Kerygmania: Interpolation or spliff trip
1 Cor. 11:2-22.
I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you [ ] but in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you assemble as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you meet together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
Written by St. Paul to the Corinthian church addressing the issue of conduct at The Lord's Supper. It is straightforward, clear and unambiguous. What could be more natural in a letter to a church with problems among its members and even in its leadership team.
But this is what has been removed from the above passage of Paul's teaching.
But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her head—it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. (For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.) That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels. (Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.) Judge for yourselves; is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her pride? For her hair is given to her for a covering. If any one is disposed to be contentious, we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of God.
How did this incomprehensible drivel get poked into Paul's perfectly clear and understandable prose? Why does commentator after commentator struggle to make the interpolated passage comprehensible? Did Paul take a break, roll a spliff, chill out, dictate this couple of paragraphs, take a nap, forget that he'd tripped out, then proceed with what he was saying when he started:
"I commend you . . . but . . . in the following instructions I do not commend you".
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you [ ] but in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you assemble as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and I partly believe it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you meet together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
Written by St. Paul to the Corinthian church addressing the issue of conduct at The Lord's Supper. It is straightforward, clear and unambiguous. What could be more natural in a letter to a church with problems among its members and even in its leadership team.
But this is what has been removed from the above passage of Paul's teaching.
But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her head—it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. (For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.) That is why a woman ought to have a veil on her head, because of the angels. (Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.) Judge for yourselves; is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her pride? For her hair is given to her for a covering. If any one is disposed to be contentious, we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of God.
How did this incomprehensible drivel get poked into Paul's perfectly clear and understandable prose? Why does commentator after commentator struggle to make the interpolated passage comprehensible? Did Paul take a break, roll a spliff, chill out, dictate this couple of paragraphs, take a nap, forget that he'd tripped out, then proceed with what he was saying when he started:
"I commend you . . . but . . . in the following instructions I do not commend you".
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
Comments
To quote John McEnroe "you can not be serious!".
But if you are being serious, you are in the wrong Forum; review of meaning of 1 Cor 11 (including any form criticism you may wish to suggest) is a Kerygmania topic. You are likely to be in a minority of one re the view above, even if it is a piece of irony. But I will happily transfer the thread there.
If you want to look critically at the form criticism re the 2 Cor 6:14-18 thread already there, then join that thread - and Lamb Chopped who has already weighed in against interpolation.
If you wish to have a more general discussion about the validity of form criticism as an approach to understanding scripture, then that could indeed be a Purgatory thread.
Please make your intentions clear so that Hosts will know what to do with this thread. Obscure OPs don't help anyone.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
I was unsure of where to put it until I read the guidelines.
I rather intended the thread to be open to a more general discussion than specifically if the passage is an interpolation or not. The ramifications of it being added by one of Paul's enemies in the Corinthian church to oppose his teaching on male / female equality in Christ and the effect on Church Praxis for nearly 2 millennia, on the assumption by Biblical inerrantists that this MUST be written by Paul himself, makes the scope of discussion, I think, wider than the Kergymania guidelines permit.
Regards to the possibility of Paul having written 1 Cor.11:3-16 on pot was, as you correctly assumed "Not Serious". However the incomprehensibility of the passage needs some explanation and I invite anyone to make sense of it if they can, what with hair, head coverings, angels getting upset etc. etc. and so on, (right off the original subject of unseemly behaviour at The Lord's Supper and introducing several contradictions to Paul's teaching elsewhere).
The simplest explanation is that Paul did not write it and it has been inserted by a Corinthian scribe on probably the first copying of the letter. There is ample evidence that several letters to the Corinthian church are missing from the cannon and 2 Cor. is stitched together fragments of possibly the remains of two other letters from Paul to Corinth.
If you feel it should be in Kergymania then who am I to gainsay?
