gengwall

Another gem of ancient Greek also mirrors the construct of 1 Cor 14:34-36 and shows that sarcastic rhetoricals can deny or denounce the preceeding assertion. I give you Job 38 in the LXX. Here God puts together a mighty string of or’s denouncing Job’s “words without knowledge”. In fact, the construct is very similar to 1 Cor 14 in that the word of God is contrasted to the word of man.

The problem with Grudem’s construct is that it assumes that vss. 34-35 are direct instructions from Paul (and therefore, from God). Of course Paul isn’t going to contradict himself through the rhetoricals of vs. 36. But, if, as egalitarians contend, vss. 34-35 are not the instructions of Paul but the practices of man, then the dripping sarcasm of vs. 36 makes perfect sense, just as does God’s sarcasm toward Job.

So, again, Grudem’s question is disingenuous (as is his research) because he has not reviewed any other passages that have the same construct that egalitarians propose exists in 1 Cor 14. In other words, other than 1 Cor 1 which I noted before, there are no other constructs (at least reviewed by Grudem et al) where Paul’s rhetoricals are responding to the words and deeds of others instead of his own words.