cheryl

Thank you for your question. In 1 Corinthians 14:36 Paul is referring to a letter from the Corinthians that he has been answering throughout 1 Corinthians. Verses 34 and 35 of chapter 14 are a quote from that letter. Immediately after the quote, Paul addresses the letter writers who are trying to force their legalistic restrictions onto the women in the congregation. Since the letter is commanding a restriction onto only women, it is unlikely that the letter writers would have included women and it is also unlikely that it came from every man in the congregation. Paul has already discussed women speaking in the church through prayer and prophecy in chapter eleven. Since women apparently had freedom to speak in the church by praying and prophesying, it certainly wasn’t the entire congregation who were restricting the women. The Judaizers were the ones who were trying to bring Jewish traditions into Christianity and they had already infiltrated the Galatian church. These Judaizers would also have insisted that the congregation follow the Jewish way of restricting women from learning and from speaking in the congregation.

The American Standard Versions renders verse 36: What? was it from you that the word of God went forth? or came it unto you alone?

Here the question is on whether there is a restriction on who can have the word of God come to them (question of learning) and who the word of God came through (question of who can prophesy God’s words). Paul is amazed that they are trying to take control of God’s words by restricting who can learn and who can speak forth in the congregation. Verse 37 is now written to anyone in the congregation. Paul says that if anyone thinks himself as a prophet, or as a spiritual person, then that one must recognize that Paul’s command to allow all to have the freedom to prophesy (verse 31) is a command of the Lord.  God’s commands through Paul directly contradict the prohibition in verses 34 and 35.

So in answer to your question, it would not be likely that the letter written to Paul came from both men and women since the letter was commanding restrictions on women’s participation in the church.