7. Cf. Metzger, 565.
The MajT, along with D F G a b, adds ὑμῶν (“your women”).
Codex A adds “to their husbands”; it is not at all clear that this is what the glossator intended.
For a thorough presentation of this position see G. Fitzer, Das Weib Schweige in der Gemeinde (Munich, 1963). Among others see also Weiss, 342; Zuntz, 17; Bittlinger, 110–11; Barrett, 332–33; Conzelmann, 246 (who without textual warrant also includes vv. 33b and 36); Scroggs, “Eschatological Woman,” 294–96; Ruef, 154–55; Murphy-O’Connor, 133 (and “Interpolations,” 90–92 [Keys, 265–67]); E. E. Ellis, “The Silenced Wives of Corinth (I Cor. 14:34–5),” in New Testament Textual Criticism, Its Significance for Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger (ed. E. J. Epp and G. D. Fee; Oxford, 1981), 213–20 (who, however, thinks that the marginal gloss came from Paul himself, a view also adopted by Barton, “Sense,” 229–30—but a view also difficult to sustain, given some considerably un-Pauline moments); and esp. P. B. Payne, “Fuldensis, Sigla for Variants in Vaticanus, and 1 Cor 14.34–5,” NTS 41 (1995), 240–62.
This has to do with what a copyist is most likely to have done.
Various reasons have been given for the gloss, all relating to the known situation of the church at the end of the first century or the beginning of the second (e.g., the attempt to check a rising feminist movement [cf. 1 Tim. 2:9–15; 5:11–15]; to reconcile 1 Cor. 14 with 1 Tim. 2). The twofold insertions are both explicable; one comes at the end of the guidelines on “order” and before the ad hominem argument of vv. 36–38; the other simply occurs at the end of the long series of corrections and regulations regarding Spirit gifting in the congregational setting. This can be explained only as a twofold insertion of a marginal gloss.
Since this is the universal reading of the Western church until the influence of the Vulgate, which in this case reflects the text of the Eastern church, the position of these verses in this tradition must go back to a very early source. Godet, e.g., cannot be right in suggesting that “several Latin copyists” made this transposition. One may with difficulty possibly account for it once, but not twice under any circumstances. This also discounts his suggestion that the scribes of F and G therefore added διατάσσομαι at the end of v. 33 after they made the transposition. That simply is not so. These MSS bear single witness to an earlier addition of this word, based on 1 Cor. 7:17, in a MS that never had vv. 34–35 here but only at the end of the chapter.
Cf. Metzger, 565.
Except, of course, in the case of the inauthentic adulterous woman pericope, which found its way into the NT text at five different locations(!). The transpositions in the Gospels (Matt. 5:4–5; Luke 4:5–10), where immediately joining verses are transposed for either harmonistic reasons or the correcting of a slip of the eye, are of a completely different kind. This is not to say that it could not happen in the Epistles, but that it did not— at least not in the preserved early evidence both Greek and versional. One would therefore need particularly strong reasons for arguing that in fact it did occur in this one instance in the entire NT copying tradition.
See, e.g., Chrysostom, hom. 36 and 37 in 1 Corinthians; cf. Theodoret, Ps.-Oecumenius, John of Damascus.
The point is that if it were already in the text after v. 33, there is no reason for a copyist to make such a radical transposition. He would simply have copied the text before him with no questions asked. This is not to say that copyists did not think; it is to point out that the history of Christian interpretation of the text in its Eastern position makes it clear that it would never have occurred to anyone to “help” Paul out in this way. Hurley’s comment (Man, 185 n. 12) that “the transposition of 14:33b[sic]-35 is obviously for the purpose of easier reading” fails to take the historical question seriously. In fact, his entire note is both prejudicial and a thoroughly inadequate exercise in textual criticism, as his inclusion of v. 33b makes clear.
That is, what an author is most likely to have written. Since this can be a more subjective criterion, it can seldom stand on its own. But in this case, contrary to the suggestion of some (e.g., Grudem, 241, “[this view] depends on the conviction that they seriously conflict with 11.5 and other passages in Paul”]), it does not stand on its own. The transcriptional question comes first, and has always been the primary reason for all who consider it a later scribal interpolation. To put that another way: As with many other difficult passages in this letter, undoubtedly someone would eventually have suspected the authenticity of these verses (see those discussed in Murphy-O’Connor, “Interpolations”), but not on textual grounds. Suspicions as to authenticity on textual grounds arose precisely because of the external evidence.
See on v. 33.
The alleged grammatical problem with this clause being attached to v. 33a was never a problem in the early Greek-speaking church. For example, even though Chrysostom did not have a verb in his text (as the citation in hom. 37.2 makes certain), in commenting on this verse he simply added a διδάσκω (see hom. 36.7 [twice]), indicating that this is what he understood the apostle to have meant even though the verb must be supplied by the reader.
The problem is even more severe if our reading of many of the earlier passages is correct, that some “eschatological women” (the designation is from R. Scroggs) were the source of many of the difficulties Paul was facing in this community (see on 7:1–7; 11:2–16). If so, then one could well understand his eliminating the problem by this blanket rejection of their speaking out in the assembly; but that leaves one with the considerable difficulty of making sense of 11:2–16, where he not only does not forbid it but seems positively to affirm it.
