Folks, please take this in the spirit of fun exploration in the scriptures: what the heck is Paul saying in this verse:
NIV version: 1 Corinthians 14: 33-35: As in all the congregations of the saints, 34women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
In preparing this Friday Forum, I read some Bible commentaries, and the explanations given were pretty much what you would expect: the times were different then, and women were expected to act differently.
Paul is trying to appeal to some readers who are familiar with ancient Jewish ordinances, which prohibited women from teaching or even asking questions in the synagogue. Such behavior was considered indecorous in the 1st century AD. So, Paul is saying that Christian women should continue such “good” behavior by deferring to their husbands and avoiding any disputations or contention (or even asking questions) in church.
Yeah, Church meetings would be a bit different if these rules still applied.
I’d appreciate input from Biblical scholars who can explain these verses better than I have.
I assume you’ve checked out the JST of that verse, which changes “speak” to “rule”. IOW, women aren’t to be running the show.
Geoff,
On this subject I recommend Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, pages 183–84.
There are three reasons to think that Paul did not originally write these verses:
1. They do not fit well into their immediate context. The gift of prophecy in the church is the theme of verses 26–33, and it is the theme again of verses 36–40. The discussion of women appears intrusive in its immediate context, breaking into instructions that Paul is giving about a different matter.
2. They conflict with what Paul wrote earlier in 11:2–16, that when women pray or prophesy in church — things that were always done aloud in the early Christian tradition — they should veil their faces. Now, three chapters later, Paul is saying they shouldn’t say anything at all in church? It makes no sense.
3. In several Greek and Latin manuscripts, these verses are found after verse 40. Some scholars have surmised that what we have here is a marginal note added by a later scribe (perhaps based on 1 Timothy 2) that was eventually incorporated into the text.
To sum up: It’s quite likely these verses are fraudulent and do not represent Paul’s teachings.
@Mike Parker
Oh, I forgot to mention that 1 Timothy 2:11–15 doesn’t necessarily support 1 Corinthians 14:33–35, because most scholars do not accept Paul as the author of 1 Timothy. So the idea of women “shutting up” in church isn’t Pauline, it’s from a later, anti-feminist Christian tradition.
Mike, interesting. Thanks.
Seanette, I don’t agree. The KJV is linked above, and it says “speak,” not “rule.” I don’t know Greek, and I don’t know what the original Greek says, but several translations say “speak.” Weird.
Geoff, I clearly stated that I was mentioning the Joseph Smith Translation as a possible answer.
Seanette, sorry, I misread what you meant by that. That does add an interesting twist.
Sis. Camille Fronk gave a very interesting talk about that once, I think you might be able to find it rebroadcast on BYU TV every so often.
Mike, the talk you mentioned is referenced in this book:
http://beta.deseretbook.com/store/reviews?sku=4473607
Interesting topic. I’ve never been able to come up with a good answer for this other than, “we just don’t do that anymore.” There is a Christian denomination that is prevalent where we live (Alabama) where they actually practice this. No women are allowed to ever speak in church services. I think this also applies to teaching classes such as Sunday School. Its an interesting topic. I wonder, sometimes, how much of the writers’ opinions were included in the New Testament, and how much is pure doctrine. I always assumed before that this was just a moment where Paul’s opinion made it’s way into his writings.
Great topic, Geoff.
As an aside, there will be a 30 minute period when there will be no women in heaven: D&C 88: 95.
Mike, I want to go back to your comments #2 and #3.
I am always wary of the Bible commentary, and it happens all the time, that says “this writer did not actually write that because it is not consistent with the rest of his work.” As you know, this happens all the time with, for example, Isaiah. There are commentators who see Isaiah being written by three separate authors, for example. Personally, I can’t see that — the 66 chapters seem to me to fit together perfectly.
If 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 were the work of a different author and not written by Paul, wouldn’t the JST have pointed that out? I’m just curious of your perspective on that.
Geoff,
The prevalent view among Latter-day Saints is that the JST represents a restoration of original material that was lost. In this view, anything that the JST changed was in error, and anything that it retained is correct.
However, textual restoration is just a portion of what the JST (and probably only a very small portion at that). It also includes events that happened, but were never recorded in the original Bible manuscripts; commentary, enlargement, and elaboration on the text; harmonization of incongruent passages and those that conflicted with Joseph’s understanding of the gospel; and corrections to KJV readings that Joseph found difficult or believed to be erroneous.
(This article on the FAIR website addresses this in more detail.)
The JST is a mixture of all of these things, some of which is inspired revelation (especially the parts canonized in Moses and Joseph Smith—Matthew), and some of which is well-intentioned but not inspired. Outside of the portions we have canonized, I think the JST is a hit-and-miss affair. There are some passages that are brilliant, and even sometimes supported by ancient manuscripts. The majority are interesting alternate readings. In some cases, though, it’s clear that Joseph misunderstood the passage at hand, and consequently made it worse or destroyed the argument the original author was making.
