How does a believer justify 1 Cor. 14:34-35?

[_zeezrom]

 34 The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. 35 If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.

A silly mistake of man, embedded within the Word of God?

Why did I watch the movie Agora again? So sad.

[_bcspace]

A silly mistake of man, embedded within the Word of God?

That would be the doctrine, yes.

(36-5) 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 . Should Women Keep Silent in Church?

In both of these verses, Joseph Smith changed the word speak to rule in the Inspired Version . Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote:

“May women speak in Church? Yes, in the sense of teaching, counseling, testifying, exhorting, and the like; no, in the sense of assuming rule over the Church as such, and in attempting to give direction as to how God’s affairs on earth shall be regulated: ‘A woman has no right to found or organize a church—God never sent them to do it.’ ( Teachings, p. 212.) Paul is here telling the sisters they are subject to the priesthood, that it is not their province to rule and reign, that the bishop’s wife is not the bishop.” ( DNTC, 2:387–88.)

The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, 36 - "Covet Earnestly the Best Gifts"

[_zeezrom]

Same with this, I suppose.


"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)

[_bcspace]

Same with this, I suppose.

"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)

Yep, the same. No specific commentary on it from The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles and no JST excerpt (vs 4 has one). But in another manual, New Testament Teacher Resource Manual, (2002), 213–15, 1 Timothy 1–6 refers back to it and the 1 Cor 14 doctrine:

Read 1 Timothy 2:9–15 looking for the qualities Paul said women in the Church should have. (You may wish to share the commentary for 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 in The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, p. 297). Compare Paul’s list with the list made by the boys.

[_Panopticon]

Pseudopigrapha. Especially 1 Timothy. I believe there is general agreement among scholars
that Paul didn't write it.

I'm not a believer, of course, but this is what a rational believer might say.

[_Hoops]

Pseudopigrapha. Especially 1 Timothy. I believe there is general agreement among scholars
that Paul didn't write it.

I'm not a believer, of course, but this is what a rational believer might say.

Of course. That's the only possibility for a rationalist.

[_MsJack]

Hi zeezrom,

You're asking questions on passages for which entire books have been written in recent years, but I'll try to give you brief answers.

A silly mistake of man, embedded within the Word of God?

Christians who don't believe this passage was meant to limit women's roles in the church generally advocate one of three views:

(1) Paul was addressing a specific situation within the Corinthian church wherein women (specifically, married women) were speaking out of turn and disrupting the service with questions. Paul's remedy is to instruct them to ask their husbands at home (v. 35a). This is essentially my own view.

Some articles that advocate this view:

http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=cont ... ns-1434-35

Craig S. Keener, "Learning in the Assemblies: 1 Corinthians 14:34-35," in Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy, eds. Ronald W. Pierce, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis and Gordon D. Fee (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 161-71.

My personal favorite article on the subject is:

Carroll D. Osburn, "The Interpretation of 1 Cor. 14:34-35," in Essays on Women in Earliest Christianity, ed. Carroll D. Osburn (Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1993), 1:219-42.

But it's a highly technical discussion of the Greek in the passage that might be hard for the average reader to grasp. And sadly, it's not available online in any form.

(2) Paul was quoting someone in the Corinthian church who was teaching that women should remain silent, with v. 36-40 functioning as a rebuke. One online version of this argument:

http://christianthinktank.com/fem09.html

(3) The passage is an interpolation. It isn't missing from any MSS, but some do bizarrely locate it elsewhere in 1 Cor. 14, and it does come across as somewhat disjointed from the rest of the passage. This isn't a majority view among scholars, but it has been given some new life in recent years by Gordon D. Fee. See Keener's footnote on p. 162 of the article I linked to above if you want to hunt down Fee's work on the subject.

Mormons already allow women to speak in churches quite a bit (in fact, a good deal more than most of their conservative Christian counterparts), so they tend to go McConkie's route of saying that the passage is about women holding authority, and not speaking in church. It's pretty much unadulterated eisegesis.

If you want a similar list of resources for 1 Tim. 2:11-15, I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow.

Pseudopigrapha. Especially 1 Timothy. I believe there is general agreement among scholars that Paul didn't write it.

There's general consensus that Paul didn't write 1 Timothy, but 1 Corinthians is almost universally accepted as Pauline, and as I discussed above, those who think 1 Cor. 14:34-35 is an interpolation are in the minority. However, neither the average Mormon nor the average conservative Christian is going to jettison Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy in defense of the faith. It would violate inerrancy and/or infallibility for conservative Christians, and Mormons tend to be very traditional about authorship of biblical books. They still think Paul wrote Hebrews even though most Christians these days have let go of that.

[_Hoops]

One might consider that Paul's was a refutation of what The Corinthian Church was teaching and restating it to correct it.

Or that it was entirely made up.

Or that God is a sexist ogre.

I dunno. One of those maybe.

[_Hoops]

Here's one that I visit on occassion.

http://www.gracecentered.com/women_in_ministry.htm

[_MCB]

It is my belief that it arose out of the culture of the times. It would have been a source of scandal against the fledgling church.