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
As you've seen in the 2 Cor 6: 14-18 thread, it's possible to explore the meaning of texts using different exegetical and hermeneutic approaches. So I think what you are initially looking for is some comparative bible study. But underlying that may also be two wider issues. Female subservience in the church, which is a Dead Horse. And the validity of form critical approaches, which is probably Purgatorial - unless it brings in inerrancy!
So I think it should have a run in Kerygmania first of all. But I will check that out with Kerygmania hosts.
Meanwhile the thread can stay here at least for a little while. The usual rule is that Purgatory is the home borderline threads until it becomes clear that they've crossed a border.
Thanks for your explanation. It helped.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host.
So I guess the real issue for interpreting this scripture is whether Paul's comments on headship are typical of his thinking, or some kind of isolated view.
I'm going to have a dig around. My gut feel, having read Elaine Storkey and other Christian feminists, is that this view is by no means isolated in the NT.
It seems to me quite apparent that Paul is the kind of person who tends to go down rabbit-hole tangents in mid-sentence and then come back to where he was - all the more so in that he was often dictating and probably not in a position to do much post-editing.
My own view is that 1 Corinthians 1 is indeed a complete letter. It is very readable and comprehensible until you hit 11:3-16 and then the contradictory passage 14:34-35. Nothing else seems amiss apart from these two anomalies, which if extracted from the rest of Paul's text, not only remove the only contradictory statement in his letter but also render the rest of what is left even more sensible and coherent.
The passage 11:3-16, is rather more than just a digression though, surely. If Paul actually did write it he seems to suddenly seriously get his thinking knickers in a twist. It goes from sober appeal to common sense to incoherent misogynistic rant back to sober appeal in a space of 16 sentences.
In Mary Hayter's The New Eve in Christ (1987), and in R.T. France's Women in the Church's Ministry (1995) as well as in N.T. Wright's 'Women's service in the Church' (2004) the writers explore ways of reading the text (which they all treat as authentically Pauline). They offer an approach which makes sense of the text in its literary and cultural context, and which doesn't require us to think of it as "incomprehensible drivel" or to think that Paul decided to "take a break, roll a spliff, chill out, dictate this couple of paragraphs: and then having taken "a nap, forget that he'd tripped out, [and] proceed with what he was saying when he started".
None of their discussions readily compacts into a short enough answer in this sort of online context, and of course there are opposing voices to all of them - from those who read the text differently and decide that it must be non-Pauline, or that it can't be applied in the modern world, or that it must be applied as they have read it, however much it flies in the face of what many (most) people believe about the role of women in society.
The interpolation, if it is one, would have been written by a first century Jewish Christian, to his own community, but not necessarily dictated by Paul. Even in the original it would not have been Paul's handwriting, it would be the hand of a scribe. In fact, when analysed closely 11:3-16 seems in opposition to much of what Paul stood for. The passage has no recognisable context, is contrived and uncharacteristic of the Pauline style preceding and following it.
It is a very difficult passage to understand even from what we know of 1st century Jewish thought. Nobody seems to know how ‘because of the angels’ could be used as a convincing argument for women wearing headgear and men not wearing headgear. Seems a very weak argument for Paul to rely on, if it really is Paul.
That and the fact that it unnecessarily separates an otherwise flowing discourse on a perfectly comprehensible subject i.e. conduct at The Lord's Supper, makes 1 Cor.11:3-16 extremely suspect in my opinion.
But it’s just an opinion, of course.
If you are in the camp which sees Ephesians as one of the prison letters (produced quite late in Paul's life with the aide of an amenuensis) then Ephesians 5:23 is expressing a very similar understanding of headship to 1 Cor 11:3.
But if you think it is post Pauline, then I guess you can argue that the later Ephesians 5:23 has been back edited into 1 Cor 11:3.
It will be another 300 years before the Corinthian letters become scripture. By that time the Corinthian letters were already considered entirely Pauline and some pseudepigraphists would have copied what was thought to be Pauline material. Hence the surprisingly parallel Ephesians sentence which post-dates Corinthians 10-12 years later at the very least.
