1 Corinthians 14 — Research Notes (Cheryl Schatz)

Contradictions — 1 Corinthians 14:20-36 (RtNT 1-2Co) Since there is no evidence in the text that different women are involved in 1 Cor 11:2-16 and 14:34-35 (e.g., celibate in ch. 11, wives in ch. 14) or that different parts of the service are referred to (e.g., time of prayer and prophecy in ch. 11, discussion after the sermon in ch. 14), one is forced to conclude that if 14:34-35 is from Paul, it contradicts his stance elsewhere.

Opponents position: The author states that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 may be seen as the position of Paul's opponents. 1 Corinthians 14:20-36 (RtNT 1-2Co) When a text in Paul is clearly contradictory to the apostle's thought expressed everywhere else, there are two different expedients often used to resolve the difficulty. On the one hand, the contradictory text may be declared to be a later interpolation. This has frequently been suggested for 1 Cor 14:34-35 (Niccum, 1997, critiques the work of Fee and Payne and concludes: "No extant MS offers evidence of an original omission of 1 Cor 14:34-35"). On the other hand, the discordant note may be regarded as the position of Paul's opponents, cited by the apostle before his refutation. This has, of late, also been suggested for vv. 34-35.

This commentary gives exactly my position on 1 Corinthians 14:36. 1 Corinthians 14:20-36 (RtNT 1-2Co) Can v. 36 ("What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached?") assist in deciding between these two options? Verse 36 begins with a particle (e, translated "What!" by the RSV) whose force indicates that what has come before is refuted by the two-fold rhetorical query that follows (as at 1 Cor 11:22). This study presumes that e may function as an exclamation expressing disapproval—so Liddell and Scott, 1940, 1.761; Thayer, 1889, 275, says this disjunctive conjunction is sometimes used before a sentence contrary to the one just preceding. Thayer cites 1 Cor 14:36 among his thirteen examples. Cf. also 1 Cor 6:2, 9, 16, 19; 9:6; 10:22; 11:22; 2 Cor 11:7. Further, v. 36 is not directed to the women exclusively.

Questions on silence — 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 on the silence of women in the assembly

Question 1: The "Law" That Doesn't Exist "Brett, verse 34 says women should be silent — but there is no passage in the Law that commands women to be silent. This opens the door to the quotation reading without being confrontational." Impact: 9/10 — This is the most concrete and hardest to dismiss.

Question 2: "Shameful" Is Stronger Than You Let On "You moved past the word in Ephesians 5:12 for things — and it carries the sense of disgrace. If a woman's voice in church is disgraceful? Doesn't the contrast with ch. 11 make the contradiction visceral?" Impact: 8/10 — Forces him to sit with the actual weight of the word rather than softening it into "disruptive chatting."

Question 3: What Happens When You Read Verse 36? "One thing I noticed you didn't address — verse 36 uses the Greek particle eta (e) which Paul uses eight times in this letter. If verse 36 is a sharp pushback, what is he pushing back against if not the statement in verses 34-35?" Impact: 9/10 — This is the smoking gun in the text that Brett skipped entirely.

Question 4: The Segregated Seating Problem "You described a scenario where men and women sat on opposite sides and wives were shouting questions across the room. I looked into this and couldn't find archaeological or historical evidence for gender-segregated seating in first-century house churches — even synagogue segregation appears to be medieval. Given that Corinthian house churches met in a triclinium that seated maybe nine people on couches, is it possible that reconstruction is doing more work than the text itself?" Impact: 7/10

Question 5: Paul's Own Logic "You made a strong case that Paul's 'forbid to speak' is the opposite of verses 34-35. Could that be because 34-35 aren't Paul's own words?" Impact: 8/10

It makes no sense that Paul was silencing women. "Paul's prohibition of women speaking in church assemblies, his admonition that they be silent, and his counsel that if they want to learn they should do so by asking their husbands 'at home' (see 14:34-35) raise significant questions. While these two verses have been used as a proof text (along with 1 Tim. 2:12) to prohibit women in roles of pastoral ministry, they do not fit neatly into his argument if taken as absolute prohibitions. For one, Paul has already acknowledged that women prophesy and pray in the public worship assembly (11:5, 10, 13) and that 'all' have a contribution to make to worship in prophecy (14:31). In addition, Paul's reference to 'the law' (14:34) for his prohibition for women to speak and his direction that they be subordinate can find no actual referent in Old Testament law but can be only loosely tied to a verse such as the curse of Eve (Gen. 3:16).

Furthermore, attempts to distinguish prophecy from authoritative teaching in the church falter when it is noted that prophecy for Paul is not limited to a spontaneous word of revelation but is also the exposition of scripture and its application to the life of the church. Finally, if Paul meant that women were never, without exception, to speak in the gathered assembly of the churches, it is strange that he would send his letter to the Romans with a woman (i.e., Phoebe) identified as a deacon who would read it and answer questions about it publicly (Rom. 16:1) or that he would commend her to the church with instructions that they provide her with any assistance she may need in her ministry there (Rom. 16:2). It is also difficult to think that women named by Paul as 'fellow workers' such as Prisca (Rom. 16:3; 1 Cor. 16:19; see also Rom. 16:12 and Phil. 4:2-3) and a woman named Junia identified as an apostle (Rom. 16:7) never spoke in any public worship setting."

Bender, K. J. (2022). 1 Corinthians (R. R. Reno, Ed.; pp. 239-240). Brazos Press: A Division of Baker Publishing Group.