http://ecf.cadc.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=11-5047&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">11-5047</a><br />9/23/2011 DC Circuit: oral arguments<br /><br /><b>Physician Hospitals of America, et al v. Sebelius</b><br />6:2010-cv-00277<a href="https://ecf.txed.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?123207">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />6/3/2010 Filed - Another provider initiated lawsuit<br />8/17/2010 Motion to Dismiss and Defendant Motion for Summary Judgement<br />9/29/2010 Hearing on Motion to Dismiss and (defendant) Motion for Summary Judgement<br />11/24/2010 Bench Trial Cancelled.<br />2/15/2011 Plaintiff Motion for Summary Judgement<br />2/18/2011 Motion to Dismiss denied (jurisdiction issue only)<br />3/31/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Summary Judgement for Defendant</span><br />6/9/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to the 5th Circuit</strong></span> <a href="http://ecf.ca5.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=11-40631&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">11-40631</a><br /><br /><b>Purpura et al v. Sebelius et al</b><br />3:2010-cv-04814 <a href="https://ecf.njd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?246791">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/2268339/jstp-occff-healthcare-litigation-1-pdf-september-28-2010-9-42-am-484k?da=y">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />9/20/2010 Filed<br />10/7/2010 Case reassigned<br />12/9/2010 Motion for summary judgement (plaintiffs)<br />1/17/2011 Cross Motion to Dismiss<br />1/18/2011 (postponed) Motion for summary judgement to be decided<br />2/22/2011 (sched) Motion for summary judgement and any motion to dismiss to be decided<br />4/22/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed</span> - Standing<br />5/12/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to 3rd Circuit</strong></span> <a href="http://ecf.ca3.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=11-2303&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">11-2303</a><br /><br /><b>U.S. Citizens Association et al v. Obama et al</b><br />5:2010-cv-01065 <a href="https://ecf.ohnd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?166037">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.uscitizensassociation.com/pdfs/USCA%20Lawsuit%20Final.pdf">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />5/12/2010 Filed<br />8/12/2010 Motion to Dimiss<br />9/1/2010 Ammended Complaint<br />9/16/2010 Second Amended Complaint<br />10/8/2010 Motion to Dismiss<br />11/23/2010 Motion to Dismiss count 1 (Individual Mandate unconstitutional) denied. Counts 2-4 dismissed.<br />1/24/2010 Cross Motions for Summary Judgement<br />2/28/2011 Court issues final judgement on counts 2-4 so that they may be immediately appeal, if desired. Count 1 remains open.<br />3/18/2011 Dismissal of counts 2-4 appealed to 6th circuit. Count 1, Individual Mandate, still remains before district court.<br />4/27/2011 Case suspended "pending a ruling by the Sixth Circuit in Thomas Moore Law Center vs. Obama" <br />7/1/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Summary Judgement for Defendant per precedent of 6th Circuit decision in Thomas Moore Law Center vs. Obama</span><br />7/27/2011 <span style="color:#6666cc;"><strong>Appealed to 6th Circuit</strong></span> <a href="https://ecf.ca6.uscourts.gov/cmecf/servlet/TransportRoom?servlet=CaseSummary.jsp?caseNum=11-3798&dktType=dktPublic&incOrigDkt=Y&incDktEntries=Y">11-3798</a><br /><br /><b>Peterson v. USA et al</b><br />1:2010-cv-00170 <a href="https://ecf.nhd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?35242">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />5/4/2010 Filed - Claims assumed reductions in Medicare benefits and increased costs are unconstitutional.<br />8/16/2010 Motion to dismiss<br />12/20/2010 Ammended Complaint<br />3/10/2011 Hearing on Motion to Dismiss<br />3/30/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed - subject matter jurisdiction</span><br /><br /><b>Bellow v. US DHHS et al</b><br />1:2010-cv-00165 <a href="https://ecf.txed.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?121795">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.davidbellow.com/DavidBellow.html#Lawsuit_Text">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />3/24/2010 Filed - First private citizen lawsuit<br />11/29/2010 Motion to Dismiss<br />12/20/2010 Plaintiff Motion for Summary Judgement<br />3/21/2011 Magistrate Judge recommends dismissal<br />6/20/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed - subject matter jurisdiction</span><br /><br /><b>Goudy-Bachman et al v. US DHHS et al</b><br />1:2010-cvs-00763 <a href="https://ecf.pamd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?80371">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />4/9/2010 Filed - 2 Pennsylvania residents<br />6/14/2010 Motion to Dismiss<br />1/24/2011 Motion to Dismiss denied as to jurisdiction, standing, and ripeness of the plaintiff's financial burden claims. Separate opinion on Motion to Dismiss as to constitutionality of the Individual Mandate forthcoming.<br />6/21/2011 Motion for Summary Judgement by Defendants<br />7/6/2011 Motion for Summary Judgement by Plaintiffs<br />9/13/2011 <span style="color:#66cc66;"><b>Summary judgement for Plaintiffs - Individual Mandate struck down as unconstitutional</b></span><br /><br /><b>Walters et al v. Holder, Jr. et al</b><br />2:2010-cv-00076 <a href="https://ecf.mssd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?71766">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/29361133/HEALTCAREPETITIONFINALVERSION">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />4/2/2010 Filed - Three Mississippi residents<br />8/1/2010 Motion to dismiss<br />2/3/2011 Dismissed as to standing with a 30 day leave to ammend the complaint<br />3/4/2011 Amended complaint<br />4/12/2011 Motion to dismiss in part and for jurisdictional discovery<br /><br /><b>Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, Inc. v. Sebelius et al</b><br />1:2010-cv-00499 <a href="https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?141409">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.aapsonline.org/hhslawsuit/aaps-v-sebelius-03-26-2010.pdf">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />3/26/2010 Filed<br />6/11/2010 Case Reassigned<br />7/29/2010 Motion to Dismiss<br />8/23/2010 Ammended Complaint<br />9/13/2010 Second Amended Complaint<br />11/12/2010 Motion to Dismiss<br />11/22/2010 Amended Motion to Dismiss<br />3/30/2011 Case reassigned<br /><br /><b>Calvey et al v. Obama et al</b><br />5:2010-cv-00353 <a href="https://ecf.okwd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?76610">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />4/7/2010 Filed - 16 Oklahoma residents<br />4/8/2010 Case Reassigned<br />8/6/2010 Ammended suit to allow class action (currently 1,162 plaintiffs)<br />2/15/2011 Motion to Dismiss<br />4/26/2011 Dismissed in part. Only some claims (related to mandate) for only the uninsured plaintiffs remain to be adjudicated.<br /><br /><b>Sissel v. US DHHS et al</b><br />1:2010-cv-01263 <a href="https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?143261">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://community.pacificlegal.org/Document.Doc?id=458">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />7/26/2010 Filed - suit by the <a href="http://community.pacificlegal.org/Page.aspx?pid=183">Pacific Legal Foundation</a><br />11/15/2010 Motion to Dismiss<br />6/3/2011 Case Reassigned<br />8/9/2011 Case suspended pending a ruling by the DC Circuit in Mead vs. Holder <br /><br /><b>Coons et al v. Geithner et al</b><br />2:2010-cv-01714 <a href="https://ecf.azd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?544151">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/file/4929/download/4931">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />8/12/2010 Filed - suit by the <a href="http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article/4927">Goldwater Institute</a><br />11/15/2010 Motion for Preliminary Injunction<br />3/10/2011 Motion for Preliminary Injunction withdrawn<br />3/11/2011 Amended Complaint<br />4/18/2011 Motion to Dismiss<br />5/10/2011 Ammended Complaint<br />5/31/2011 Motion to Dismiss<br />6/13/2011 Motion to Dismiss found moot<br />6/20/2011 Motion for Partial Summary Judgement by Plaintiffs<br />8/10/2011 Motion for Summary Judgement by Defendants<br /><br /><b>Enloe et al v. Obama et al</b><br />5:2011-cv-00026 <a href="https://ecf.txnd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?203159">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />2/11/2011 Filed. This is basically the Shreeve case refiled in another district<br />5/31/2011 Motion to Dismiss<br /><br /><b><u><span style="font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Potential Lawsuits</span></u></b><br /><br /><b><u><span style="font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Closed Lawsuits</span></u></b><br /><br /><b><span style="color:#999999;">Taitz v. Obama</span></b><br />1:2010-cv-00151 <a href="https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?140567">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/AmendedComplaint3-20-2010.pdf">Link to Complaint</a> (applicable amended section begins page 5))<br />Amended filing to a "birther" lawsuit.<br />Motion filed to consolidate suit with St of FL et al.<br />4/8/2010 Motion denied<br />4/14/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Amended suit dismissed</span><br /><br /><b><span style="color:#999999;">Shreeve v. Obama et al</span></b><br />1:2010-cv-00071 <a href="https://ecf.tned.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?57021">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />4/8/2010 Filed - 10th Amendment case brought by an individual - interesting. Names Reid and Pelosi as defendants. (This is the suit from the TN State Rep Candidate Van Irion, who is acting as the plaintiff's attorney)<br />7/19/2010 Motion for peliminary injunction<br />7/19/2010 Suit becomes national class action w/ 25,000+ plaintiffs (including my daughter)<br />8/27/2010 Motion to dismiss<br />11/4/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed</span><br /><br /><b><span style="color:#999999;">Fountain Hills Tea Party Patriots, L.L.C. v. Sebelius et al</span></b><br />2:2010-cv-00893 <a href="https://ecf.azd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?517686">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />4/22/2010 Filed - The Tea Party joins the fight<br />6/17/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed</span><br /><br /><b><span style="color:#999999;">Burlsworth et al v. Department of Justice et al</span></b><br />4:2010-cv-00258 <a href="https://ecf.ared.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?81606">(PACER Locator - login required)</a> (<a href="http://www.securearkansas.com/Petition%20for%20Injunctive%20and%20Declaratory%20Relief.pdf">Link to Complaint</a>)<br />4/27/2010 Filed - This is the Secure Arkansas suit<br />8/3/2010 Motion to dismiss<br />9/8/2010 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Plaintiffs withdraw complaint</span><br /><br /><b><span style="color:#999999;">Independent American Party of NV et al v. Obama et al</span></b><br />2:2010-cv-01477 <a href="https://ecf.nvd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?75751">(PACER Locator - login required)</a><br />8/31/2010 Filed<br />1/19/2011 Case Reassigned<br />3/7/2011 <span style="color:#cc6666;">Dismissed - no proof of service</span><br /><br /><b><span style="color:#999999;">Archer v. U.S. Senate</span></b> - dismissed 4/12/10. This was a complaint against "the cornhusker kickback". Case was dismissed because plaintiff did not pay fee.<br /><br /><b><span style="color:#999999;">Mackenzie v. Shaheen</span></b> - dismissed 5/26/10. This was a suit originally filed in county court in New Hampshire and then moved to Federal District Court, which claims denial of plaintiff's due process rights by his elected representatives in relation to the "unfair means" in which the ObamaCare bill was written, debated, and voted upon. Dismissed as defendants, the plaintiff's US Senator and Congresspersons, have "legislative immunity from suit based upon legitimate legislative activities".<br /><br /><a href="http://m.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/12/08/health-reform-wins-another-round-court">Additional suits listed</a> on m.whitehouse.gov blog. I do not include any of these in the totals because I either can find no record of them or they are not ObamaCare cases.<br />Sollars v. Reid - dismissed 4/2/10. I find no record of this case on PACER<br />Heghmann v. Sebelius - dismissed 5/14/10. I find no record of this case on PACER<br />Coalition for Parity Inc. v. Sebelius - dismissed on 6/21/10. This is a case against the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity<br />Act of 2008, not ObamaCare.