There is no indication though that it was a 'later scribe' that did the interpolation, (if indeed it was interpolated), it would have to have happened on the very first copy from the original, since no manuscript has ever been fond in which this passage is missing.
I would say what we should be getting from it is, don't take everything you read in scripture at face value, check it against all else you read there and weigh it up carefully before adopting it as an ethical principle affecting the lives of others. I'm thinking here of there 'being neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female in Christ', and how that principle might impact upon the tone of the possible interpolated text.
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
I like that a lot. You can hear Jesus saying "do not judge or you too will be judged. " and stuff about specks and planks.
What then, brethren? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn; and let one interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silence in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged; and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. [interpolation] What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached? If any one thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. If any one does not recognize this, he is not recognized. So, my brethren, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues; but all things should be done decently and in order.
The Corinthian scribe is up to his tricks again. Paul's message is unambiguous and straightforward, advising orderly conduct in a church that was being manipulated by a few control freak men who monopolised proceedings during worship meetings and probably wanted the women silenced. Rather than enflame a gender war, Paul had probably written what appears in the passage above, simply to restore order without specifically involving gender at all.
Some Corinthian scribe may have seized the opportunity to 'say his piece' and subvert Paul's gender equality stance, but the scribe inadvertently set up a contradiction with his own, or another's interpolation at 1 Cor.11:5, 11:13.
But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?
Clearly it is not possible for women to remain silent and yet still prophesy in assembly 'with their head covered'. Either one or other possibility is logical, keep silent completely or prophesy with head covered, but not both. I don't believe Paul would be so logically inconsistent as to have written this.
As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
Especially since what appears to be an appeal by Paul to 'The Law' as a final clincher to the misogynistic argument is so utterly uncharacteristic of Paul's adopted position vis a vis The life of The Spirit as opposed to a life of obedience to 'The Law'.
Both 1 Cor.11:3-16 and 1 Cor.14:34-35 are possible interpolations which seem to me, though 'Christian', to be influenced more by misogynistic Pharisaism than Paul's broader, more inclusive, 'Christian' doctrine.
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
I forgot to mention: Which 'Law' is Paul ? referring to here? I can't find anything at all in the Old Testament which imposes silence on women in the assembly. Can anyone else find anything to support the assertion that there ever was a 'Law' as this author infers.
If not, would Paul, (with his extensive knowledge of The Law), have lied about there being one?
Querying a particular passage on serious linguistic grounds is one thing (and even then, one would think that people closer to the text in time would be better judges of that than us).
However, deciding that anything that doesn't match our particular expectation of where a line of thought goes can only be explained by it being a third, less authoritative party doing the thinking, and seeking to "rightly divide the word" on that basis, appears over-complicated and error-prone to me: the textual equivalent of pareidolia.
I ask because the question of whether the law referred to actually exists is not really 'on linguistic grounds', is it?
It can be observed throughout the epistles that Paul's use of the term "law" varies wildly. Off the top of my head, it can refer to Roman law, the "law of sin" i.e. the process described in Romans 7, and the OT Law. In this passage it might at a guess refer to synagogue "law" at the time.
The use of an individual word (here, "law") that doesn't match the way the word is used everywhere else in a book is, in isolation, very flimsy grounds for arguing that the book's author didn't write that bit.
I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you. ___ But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, . . . .
In almost anybody's estimation this forms a very logical sentence, which seems to have been split and had a load of unrelated material inserted. It is even true to Paul's conciliatory style to mention what he approves of as a lead in to the problem he wants to address, (i.e. what he did not commend them for. There would be no point in using the commend --- not commend approach if Paul then rambled on incoherently about hair, angels, head coverings and other trivia, before tackling the really important point about the bad conduct at The Lord's Supper. That is the obvious cause of his non commendation. And the inserted superfluous material destroys the effect of the commend --- not commend method of softening the delivery of the rebuke.