Some, of course, have tried to rework 11:2–16 so that that passage disallows women’s praying and prophesying; but these meet with even less success (see ).
Meaning, of course, the majority of surviving witnesses. The words of Martin, 84, are typical: “We should strive to excel in the gift of interpreting the text as it stands before we embrace [interpolation].” But to interpret “the text as it stands” is to resolve the textual question without engaging in textual criticism. One could as easily say this of the interpolation in John 5:4. The appearance of these words in the majority of witnesses at this point simply does not guarantee their authenticity. That is to do textual criticism without asking the primary text-critical question: How does one account for the available evidence as it has come down to us?
This is the view of most, but not all, Protestant interpreters before the twentieth century. For more recent expressions of it, cf. Grosheide, 342; and Ridderbos, Paul, 462. It may be fairly said of this view that it reflects the situation of the church in which the interpreter finds himself more than that of Paul and the Corinthians. That is, it reflects church settings where charismata are unknown and where women are not allowed public expression.
Among others see Sevenster, Paul, 198; Bruce, 135; and Barrett, 332 (if it is in fact authentic).
The verb λαλεῖ, which probably was originally an onomatopoeic word, meant “to chatter” in classical usage.
The appeal to similar problems in contemporary Middle Eastern churches says nothing about first-century Greco-Roman culture, but only that such churches are heavily influenced by the mores of the Semitic, usually Muslim, cultures in which they are found.
This appears to have been suggested first by Thrall, 102; it has been contended for rather vigorously by Hurley, “Veils,” 217–18; and Grudem, 239–55. Cf. Hill, Prophecy, 134–35, who leans this way. It has also been adopted by D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids, 1984), 40; it does not strengthen this otherwise helpful book that the author points out the fallacy in another’s argument by adopting a position that is itself most highly questionable.
Grudem, 250–51, tries to resolve this by a structural analysis that must finally be judged as not altogether successful, since it misses the balanced nature of the two items on tongues and prophecy. Moreover, it fails to see the “closure” aspect of vv. 32–33 to the preceding argument, and it does not take seriously enough the abrupt nature of this interruption, with no prior hint in the text itself.
For the most recent advocacy of this position, see Martin, 85–88, which has what appears to be a valid understanding of the historical problem itself, but a view of this text that leaves too many unresolved exegetical questions.
Although it is not quite precise to argue as Martin does that this is what the verb basically means in this chapter. In fact it is used of prophecies in vv. 3 and 29, of foreigners speaking to one another in vv. 10–11, and of speaking “intelligible words” with one’s tongue in v. 9.
See esp. the translation by Helen Barrett Montgomery; cf. Bushnell, God’s Word, par. 189–215. More recently it has been advocated, inter alios, by W. C. Kaiser, “Paul, Women, and the Church,” Worldwide Challenge 3 (1976), 9–12; N. M. Flanagan and E. H. Snyder, “Did Paul Put Down Women in 1 Cor 14:34–36?” BTB 11 (1981), 10–12; D. W. Odell-Scott, “Let the Women Speak in Church: An Egalitarian Interpretation of 1 Cor 14:33b–36,” BTB 13 (1983), 90–93; and Talbert, “Understanding,” 105–7.
On this score, the older interpreters seem to have the better of it. Their problem lay with the way they tried to get around 11:2–16.
The NIV curiously leaves this causal γάρ untranslated, although it does translate the next one.
Gk. αἱ γυναῖκες; probably all women, although the author assumes a culture in which most women are married.
Both of these, it should be noted, are clearly vocal exercises that others will hear; “silent prayer” is a phenomenon of later Western culture (post-15th c.?); thus in both Gk. αἱ γυναῖκες: probably all women, although the author assumes a culture in which most women are married.
E.g., Barrett, 330; Martin, 84.
It should be noted that even though Paul regularly uses the οὐ/ἀλλά contrast, this one is not in his style, which is usually to set two balanced propositions over against one another.
E.g., Martin, 87.
Mare, 276, suggests three NT texts as well, all later than this one!
See, e.g., S. Aalen, “A Rabbinic Formula in I Cor. 14,34,” in Studia Evangelica 2 (TU 87; Berlin, 1964), 513–25.
C.Ap. 2.200–201 (Loeb, 1:373).
Some (e.g., Martin, 87) have argued that “law” here does not mean the Torah, but simply “principle” or “rule,” thus referring to Paul’s earlier instruction. But in an unqualified form that lacks Pauline precedent.
On this matter see esp. Barton, “Sense,” 229–34, although he attributes it to Paul as a marginal afterthought.
On the other hand, for anyone who seriously believes that Paul is the author of these contradictions, this seems yet to be the best of all the options, that some form of disruptive speaking out was going on, which then qualifies the preceding apparent absolutes (v. 34). Nonetheless, as noted above, such a view is loaded with its own set of nearly insurmountable difficulties in light of the clear instructions in 11:3.