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;color:#006600;"><b><u>Other News</u></b></span><br /><br />10/26/2011 <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/10/health-cases-set/#more-130458">Health cases set for Nov. 10 SCOTUS Conference</a><br /></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-83136997069394493312010-03-23T12:02:00.000-07:002011-01-19T09:40:09.717-08:00I Feel Like Alice in Obamaland<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">Scotusblog opens commentary on pending healthcare reform lawsuits with this roundup<br /><br /><blockquote>Commentators continue to speculate on the role of the Court in potential challenges to Congress’ passage of health care reform late Sunday. At the ACS blog, Simon Lazarus writes in an issue brief that mandating the purchase of health insurance is “lawful and clearly so” under the Commerce Clause and/or the General Welfare Clause. At Vanity Fair, Andrew Cohen predicts that in a possible 5-4 Supreme Court decision, Justice Kennedy and his swing vote would be “quite open and warm to the notion of federal intervention on health care.” At Jost on Justice, Kenneth Jost reviews relevant Supreme Court Commerce Clause jurisprudence and concludes that the bill is likely to survive potential legal challenges. Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog also weighs in on the subject.</blockquote><br />News organizations concur with a unified chorus of: "Legal experts say they [the lawsuits] have little chance of succeeding". Who are these legal experts and what Constitution are they looking at? I feel like I have stepped into a rupture in the space/time continuum and have been instantly transported to a much darker parallel America where Joe Biden has a gotee and the Commerce Clause of the constitution now reads:<br /><br />"[The Congress shall have power] To <em><strong>COMPEL</strong></em> Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States"<br /><br />Seriously, please, I beg of you, will some constitutional scholar come here to explain to my feeble mind how the individual mandate in Obamacare can be constitutional. I know you are out there because you keep telling everyone in the press that it is true. But I can't fathom it.<br /><br />So what is next? <br /><br />If the government decides that we need to emit fewer green house gases (a noble endeavor), can they now <em><strong>compel</strong></em> us to go out and buy wind generators, solar panels, and hybrid cars? I know they can incentivize us to make such purchases, but can they literally force us to? Apparently, according to the legal experts, that is simply "regulating" commerce. If the government decides that it is healthy to take some time off work each year (demonstrably true), can they now <em><strong>compel</strong></em> us to fly to Cancun for a week? I would love it if they would incentivize THAT but can they force it? It would appear so. And what if the government decides our population is too big (can you say china)? Can they <em><strong>compel</strong></em> us to purchase birth control, get sterilized, and have abortions for the general welfare? After all, those are simply different kinds of commerce. <br /><br />I guess the founders had just such an exercise of federal power in mind when they wrote the commerce clause, because the legal experts all agree that such forced purchasing is in there somewhere. I can’t see it. But I’m no expert.<br /></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-48128996511059940562010-03-22T09:09:00.001-07:002010-03-22T09:11:06.340-07:00Would You Like a Glass of Kool-Aide?<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">From the “have a nice glass of kool-aide” Dept: Ha! For all of you who cheered the President’s constant sniping at the health insurance industry and bought his promise that Obamacare will end “evil insurance company practices”, this just in from Wall Street.<br /><br />“The major health insurance and provider stocks leaped upward on the open, as expected. (They just acquired 32 million new customers in the most ideal way: it’s now illegal not to buy their products.)” (Francis Cianfrocca - redstate.com)<br /><br />Thank you Obamacare supporters. Since I work for the largest (and, I suppose, inherently most evil) of those insurance companies you have given me job security for the foreseeable future. Of course, I hate this unconstitutional and despicable bill, but thanks to Speaker Pelosi and her kool-aide drinking Reps., I at least will enjoy gainful employment for the rest of whatever. <br /></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-67427554981181631212010-03-17T11:53:00.001-07:002010-03-24T10:44:48.409-07:00The "Price" of ObamaCare: Wait Times. A First Hand Example<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">One of the ways that health systems are measured is in terms of wait times for procedures. The knocks against government run systems is that wait times are painfully (literally) long due to inadequate doctor availability. This week, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article that predicts severe doctor shortages if ObamaCare is put into place. With the doctor availability (or lack thereof) side of the equation seeming to be inevitable, the question of wait times deserves a serious answer. If wait times truly will increase dramatically, the pain and suffering of American patients could increase proportionally. So, is it true that wait times are significantly longer in government run systems? I submit my gall bladder surgery as a case in point.<span class="fullpost"><br /><br />A few years ago, I finally had my gall bladder out. Although not life threatening, the status of my gall stones had come to a point where I was having painful attacks on almost a weekly basis. I could grin and bear it, but it had really come time to "get 'er done". I did not consider my situation urgent in a purely medical sense, nor did my physician consider it so. I will share the chronology of my surgery in our private health care system in a moment, but first let's look at how it might have been handled in another country.<br /><br />It takes a little digging, but one can find average wait time statistics for surgeries in the various countries (or provinces) that have government run health systems. Here is a brief list of what I found for gall bladder removal (cholesystectomy):<br /><br />New South Wales, Australia. Non-urgent, 3 months; urgent, 3 weeks. (2006/2007 data)<br />British Columbia, Canada. 3 months (No division by urgency. 2008 data)<br />England. 2-3 months (No division by urgency. 2004/2005 data)<br /><br />Now, I know this is hardly an exhaustive study. But I think it is clear and very common knowledge that if you need an elective cholesystectomy in a government system, you are going to wait anywhere from a few weeks to a lot of months. So, what was my experience?<br /><br />I had my gall stones diagnosis several years before my surgery. At that point in time, I was having only rare attacks and I could kind of manage things by diet. When the stones did cause irritation, it was often relieved with over the counter pain rememdies. That fairly quickly took a turn for the worse a few years ago. So I decided to go into the local clinic and see if I could have the problem taekn care of.<br /><br />I called to set up an appointment with a general surgeon at the clinic. My wait for that appointment was...well...there was no wait. They asked if I could come in that day, and I could, and I did. The doctor did a standard physical and asked a few diagnostic questions. When he confirmed that I did indeed have gall stones and that it would be recommended that I have my gall bladder removed, we had the following conversation:<br /><br />Doctor - "well I suppose you would like this done as soon as possible"<br />Me - "yup"<br />Doctor - "when are you available to have the surgery"<br />Me - "my schedule at work is pretty flexible, so really any time"<br />Doctor - "how about tomorrow"<br /><br />Obviously, I agreed. Just as with my initial appointment, my wait time was virtually 0 days. But it gets even more impressive. The doctor said that I would need to have a pre-operative physical before surgery, and that would need to be done "today". He talked to the nurse coordinator, they scheduled the surgery at teh hospital of my choice (I had three to choose from), and then scheduled my pre-op physical at thier nearby sister clinic for an hour later.<br /><br />Now, I know that my experience may also be a slight outlier. But I have no doubt it is fairly representative of how surgery gets handled here in America with our fully private system. My experience supports the anecdotal and statistical evidence that government run systems are far less responsive to patient needs, especially the needs for diagnostic testing and treatment. ObamaCare would change all of that, adversely altering wait times and a variety of other health care quality factors.<br /></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-58109088260141610462010-03-12T12:14:00.000-08:002010-03-12T12:20:16.637-08:00My Objections to Obamacare: an Open Letter to Congress<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">The people at <a href="http://www.capitolconnect.com/freeourhealthcarenow/default.aspx">capitolconnect.com</a> have made it possible for anyone to email their representative and all of the blue-dog Democrats in the House of Representatives regarding President Obama and the Democrats' healthcare reform bill. They even allow you to edit the default message to make it a personal appeal. Here is what I wrote to congress:<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />I write to encourage you to oppose government-run health care and any legislation which might broaden the federal government's control over my health care. I hope that you fight against health care legislation that would drive up costs, diminish quality and limit access.<br /><br />I am a person who has been touched by the healthcare industry all my life. My father was a physician - an anesthesiologist - who even in the 70's saw upwards of 20% of his gross income go to malpractice insurance premiums. In my youth I worked as a nursing assistant on the delivery side of healthcare, caring for patients in both hospital and long term care settings. My wife also worked in healthcare delivery at the practitioner level, running a doctors office for the first few years of our married life. For the last 25+ years, I have worked on the payer/managed care side of the healthcare equation. Currently, I am a financial analyst for one of the top 3 healthcare companies in the world. I not only manage forecasting and budget for a $500M piece of our business, but work with our actuaries to develop premium rates.<br /><br />When I weigh all of this experience against the current proposed legislation, and more importantly, the rhetorical basis for that legislation, I am frankly shocked at both the inadequacy of the bill to address the REAL healthcare reform needs of this country and the deceitful and inaccurate claims about our wonderful healthcare system. At the core of my disgust is the failure of the bill to address the true problem in the current system - cost. Defensive medicine and out of control malpractice rewards are a large factor in driving costs up. These constantly rising costs in turn are the major contributor to insurance premium rate increases. Government regulation in the form of mandated benefits also adds to the cost equation. And a lack of competition because of rigid, state based obstacles to product marketing removes the last hope of pushing costs down.<br /><br />The current bill not only fixes none of these real problems but will exacerbate a good many of them. As doctors flee the system because they can't survive financially, the quality of and access to care will go dramatically down and cause an actual increase in prices due to supply and demand dynamics. All of the “pork” in the bill simply heaps waste on top of bad policy.<br /><br />For all of these reasons I implore you to take the sensible and responsible approach to the current healthcare bill and vote against it. I hope you get that opportunity soon so that you and your colleagues, our servants in the machine of government, can turn your attention to issues that really are affecting our country in this current tumultuous time – jobs and the economy.<br /></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-41156176941562805602010-02-10T11:40:00.000-08:002010-07-30T08:10:49.713-07:001 Timothy 2:11-15, Scoring 80 Translations<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">Coinciding with the 1st Timothy 2 entry in my "Show Stoppers" series, I have "scored" all English versions of the passage (vs 11-15) that I could find online for their translational accuracy. Enjoy browsing through and looking for your favorite bible version, although beware, in most cases, it ain't a pretty picture.<span class="fullpost"><br /><br />Translations are scored on the following criteria with ten points awarded for each correctly translated section:<br /><br />General - All human references retain their grammatical number as reflected in the original text.