<p>2:13 <i>For Adam was first formed, then Eve</i>- See comment on 2:12. Paul wants Timothy to do the teaching, perhaps setting him up as Adam; the group of Judaist women wanting to teach were as Eve. The emphasis upon Adam being formed <i>first</i> and Eve being the one deceived may be in order to challenge a particular wrong emphasis or teaching within the church at Ephesus. The commentary on chapter 1 has surely established that the church was under threat from Judaists. But we also know from Acts that many former worshippers of Diana were in the church. The pull of paganism would always be significant. We have deduced from :9 that some women within the church believed that their part in prayer was in dressing up with the same opulence as Diana. It could be that wrong Jewish speculations about Eve were mixed with pagan ideas about Diana. This kind of Jewish-pagan synthesis was what led to the doctrine of the trinity. Perhaps this is why Paul here draws their attention to Eve's weakness, and Adam's primacy in creation. Reading this teaching about women in its context, it would seem to me that Paul is tackling some specific group of women in the church who were advocating a quite wrong attitude to prayer, and who were glorifying unspirituality.</p>