1 Corinthians 14:34-35
Let wives
be silent in the assemblies, for it is not allowed to them to speak, but let
them be subject, just as also the Law says.
And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at
home. For it is shameful for a woman to
speak in an assembly.
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1. The first thing we note about these verses is that they
primarily seem to picture a husband wife relationship. The words for woman and
man here also mean wife and husband, and that is the relationship that seems
primarily in view.
So when 14:34 mentions “the Law” saying that women are to be
subjected, what is it referring to? The best candidate is Genesis 3:16, where
Eve is subjected to Adam in consequence of her sin.
We’ll overlook here the blasphemy of applying this verse to
the time after Christ. It only says, “as
even the Law says”—a light comparison without teeth. [For further discussion of this issue, see 1 Timothy 2:11-15] Why would it be blasphemy to apply this verse
to the husband wife relationship? Because Christ atoned for all sins, not just some or just the sins
of Adam! A redeemed woman is no longer under the condemnation of Eve. She is in
Christ. We can argue over a creational order of male and female, but not over a
post-Fall order. That’s blasphemy, as if someone were saying, “Nice job,
Christ, in atoning for most
sins. Too bad you couldn’t take care of all of them.” Blasphemy!
But the Genesis allusion points to a husband wife
relationship, as does the comment, “let them ask their own husbands at home.”
2. The second thing I note, and this is the most important, is that Paul cannot
be talking about spiritual speech like prophecy or he has contradicted himself
within the space of three chapters. In 1
Corinthians 11, he is discussing women praying and prophesying in church.
Any woman praying or prophesying with uncovered head dishonors her “head,” that
is, her husband.
1 Corinthians 11 is the first of four that deal with
interrelationships within the church at
But if women are praying and prophesying before other men
here, then the silence 14:34 enjoins cannot be silence of a spiritual sort. It
has to be noise that causes disruption to the worship. Indeed, the noise at
issue would seem to be questions addressed to men who aren’t their own husbands
(let them ask their own
husbands—not someone else’s). Philo the Jew talks about a worship service where
women and men were segregated—a plausible scenario for other synagogues as
well. The disruption of asking questions with such segregation would also
contribute to our understanding of this passage.
And so this passage cannot address spiritual speech by
women. And thus this verse has nothing
to say against women in
ministry. That simply isn’t something these verses
address.
Textual Issues
Perhaps most scholars take 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as original
to 1 Corinthians. But a significant minority, including myself, do not think
they come from Paul’s hand. This is not a faith issue, for faith filled
scholars like Gordon Fee and Richard Hays agree that they are not likely
original. And of course conservative-liberal labels have nothing to do with
truth. The truth is the truth period and doesn’t care what label you attach to
it.
And anyone who uses a modern translation implicitly accepts
that there are any number of places where the medieval Greek text (the one
behind the KJV) has readings that were not the same as the first editions of
these texts.
We have not based our appropriation of 1 Corinthians
14:34-35 here off of the textual question because then someone might dismiss our
argument by way of this argument. As you can see above, the conclusion stands
or falls regardless of whether these verses were original.
But it is not very likely that they were original. Why?
1. These verses are displaced in a few manuscripts. They appear somewhere in all
manuscripts, so they externally have very strong evidence in favor of their
authenticity. Indeed, I think they must have been added before the end of the
first century (someone might argue that Paul himself put them in the margin
about the same time he wrote 1 Timothy, being sorely ticked at certain women in
In some manuscripts they appear after verse 40. One
explanation for this phenomenon is to suggest that they were placed in the
margin and then later copyists put them in at more than one location in the
main text.
2. In keeping with the displacement, the train of thought
works much smoother without them present. 1 Corinthians 14 is about prophesy
and tongues. The wife comment is a digression if original.
Here’s how it would read:
“The spirits of prophets
are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace, as in
all the assemblies of the saints. Or did the word of God go out from you alone
or meet you alone? If someone thinks to be a prophet or spiritual, let that person acknowledge that
what I am writing to you is the command of the Lord.”
The comment on women being silent is a digression from the
train of thought.
3. The church at
4. Verse 36 similarly returns to a masculine audience—the word for alone is
masculine plural. This fact fits the train of thought fine if these verses are
not original. But if these verses were
original, it was women, feminine,
that Paul said earlier to let be silent and to ask at home, “let women ask.”
5. Finally, there is the tension between these two verses and 1 Corinthians 11.
I have suggested that these verses cannot be talking about spiritual speech or
Paul has contradicted himself in the space of three chapters.
But these verses sure sound like a total prohibition of
speech—”it is shameful for a women to speak in church.” In other words, if
these words are original, it seems almost impossible to fit them together with
what Paul has said earlier. Given the other evidence, the near impossibility of
fitting these words together with what Paul has said earlier leads me to
conclude that he probably didn’t say them at all.
Tangentially that it would be nearly impossible for anyone
to play out such a scenario in a church today anyway and keep the more central
principles of the gospel, although it was probably more possible in Paul’s day.
And so the only verse in the entire Bible that potentially
offers any substance against the idea of women in ministry is in 1 Timothy. Certainly 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
provide no argument against it.
Hallelujah
for the dawn of the new covenant and the age of the Spirit, an age when our
sons and daughters prophesy!
Related Posts
1 Timothy 2:11-15 (the women shouldn’t teach
passage)
1 Corinthians 11:2-16 (women praying and
prophesying in church)