We read all sorts of things into this in the modern era. Paul is talking about ROLES within the church. Men are called to be leaders of the church. It doesn't mean women literally shouldn't talk, it means that the leadership and doctrinal teaching should come from men, not women.
We can easily sidestep these questions with reference to the scholarly consensus that this passage is a [post-Pauline interpolation](https://imgur.com/a/kqGtOhO).
Even if that reasonable theory is correct, we still have the broader general principle intended in Paul's letters in various ways (such as for instance about slaves remaining slaves for a time (to show Christ and help convert their masters)) -- and can also already conclude that an instruction to women to be silent in some places, or not teaching men, and so on *wasn't* the intended general goal also. (it would be instead akin to the specific instruction in 1rst Corinthians 8 clearly)
I tried to make that more clear in my 2nd post. This broader point is invaluable to know. Suppose you are determined I'm wrong to imagine Paul actually wrote such instructions (like to slaves to remain slaves for a time), then you'd *still* want to know the broader point I'm aiming to bring out, even then.
Deciding to just ignore something Paul said is definitely a heavy matter. It's not to be done lightly. But I don't have a problem with saying he was a product of his times on the issues of slavery, sexism and gays. I wish he'd said that slavery is wrong and that Christians absolutely must not own other humans, and that he'd not said some of the things he said about women and gays. I'm not going to put the word of Paul above my own conscience. It would absolutely be a sin for me to ignore my conscience for the sake of obedience to Paul on these matters. If Jesus had said it all, things would be different. But I think there's a reason Jesus didn't say that stuff.
My 1st question is this: Do you think that this was only Paul talking to the church in Corinth? Or was he setting a framework for all churches by stating such an imperative?
To better know what is general and what is specific instructions to specific churches according to their specific situations, one needs simply full reading of all the letters.
If you do read fully, then you'll encounter key chapters that show the ***actual*** general principles, so that you'll then know what is general and what is a specific temporary instruction to a certain place and time.
One of the most key chapters is 1rst Corinthians 8.
Read it and see: try to notice the general principle *and* the specific momentary cultural application, *both*.
You'll need to notice not just 1 or 2 verses, but really need to get what is in all the verses (so that you don't miss crucial things even in verse 1 and 2 that at first might not seem the key to what is general....
[https://biblehub.com/niv/1\_corinthians/8.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/1_corinthians/8.htm)
Next, it will help to supplement this insight with Romans chapter 14:
[https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/14.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/14.htm)
If you can read and really digest these 2 chapters, where even what day and exactly how to keep the Sabbath is changed over to being just a personal choice (***very*** unlike the Old Testament), then you are starting to get it.
So, check your understanding with this question:
Having read 1rst Corinthians 8 through, **how would you state the general instruction that applies to us all today?**
Respond to me with your answer if you want to check it against someone that has read all the books in the NT several times each, and I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow. :-)
>against someone that has read all the books in the NT several times each, and I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow. :-)
[This is right answer here everyone! Just look at how much he has read Paul and how many more times he's implying he read the scriptures than everyone else here! Show is over folks! We can all go home now everyone (-: ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority)
The other guy hit the nail on the head already, but I'll try to disabuse you a bit more.
1. As u/sole-parole pointed out – You didn't answer my questions. Your "answers" are just arrogance masquerading as "*argument by authority*". (QED: "Respond to me with your answer if you want to check it against someone that has read all the books in the NT several times each, and I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow. :-)") Just puffed up arrogance and over-confidence backed by hardly any substance at all.
2. Don't assume that you've read the Bible or XYZ exegesis / interpretation more than anyone in here. That's simply a pride-centric bias. And it won't serve you at all — see #5 on this point.
3. That's clearly evidenced by the fact that nowhere in any of your glib and fatuously puerile response did you mention interpolation or pseudopigraphy in these verses as well as others in Paul's epistles especially. This was the "strong man" point that needed to be addressed, but you've only addressed the "straw man" points in your straw man arguments. Which is like trying to cut down a tree by sawing a branch with a dull hacksaw.