<br />Verse 11 (and 12) - <i>hesychia</i> translated to suggest peace or tranquility rather than verbal silence<br />Verse 12 - Paul’s authority (“I do not allow”, etc.) is clear<br />Verse 12 - Negative word such as dominion or dominate is used AND it is not suggested that such dominion is taken away or usurped from men<br />Verse 14 - Translation reflects correct tense<br />Verse 15 - “childbearing” is translated as a noun with the definite article AND salvation (rather than bodily safety) is emphasized<br /><br />Individual points are added or subtracted as follows:<br />If reference is made to husband or wife in the passage, +1<br />If it is clear that “they” in verse 15 are the couple, +1<br />If Eve is clearly identified as “the woman” in verse 14, -1<br />If Eve is shown as being deceitful or in any way having brought sin into the world, or if the portrayal implies women in general are more easily deceived than men, -1<br />If there is an indication in the translation that the worship service is the setting, -1<br />If there is an indication that a woman’s “place” is in the home, -1<br /><br />A perfect score is 60 and the maximum score (with bonus points) is 62. Minimum score is -4.<br /><br />The top scoring translation with a perfect score is The Concordant Literal New Testament. The lowest score goes to our template translation, the Contemporary English Version, with a -1. It should be noted that the vast majority of the translations scored 30 or under.<br /><br />Correctly translated phrases are in <span style="color:blue;">blue</span>; incorrectly translated ones in <span style="color:red;">red</span>. Neutral phrases or those that are always correctly translated are in <span style="color:gray;">grey</span>. <u>Underlining</u> indicates bonuses or reductions.<br /><br />American Standard Version (ASV)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span> <span style="color:gray;">learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span> <span style="color:gray;">with all subjection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But </span><span style="color:blue;">I permit not</span> <span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor </span><span style="color:blue;">to have dominion over a man</span>, <span style="color:gray;">but to be</span> <span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="color:gray;">For Adam was first formed, then Eve<span style="font-size:1em;">;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and</span> Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled</span> <span style="color:blue;">hath fallen into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>but</span> <span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be </span><span style="color:blue;">saved </span><span style="color:red;">through her child-bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 50<br /><br />Amplified Bible<span style="color:blue;"></span><br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">, in entire submissiveness. </span><span style="color:blue;">I allow no</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or </span><span style="color:red;">to have authority</span><span style="color:gray;"> over </span><span style="color:red;">men</span><span style="color:gray;">; </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">is to remain </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness </span><span style="color:gray;">and </span><u><span style="color:red;">keep silence [in religious assemblies]</span></u><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve; <span style="font-size:1em;">And</span> it was not Adam who was deceived, </span><u><span style="color:red;">but [the] woman</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was deceived and deluded and </span><span style="color:red;">fell into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Nevertheless </span><span style="color:red;">[the sentence put upon women of pain in motherhood does not hinder their souls' salvation, and] they </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved [eternally] if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control, </span><span style="color:blue;">[saved indeed] through the Childbearing or by the birth of the divine Child.</span><br />Score - 28<br /><br />Analytical-Literal Translation (ALT)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> be learning </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all submission. But I do not permit </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to be teaching, nor </span><span style="color:blue;">to be exerting dominance</span><span style="color:gray;"> over </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, having been deceived, </span><span style="color:blue;">has come to be in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she</span><span style="color:gray;"> will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through the bearing of children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they remain in faith and love and sanctification, with decency [or, self-control].</span><br />Score - 50<br /><br />Aramaic Bible (English Translation)<br /><u><span style="color:blue;">A wife</span></u> <span style="color:gray;">should learn </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><u><span style="color:red;">during all worship</span></u><span style="color:gray;">. For </span><span style="color:blue;">I neither advocate the wife</span><span style="color:gray;"> to be a teacher, nor to </span><span style="color:blue;">order her <u>husband</u> around</span><span style="color:gray;">, except she should </span><span style="color:blue;">be serene</span><span style="color:gray;">.* For Adam was molded first and then Eve. And Adam did not mislead her, however </span><u><span style="color:red;">it was the wife that misled him</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> and </span><span style="color:red;">transgressed</span><span style="color:gray;"> the commandment. </span><span style="color:blue;">She</span><span style="color:gray;"> Lives then </span><span style="color:red;">through her children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they be strengthened* in faith, love, holiness and modesty.</span><br />Score - 39<br /><br />Basic English Bible (BEB)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">take the place of a learner and be under authority. </span><span style="color:blue;">In my opinion</span><span style="color:gray;"> it is right for </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> not to be a teacher, or to </span><span style="color:blue;">have rule</span><span style="color:gray;"> over </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">For Adam was first formed, then Eve; And Adam was not taken by deceit, but the woman, being tricked, <span style="color:red;">became a wrongdoer</span>.</span> But if they go on in faith and love and holy self-control, </span><span style="color:blue;">she</span><span style="color:gray;"> will be kept </span><span style="color:red;">safe at the time of childbirth</span><span style="color:gray;">.</span><br />Score - 40<br /><br />Bible <span style="font-size:1em;">In</span> Worldwide English<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> must learn </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">and be very humble. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow any woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or </span><span style="color:blue;">to rule over a man</span><span style="color:gray;">. </span><span style="color:blue;">She </span><span style="color:gray;">must remain </span><span style="color:blue;">quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. Adam was not fooled. But the woman was fooled and </span><span style="color:red;">did wrong</span><span style="color:gray;">. But anyway, </span><span style="color:red;">the women</span><span style="color:gray;"> will come </span><span style="color:red;">safely through the time of delivering a child</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they <span style="font-size:1em;">keep on believing</span> and loving God, and if they live a clean life and keep humble. </span><br />Score - 30<br /><br />The Bishop's Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">learne</span> </span><span style="color:red;">in <span style="font-size:1em;">scilence</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> in all <span style="font-size:1em;">subiection</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But </span><span style="color:blue;">I suffer not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to <span style="font-size:1em;">teache</span>, neither to </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:red;">vsurpe</span></span><span style="color:red;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">auctoritie</span> <span style="font-size:1em;">ouer</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">ye man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be in </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:red;">scilence</span></span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Adam was first <span style="font-size:1em;">fourmed</span>, then <span style="font-size:1em;">Eue</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And Adam was not <span style="font-size:1em;">deceaued</span>: but the woman <span style="font-size:1em;">beyng</span> <span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="font-size:1em;">deceaued</span></span><span style="font-size:1em;">,</span> </span><span style="color:red;">was in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="font-size:1em;">Notwithstandyng</span> </span><span style="color:red;">through <span style="font-size:1em;">bearyng</span> of <span style="font-size:1em;">chyldren</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:gray;">shalbe</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">saued</span>, <span style="font-size:1em;">yf</span> they continue in <span style="font-size:1em;">fayth</span> and <span style="font-size:1em;">loue</span>, and <span style="font-size:1em;">holynesse</span>, with <span style="font-size:1em;">modestie</span>.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Christian Community Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman quietly</span><span style="color:gray;"> receive instruction and be sub­missive. </span><span style="color:blue;">I allow no woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or </span><span style="color:red;">to have authority over men</span><span style="color:gray;">. Let them be </span><span style="color:red;">quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was created first and then Eve. Adam was not deceived; </span><span style="color:red;">it was the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> who was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">fell into sin</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through motherhood</span><span style="color:gray;">, provided that </span><span style="color:red;">her life</span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">be</span> orderly and holy, in faith and love.</span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />The Common Edition NT 1999<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all submissiveness. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or </span><span style="color:red;">to have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">; she must be </span><span style="color:blue;">silent</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">became a transgressor</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through the bearing of children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-restraint.</span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />Concordant Literal New Testament<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> be learning </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. Now </span><span style="color:blue;">I am not permitting a woman </span><span style="color:gray;">to be teaching nor yet </span><span style="color:blue;">to be domineering over a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> (for Adam was first molded, thereafter Eve, and Adam was not seduced, yet the woman, being deluded, </span><span style="color:blue;">has come to be in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">). Yet </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:blue;">through the child bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if ever they should be remaining in faith and love and holiness with sanity.</span><br />Score - 60<br /><br />A Conservative Version<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> in all subjection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">act autonomously from</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to </span><span style="color:blue;">be in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, having been deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">became in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Contemporary English Version (CEV)<br /><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:gray;">and</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">they </span><span style="color:gray;">should learn by </span><span style="color:red;">being quiet</span><span style="color:gray;"> and paying attention. </span><span style="color:red;">They should be silent</span><span style="color:gray;"> and not be allowed to teach or </span><span style="color:red;">to tell men what to do</span><span style="color:gray;">. After all, Adam was created before Eve<span style="font-size:1em;">,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and</span> the man Adam wasn't the one who was fooled. It was the woman </span><u><span style="color:red;">Eve </span></u><span style="color:gray;">who was completely fooled and </span><span style="color:red;">sinned</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">by having children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they stay faithful, loving, holy, and modest.