Contradiction # 5 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
Weinrich connects the verses
to Genesis 3:16, but Carson disagrees, and tries to explain the
reference to the Law, and Knight attempts to make the word "laleo" a
reference to teaching instead of regular speech.
Find it in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Carson: p 152
Knight: p 351
Although Tertullian believed women ought to be silenced in the church,
he did not know what to make of the reference to the Law.
When enjoining on women silence in the
church, that they speak not for the mere sake of learning (although that even
they have the right of prophesying, he has already shown when he covers the
woman that prophesies with a veil), he goes to the law for his sanction that
woman should be under obedience. Now this law, let me say once for all, he
ought to have made no other acquaintance with, than to destroy it.[1]
By the fourth century, the Law no longer posed a problem, for the
inferiority of the woman and the sole guilt of Eve had changed the meaning of
Genesis 3:16 from a consequence of sin to a commandment of God. Chrysostom
combined 1 Corinthians 14:34 with Genesis 3:16 without discussion and
maintained that women should be silent in the Church because “the woman is in
some sort a weaker being and easily carried away and light minded.”[2]
In the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theology the inferiority of the woman was the reason for her silence. Matthew Henry concluded that women ought to be silent and refrain from teaching in the Church because, “it is the woman's duty to learn in subjection, it is the man's duty to keep up his superiority, by being able to instruct her.”[3] Adam Clarke believed women prophesied in the Early Church because of 1 Cor 11:5, but because of the apparent contradiction with 1 Cor 14:34, he concluded that the latter forbade only asking questions, not all speech.[4] Clarke thought “the law” had reference to Genesis 3:16, as did Barnes and Tertullian, but although Tertullian allowed women to pray and prophesy, Barnes concluded that the silencing of women in the Church could not be disputed because the rule was “positive, explicit, and universal.”[5] He equated foreign languages and prophesy with public speaking and therefore they were only for “the male portion of the congregation.” And as to the contradiction between chapters 11 and 14, for Barnes there was none, for he thought Paul was forbidding women from speaking “on every ground.”[6]
D.A.
Carson disagrees with Weinrich’s approval of Luther’s habit of connecting
Genesis 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 14:34 in his essay Silent in the Churches.
By this
clause [the law says], Paul is probably not referring to Genesis 3:16, as many
suggest, but to the creation order in Genesis 2:20b-24, for it is to that
Scripture that Paul explicitly turns to on two others occasions when he
discusses female roles (1 Corinthians 11.8, 9; 1 Timothy 2:13).[7]
But
the new connection is not without problems. The phrase “the law says” is found
three times in the New Testament: Rom 3:19, 1 Cor 9:8, and 1 Cor 14:34. Carson
concedes that Paul usually provides the actual verse from the Old Testament,
which is true of the first two examples, but he believes Paul has already provided
the verse (Genesis 2:20-4) in 1 Corinthians 11. Carson believes also that the reference to
the Law should be understood as Scripture,
which includes the Creation account.[8] However,
Genesis 1-3 is not called “the Law” or “Scripture” in the Bible; it is always
called “the beginning.”[9]
Hence “the law” cannot refer to Genesis 2:20-24.
Carson recognizes the problem of reconciling 1 Cor 11:3-16
with 14:34-35 wherefore he suggests that the former allows women to prophesy
but that the latter forbids them from evaluating prophecies. Because Carson
acknowledges that the whole church should participate in the evaluation of
teaching (Acts 17:11; Rev 2:2-3) he creates a distinction in which women are (1)
allowed to prophesy, but not allowed to evaluate prophecy; and (2) disallowed
to teach, but allowed to evaluate teaching. If "the careful weighing of
prophecies falls under the magisterial function" of the teaching authority,
why does not the evaluation of teaching considering Carson’s belief that teaching is superior to
prophesying?[10]
Also George W. Knight
III recognizes that 1 Cor 11:3-16 allows women to pray and to prophesy in his
essay The Family and the Church, but
he views 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as a prohibition for women to teach in a church
setting.
This is
seen in Paul's treatment of the gifts in 1 Corinthians 11-14, where women are
excluded only from speaking in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-5) where
congregational "teaching" is involved (1 Corinthians 14:26; notice
that the items listed in verse 26 correspond with the subjects dealt with in
verses 27 and 35 [with only the first item, "a psalm," not dealt with
in these verses] and in particular notice that "teaching" [NASB] in
verse 26 is the one-word description for the "speaking" Paul will
deal with when it comes to women in verses 34-35). These women are recognized
as properly participating in praying and prophesying, for example, but are only
asked not to throw off the cultural sign of their submission when they do so (1
Corinthians 11:1-6).[11]
Knight
does not explain how the "one-word description" of
"teaching" can be "speaking" (laleo) in 1 Corinthians 14:34, considering the word is connected to
both tongues and prophecy three times in verses 27-29. Neither does he have a
reason why women should learn (manthano)
at home when the purpose of prophecy is that all may learn (manthano) at church (v. 31).
The
context of 1 Corinthians 14 is speech. (Laleo
is used twenty-four times in chapter 14.) In verses 1-25 Paul explains why the
Corinthians should desire to prophesy rather than to speak in tongues; in
verses 26-40 he explains the proper way of prophesying and speaking in tongues.
Moreover, Paul considered prophesying, which both men and women participated
in, equivalent to teaching, for he wrote, “But one who prophesies speaks [laleo] to men for edification [oikodome] and exhortation [paraklesis] and consolation… For you can
all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted [parakaleo]” (Cor 14:3, 31, NAS). The
purpose of their gathering together, the psalms, teachings, tongues,
revelations and interpretations, was edification (oikodome, v. 26). Therefore prophesy was not distinguished from
teaching as to its purpose. In addition, exhortation (paraklesis) is equivalent to declaring divine truths - such as the
gospel, as seen in Acts 13:15-52, Hebrews 13:22, and 1 Thessalonians 2:2-3 -
and people are expected to learn as a result. Since prophesying is a form of
teaching, it is impossible that Paul excluded women from teaching, and
consequently, the evaluation of prophesy.
[1] Tertullian, Five
Books Against Marcion, Book V, VIII.
[2] Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily, XXXVII.
[3] “1 Cor 14.34-35,” Matthew Henry's Commentary on the
Whole Bible: New Modern Edition.
[4] “1 Cor 14.34-35,” Adam
Clarke's Commentary on the whole Bible.
[5] But if women are not allowed to speak in the church,
why did Peter write if “anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1
Pet. 4:11)? A similar prohibition against female speech is not found in his
letters.
[6] Barnes' Notes on
the New Testament.
[7] Piper and Grudem, 152.
[8] Ibid., 148.
[9] See Isaiah 40:2; 41:26; 46:10; Matthew 19:4-9;
24:19-21; Ecclesiastical 3:10-12; Mark 10:3-9; 13:18-19; Luke 11:49-51; 2
Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 1:9; Hebrews 1:10-12; 2 Peter 3:3-4; 1 John 3:8.
[10] Piper and Grudem, 153.
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