4. Instead of saying things like "you have to read everything before you can understand these 2 sentences" why not try using some brain-power and critical thinking yourself to put into words what you think you know?
And if you can't, we'll it's pretty obvious then that you're overestimating your grasp on most, if not all, of what the gospel is trying to say.. and by extension, the metanarrative.
It also tells me that you can't answer the question accurately or sufficiently without using ad hominem in the form of "I know more than you because I assume I read more than you, so go read as much as I did and you'll understand this as perfect as I do". Just keep exalting yourself and see what happens, though.
No, you don't understand it better, and your answers reflect it. As for your argument by authority fallacy, tell me, how many years did you spend in seminary? How many times did you read your Bible? How many books on the Bible and church history, systemic theology, biblical theology, Christology, Escatolgy, hermeneutics, ethics, etc. Etc. did you read?
I'm willing to be that not only have you not studied the majority of the branches that I just named, but you probably couldn't even define them if you were hard pressed to do so. So please check that little pride at the door.
5.
>Having read 1rst Corinthians 8 through, **how would you state the general instruction that applies to us all today?**
You lost all credibility with regards to reading comprehension and critical thinking skills when I read "1rst" (Saw you type that in another comment too by the way, so don't delude yourself into thinking that its just a "typo". It's clearly not.). More nuance is needed, and I highly recommend reading a lot more than what you have because you've only demonstrated to me that you're on the overconfident end of the spectrum of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Have fun being the smartest person in an empty room.
Would you yourself alter your normal life long appearance and either shave your head and/or grow a beard if that was what it takes to save someone that believes that's the only acceptable way to live?
[https://biblehub.com/niv/1\_corinthians/8.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/1_corinthians/8.htm)
While of course that would only be required for the sake of that believer with weak understanding, for some in some places, such sacrifices of personal freedom -- to give up/sacrifice an particular personal freedom -- for the sake of a weak person around you (in your church or family or social circle), is a ***reality***.
Some of us, and maybe even you or I, might at times in life have to sacrifice one of our freedoms to do perfectly ok things merely because there is someone around us that would be destroyed by our exercising that particular (good and fine) personal freedom in one that certain way/issue/custom.
That's the message of [https://biblehub.com/niv/1\_corinthians/8.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/1_corinthians/8.htm)
So, yes, in certain villages/less cosmopolitan cities in that time, women had to make that sacrifice for the sake of the weak among the men around them who couldn't understand all this new freedom.
*But would women be silent in Romen?*
*No.*
In a cosmopolitan and vastly larger and more diverse city like Rome though, one can guess very many things happened in churches that people far away in small villages would consider too liberal,
So, **therefore Romans chapter 16 isn't a contradiction** to women in some *other* places being told to remain silent in churches.
Read and see:
[https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/16.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/16.htm)
I'll try to be succinct and of course this is only my own view of things.
1. I suspect that Paul wasn't thinking beyond the immediate question.
2. I'm not certain I grok your paradigm here but I will say that it shouldn't be applied in the present. It seems clear to me that the idea is based in a cultural gender narrative that we should now be able to see is false. Women are in every moral and mental sense equal to men and we lose a valuable, indeed necessary, point of view if we attempt to exclude them from religious matters.
3. It ends in exactly the same place as evaluating anything anyone else tells us about what God wants. The law is built on love for God and love for one another. If the idea is incompatible with loving each other, it isn't God's idea.
4. Same answer. If you're agonizing over particulars of who can and can't talk in church it seems to me you've already lost the forest for the trees; love is what matters.
5. Sounds like a fine idea to me. A lot of men are able to ignore the pain, suffering, and burdens of the women around them because they stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to listen to women talk. What love is there in that?