So I reject the typical argument that “the JST changes this passage to X, so that solves the issue; let’s move on now.” Just because the JST changes a given passage doesn’t mean that’s the “real” reading, and just because it leaves a passage untouched doesn’t mean it’s authentic. (1 John 5:7b–8a — the famous Johanneum Comma — is clearly spurious, and yet the JST left it untouched.)
And FWIW, I accept the multiple-author theory of Isaiah, partly because the message and tone of chapters 1–39 are completely different from chapters 40–66. More on this if you want it.
Geoff, if we view the JST more as Joseph’s inspired commentary and not necessarily as restoring the text to what it actually was, then this fits quite well. I think it makes more sense that Joseph went through the text and altered what made more sense to him at that time of his overall understanding (1830-31).
I see the difficulty with accepting Isaiah being the product of 2-3 individuals. Personally, that works for me as the middle chapters seem to be out of place. It doesn’t change the overall meaning for me. I feel differently about the NT, however. Ehrman, as well as a large number of lectures at the Sperry Symposium a few years ago, goes into great detail about the transmission of the earliest NT texts and it doesn’t really provide one with confidence with the thousands of variations of texts that came decades after Paul supposedly wrote this.
Actually Mike said it better than me.
Thanks guys. I’ve actually spent a lot of time reading and re-reading Isaiah lately, and I see the tone as being surprisingly unified. But that might be a discussion for another post. Your clarifications on the JST are very insightful.
In preparing this Friday Forum, I read some Bible commentaries, and the explanations given were pretty much what you would expect: the times were different then, and women were expected to act differently.
The only trouble with this argument is that it seems to depend so highly on the current view of the behavior in question. When Biblical teachings conflict with their personal views, many modern believers will rationalize the conflict, claiming that “times were different then.” Those same believers, however, will treat Biblical passages as infalliable, if they appear to support their personal views.
Interesting to see this posting the morning after my wife attended a stake welfare committee meeting where the stake presidency showed a video of Elder Ballard discussing the need for women to more actively participate in councils where they serve and the high councilors were assigned to visit ward councils to see if the women are really speaking up and being heard.
“As an aside, there will be a 30 minute period when there will be no women in heaven: D&C 88: 95.”
It’s going to be very quiet during that 30 minutes!
There is nothing Bill would like better than for me to keep my mouth shut. I think he would praise the Lord in song.
We need to keep in mind, the manner of prophecying among the Greeks, and especially Greek women. It involved a lot of excited incoherent babbling not unlike certain Pentacostal denominations. Hence, the word Paul used, denoted meaningless noise, not literal communication.
Here is a piece I wrote about the material in 1 Timothy that I think puts 1 Corinthians in perspective like Mike does. However I did my blog (linked to by my name) about the apostasy and why bishops took over leadership over the church from apostles before I encountered Mike’s take.
Keller, that is a pretty cool idea!
Very few Christian churches today follow this passage. So it makes a cute retort when someone accuses the LDS of not believing in or not following the Bible. “Does _your_ church follow 1 Corinthians 14: 33-35 ? Well then, you don’t believe the Bible 100% either.”
It would also have been a good answer when some reporter asked Mitt Romney during the last primary if there were any parts of the Bible that he (or his church) didn’t believe in. “Yeah, 1 Corinthians 14: 33-35. We don’t believe that. We have women speak and teach in church.”
I beleive the last verse of the last chapter of Revelation covers what will happen to those who add to or take away from the words of the bible. In other words, People and twist and distort the bible to mean whatever they want it to mean. Be careful. You WILL have to answer for it. Paul was anointed with the holy spirit, and as such the holy spirit was speaking through him. We are to follow the word, or suffer the consequences in the end. Disagree with me all you wnat, but on the day of judgement, do you think the Lord will give you your chance to tell him he is wrong?
The Bible was not compiled until several centuries after John wrote that (the earliest attempt at establishing a canon is in the mid-second century, it took quite a while to arrive at a canonical list after that, and there is still not universal agreement on the subject). John himself wrote additional Scripture after that (such as the Gospel of John and his epistles), so wouldn’t he have violated his own command by doing so?
The book of Revelation (among others) was strongly disputed, even by Martin Luther, who wanted to leave out about five books of the current Protestant canon, including Revelation (which would, in fact, constitute “taking away” from Scripture, no?). Incidentally, which Bible canon is the “inerrant” “infallible” one, Protestant, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Syriac, etc.?
See Deuteronomy 4:2. By your apparent logic, we need to discard everything after Deuteronomy, since that verse gives the exact same warning: “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”
Also, please note Rev. 1:3,11, which makes clear that that warning applies to that specific writing. I also question how one goes about defending the claim that God Himself may not add to His Word as He sees fit by way of prophets.
Here’s another perspective to consider: http://www.ntrf.org/articles/article_detail.php?PRKey=16