The Law 1 Cor 14:35 Quoted!
Moving on from Genesis 3:16, we are left to try to find another Old Testament passage that clearly tells women to "be under obedience, as also saith the Law... for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."
I have not found one such Old Testament passage. The concept simply does not exist there.
And that leaves us with the question: what law was Paul referencing?
To properly understand the book of 1 Corinthians, we need to know something important.
This book was not written just out of the blue, with no context.
Paul was answering a letter from them, which we no longer have!
The church in Corinth wrote first to Paul.
Paul says in chapter 7, "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me..."
In that long-lost letter, the Corinthian church asked Paul quite a few questions.
But in Greek, there is no punctuation. No question marks, and no quotation marks. Not even a period to show the end of a sentence. Just words.
So some things translated into statements were probably questions in the original... especially if Paul seems to state opposing ideas.
They asked if it was good for a man not to touch a woman.
(That's asceticism: the idea that we are holier if we suppress all our bodily needs.)
Paul basically says God created marriage because he created us with basic needs.But some people have a calling to be alone with God. There is special grace for this. But the general rule is that "it's not good for man to be alone." And that's God's good Creation!
Another quote from their letter is found in 1 Cor. 6:18 "Every sin that a man doeth is without the body."
Say what? How could that be true? Many sins come to mind: drunkeness, gluttony, fornication, adultery, lying, evil speaking, murder...! All of these are sins committed with members of the physical body.
(This was actually a heretical Gnostic doctrine of the first century: that only your spirit really matters. That the body is so earthly that nothing you do in your body makes any spiritual difference.)
Paul immediately retorts with, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
Another quotation from that lost letter: "All things are lawful unto me!"
(What? All things are lawful? Where does that idea come from? Not from God! Newer translations recognize this as a quotation, and are correctly putting quotation marks around that phrase!)
And Paul counters that quote too, with "But, all things are not expedient!"
They were saying, "I'm free! I can do anything I want!"
Paul's retort: "That's very foolish! Not everything's a good idea. And sin will enslave you."
....................
Now, what does this all have to do with "Let your women keep silence in the churches...?"
I'm glad you asked.
You see, to correctly understand this passage, we need to see it within its 3 contexts:
1. The lost letter, asking Paul questions.
2. The context of the culture.
3. The discussion of the gifts. (This is chapter 14!)
Any interpretation of these two "women keep silence" verses, that doesn't take those 3 things into account, will be off-base.
Let's explore the culture-context first.
Back to the question: "WHAT LAW was Paul referencing?"
Such a law does not exist in the Old Testament.
But it DOES exist in another Law, highly quoted in Paul's day, by the Pharisees.
Back in the first century, the Pharisees were a very legalistic group.
From about 400 BC, the first Pharisee rabbis began to give commentary on how they thought the law ought to be kept. These laws were handed down orally from one generation to the next.
These rabbis added their explanations to the Torah, instructing their followers, who sat at their feet, memorizing their teachings. And those young rabbis grew up and did the same, adding to the instructions of the early rabbis. This went on for 400 years, until Christ came.
By then, the Pharisees were pretty sure the original Pharisee rabbis were telling them things God told Moses, which never got written down. Like precisely how far was a Sabbath Day's journey. And like what defined plowing on the Sabbath. (dragging a chair, scuffing your toe in the dirt...) And like what bodily position one ought to be in, when reciting, "Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is One..."
Some rabbis disagreed violently over whether you ought to say it before you get up, or afterwards!
There are chapters devoted to this one question, in the Mishnah!
And THIS is what Jesus was preaching against in the Sermon on the Mount, when He said, "You have heard it hath been said by them of old time... but I say unto you...!"
Jesus wasn't talking about Moses. He was talking about rabbis that had been dead for hundreds of years.
And after Jesus died, arose, and returned to heaven, the Pharisees were still the same.
They were "encompassing land and sea to make one proselyte." (Matthew 23:15)
And they were following Paul around, making trouble in every church he planted.
Trying to bring them back under, not only the Law of Moses, but also under the Pharisees' Law!
This is very important to understand, about the setting of the first century.
Because what is quoted in 1 Corinthians 34 & 35 is not from Moses' Law.
That is a quote from the MISHNAH!