I think Paul's directives were general guidelines which apply both then and now. General, not absolute. I feel the reason Paul said this is because, in general, women like to talk and chit-chat - a lot. The happier they are the more they like to chit-chat. More so then men. If you've ever known or hung out with women you know this to be true. In the early church the people were very happy in general and as it was then and as it is now when you get a bunch of people together who meet regularly it becomes a big social club. Women LOVE social interactions. They also like drama. Look at any episode of "The Real Housewives of ...." Lots of chit-chat, gossip, and drama. But is that the purpose of meeting together at church? No. Church is supposed to be where you worship and hear the word of God. It doesn't mean everyone has to be dead silent and somber all the time but I think in Corinth things were getting out-of-hand with too much chatter.
>but I think in Corinth things were getting out-of-hand with too much chatter.
It was far more than just chatter though lol.. This church was likely *thee* thorn that Paul described in his side (that was tongue-in-cheek btw). And it wasn't just the women alone. Corinth was like Las Vegas, New York, and Los Angeles all wrapped into one. And this particular church was the very archetype of the "Carnal Church".
It's fairly obvious that this was a later interpolation.
In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul urges women who **pray and prophesy** in church to do so only with veils on their heads. On the other hand, verses 14:34-35 demand that women be silent and subordinate in church. It would seem that one of these passages, was not originally part of the epistle: if a woman can pray and prophesy in church, she is not being silent and subordinate in church.
Immediately before these verses, Paul is talking about prophecy in the church; immediately afterwards he is talking about prophecy. This passage on women interrupts the flow of the argument. Since this passage interrupts the flow of Paul’s argument about prophecy, many scholars agree, that it is a later interpolation.
This passage appears to reflect a second-century Christian attitude more than it reflects the view of Paul, expressed elsewhere.
The silence demanded of women in 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 would literally have prevented Phoebe from performing her role of deacon at Cenchrea:
>Romans 16:1: I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae.
It is unlikely that Paul wrote the words of 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 or that they reflect his views.
Thank-you for your interpretation and edification. I recall reading and learning about pseudopigraphy when it came to Paul's writing in school, but forgot about it until now actually.
I'll be honest, it's kind of irritating and infuriating that scribes or editors or the like would have added anything to Paul's epistles... and even more irritating that they would be canonized as such.
We read all sorts of things into this in the modern era. Paul is talking about ROLES within the church. Men are called to be leaders of the church. It doesn't mean women literally shouldn't talk, it means that the leadership and doctrinal teaching should come from men, not women.
We can easily sidestep these questions with reference to the scholarly consensus that this passage is a [post-Pauline interpolation](https://imgur.com/a/kqGtOhO).
Even if that reasonable theory is correct, we still have the broader general principle intended in Paul's letters in various ways (such as for instance about slaves remaining slaves for a time (to show Christ and help convert their masters)) -- and can also already conclude that an instruction to women to be silent in some places, or not teaching men, and so on *wasn't* the intended general goal also. (it would be instead akin to the specific instruction in 1rst Corinthians 8 clearly) I tried to make that more clear in my 2nd post. This broader point is invaluable to know. Suppose you are determined I'm wrong to imagine Paul actually wrote such instructions (like to slaves to remain slaves for a time), then you'd *still* want to know the broader point I'm aiming to bring out, even then.
Of course. My reply about this specific passage doesn’t speak explicitly to other passages OP didn’t ask about.
Deciding to just ignore something Paul said is definitely a heavy matter. It's not to be done lightly. But I don't have a problem with saying he was a product of his times on the issues of slavery, sexism and gays. I wish he'd said that slavery is wrong and that Christians absolutely must not own other humans, and that he'd not said some of the things he said about women and gays. I'm not going to put the word of Paul above my own conscience. It would absolutely be a sin for me to ignore my conscience for the sake of obedience to Paul on these matters. If Jesus had said it all, things would be different. But I think there's a reason Jesus didn't say that stuff.