</span><br />Score - (-1)<br /><br />Coverdale Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">lerne</span> </span><span style="color:red;">in <span style="font-size:1em;">sylece</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> with all <span style="font-size:1em;">subieccion</span>. </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:blue;">I <span style="font-size:1em;">suffre</span> not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach <span style="font-size:1em;">ner</span> to </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:red;">haue</span></span><span style="color:red;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">auctorite</span> <span style="font-size:1em;">ouer</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but for to be </span><span style="color:red;">in <span style="font-size:1em;">sylence</span></span><span style="color:gray;">.</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> For Adam <span style="font-size:1em;">was</span> first formed, and the <span style="font-size:1em;">Eue</span>: Adam also was not <span style="font-size:1em;">disceaued</span>, but the woman was <span style="font-size:1em;">disceaued</span>, and </span><u><span style="color:red;">hath brought in the <span style="font-size:1em;">trasgression</span></span></u><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="font-size:1em;">Notwitstondynge</span></span><span style="font-size:1em;"> <span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:red;">thorow</span></span><span style="color:red;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">bearynge</span> of children</span> <span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="font-size:1em;">shalbe</span> <span style="font-size:1em;">saued</span>, <span style="font-size:1em;">yf</span> <span style="color:red;">she</span> <span style="font-size:1em;">contynue</span> in faith and in <span style="font-size:1em;">loue</span> & in the <span style="font-size:1em;">sanctifyenge</span> with <span style="font-size:1em;">discrecion</span>.</span></span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Darby Translation<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> in all subjection; but </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not suffer a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach nor to </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">over man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">; for Adam was formed first, then Eve: and Adam was not deceived; but the woman, having been deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">was in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be preserved </span><span style="color:red;">in childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and love and holiness with discretion.</span><br />Score - 30<br /><br />Douay-Rheims<br />Let <span style="color:blue;">the woman</span> learn <span style="color:red;">in silence</span>, with all subjection. But <span style="color:blue;">I suffer not a woman</span> to teach, <span style="font-size:1em;">nor</span> to <span style="color:red;">use authority over </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span>: but to be <span style="color:red;">in silence</span>. For Adam was first formed; then Eve. And Adam was not seduced; but the woman being seduced, <span style="color:red;">was in the transgression</span>. Yet <span style="color:blue;">she </span>shall be saved <span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span>; if <span style="color:red;">she </span><span style="font-size:1em;">continue</span> in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.<br />Score - 20<br /><br />Easy English Bible Translation<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> should learn </span><span style="color:red;">quietly when you meet together</span><span style="color:gray;">. She should </span><span style="color:red;">obey the men</span><span style="color:gray;"> who teach </span><span style="color:red;">in the *church</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="color:blue;">I do not let a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> teach </span><span style="color:red;">men</span><span style="color:gray;">. And </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not let a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">take authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">. Instead, she should be </span><span style="color:red;">quiet </span><span style="color:gray;">when the </span><span style="color:red;">men</span><span style="color:gray;"> are teaching. I say this because God made Adam first. Then he made Eve. It was </span><u><span style="color:red;">Eve</span></u><span style="color:gray;">, not Adam, who believed *Satan. She believed the false things that *Satan said. And so she </span><span style="color:red;">was the first to do what was wrong.</span><span style="color:gray;"> But God will save </span><span style="color:red;">women who give birth to children</span><span style="color:gray;">. He will do that if the women continue to believe him. Also, they must continue to love people. They must continue to live right lives because they are God’s. And they must always do what is proper.</span><br />Score - 9<br /><br />Easy-to-Read Version<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> should learn </span><span style="color:blue;">while listening quietly</span><span style="color:gray;"> and while being fully ready to obey. </span><span style="color:blue;">I don’t allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">. And </span><span style="color:blue;">I don’t allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority (power) over </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">. </span><span style="color:blue;">The woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> must continue </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">. Why? <span style="font-size:1em;">Because Adam was made first.</span> Eve was made later. Also, Adam was not the one the devil tricked. </span><u><span style="color:red;">It was the woman</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was tricked and </span><span style="color:red;">became a sinner</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in their work of having children</span><span style="color:gray;">. They will be saved if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, and control themselves in the right way.</span><br />Score - 19<br /><br />English Majority Text Version NT (EMTV)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all submission. And </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">For Adam first was formed, then Eve.</span> And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, </span><span style="color:blue;">has come to be in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Nevertheless </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through childbirth</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they remain in faith and love, and sanctification, with self-control.</span><br />Score - 30<br /><br />English Standard Version (ESV)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">with all submissiveness. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">; rather, she is to </span><span style="color:red;">remain quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and <span style="color:red;">became a transgressor</span>.</span> Yet </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Evidence Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I suffer not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived </span><span style="color:red;">was in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Notwithstanding </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />A Faithful Translation NT<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let [the] </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">be learning </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> in all subjection. <span style="font-size:1em;">For <span style="color:blue;">I do not permit [a] woman</span> to be teaching, nor <span style="color:blue;">to be dominating [a] man</span>, but to be <span style="color:red;">in silence</span>.</span> For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman having been deceived </span><span style="color:red;">came to be in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they abide in faith and agape-love and holiness with decency.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />The Geneva Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span> <span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:gray;">learne</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span> <span style="color:gray;">with all <span style="font-size:1em;">subiection</span>.</span> <span style="color:blue;">I permit not a woman</span> <span style="color:gray;">to <span style="font-size:1em;">teache</span>, neither to </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:red;">vsurpe</span></span><span style="color:red;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">authoritie</span> <span style="font-size:1em;">ouer</span></span> <span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be</span> <span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then <span style="font-size:1em;">Eue</span>. And Adam was not <span style="font-size:1em;">deceiued</span>, but the woman was <span style="font-size:1em;">deceiued</span>, and</span> <span style="color:red;">was in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Notwithstanding, through</span> <span style="color:red;">bearing of children</span> <span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:gray;">shalbe</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">saued</span> if they continue in faith, and <span style="font-size:1em;">loue</span>, and <span style="font-size:1em;">holines</span> with <span style="font-size:1em;">modestie</span>.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />God's Word Translation<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> must learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">, in </span><u><span style="color:red;">keeping with her position</span></u><span style="color:gray;">. </span><span style="color:blue;">I don't allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">. Instead, she should </span><span style="color:blue;">be quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. After all, Adam was formed first, then Eve. Besides that, Adam was not deceived. </span><u><span style="color:red;">It was the woman</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">sinned</span><span style="color:gray;">. However, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:red;">[and all women]</span><span style="color:gray;"> will be saved through </span><span style="color:blue;">the birth of the child</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they lead respectable lives in faith, love, and holiness.</span><br />Score - 18<br /><br />Good News Translation (2nd Edition)<br /><span style="color:red;">Women </span><span style="color:gray;">should learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> and all humility. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">them </span><span style="color:gray;">to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over men</span><span style="color:gray;">; they must </span><span style="color:red;">keep quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was created first, and then Eve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And it was not Adam who was deceived; </span><u><span style="color:red;">it was the woman</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">broke God's law</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through having children</span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:gray;">,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>if</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">perseveres<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.