Thread: 1 Cor 14:34-35 not inspired?

For those actually versed in exegesis and NT manuscripts...what do you make of this?

Some scholars have argued that vv. 34-35 should be excised from the text (principally G. D. Fee, First Corinthians [NICNT], 697-710; P. B. Payne, “Fuldensis, Sigla for Variants in Vaticanus, and 1 Cor 14.34-5,” NTS 41 [1995]: 240-262). This is because the Western witnesses (D F G ar b vgms Ambst) have these verses after v. 40, while the rest of the tradition retains them here. There are no mss that omit the verses. Why, then, would some scholars wish to excise the verses? Because they believe that this best explains how they could end up in two different locations, that is to say, that the verses got into the text by way of a very early gloss added in the margin. Most scribes put the gloss after v. 33; others, not knowing where they should go, put them at the end of the chapter. Fee points out that “Those who wish to maintain the authenticity of these verses must at least offer an adequate answer as to how this arrangement came into existence if Paul wrote them originally as our vv. 34-35” (First Corinthians [NICNT], 700). In a footnote he adds, “The point is that if it were already in the text after v. 33, there is no reason for a copyist to make such a radical transposition.”

Is there good reason to think v34-35 are not original?

Only if you are a Pentecostal egalitarian textual critic.

Fee wasn't convincing the first time I read him either (nor the second).

I don't know much about going that deep into the text, but don't these types of debates only happen with things that are contentious (such as whether women should speak in church)? When did the view arise that suggests these verses are not in the original?

Originally Posted by Tim

I don't know much about going that deep into the text, but don't these types of debates only happen with things that are contentious (such as whether women should speak in church)? When did the view arise that suggests these verses are not in the original?

That's what I'm thinking...this came up because I appealed to 1 Cor 14 to prove women in all churches of all times were not permitted to teach or exercise authority over men.

The thing that made me scratch my head was this quote from a footnote to the NET Bible...I've never heard of these 2 verses being in different spots of manuscripts.

May Women Speak in Church?

The Textual Question
Advocates of women speaking in church have one final way to get rid of our passage: declare it inauthentic. But there is very little evidence that supports such a drastic solution.

All known manuscripts of 1 Corinthians contain 14:33b-36. However, a few manuscripts in the "Western" textual tradition place verses 34-35 after verse 40, where they obviously don't belong. Ordinarily, no one would suggest that this dislocation in the Western text (which is otherwise known for its sloppiness) casts any serious doubt upon the authenticity of the passage, since it is uniformly attested by both the Alexandrian and the Byzantine textual traditions (see my article on texts and translations in the June 1995 New Horizons).

However, some have seized upon this textual "problem" as evidence that the two verses are inauthentic. The Pentecostal scholar Gordon D. Fee, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians (Eerdmans, 1987, pp. 699-708), argues that a nefarious interpolator wrote verses 34-35 in the margin of a very early manuscript, which copyists then inserted in two different places. But this would mean that all known manuscripts of 1 Corinthians are descended from this one corrupt copy, which is highly unlikely. More likely, an early copyist in the West accidentally skipped verses 34-35 and a corrector then wrote them in the margin, which the next copyist understood as belonging after verse 40. Or, the first copyist may have realized his mistake a few verses down, and decided just to stick the skipped verses back in after verse 40. (Others have suggested that the verses were moved deliberately.)

However the dislocation arose, verses 34-35 must be authentic because verse 36 makes no sense coming after verse 33. As we have already seen, verse 33b is half of a comparison, and only verse 34 supplies the other half of it—not verse 33a and certainly not verse 36. The authenticity of verse 33b confirms the overwhelming textual evidence that verses 34-35 are original right where they are.

Andrew...thanks for that article. That was great.

In case anyone is wondering, I did some background research on Gordon Fee's scholarly approach to 1 Cor 14:34-35 (as that is what the NET Bible footnote is primarily referring to). Here's what I've found. The first one disagreeing with Fee in a gracious manner, the rest dealing with Gordon Fee's baseless assumptions.

There is no easy solution to this problem and Fee is to be commended for his recognition of both the internal tension that these verses place upon the context and the weaknesses inherent in the common replies to the problem. All this notwithstanding, one ought to be very cautious, however, when deeming certain texts spurious on the basis of transcriptional probability and internal difficulties when there is no substantial external data to lend support to such an hypothesis. In the end, the verses should be permitted to remain in the text (after verse 33) due to excellent manuscript support*

*See Metzger, Textual Commentary, 565. See also C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Harper's New Testament Commentaries (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968), 332, states concerning the theory of interpolation: "There is much to be said for this view, especially since the language of these verses can be explained as based upon I Tim. ii. 11f., but the textual evidence is not quite strong enough to make it compelling . . . If any significant MS. omitted the verses all together it would probably be right to follow it."

Taken from Bible.org

Interesting tid bits from Matthew Malcolm's blog (Malcom is a Ph.D student specializing in the book of 1 Corinthians):

J. Kloha has argued that dislocation of passages in the bilingual manuscripts of Paul is not uncommon, and is not a reliable sign of interpolation.

&

E. Randolph Richards has demonstrated that ancient letter writers such as Paul wrote in the context of community, utilised the skills of professional secretaries, went through drafts and revisions, and made use of pre-formed materials. In particular, Paul’s letters often involve co-senders - such as Timothy or Silvanus. These co-senders are not simply the same as those who send their greetings in the letter endings, indicating that they had some involvement in the authoring of the letter. 1 Corinthians is from Paul “and Sosthenes the brother”. Richards reasons that if this Sosthenes is the one known to us in Acts, then he was the ruler of a synagogue, and thus familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as conceivably able to carry some weight in the (relatively lengthy) letter-writing process alongside Paul.