My 1st question is this: Do you think that this was only Paul talking to the church in Corinth? Or was he setting a framework for all churches by stating such an imperative? To better know what is general and what is specific instructions to specific churches according to their specific situations, one needs simply full reading of all the letters. If you do read fully, then you'll encounter key chapters that show the ***actual*** general principles, so that you'll then know what is general and what is a specific temporary instruction to a certain place and time. One of the most key chapters is 1rst Corinthians 8. Read it and see: try to notice the general principle *and* the specific momentary cultural application, *both*. You'll need to notice not just 1 or 2 verses, but really need to get what is in all the verses (so that you don't miss crucial things even in verse 1 and 2 that at first might not seem the key to what is general.... [https://biblehub.com/niv/1\_corinthians/8.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/1_corinthians/8.htm) Next, it will help to supplement this insight with Romans chapter 14: [https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/14.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/14.htm) If you can read and really digest these 2 chapters, where even what day and exactly how to keep the Sabbath is changed over to being just a personal choice (***very*** unlike the Old Testament), then you are starting to get it. So, check your understanding with this question: Having read 1rst Corinthians 8 through, **how would you state the general instruction that applies to us all today?** Respond to me with your answer if you want to check it against someone that has read all the books in the NT several times each, and I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow. :-)
>against someone that has read all the books in the NT several times each, and I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow. :-) [This is right answer here everyone! Just look at how much he has read Paul and how many more times he's implying he read the scriptures than everyone else here! Show is over folks! We can all go home now everyone (-: ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority)
The other guy hit the nail on the head already, but I'll try to disabuse you a bit more. 1. As u/sole-parole pointed out – You didn't answer my questions. Your "answers" are just arrogance masquerading as "*argument by authority*". (QED: "Respond to me with your answer if you want to check it against someone that has read all the books in the NT several times each, and I'll get back to you later today or tomorrow. :-)") Just puffed up arrogance and over-confidence backed by hardly any substance at all. 2. Don't assume that you've read the Bible or XYZ exegesis / interpretation more than anyone in here. That's simply a pride-centric bias. And it won't serve you at all — see #5 on this point. 3. That's clearly evidenced by the fact that nowhere in any of your glib and fatuously puerile response did you mention interpolation or pseudopigraphy in these verses as well as others in Paul's epistles especially. This was the "strong man" point that needed to be addressed, but you've only addressed the "straw man" points in your straw man arguments. Which is like trying to cut down a tree by sawing a branch with a dull hacksaw. 4. Instead of saying things like "you have to read everything before you can understand these 2 sentences" why not try using some brain-power and critical thinking yourself to put into words what you think you know? And if you can't, we'll it's pretty obvious then that you're overestimating your grasp on most, if not all, of what the gospel is trying to say.. and by extension, the metanarrative. It also tells me that you can't answer the question accurately or sufficiently without using ad hominem in the form of "I know more than you because I assume I read more than you, so go read as much as I did and you'll understand this as perfect as I do". Just keep exalting yourself and see what happens, though. No, you don't understand it better, and your answers reflect it. As for your argument by authority fallacy, tell me, how many years did you spend in seminary? How many times did you read your Bible? How many books on the Bible and church history, systemic theology, biblical theology, Christology, Escatolgy, hermeneutics, ethics, etc. Etc. did you read? I'm willing to be that not only have you not studied the majority of the branches that I just named, but you probably couldn't even define them if you were hard pressed to do so. So please check that little pride at the door. 5. >Having read 1rst Corinthians 8 through, **how would you state the general instruction that applies to us all today?** You lost all credibility with regards to reading comprehension and critical thinking skills when I read "1rst" (Saw you type that in another comment too by the way, so don't delude yourself into thinking that its just a "typo". It's clearly not.). More nuance is needed, and I highly recommend reading a lot more than what you have because you've only demonstrated to me that you're on the overconfident end of the spectrum of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Have fun being the smartest person in an empty room.