</span><br />Score - 9<br /><br />Hebrew Names Version of WEB (HNV)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I don’t permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then <span style="font-size:1em;">Havah</span>. Adam wasn’t deceived, but the woman, being deceived, </span><span style="color:blue;">has fallen into disobedience</span><span style="color:gray;">; but </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through her childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith, love, and sanctification with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 40<br /><br />The Heritage Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> in all subordination. And </span><span style="color:blue;">I absolutely do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach nor </span><span style="color:blue;">dominate a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">, Because Adam was first formed, then Eve. Also Adam was absolutely not deceived, but the woman being deceived </span><span style="color:red;">was in the violation</span><span style="color:gray;">; <span style="font-size:1em;">And</span> </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through bringing children into being</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they remain in faith and love and holiness with soundness of mind.</span><br />Score - 30<br /><br />Holman Christian Standard Version (HCSV)<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> should learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with full submission. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">; instead, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:red;">is to be silent</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was created first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">transgressed</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if </span><span style="color:red;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">continues in faith, love, and holiness, with good sense.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Inspired Version<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let the </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. For </span><span style="color:blue;">I suffer not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived </span><span style="color:red;">was in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Notwithstanding </span><span style="color:red;">they </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />International Standard Version (ISV) NT<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> must learn </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">with full submission. Moreover, </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">. Instead, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:red;">is to be quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived. </span><u><span style="color:red;">It was the woman</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">became a lawbreaker</span><span style="color:gray;">. However, </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">by having children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue to have faith, love, and holiness, along with good judgment.</span><br />Score - 9<br /><br />J.B Phillips New Testament<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> should learn </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">and humbly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="color:blue;">Personally, I don't allow </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">to teach, </span><span style="color:blue;">nor do I</span><span style="color:gray;"> ever </span><span style="color:red;">put them into positions of authority over men</span><span style="color:gray;"> - I believe </span><u><span style="color:red;">their role</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> is to be receptive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(My reasons are that man was created before woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Further, </span><u><span style="color:red;">it was Eve</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> and not Adam who was first deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">fell into sin</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Nevertheless I believe that </span><span style="color:red;">women</span><span style="color:gray;"> will come </span><span style="color:red;">safely through child-birth</span><span style="color:gray;"> if they maintain a life of faith, love, holiness and gravity).</span><br />Score - 8<br /><br />The Complete Jewish Bible (OT: JPS)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in peace</span><span style="color:gray;">, fully submitted; but </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman </span><span style="color:gray;">to teach </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;"> or </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">him</span><span style="color:gray;">; rather, </span><span style="color:blue;">she is to remain at peace</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then <span style="font-size:1em;">Havah</span>. Also it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman </span><u><span style="color:red;">who, on being deceived</span></u><span style="color:red;">, became involved in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Nevertheless, </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">will be delivered through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, provided that </span><span style="color:red;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">continues trusting, loving and living a holy life with modesty.</span><br />Score - 29<br /><br />English Jubilee 2000 Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn, </span><span style="color:red;">becoming silent</span><span style="color:gray;"> in all subjection. <span style="font-size:1em;">For <span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span> to teach, nor to <span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span> <span style="color:blue;">a [mature] man</span>, but to be <span style="color:blue;">at rest</span>.</span> For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman </span><span style="color:red;">was deceived in the rebellion</span><span style="color:gray;">; notwithstanding </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if </span><span style="color:red;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">continues in faith and charity and sanctification and modesty.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />King James Version (Modern/Green)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, or </span><span style="color:red;">to exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived </span><span style="color:red;">was in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be </span><span style="color:red;">kept safe through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and love and holiness with sensibleness.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />King James Version<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I suffer not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived </span><span style="color:red;">was in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Notwithstanding </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />The Last Days Bible<br /><span style="color:blue;">She </span><span style="color:gray;">should learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> and be fully submissive </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:blue;">Nor</span></span><span style="color:blue;"> do I permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach </span><span style="color:red;">men or have authority over men</span><span style="color:gray;">. </span><span style="color:blue;">She </span><span style="color:red;">is to remain silent</span><span style="color:gray;">, because God made Adam first, then Eve. It wasn't Adam who was fooled by Satan to believe a lie; </span><u><span style="color:red;">but it was the woman</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was deceived, and </span><span style="color:red;">who fell into sin</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will also be saved </span><span style="color:blue;">as a result of the birth of the Child</span><span style="color:gray;">, it they continue in faith toward Christ, showing true love fro God and mankind, being ever watchful to live holy lives, and control their appetites of the body, and other desires.</span><br />Score - 19<br /><br />Literal Translation Version (LITV)<span style="font-size:1em;"> (</span>Green)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">, in all subjection. And </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach nor to </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived </span><span style="color:blue;">has come to be in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">; but </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be </span><span style="color:red;">kept safe through</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with sensibleness.</span><br />Score - 30<br /><br />Living Oracles (4th Edition)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all submission: for </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but </span><span style="color:red;">to be silent</span><span style="color:gray;">; for Adam was first formed, then Eve. Besides, Adam was not deceived: but the woman, being deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">was in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. However, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through child-bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they live in faith, and love, and holiness, with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Mace NT<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:red;">the women</span><span style="color:gray;"> with submissive </span><span style="color:red;">silence </span><span style="color:gray;">attend to instruction. <span style="font-size:1em;">for</span> </span><span style="color:blue;">I don't allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to be a teacher, nor </span><span style="color:red;">to dictate to</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">her <u>husband</u></span><span style="color:gray;">; but let </span><span style="color:blue;">her </span><span style="color:red;">be silent</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">for</span> Adam was the first that was <span style="font-size:1em;">form'd</span>, then Eve. Adam was not <span style="font-size:1em;">seduc'd</span>, </span><u><span style="color:red;">but the woman, who was the cause of his transgression</span></u><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">however</span> </span><span style="color:red;">the women</span><span style="color:gray;"> may be saved </span><span style="color:red;">by educating their children</span><span style="color:gray;">, and persevering themselves in faith, in charity, in holiness and chastity. <span style="font-size:1em;">this</span> may be depended upon as true.</span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />The Message<br /><span style="color:blue;">I don't let</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">women take over and tell the men what to do</span><span style="color:gray;">. They should study to be </span><span style="color:blue;">quiet</span><span style="color:gray;"> and obedient along with everyone else. Adam was made first, then Eve; </span><u><span style="color:red;">woman was deceived first - our pioneer in sin!</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> - <span style="font-size:1em;">with</span> Adam right on her heels. On the other hand, </span><span style="color:blue;">her</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">childbearing </span><span style="color:gray;">brought about salvation, reversing Eve. But this salvation only comes to those who continue in faith, love, and holiness, gathering it all into maturity. You can depend on this.</span><br />Score - 19<br /><br />Modern Literal Version of the New Testament<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor </span><span style="color:blue;">to dominate a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">. For* Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman having been deceived </span><span style="color:blue;">has become the one in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">: but </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through her child-bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they remain in faith and love* and sanctification with self-discipline.</span><br />Score - 50<br /><br />Montgomery NT<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">in entire submission. </span><span style="color:blue;">I allow no woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, or </span><span style="color:red;">to exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">; but </span><span style="color:red;">let </span><span style="color:blue;">her </span><span style="color:red;">keep quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. It was Adam who was first formed, then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived; but it was the woman who was thoroughly deceived, and who </span><span style="color:red;">became involved in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Notwithstanding </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved by </span><span style="color:blue;">the Child-bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">; (</span><span style="color:red;">so will they all</span><span style="color:gray;">), if they live in faith and love and holiness, with self- restraint.