On its own in isolation yes, but I would consider it unlikely that Paul would hang an argument solely on an appeal to 'synagogue law'. He was a far better theologian than to clutch at such insubstantial straws to support his judgment on any matter of importance. (and the author seems to consider the issue a matter of some importance). My guess is that wherever else Paul hangs an edict of his on 'Law' it is always on Mosaic Law, not Talmud or even less Roman, Pagan or Synagogue 'Law'.
I think it's entirely in line with how I understand Paul's mind to work, not least because mine often works the same way. Indeed, one of the reasons I like reading Paul is because I feel the sometimes incoherent nature of the text gives me an insight into his thought processes, and remind me the Bible is a human book as well as inspired.
I certainly think that's not beyond the bounds of possibility, and I think that it needlessly complicates the analysis to assume an insertion as a default line of interpretation.
Paul does seem to use The Law sometimes to refer to Torah, other times he talks about the "law of Christ" and he is elsewhere try concerned about Christians being seen as good (law-abiding) citizens - so could there be a local civil law or custom he is referring to?
A similar argument re cultural clashes applies to the head covering text. Plus the point that it is believed that prostitutes may have had shaven heads; the "crowning glory" needed to grow back.
So far as form criticism is concerned, I think the 2 Cor 6 v14ff argument isn't based on theological contradictions, simply that the style and content seem not to fit into the flow. And as Lamb Chopped and others argue, Paul was known to veer about in his letters. I still think the 2 Cor 6v14ff argument for interpolation is very convincing; I'm by no means so sure about the arguments in this thread.
As Christian feminists have been pointing out for many years now, it has taken a long time for the hermeneutical principles of Galatians 3:28-29 to percolate through cultural and traditional views about the subservience of women. So it would be hardly surprising to find some mixed messages in scripture re principle and current practice. Pastors sometimes have to square circles to try to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
I also think RdrEmCofE that apart from the slightly mysterious reference to angels, there's not much in the passage in the OP that you are disputing that is any more difficult to understand than there is in the passage you accept. Unless there is a textual argument that this is an interpolation, to me, the argument reads as 'St Paul is a great saint whom I really admire. I don't agree with what he appears to be saying here. Therefore either it's been garbled or he can't have said it.'
There are bits of scripture that are interpolations and even bits that have got in by a mistake. Some Bibles have included three extra verses in Psalm 14 which were almost certainly originally some anonymous scribe's marginal note. But it strikes me as Marcionism to query bits of the text because one doesn't agree with what they say or because they don't fit with what you think the writer ought to have said, rather than because there is a textual reason for querying them.
Do we have any other example anywhere in the Pauline corpus where Paul imposes civil law on Christians? In fact Paul, in the same letter, tells Christians it is a shame to go to civil law, so I doubt he would appeal to it to impose silence on Christians.
There is of course the additional point that any civil authorities hostile to early Christian worship might have been able to use the law to break up community gatherings. That happens in some countries in the world in the 21st century, so it might easily have applied to the situation in Corinth. I guess it would depend on the size of the assembly, and whether it was meeting in a (previously Jewish) synagogue building or a large private home.
You might say 'varies widely' but I prefer to say 'Paul's approach to Law is complex', but it has certain basic characteristics. One of which is he avoids appealing to any particular 'Law' nomos as a binding principle regulating the conduct of Christian believers. This kind of legalising is alien to Paul's thinking.
One the one hand Paul can claim that what matters is keeping God's commands, but then say that circumcision, one of the law's primary commands, did not matter. He said he could observe or not by personal choice, dietary scruples of "weak" Jewish Christians because he was not "under law" but subject to "The law of Christ". Yet Paul nevertheless claims the law to be authoritative for Christian believers. Complex indeed!
1 Cor. does not entirely solve the mystery of Paul's exact position vis a vis 'Law'. However looking at 1 Cor.7:19 and then 9:19-23, a pattern emerges.