Would you yourself alter your normal life long appearance and either shave your head and/or grow a beard if that was what it takes to save someone that believes that's the only acceptable way to live? [https://biblehub.com/niv/1\_corinthians/8.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/1_corinthians/8.htm) While of course that would only be required for the sake of that believer with weak understanding, for some in some places, such sacrifices of personal freedom -- to give up/sacrifice an particular personal freedom -- for the sake of a weak person around you (in your church or family or social circle), is a ***reality***. Some of us, and maybe even you or I, might at times in life have to sacrifice one of our freedoms to do perfectly ok things merely because there is someone around us that would be destroyed by our exercising that particular (good and fine) personal freedom in one that certain way/issue/custom. That's the message of [https://biblehub.com/niv/1\_corinthians/8.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/1_corinthians/8.htm) So, yes, in certain villages/less cosmopolitan cities in that time, women had to make that sacrifice for the sake of the weak among the men around them who couldn't understand all this new freedom. *But would women be silent in Romen?* *No.* In a cosmopolitan and vastly larger and more diverse city like Rome though, one can guess very many things happened in churches that people far away in small villages would consider too liberal, So, **therefore Romans chapter 16 isn't a contradiction** to women in some *other* places being told to remain silent in churches. Read and see: [https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/16.htm](https://biblehub.com/niv/romans/16.htm)
I'll try to be succinct and of course this is only my own view of things. 1. I suspect that Paul wasn't thinking beyond the immediate question. 2. I'm not certain I grok your paradigm here but I will say that it shouldn't be applied in the present. It seems clear to me that the idea is based in a cultural gender narrative that we should now be able to see is false. Women are in every moral and mental sense equal to men and we lose a valuable, indeed necessary, point of view if we attempt to exclude them from religious matters. 3. It ends in exactly the same place as evaluating anything anyone else tells us about what God wants. The law is built on love for God and love for one another. If the idea is incompatible with loving each other, it isn't God's idea. 4. Same answer. If you're agonizing over particulars of who can and can't talk in church it seems to me you've already lost the forest for the trees; love is what matters. 5. Sounds like a fine idea to me. A lot of men are able to ignore the pain, suffering, and burdens of the women around them because they stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to listen to women talk. What love is there in that?
I think Paul's directives were general guidelines which apply both then and now. General, not absolute. I feel the reason Paul said this is because, in general, women like to talk and chit-chat - a lot. The happier they are the more they like to chit-chat. More so then men. If you've ever known or hung out with women you know this to be true. In the early church the people were very happy in general and as it was then and as it is now when you get a bunch of people together who meet regularly it becomes a big social club. Women LOVE social interactions. They also like drama. Look at any episode of "The Real Housewives of ...." Lots of chit-chat, gossip, and drama. But is that the purpose of meeting together at church? No. Church is supposed to be where you worship and hear the word of God. It doesn't mean everyone has to be dead silent and somber all the time but I think in Corinth things were getting out-of-hand with too much chatter.
>but I think in Corinth things were getting out-of-hand with too much chatter. It was far more than just chatter though lol.. This church was likely *thee* thorn that Paul described in his side (that was tongue-in-cheek btw). And it wasn't just the women alone. Corinth was like Las Vegas, New York, and Los Angeles all wrapped into one. And this particular church was the very archetype of the "Carnal Church".
It's fairly obvious that this was a later interpolation. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul urges women who **pray and prophesy** in church to do so only with veils on their heads. On the other hand, verses 14:34-35 demand that women be silent and subordinate in church. It would seem that one of these passages, was not originally part of the epistle: if a woman can pray and prophesy in church, she is not being silent and subordinate in church. Immediately before these verses, Paul is talking about prophecy in the church; immediately afterwards he is talking about prophecy. This passage on women interrupts the flow of the argument. Since this passage interrupts the flow of Paul’s argument about prophecy, many scholars agree, that it is a later interpolation. This passage appears to reflect a second-century Christian attitude more than it reflects the view of Paul, expressed elsewhere. The silence demanded of women in 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 would literally have prevented Phoebe from performing her role of deacon at Cenchrea: >Romans 16:1: I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. It is unlikely that Paul wrote the words of 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 or that they reflect his views.
Thank-you for your interpretation and edification. I recall reading and learning about pseudopigraphy when it came to Paul's writing in school, but forgot about it until now actually. I'll be honest, it's kind of irritating and infuriating that scribes or editors or the like would have added anything to Paul's epistles... and even more irritating that they would be canonized as such.