</span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />New American Bible (NAB)<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> must receive instruction </span><span style="color:red;">silently </span><span style="color:gray;">and under complete control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman </span><span style="color:gray;">to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">. </span><span style="color:red;">She must be quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Adam was formed first, then Eve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Further, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">transgressed</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through motherhood</span><span style="color:gray;">, provided </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">persevere in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.</span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />New American Standard Version (NASV)<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> must </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman </span><span style="color:gray;">to teach or </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to </span><span style="color:red;">remain quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. For it <span style="font-size:1em;">was</span> Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">fell into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will be preserved </span><span style="color:red;">through the bearing of children</span><span style="color:gray;"> if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.</span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />New Century Version (NCV)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn by listening </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">and being ready to cooperate in everything. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to </span><span style="color:blue;">listen quietly</span><span style="color:gray;">, because Adam was formed first and then Eve. And Adam was not tricked, but the woman was tricked and </span><span style="color:red;">became a sinner</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through having children</span><span style="color:gray;"> if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.</span><br />Score - 30<br /><br />New English Translation (NET)<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> must learn </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">with all submissiveness. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man. She</span><span style="color:gray;"> must </span><span style="color:red;">remain quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first and then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, because she was fully deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">fell into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be delivered </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if </span><span style="color:red;">she</span><span style="color:gray;"> continues in faith and love and holiness with self-control.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />New International Reader's Version (NIRV)<br /><span style="color:gray;">When </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> is learning, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">should be </span><span style="color:red;">quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. </span><span style="color:blue;">She </span><span style="color:gray;">should follow the leaders in every way. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not let</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">teach. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not let </span><span style="color:red;">them have authority over men. They</span><span style="color:gray;"> must be </span><span style="color:red;">quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. Adam was made first. Then Eve was made. </span><u><span style="color:red;">Adam was not the one</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was tricked. </span><u><span style="color:red;">The woman </span></u><span style="color:gray;">was tricked and </span><span style="color:red;">became a sinner</span><span style="color:gray;">. Will </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">be saved by </span><span style="color:red;">having children</span><span style="color:gray;">? Only if they keep on believing, loving, and leading a holy life in a proper way.</span><br />Score - 9<br /><br />New International Version (NIV)<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> should learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> and full submission. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or </span><span style="color:red;">to have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man; she</span><span style="color:gray;"> must </span><span style="color:red;">be silent</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; </span><u><span style="color:red;">it was the woman</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">became a sinner</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.</span><br />Score - 9<br /><br />New King James Version (NKJV)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all submission. And </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">fell into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Nevertheless </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;"> if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />New Living Translation (NLT)<br /><span style="color:red;">Women </span><span style="color:gray;">should listen and learn</span> <span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">and submissively.</span> <span style="color:blue;">I do not let </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">teach </span><span style="color:red;">men </span><span style="color:gray;">or </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over them</span><span style="color:gray;">. Let</span> <span style="color:red;">them </span><span style="color:gray;">listen </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly</span><span style="color:gray;">. For God made Adam <span style="font-size:1em;">first,</span> and afterward he made Eve.</span> <u><span style="color:red;">And it was the woman, not Adam</span></u><span style="color:gray;">, who was deceived by <span style="font-size:1em;">Satan,</span> and </span><span style="color:red;">sin was the result</span><span style="color:gray;">. But</span> <span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved</span> <span style="color:red;">through <span style="font-size:1em;">childbearing<span style="color:windowtext;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="color:gray;">and</span></span></span><span style="color:gray;"> by continuing to live in faith, love, holiness, and modesty.</span><br />Score - 9<br /><br />New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a <span style="font-size:1em;">woman<span style="color:gray;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>learn</span></span></span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with full submission. </span><span style="color:blue;">I permit no <span style="font-size:1em;">woman<span style="color:gray;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>to</span></span></span><span style="color:gray;"> teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>she</span><span style="color:gray;"> is to </span><span style="color:red;">keep silent</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and <span style="color:red;">became a transgressor</span>.</span> Yet </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />New World Translation (NWT)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman </span><span style="color:gray;">learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with full submissiveness. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, or to </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. Also, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was thoroughly deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">came to be in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. However, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be kept safe </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, provided they continue in faith and love and sanctification along with soundness of mind. </span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Peshitta - James Murdock Translation<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">, with all submission: for </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, or to </span><span style="color:red;">be assuming over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">; but let </span><span style="color:blue;">her </span><span style="color:gray;">remain </span><span style="color:blue;">in stillness</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, and then Eve. And Adam was not seduced, but the woman was seduced and </span><span style="color:red;">transgressed the command</span><span style="color:gray;">. Yet </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall live </span><span style="color:red;">by means of her children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in the faith, and in love, and in sanctity, and in chastity.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Peshitta - Lamsa Translation<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn in silence with all subjection. </span><span style="color:red;">I do not think</span><span style="color:gray;"> it seemly for </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to </span><u><span style="color:red;">debate publicly</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> or otherwise </span><span style="color:red;">usurp the authority of men</span><span style="color:gray;"> but should </span><span style="color:red;">be silent</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">she transgressed the law</span><span style="color:gray;">. Nevertheless, if </span><span style="color:blue;">her </span><span style="color:red;">posterity </span><span style="color:gray;">continue in faith and have holiness and chastity, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:red;">will live, through them</span><span style="color:gray;">. </span><br />Score - (-1)<br /><br />Recovery Version NT<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> in all subjection<span style="font-size:1em;">;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But</span> </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">assert authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Adam was formed first, then Eve<span style="font-size:1em;">;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And</span> Adam was not deceived; but the woman, having been quite deceived, </span><span style="color:blue;">has fallen into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through her childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they remain in faith and love and holiness with sobriety. </span><br />Score - 30<br /><br />Revised Standard Version (RSV)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all submissiveness. </span><span style="color:blue;">I permit no woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over men</span><span style="color:gray;">; </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">is to </span><span style="color:red;">keep silent</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and <span style="color:red;">became a transgressor.</span></span></span><span style="color:red;"> Yet woman </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through bearing children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if </span><span style="color:red;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.</span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />Rotherham's Emphasised Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let, </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman, in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">, be learning in all submission; But, teaching—unto </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;">, </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit</span><span style="color:gray;">, nor yet </span><span style="color:red;">to have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">,—but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">; For, Adam, first was formed, then Eve, And, Adam, was not deceived, whereas, the woman, having been wholly deceived, </span><span style="color:blue;">hath come to be, in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">; </span><span style="color:blue;">She </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved, however, </span><span style="color:blue;">through means of the child-bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">,—if they abide in faith, and love, and holiness, with <span style="font-size:1em;">sobermindedness</span>. <span style="font-size:1em;">Faithful, the saying.