Have you heard of the Mishnah?
As I said earlier, the oral law was not yet written down in the first century.
But persecution arose so strong against the Jews after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, that they finally started writing it down. The first written copy existed in 200 AD.
And in the Mishnah, there is a very strange, unbiblical way of viewing women.
Very different from the Old Testament. (Much more like Greek philosophy, actually!)
This is the mindset of the Pharisees:
A woman could be divorced simply for raising her voice loudly enough inside her house to be heard outside.
A woman ought to stay inside the house, and not come out unless absolutely necessary, and only as her husband permitted.
IF a woman went out to walk down the street with her husband, she ought to walk far enough behind him, so as not to talk to him.
Because if she dared to speak to him in public, that was grounds for divorce.
A greatly respected rabbi of old said it would be better to burn the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament) than to teach it to a woman. That's how much women were oppressed by the Pharisees!
The Pharisees were the ones who came up with the "women's court" of Herod's Temple in Jesus' day.
Such a court never existed in God's outline of the Tabernacle. God never said women couldn't come into the "court of the congregation." And there are many references to show women DID come there!
But the Pharisees added a women's court, thus reserving the closest place to God, for themselves. It was for no purpose other than to push the weaker vessels away.
And it was a Pharisee rabbi recorded in the Mishnah, who said, "A woman's voice is a filthy, lascivious thing. It should never be heard in public. A man ought not even to allow himself to listen to the voice of his own wife."
Other Mishnah portions say a woman ought never to be heard singing.
It's just too much of a temptation for a man.
..................
Now, let's go back to 1 Corinthians 14, and look at the context of the surrounding verses:
34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
36 What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?
Notice, the first word of verse 36.
WHAT?
In the Greek, that word is a DISJUNCTIVE CONJUNCTION.
"And" is a simple conjunction.
"But" is a disjunctive conjunction.
Because "but" is only ever used to introduce an opposing idea.
("I would go out, but I'm too sick.")
And this is exactly the way that Greek word, translated, "WHAT?" is used.
That Greek word is only used to introduce an opposition to a preceding idea!
Paul says "What?"
Why did Paul say that?
Because he opposed the idea in the preceding two verses!
And then, Paul gives his reasons for opposing that "Law" handed down from "them of old time."
"Came the Word of God out from you? Or came it unto you only?"
Who was Paul talking to? Someone who was acting like they alone were the ones to give forth the Word!
In light of the preceding two verses, who were these people?
Men.
(Specifically, men with Pharisee thinking!)
To answer Paul's question, DID the Word of God come OUT OF men?
And DID the Word come only TO men?
No. Absolutely not. The word of God came to women also, down through the centuries.
Remember the prophetesses of the Old Testament? Deborah, Miriam, Abigail, Isaiah's wife, Huldah?
Remember Mary and Elizabeth and Anna?
There were passages of Scripture inspired through those women!
Furthermore, the Word-made-flesh did not come out of a male.
He came out of a woman.
...................................
These two verses come at the end of a chapter dealing with how a church ought to operate in the gifts of the Spirit.
Paul had just said that "you may ALL prophesy one by one, that ALL may learn, and ALL may be comforted."
To be consistent, the ALL who learn and are comforted, are the same ALL who may prophesy!
IN CONTEXT, this was a question from the Corinthian church: "ought not women stop prophesying in church? after all, we were taught the Law says a woman's voice is a shameful thing to be heard in public!"
Paul's answer agrees with God Himself, as He said, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons AND DAUGHTERS shall prophesy!"
God chose to launch the church exactly as He intended for it to continue: women right alongside men, equally gifted, and equally operating in those gifts!
..................................
I'd always heard it said that women can prophesy, but only when men aren't present. (Because that would be teaching men.)
But that makes no sense.
Paul said all prophecy is to be judged by those who sit by.
Now, if men have better judgment than women (as some say) then why would a church think so little of the worth of women's souls, to let them lead one another astray, without the better judgment of a man presiding over their discussion?
Is the prophesy of a woman so dangerous that a man dare not even be present to discern whether it is from God or not?
......................
How sad, that the Mishnah quote has become a New Testament rule for the church...
and that Paul's rebuke of it is completely ignored.
......................
