Continuing in the series of “passages about women that have stereotypical, taboo-to-touch interpretations,” we come to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

This is, to me, the toughest of the bunch, for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it seems upon a surface reading to be really obvious.  Second, upon a closer reading, it doesn’t seem to have any “obvious” intent.  Somewhat like 1 Timothy 2’s weird shuffling of pronouns, this passage has some odd language that’s hard to make sense of.  (For a modern reader.  I assume it made perfect sense to the original readers, who had all the necessary context!)

1 Corinthians 14:34-35

(34) Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. (35) And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.

This is the pair of verses that are specifically in question.  Read in isolation, they seem clear.  Read in context…not necessarily so.

I’m going to be really honest here: I don’t know what they mean.  There are several theories I find plausible, and no one that stands out head and shoulders above the rest.  What I do know is that I don’t believe it means that women are not to speak — or even not to contribute — in any capacity, at any point, in the gathering of the saints — and there are textual reasons for that.

The Broader Context

Paul has just told us, a few chapters earlier, that women ought not pray or prophesy uncovered.  The obvious implication is that they may pray or prophesy if they’re covered.  Otherwise, he’s spent half a chapter wasting his breath.

His assumption that women prophesy, as well as men, is consistent with Acts, where we’re told (quoting Joel) that “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” and we even see an example in Philip’s daughters.  So Paul’s teaching regarding prophetesses makes sense with the context of other Scripture.  Prophecy is inherently not a private activity — a prophet prophecies to others, not to himself/herself — so, contrary to some claims, we can’t just write this off as being about “praying in private.”

With all that established, we come to 1 Corinthians 14…where we’re suddenly expected to assume that Paul has radically contradicted himself?  “Oh, I know I just told you how a woman can ensure propriety while praying and prophesying, but…oh, by the way, she isn’t allowed to do these things at all”?  That really strains credulity.

The Nearer Context

There’s also the closer context.  If, instead of starting with verse 34, we back up a bit, we get a clearer idea of what Paul is talking about leading up to this instruction.  Starting from the beginning of the chapter, we find that his overall message is about prophecy and spiritual gifts.  He starts with, “Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.” And later wraps up with, “Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order.”

So we’re talking about spiritual gifts, which Paul says are good and to be desired, not avoided or forbidden, but should be exercised with order and propriety.  That’s the context into which the instruction of verses 34 and 35 is given.

Coming a little closer, we find the more specific instructions about how to prophecy “decently and in order” in the gathering.

(26) How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. (27) If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. (28) But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God. (29) Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. (30) But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. (31) For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged. (32) And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. (33) For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.  (34) Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. (35) And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.  (36) Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? (37) If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. (38) But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.  (39) Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. (40) Let all things be done decently and in order.

As in the last couple posts, I’ve highlighted a few words and phrases here to draw attention to some patterns in the language.  (I would also point out once again that “women” here might be more accurately translated “wives.”  Note that the translators have chosen to use “husbands,” but not “wives,” which is a slightly puzzling choice.)

Note, first of all, that silence in the passage is not limited to women.  The one with a word in tongues but no interpreter is to keep silent.  The one who has already prophesied is also to keep silent when it’s no longer his turn.  Obviously, there has been a point at which he was not silent.  And then women are to keep silent — but is this across the board, or also situational, as in the case of the other two?  Let’s keep going.

We’re told that all may prophesy and all may learn.  We read several references to speaking in tongues.  All of this is apparently written to the entire church.  And then suddenly there’s a comment that women (wives?) are to keep silent, to not speak, and that if they want to learn, they can ask at home.  If taken at apparent face value, this makes no sense in context.

The congregants speak “a psalm…a teaching…a tongue…a revelation…an interpretation…that all may learn.”  Learning doesn’t call for speaking (on the part of the learner) in this passage; it calls for listening.  So the interjection here of women being barred from speaking because “if they want to learn something,” they can ask at home is jarring.  It suggests some context that the original recipients would have had that we’re missing.  Were the women, for instance, interrupting the meeting with questions that caused chaos rather than edifying the Body, as opposed to contributing “a psalm, a teaching, a tongue, a revelation, an interpretation…”?

Paul says that they “are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive.”  So whatever “speaking” is in question here, it’s contrasted with submission.  But in chapter 11, he’d talked about women praying and prophesying while under submission (“covered”).  Something more specific must be in view here than merely contributing to the meeting, because, unlike sheer prayer and prophecy, whatever he’s talking about is inherently unsubmissive.

Moreover, if what he’s saying is sheer continuation of the instructions leading up to it, the “or” in the next verse is a strange transition.  It seems to be refuting something — but what?  His own instructions?  That doesn’t make sense.