For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Every one should remain in the state in which he was called. 7:19-20
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. 9:19-23.
In 1 Cor.7:19 Paul is willing to dispense with circumcision. In 1 Cor.9:19-23 it is dietary observance that can be dispensed with. (cf. 1 Cor.8:1-13, 10:1 to 11:1). Both of these were of considerable importance to Jewish believers, I think we all agree but does it not seem odd therefore that the only example of the imposition of any kind of 'Law' on any believer, in the Corinthian church, or any other for that matter, is a command to be silent in assembly addressed specifically to women? Do we really think it would have been that important to Paul, compared to circumcision and dietary regulations.
By the time Paul wrote 2 Corinthians he was obviously already in a period of stormy relations with the Corinthian leadership and some of their various followers, apparently aggravated by the arrival of a group of Jewish Christians who opposed him. This was a historical situation as can be seen by the subject matter of 1 Cor. also.
I find it not beyond the realms of possibility that a convert Jewish Corinthian scribe might 'slip in' some of his own peculiar doctrine to further his own rather Jewish patriarchal tradition. Particularly since Corinth had a very pro-feminist social ethos which scandalized Jewish sensibilities. Women charioteers even held their own chariot races in Corinth at that time and many ran their own businesses, much to the disapproval, no doubt, of the patriarchally minded Jewish Christians.
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
There is also plenty of evidence that freedom from the OT Law does not in Paul's mind normally exempt believers from keeping the law of the land, observing customs, or indeed what he saw as being 'natural law'. You will have to argue a few more scribal insertions before you can dispense with all references by Paul to the appropriateness of observing the law (small l), and he gives plenty of imperative instructions of his own to boot, whatever he makes of them.
Ah but there is a world of difference between Paul warning that Roman Authority should be complied with, because they are there to enforce good conduct: and saying: 'All women must shut up in church because a law says so'.
Do you have some insight into whether nomos was with a small 'l' or a big 'L' in the case we are considering. And I have not found any other instance where Paul says 'Do it because The Law or a law, says you must.
In any case, after 2000 years of both passages being firmly embedded in 1 Corinthians the issue is not whether the text is part of the letter, added to the letter or by someone other than St Paul. It is about what to do about it if it is or if it isn't, written by Paul.
The fact is neither you, I nor anyone else except Paul or the interpolating scribe can have any certainty about the matter. So how should the two passages be treated by a believer in today's world?
It seems to me there are at least three options. (You may be able to add a few more).
1. Believe it is written with Apostolic authority, inspired and therefore obligatory church praxis. Some sects and even denominations might try this. (I can remember women wearing veils in church in the CofE), horrible things, the veils, not the women, most of them that is.
2. Believe it is an ancient interpolation by someone other than Paul with no Apostolic authority, and therefore feel free to largely ignore it as far as Church praxis is concerned. (My own approach to the matter).
3. Admit that we cannot possibly know one way or the other and treat it as a historic anachronism which meant something at the time and in the place but is largely irrelevant to any Christian living outside the era in which it was written, whoever happened to write it, Apostolic or not. (An alternative majority view, I suspect).
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
As far as I can see applying the hermeneutic of "explaining difficult passages in the light of easy ones and not vice versa", while not dealing with absolutely everything, goes a long way to achieving a similar result without engaging in anywhere near as much speculation.
Your original post did not make it clear where the Bible quote started and ended. I have posted an abbreviated version of your post to show how to clarify the matter. At the beginning of the Bible quote I wrote QUOTE in square brackets. At the end of the quote I wrote '/QUOTE
In short, this thread generally follows the predominant scholarly opinion that 1 Corinthians was written entirely by Paul, variations and all. RdrEmCofE is a lone voice to the contrary. Which doesn't say he's wrong of course.
The end of what you referred to in the OP says,"we recognize no other practice, nor do the churches of God." Other translation have custom instead of practise.