It's time next to explore 1 Timothy 2:11-15.
We'll go there next.
Stay tuned!
I have not found one such Old Testament passage. The concept simply does not exist there.
And that leaves us with the question: what law was Paul referencing?
To properly understand the book of 1 Corinthians, we need to know something important.
This book was not written just out of the blue, with no context.
Paul was answering a letter from them, which we no longer have!
The church in Corinth wrote first to Paul.
Paul says in chapter 7, "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me..."
In that long-lost letter, the Corinthian church asked Paul quite a few questions.
But in Greek, there is no punctuation. No question marks, and no quotation marks. Not even a period to show the end of a sentence. Just words.
So some things translated into statements were probably questions in the original... especially if Paul seems to state opposing ideas.
They asked if it was good for a man not to touch a woman.
(That's asceticism: the idea that we are holier if we suppress all our bodily needs.)
Paul basically says God created marriage because he created us with basic needs.But some people have a calling to be alone with God. There is special grace for this. But the general rule is that "it's not good for man to be alone." And that's God's good Creation!
Another quote from their letter is found in 1 Cor. 6:18 "Every sin that a man doeth is without the body."
Say what? How could that be true? Many sins come to mind: drunkeness, gluttony, fornication, adultery, lying, evil speaking, murder...! All of these are sins committed with members of the physical body.
(This was actually a heretical Gnostic doctrine of the first century: that only your spirit really matters. That the body is so earthly that nothing you do in your body makes any spiritual difference.)
Paul immediately retorts with, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
Another quotation from that lost letter: "All things are lawful unto me!"
(What? All things are lawful? Where does that idea come from? Not from God! Newer translations recognize this as a quotation, and are correctly putting quotation marks around that phrase!)
And Paul counters that quote too, with "But, all things are not expedient!"
They were saying, "I'm free! I can do anything I want!"
Paul's retort: "That's very foolish! Not everything's a good idea. And sin will enslave you."
....................
Now, what does this all have to do with "Let your women keep silence in the churches...?"
I'm glad you asked.
You see, to correctly understand this passage, we need to see it within its 3 contexts:
1. The lost letter, asking Paul questions.
2. The context of the culture.
3. The discussion of the gifts. (This is chapter 14!)
Any interpretation of these two "women keep silence" verses, that doesn't take those 3 things into account, will be off-base.
Let's explore the culture-context first.
Back to the question: "WHAT LAW was Paul referencing?"
Such a law does not exist in the Old Testament.
But it DOES exist in another Law, highly quoted in Paul's day, by the Pharisees.
Back in the first century, the Pharisees were a very legalistic group.
From about 400 BC, the first Pharisee rabbis began to give commentary on how they thought the law ought to be kept. These laws were handed down orally from one generation to the next.
These rabbis added their explanations to the Torah, instructing their followers, who sat at their feet, memorizing their teachings. And those young rabbis grew up and did the same, adding to the instructions of the early rabbis. This went on for 400 years, until Christ came.
By then, the Pharisees were pretty sure the original Pharisee rabbis were telling them things God told Moses, which never got written down. Like precisely how far was a Sabbath Day's journey. And like what defined plowing on the Sabbath. (dragging a chair, scuffing your toe in the dirt...) And like what bodily position one ought to be in, when reciting, "Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is One..."
Some rabbis disagreed violently over whether you ought to say it before you get up, or afterwards!
There are chapters devoted to this one question, in the Mishnah!
And THIS is what Jesus was preaching against in the Sermon on the Mount, when He said, "You have heard it hath been said by them of old time... but I say unto you...!"
Jesus wasn't talking about Moses. He was talking about rabbis that had been dead for hundreds of years.
And after Jesus died, arose, and returned to heaven, the Pharisees were still the same.
They were "encompassing land and sea to make one proselyte." (Matthew 23:15)
And they were following Paul around, making trouble in every church he planted.
Trying to bring them back under, not only the Law of Moses, but also under the Pharisees' Law!
This is very important to understand, about the setting of the first century.
Because what is quoted in 1 Corinthians 34 & 35 is not from Moses' Law.
That is a quote from the MISHNAH!
Have you heard of the Mishnah?
As I said earlier, the oral law was not yet written down in the first century.