Appeal to the Law

Moreover, the writer then appeals to the law.  “[A]s the law also says.”  What law is he talking about?  Other than in legal proceedings, Paul doesn’t go around appealing to the secular law.  When he’s using the law as the basis for teaching in the church, he consistently is referencing God’s law — usually the Mosaic law.  What law would he be appealing to here?

Submission to familial authority is definitely a principle found in the Old Testament, but there isn’t (to my knowledge) any law that says women are to be submissive in explicit enough terms that it makes sense to me as an allusion.  (Maybe that’s just me.)  I’m not aware of any Old Testament law that refers to women not speaking.  It isn’t like Paul to appeal to the manmade Jewish tradition, and that would be a little strange here anyway, since this was a Greek (Gentile) church.  And it would be a bit strange for him to appeal to the secular law as the basis for sound practice in the church of God.  So this one small phrase raises some big questions.

Bottom line: there are a lot of context clues here that suggest something specific was happening here that Paul is addressing, just as he’s addressed other specifics of order in the meeting like taking turns, ensuring there’s an interpretation given for words in tongues, etc.

So What Does He Mean?

Unfortunately, for me, this portion of the passage raises more questions than answers.  Several potential interpretations have been raised here that I believe hold water — some more than others.

1) It’s been suggested that these verses aren’t even supposed to be here, but some misogynistic scribe later added them.

The argument for this is that people suggest the pair of verses interrupts the flow of thought, and that the whole passage makes more sense without them.  They also point to the oddity of the appeal to law here.  To my mind, this barely squeaks into the realm of possibility, but I don’t find it likely.  For one thing, I think it reflects a poor view of God’s preservation of His Word.  I also think it just seems a little desperate: the textual evidence for it is not that strong; it just seems like a good excuse to explain these verses away.

2) Along similar lines, some have suggested that these are part of the original, but Paul was quoting someone here, and refutes them with verses 36 and following.

I find this far more plausible.  The pair of verses does seem to interrupt the flow, which would make sense if Paul has interjected a quote.  They also just, for lack of a better way to put it, read strangely for Paul — like with that mysterious appeal to the law.  The original Greek doesn’t have punctuation to alert us to a quote, which the original readers would probably have simply recognized.  I believe this is a valid possibility, and there could even be some back-and-forth here:

Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak.

But they are to be submissive, as the law also says.

And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.

Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached?

This would be a potentially logical exchange.  “But shut the women up!” the Corinthians might have appealed.  And Paul says, no, they don’t have to be silent…but they do need to be under submission.  (Remember, he’s just spent half a chapter pointing this out to them in chapter 11.)  “But it’s shameful for women to speak in church!” they say.  And Paul says, why?  Do you have a corner on God’s revelatory Spirit?

3) Sticking with a “straighter” reading, there’s the proposal that Paul is saying that the women are to keep silent, but he has some specific situation in view.

Possibly he’s talking specifically about the evaluation of prophecies (see vv. 29, 32).  This has several points to recommend it, and I find it one of the stronger possibilities.  There’s a natural transition here for this, for one.  “And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.  Let your women keep silent…”  (Yes, I’ve modified the punctuation here.  The punctuation is all added by the translators, based on their best judgment. If this is the intended meaning, this sentence flow would make sense.)

It also has a logical basis, in keeping with the broader context of Scripture, and a rational connection to submission.  If a woman can evaluate prophecy in the meeting, then what happens when her husband is the one to have prophesied?  That could certainly cause some problems with women not being submissive.

This view has some weaknesses, too, though.  If this is about the evaluation of prophecies, what does “learning” have to do with it?  Is that sentence just an add-on?

Another possibility is that the women were interrupting with questions, and being disruptive.  This seems to better fit the pair of verses as a whole — that it’s shameful for them to speak; if they want to learn something, they can ask at home.  The message, then, would be that it’s shameful to create a disruption when they have other opportunities for learning.

There’s also the potential that some combination of those two situations is in view.  Maybe the women were questioning their husbands about their prophecies, and so embarrassing or undermining them.  The emphasis on this case would not be on “their husbands” but on “at home” — as in, save your questioning for when you’re not in public and it isn’t bringing dishonor to your husband.

Conclusion

As I said in the beginning, I don’t know what this pair of verses means — and that’s probably not very helpful.  But they can’t contradict the rest of Scripture, so the context of the chapter, the book, and the rest of the Bible matters.  I just can’t find any way to make a complete ban on verbal contributions to the church gathering consistent with the rest of Scripture, so I have to assume there’s more nuance or complexity here than that.