</span></span><br />Score - 50<br /><br />Sacred Scriptures (Family of Yah Edition)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I permit not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:blue;">have dominion over a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to </span><span style="color:blue;">be in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled </span><span style="color:blue;">hath fallen into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">: but </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through her child-bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 50<br /><br />The Scriptures<br /><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:gray;">Let<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="color:blue;">a</span></span><span style="color:blue;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>woman</span><span style="color:gray;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>learn<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="color:red;">in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>silence</span><span style="color:gray;">,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>in<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach <span style="font-size:1em;">or<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>to</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="color:red;">have<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>authority<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>over</span><span style="color:gray;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="color:blue;">a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>man</span><span style="color:gray;">,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>rather, to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">Because<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Adam</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>formed<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>first,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>then <span style="font-size:1em;">Hawwah</span>. And<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Adam<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>not<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>deceived, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>but<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the woman,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>having<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>been<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>deceived,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span style="color:red;">fell<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;"> if they continue in belief, and love, and set- apartness, with sensibleness. </span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Third Millennium Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. </span><span style="color:blue;">But I suffer not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived; but the woman, being deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">was in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Notwithstanding, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;"> if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with <span style="font-size:1em;">sobermindedness</span>.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Today's English Version (TEV)<br /><span style="color:red;">Women </span><span style="color:gray;">should learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> and all humility. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">them </span><span style="color:gray;">to teach or </span><span style="color:red;">to have authority over men; they</span><span style="color:gray;"> must </span><span style="color:red;">keep quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was created first, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived; </span><u><span style="color:red;">it was the woman</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">broke God's law</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through having children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if </span><span style="color:red;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">perseveres in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. </span><br />Score - 9<br /><br />Today's New International Version (TNIV)<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> should learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> and full submission. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or </span><span style="color:red;">to assume authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man; she</span><span style="color:gray;"> must </span><span style="color:red;">be quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; </span><u><span style="color:red;">it was the woman</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> who was deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">became a sinner</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.</span><br />Score - 9<br /><br />20th Century New Testament<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> should listen </span><span style="color:red;">silently </span><span style="color:gray;">to her teachers, and show them all deference. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not consent to a woman's</span><span style="color:gray;"> becoming a teacher, or </span><span style="color:red;">exercising authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man; she</span><span style="color:gray;"> ought to </span><span style="color:red;">be silent</span><span style="color:gray;">. Adam was formed first, not Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived; it was the woman who was entirely deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">fell into sin</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">will find their salvation </span><span style="color:red;">in motherhood</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they never abandon faith, love, or holiness, and behave with modesty.</span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />21st Century Version<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> in all subjection. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">have </span><span style="color:blue;">a man’s</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">authority</span><span style="color:gray;">, but rather to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. The reason is because Adam was formed first, then Eve. Also, Adam was not deceived, but in contrast, </span><u><span style="color:red;">woman, having been deceived</span></u><span style="color:gray;">, </span><span style="color:blue;">has come to be in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be protected through </span><span style="color:red;">her bearing children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in deep conviction and benevolent empathy for others, along with sanctification and soundness of mind.</span><br />Score - 19<br /><br />2001 translation - An American English Bible<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:red;">women </span><span style="color:gray;">learn </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">and obediently. <span style="font-size:1em;">For <span style="color:blue;">I don’t allow</span> <span style="color:red;">women</span> to teach or to <u><span style="color:red;">preside</span></u><span style="color:red;"> over men</span>… just to <span style="color:red;">be silent</span>, because Adam was created first, then Eve.</span> Adam wasn’t deceived, but the woman was thoroughly deceived and </span><span style="color:red;">went beyond [<u>what she was told</u>]</span><span style="color:gray;">. However, </span><span style="color:red;">[the women]</span><span style="color:gray;"> will be kept </span><span style="color:red;">safe through childbirth</span><span style="color:gray;"> as long as they remain in the Faith (in love, holiness, and sensibleness).</span><br />Score - 8<br /><br />Tyndale New Testament<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">learne</span> </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all <span style="font-size:1em;">subieccion</span>. </span><span style="color:blue;">I <span style="font-size:1em;">suffre</span> not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to <span style="font-size:1em;">teache</span> nether to </span><span style="color:red;">have <span style="font-size:1em;">auctoricie</span> over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">: but <span style="font-size:1em;">forto</span> be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was <span style="font-size:1em;">fyrst</span> formed and then Eve. Also Adam was not <span style="font-size:1em;">deceaved</span> but the woman was <span style="font-size:1em;">deceaved</span> and </span><span style="color:red;">was in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">Notwithstondynge</span> <span style="font-size:1em;">thorow</span> </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:red;">bearinge</span></span><span style="color:red;"> of <span style="font-size:1em;">chyldre</span> they</span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">shalbe</span> saved so they continue in <span style="font-size:1em;">fayth</span> love and <span style="font-size:1em;">holynes</span> with <span style="font-size:1em;">discrecion</span>. </span><br />Score - 10<br /><br />(An) Understandable Version NT<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> should learn [the Scriptures] </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">, being fully submissive. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not allow a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><u><span style="color:red;">[in the assembly]</span></u><span style="color:gray;">, but </span><span style="color:blue;">she</span><span style="color:gray;"> should </span><span style="color:red;">remain quiet</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">For Adam was created first, and then Eve was.</span> And Adam was not [the one] deceived, but [it was] the woman who, when deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">fell into sin</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:blue;">she</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:red;">[i.e., womankind]</span><span style="color:gray;"> will be saved [from condemnation, in spite of the curse of suffering pain] </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, provided they [i.e., all women] continue to have faith and love and holiness, along with discretion.</span><br />Score - 9<br /><br />Updated Bible Version (1.9)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:blue;">have dominion over a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Adam was first formed, then Eve<span style="font-size:1em;">;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and</span> Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled </span><span style="color:blue;">has fallen into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>but </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through her childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they stay in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety. </span><br />Score - 50<br /><br />Urim-Thummin Version<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman </span><span style="color:gray;">learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I suffer not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. Because Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived </span><span style="color:red;">was in violation</span><span style="color:gray;">. Notwithstanding </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be preserved </span><span style="color:red;">through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in Faith, Love and consecration with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />A Voice in the Wilderness (VW)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. And </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach or to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled, </span><span style="color:red;">fell into transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Nevertheless </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be kept </span><span style="color:red;">safe through childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;"> if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Webster's Bible Translation<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I suffer not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived </span><span style="color:red;">was in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. Notwithstanding, </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in child-bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Wesley NT<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For </span><span style="color:blue;">I suffer not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For Adam was first formed, then Eve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And Adam was not deceived; but the woman, being deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">transgressed</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yet </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:red;">in child bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith, and love, and holiness, with sobriety. </span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Weymouth New Testament<br /><span style="color:blue;">A woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> should </span><span style="color:blue;">quietly </span><span style="color:gray;">learn from others with entire submissiveness. </span><span style="color:blue;">I do not permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">must </span><span style="color:red;">remain silent</span><span style="color:gray;">. <span style="font-size:1em;">For Adam was formed first, and then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but <u><span style="color:red;">his wife</span></u> was thoroughly deceived, and so <span style="color:red;">became involved in transgression</span>.