But persecution arose so strong against the Jews after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, that they finally started writing it down. The first written copy existed in 200 AD.
And in the Mishnah, there is a very strange, unbiblical way of viewing women.
Very different from the Old Testament. (Much more like Greek philosophy, actually!)
This is the mindset of the Pharisees:
A woman could be divorced simply for raising her voice loudly enough inside her house to be heard outside.
A woman ought to stay inside the house, and not come out unless absolutely necessary, and only as her husband permitted.
IF a woman went out to walk down the street with her husband, she ought to walk far enough behind him, so as not to talk to him.
Because if she dared to speak to him in public, that was grounds for divorce.
A greatly respected rabbi of old said it would be better to burn the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament) than to teach it to a woman. That's how much women were oppressed by the Pharisees!
The Pharisees were the ones who came up with the "women's court" of Herod's Temple in Jesus' day.
Such a court never existed in God's outline of the Tabernacle. God never said women couldn't come into the "court of the congregation." And there are many references to show women DID come there!
But the Pharisees added a women's court, thus reserving the closest place to God, for themselves. It was for no purpose other than to push the weaker vessels away.
And it was a Pharisee rabbi recorded in the Mishnah, who said, "A woman's voice is a filthy, lascivious thing. It should never be heard in public. A man ought not even to allow himself to listen to the voice of his own wife."
Other Mishnah portions say a woman ought never to be heard singing.
It's just too much of a temptation for a man.
..................
Now, let's go back to 1 Corinthians 14, and look at the context of the surrounding verses:
34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
36 What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only?
Notice, the first word of verse 36.
WHAT?
In the Greek, that word is a DISJUNCTIVE CONJUNCTION.
"And" is a simple conjunction.
"But" is a disjunctive conjunction.
Because "but" is only ever used to introduce an opposing idea.
("I would go out, but I'm too sick.")
And this is exactly the way that Greek word, translated, "WHAT?" is used.
That Greek word is only used to introduce an opposition to a preceding idea!
Paul says "What?"
Why did Paul say that?
Because he opposed the idea in the preceding two verses!
And then, Paul gives his reasons for opposing that "Law" handed down from "them of old time."
"Came the Word of God out from you? Or came it unto you only?"
Who was Paul talking to? Someone who was acting like they alone were the ones to give forth the Word!
In light of the preceding two verses, who were these people?
Men.
(Specifically, men with Pharisee thinking!)
To answer Paul's question, DID the Word of God come OUT OF men?
And DID the Word come only TO men?
No. Absolutely not. The word of God came to women also, down through the centuries.
Remember the prophetesses of the Old Testament? Deborah, Miriam, Abigail, Isaiah's wife, Huldah?
Remember Mary and Elizabeth and Anna?
There were passages of Scripture inspired through those women!
Furthermore, the Word-made-flesh did not come out of a male.
He came out of a woman.
...................................
These two verses come at the end of a chapter dealing with how a church ought to operate in the gifts of the Spirit.
Paul had just said that "you may ALL prophesy one by one, that ALL may learn, and ALL may be comforted."
To be consistent, the ALL who learn and are comforted, are the same ALL who may prophesy!
IN CONTEXT, this was a question from the Corinthian church: "ought not women stop prophesying in church? after all, we were taught the Law says a woman's voice is a shameful thing to be heard in public!"
Paul's answer agrees with God Himself, as He said, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons AND DAUGHTERS shall prophesy!"
God chose to launch the church exactly as He intended for it to continue: women right alongside men, equally gifted, and equally operating in those gifts!
..................................
I'd always heard it said that women can prophesy, but only when men aren't present. (Because that would be teaching men.)
But that makes no sense.
Paul said all prophecy is to be judged by those who sit by.
Now, if men have better judgment than women (as some say) then why would a church think so little of the worth of women's souls, to let them lead one another astray, without the better judgment of a man presiding over their discussion?
Is the prophesy of a woman so dangerous that a man dare not even be present to discern whether it is from God or not?
......................
How sad, that the Mishnah quote has become a New Testament rule for the church...
and that Paul's rebuke of it is completely ignored.
......................
It's time next to explore 1 Timothy 2:11-15.
We'll go there next.
Stay tuned!
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