All of these sorts of issues urge a caution: Material that (from a literary point of view) doesn’t appear to fit smoothly should not automatically be considered a “post-Pauline interpolation”. A passage that is somewhat ill-fitting may be a piece of pre-formed material (such as from a previous letter by Paul, or from a sermon by Sosthenes) - or it may indicate the diversity of emphasis within the authorial team (undoubtedly under the leadership of Paul, but surely with the possibility of genuine contribution from Sosthenes). Alternatively, an ill-fitting passage may simply be an addition late in the editing process, but still by Paul/Sosthenes.

Fee's position relies heavily on statistical probability...and he seems to be selective when it comes to this passage versus others in Paul's writings where placement of passages varies between manuscripts. Earliest versions of 1 Corinthians include the passage Fee would prefer to discard...his solution to this? Well, then that simply means the error happened at the earliest of times. Amazingly, most evangelical scholars would tend to believe manuscripts from earliest periods lends credibility to passages being authentic.

Further, the content is not out of place in v34-35...so the evidence points to this being original and it textually it fits within the larger context. Some scholars may disagree...but not very convincingly. It is also worthy of pointing out that Fee is a leading proponent of Egalitarianism...and not terribly convincing, either, when looking at the evidence.

I always feel like a one-armed man in a street fight when taking on someone with Fee's cred in the academy for textual criticism. Next to Bart Ehrman, are there any other Americans alive who are as highly regarded in that field? Nevertheless, it is just this kind of tendentious argumentation that caused me to give a second look at Jerusalem Blade's excessively long and thought provoking posts over the last several years on TR vs. CT.

BTW, I received the Moises Silva piece from WTS on Reformed Textual Criticism. It consisted of a proposed journal article on the subject + another article. Not much for $8. It was vintage Moises, reminding me of his teaching back at Westmont in the early 70s when he was my wife's Greek prof and our NT prof. Essentially, he argues that the weight of evidence favors the critical text; that the arguments for the TR are frought with more problems than proponents lead you to believe; that the efforts to support a majority text critical edition are interesting, but leave you in the same place vis a vis the issue of preservation; all the while taking you on a fascinating stroll through the history of textual criticism. Ultimately, he argues that a Reformed view of inspiration and preservation is not endangered in any meaningful way by the acceptance of lower criticism.

Ahhh, what do you expect from Bob Jones (B.A.), Westminster Sem (M.Div.), and Manchester (PhD)???

Moises has always been a bit of a linguist and carries that over into his studies of the LXX and NT. I can remember taking a tutorial from him in hermeneutics back in the early 70s when he had me reading Barr (along with F.F. Bruce his main advisors in England) and Saussure. Both of which convinced me that NT was never going to be my field of expertise. It was, however, kindof cool to see this OPC guy in his mid 20s who had a gazillion kids and that Desi Arnez Cuban accent. Whenever he prayed, he prayed that God would "give us strennnth and grace." And, being a good sabbatarian, he never assigned homewok over the weekend, lest we would do it on Sunday. Yeaaa, you go confessionalism!

Originally Posted by Craig

For those actually versed in exegesis and NT manuscripts...what do you make of this?

Some scholars have argued that vv. 34-35 should be excised from the text (principally G. D. Fee, First Corinthians [NICNT], 697-710; P. B. Payne, “Fuldensis, Sigla for Variants in Vaticanus, and 1 Cor 14.34-5,” NTS 41 [1995]: 240-262). This is because the Western witnesses (D F G ar b vgms Ambst) have these verses after v. 40, while the rest of the tradition retains them here. There are no mss that omit the verses. Why, then, would some scholars wish to excise the verses? Because they believe that this best explains how they could end up in two different locations, that is to say, that the verses got into the text by way of a very early gloss added in the margin. Most scribes put the gloss after v. 33; others, not knowing where they should go, put them at the end of the chapter. Fee points out that “Those who wish to maintain the authenticity of these verses must at least offer an adequate answer as to how this arrangement came into existence if Paul wrote them originally as our vv. 34-35” (First Corinthians [NICNT], 700). In a footnote he adds, “The point is that if it were already in the text after v. 33, there is no reason for a copyist to make such a radical transposition.”

Is there good reason to think v34-35 are not original?

Fee gives other reasons for his view and these points also need examination.. They are:
The rule is expressed absolutely without any form of qualification. As such it rules out "all forms of speaking out in public". This is contrary to the apostolic permissions to pray and prophecy in 1 Cor. 11:5, 13. Also there are problems with "they must be in submission even as the Law says...When Paul elsewhere appeals to the Law, he always cites the text...More difficult yet is the fact that the Law does not say any such thing. Gen. 3:16 is often appealed to but the text does not say what is here argued." [although it may be a possible consequence of that text, it is not a necessary one.] For full details, see Fee op. cit. pp. 700-02.

I don't buy Fee's point that all of these arguments necessarily lead to this conclusion, but I will say that the combination of variance from Paul's otherwise invariable (AFAIK) habit of employing Scripture and the displacement in the western text, makes me recognize that it is possible that these verses may be inauthentic.

Finally it should be noted that v. 36 appears as much a natural continuation of v. 33 as much as it follows v. 35.