</span> Yet </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> will be brought </span><span style="color:red;">safely through childbirth</span><span style="color:gray;"> if </span><u><span style="color:blue;">she and her husband</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> continue to live in faith and love and growing holiness, with habitual self-restraint.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />The Word of Yah<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><u><span style="color:blue;">the wife</span></u><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I suffer not <u>the wife</u></span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach </span><u><span style="color:blue;">[the husband]</span></u><span style="color:gray;">, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">usurp authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><u><span style="color:blue;">the husband</span></u><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being wholly deceived </span><span style="color:red;">came to be in the transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">. But </span><span style="color:red;">they </span><span style="color:gray;">shall do well </span><span style="color:red;">in parenthood</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 31<br /><br />World English Bible (WEB)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. But </span><span style="color:blue;">I don’t permit a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor to </span><span style="color:red;">exercise authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">a man</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. Adam wasn’t deceived, but the woman, being deceived, </span><span style="color:blue;">has fallen into disobedience</span><span style="color:gray;">; but </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">will be saved </span><span style="color:red;">through her childbearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they continue in faith, love, and sanctification with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 40<br /><br />Wycliffe Bible 1395<br /><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:blue;">A <span style="font-size:1em;">womman</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">lerne</span> </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">, with al <span style="font-size:1em;">subieccioun</span>.</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">But <span style="color:blue;">Y <span style="font-size:1em;">suffre</span> not a <span style="font-size:1em;">womman</span></span> to <span style="font-size:1em;">teche</span>, nether to <span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:red;">haue</span></span><span style="color:red;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">lordschip</span> on</span> <span style="color:blue;">the <span style="font-size:1em;">hosebonde</span></span>, but to be <span style="color:red;">in silence</span>.</span> <span style="font-size:1em;">For Adam was first formed, <span style="font-size:1em;">aftirward</span> <span style="font-size:1em;">Eue</span>; and Adam was not <span style="font-size:1em;">disseyued</span>, but the <span style="font-size:1em;">womman</span> <span style="color:red;">was <span style="font-size:1em;">disseyued</span>, in <span style="font-size:1em;">breking</span> of the <span style="font-size:1em;">lawe</span></span>.</span> But </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:blue;">sche</span></span><span style="color:blue;"> </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:gray;">schal</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> be <span style="font-size:1em;">sauyd</span> </span><span style="color:red;">bi <span style="font-size:1em;">generacioun</span> of children</span><span style="color:gray;">, if </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:red;">sche</span></span><span style="color:red;"> </span><span style="font-size:1em;"><span style="color:gray;">dwellith</span></span><span style="color:gray;"> <span style="font-size:1em;">perfitli</span> in <span style="font-size:1em;">feith</span>, and <span style="font-size:1em;">loue</span>, and <span style="font-size:1em;">hoolynesse</span>, with <span style="font-size:1em;">sobrenesse</span>.</span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Yes Word (revised Tyndale)<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">the woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;"> with all subjection. </span><span style="color:blue;">I suffer (allow) not a woman</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, neither to </span><span style="color:red;">have authority over</span><span style="color:gray;"> </span><span style="color:blue;">the man</span><span style="color:gray;">: but for to be </span><span style="color:red;">in silence</span><span style="color:gray;">. For Adam was first formed, and then Eve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Also Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, and </span><span style="color:red;">was in transgression</span><span style="color:gray;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Notwithstanding </span><span style="color:red;">through bearing of children they</span><span style="color:gray;"> shall be saved, so they continue in faith, love and holiness with discretion. </span><br />Score - 20<br /><br />Young's Literal Translation<br /><span style="color:gray;">Let </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;"> learn in all subjection, and </span><span style="color:blue;">a woman I do not suffer</span><span style="color:gray;"> to teach, nor </span><span style="color:blue;">to rule a husband</span><span style="color:gray;">, but to be </span><span style="color:blue;">in quietness</span><span style="color:gray;">, for Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman, having been deceived, </span><span style="color:red;">into transgression came</span><span style="color:gray;">, and </span><span style="color:blue;">she </span><span style="color:gray;">shall be saved </span><span style="color:blue;">through the child-bearing</span><span style="color:gray;">, if they remain in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.</span><br />Score - 50<br /></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4681544228356138697.post-56596011872818052582010-02-02T09:32:00.000-08:002011-03-01T10:37:56.821-08:00Show Stoppers – 1 Timothy 2: Universal Restrictions or a Specific Remedy (Conclusion)<span style="font-family:arial,san-serif;">…continuing breakdown of 1 Timothy 2:11-15<br /><br />Conclusion<br /><br />(Please <em><strong>MAKE</strong></em> comments on this post)<br /><span class="fullpost"><br />When 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is reviewed with close scrutiny of the Greek text and a mind on the overall context of the first 2 chapters of the letter, a stunning realization occurs. Not only is this passage of Scripture poorly translated, but the interpretation and application of those poor translations are completely erroneous. Entire philosophies about marriage and church leadership and conduct have been developed around this foundational error. It may be that only men should lead churches, that women should be silent, and that a woman’s place is in the home bringing up children, but Paul’s letter to Timothy does not teach it. What this passage does teach is that false teaching and domineering behaviors in the home require special handling, but even in that most private of settings, a remedy and restoration can be found in Christ.<br /><br />To conclude, here are our two versions of 1 Timothy 2:11-15. First, our template from the Contemporary English Version:<br /><br /><blockquote>and they [women] should learn by being quiet and paying attention. They should be silent and not be allowed to teach or to tell men what to do. After all, Adam was created before Eve, and the man Adam wasn't the one who was fooled. It was the woman Eve who was completely fooled and sinned. But women will be saved by having children, if they stay faithful, loving, holy, and modest.</blockquote>Now, our multi-version rendering (with the addition of martial nouns):<br /><br /><blockquote>A wife should learn in peace, being ready to cooperate in everything. But I do not allow the wife to teach [false doctrine] or to be domineering over the husband, rather, she is to remain at peace. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, having been deceived, has come to be in transgression. But she will be saved through the birth of the child, if she and her husband continue to live in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.</blockquote>What a difference! One more time, here it is broken down by verse noting the translation used at each step. When it says “common” that means that there are no difficulties with translation of that particular section. In those cases, I use the NASB.<br /><br /><strong>Verse 11</strong><br />A wife should learn (Aramaic Bible English Translation)<br />in peace, (The Complete Jewish Bible)<br />being ready to cooperate in everything. (New Century Version)<br /><strong>Verse 12</strong><br />But I do not allow (common)<br />the wife (The Word of Yah)<br />to teach (common)<br />[false doctrine] (my extra-biblical addition)<br />or to be domineering over (Concordant Literal New Testament)<br />the husband, (The Word of Yah)<br />rather, she is to remain at peace. (The Complete Jewish Bible)<br /><strong>Verse 13</strong><br />For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. (common)<br /><strong>Verse 14</strong><br />And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, having been deceived, has come to be in transgression. (Analytical-Literal Translation)<br /><strong>Verse 15</strong><br />But she will be saved (many, although not the NASB)<br />through the birth of the child, (God’s Word Translation)<br />if she and her husband continue to live (Weymouth New Testament)<br />in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint. (common)<br /><br />This concludes the show stoppers series. This last entry is an important show stopper not because of interpretations that use it to dictate church policy, but because of interpretations that use it to define a particular feminine nature (easily deceived, deceitful) or confine women to a particular “role” (domestic nurturer). Until men get over the idea that women are stupid and they should therefore remain “barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen” or “seen but not heard”, there is no use having any further discussion on the marriage relationship. My hope with these posts is that minds will be changed through careful consideration of what Scripture says regarding men, women, and marriage and that the equal status of women not only in the Spiritual realm but in the domestic realm will be embraced by everyone. Only then can we explore further the more difficult passages such as Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3, and 1 Corinthians 11.<br /><br />Show Stoppers - 1 Tim 2 Series:<br /><a href="http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2010/02/show-stoppers-1-timothy-2-universal.html">Introduction</a><br /><a href="http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2010/02/show-stoppers-1-timothy-2-universal_02.html">Verse 11</a><br /><a href="http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2010/02/show-stoppers-1-timothy-2-universal_1723.html">Verse 12</a><br /><a href="http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2010/02/show-stoppers-1-timothy-2-universal_9524.html">Verse 13-14</a><br /><a href="http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2010/02/show-stoppers-1-timothy-2-universal_4817.html">Verse 15</a><br /><a href="http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2010/02/show-stoppers-1-timothy-2-universal_2952.html">Conclusion</a><br /></span></span>gengwallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14777011310672675137noreply@blogger.com5