Silent Treatment
Let the women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves, just as the Law also says. 1 Corinthians 14:34
Are Not Permitted – It’s hard to imagine Paul making such a statement. After all, just a few lines before (1 Cor. 11:5), he specifically speaks of women praying and prophesying. How is that possible if they can’t speak? Furthermore, in other letters Paul recognizes the place of dynamic women who are regular and important contributors to teaching, evangelism and other roles within the community (e.g. Romans 16:3 and 7 – where Junia is a feminine name). In fact, even in the Corinthian letter, how could Paul encourage everyone to seek prophesy (14:1) if only men could speak? Something isn’t right here.
To make matters worse, the justification for this unusual command appeals to the Law. That means the basis for this must be found in Torah. That is what Paul always means by the Greek word nomos. But there is no commandment in Torah that supports such a restriction. Look as hard as you wish, you won’t find one. In fact, what you will find are women who are prophets, judges, rulers, teachers and active members of the spiritual community. Let’s be direct about this. In the Old Testament, women speak out.
Finally, this very unusual command flies in the face of all that Paul says about equality under the Messiah. His watchword is “neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female.” This theme is so strong in Pauline theology that one would have to conclude that Paul was schizophrenic to suggest that we are all equal, but women are a little less equal.
There can be no doubt about the meaning of the Greek verb. Epitrepo certainly means “to permit, allow or entrust.” Furthermore, the negative here is ou, the strongest form of Greek negation. So, analysis of the language doesn’t seem to help us resolve this apparent contradiction. Something else must be going on because Paul doesn’t need to see the theological psychiatrist. Is this just a momentary lapse into hopeless contradiction? Is Paul really a disguised misogynist?
Gilbert Bilezikian points out that the word “all” here is uncharacteristic of Paul. The proclamation to all the churches doesn’t fit the way Paul writes to individual church issues. The command for silence doesn’t fit Paul’s previous remarks. The appeal to Torah certainly isn’t Pauline, since he would have known there are no such commands in Torah. Bilezikian suggests that this is an insertion into Paul’s letter, placed there by those who wished to assert predominance and foster hierarchy within the church. There are hints of this problem throughout the Corinthian letters; hints about men who were using the platform of the church for their own glory. Bilezikian’s suggestion makes a lot of sense. The only problem is that it punches a big hole in the idea of the inspiration of New Testament scripture. It suggests that we don’t have a true copy of Paul’s original letter. What we have is an edited copy, one tailored to accomplish purposes that Paul would never have endorsed. So, now we have to make a decision. Are we going to push for unequal yoking within the church based on a text which has a lot of internal suspicious loopholes, or are we going to look at the broader context of Paul’s consistent theme of equality and put a big question mark over this verse? You get to decide.
Topical Index: Women