It looks like Paul is appealing to local custom here, in other words it is cultural, He is asking the Corinthians to not do anything outrageous to local custom.
That may be so, (but he's not asking, he's demanding), but do we think that Paul often appealed to local 'custom' to impose conduct and behaviour on his believers? Can we find other examples that are definitely Paul? Doesn't Paul hold 'custom' in the same kind of tension as he would 'worldliness', as being basically 'nonspiritual', too influenced by and associated with 'this present evil world', to be used as a guide or rule for the conduct of 'believers'.
Fine, he certainly upheld 'order' over 'disorder' but I doubt Paul would try to impose dress conformity and silence on believers in his churches any more than he would have imposed dietary requirements or any other aspect of 'law' or 'fashion', which smacked of tradition or custom rather than Christlike behaviour, and then say it must be obeyed because there was a 'Law' that said it must be so.
None of this can ever be conclusive however and whether or not the passages are actually insertions by a patriarchal Jewish-Christian scribe, incensed that Paul hadn't gone far enough in dealing with what the scribe saw as 'the knub of the problem', tends to be decided more on whether the Bible is thought to be 'God's inerrant, infallible and authoritative word to mankind', 'An inspired text with an interesting and complicated history' or 'Just a collection of interesting ancient documents'.
Each particular assumption then influences a different degree of the 'absolute need' for the text to have been written by St Paul himself because of how that would affect the original assumption. We human beings do not enjoy our assumptions being called into question so.
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
So far as Kerygmania is concerned, I think folks generally bring the arguments about the texts based on what they see is there, trying to keep a tight grip on any pre-suppositions. How successful we are at that is I guess a matter of opinion.
So far as this specific thread is concerned, what do you think of my alternative arguments here?
They hardly come from an inerrantist mind set!
"Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering." 1 Cor. 11:14-15.
Twice Paul uses the word for 'glory' in this passage in a way that he does no where else in any of his writings. Paul usually uses 'glory' to refer to God, Christ etc rarely to human beings and then negatively.
"Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things." Phil. 3:19.
It is in my opinion uncharacteristic of Paul to twice refer to female hair being 'their glory' It is not proof of interpolation I admit but it significantly downgrades his usual use of the term.
Also the notion that long hair is shameful to a man would not appeal to Paul as an argument supporting the idea that long male hair signified unrighteousness or shame, since John the Baptist had long hair and probably so did Jesus. Certainly all Nazirites both male and female had long hair and they presented a particularly fervent vow of righteousness which was anything but shameful.
"And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.
“All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long. Num.6:1-5.
Paul, with his knowledge of The Law would have been aware of this and therefore would not have been inclined to equate long male hair with shame or hair length and gender with 'dedication' to God.
A Corinthian Jewish convert scribe however, with a much less sophisticated understanding of Levitical Law and a view that was more dependent on current fashion and custom, may well have thought his reasoning reasonable and convincing.
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
What you say about the Corinthian social system is quite correct of course, but the mere fact of the issues being dealt with in the passages concerned does not establish the fact that it is definitely Paul that is stating his own opinion.
We know that 1 Cor. was written by Paul specifically to deal with some serious issues in the Corinthian church. Issues that had been brought to his attention by Chloe's people. We can't know exactly what was reported to Paul by her house church members but we can guess by the subject matter of 1 Cor. Divisions, moral disorders, questions and arguments over various subjects e.e. marriage, dietary regulations and what was 'lawful', riotous assemblies, selfish behaviour at The Eucharist etc, etc.
I consider it unlikely that Paul set out to address each of these problems in turn with the intention of writing 242 words on women's hair and putting them in their place, and only 120 words on abuse of The Eucharist Meal. Which is where this possible interpolation is inserted.
Right between - "I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you. . . [ And] . . . But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you assemble as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; For which Paul does NOT commend them.
The hair, heads, angels, veils etc. are, in my opinion, not the sort of complaints that Paul would have had reported to him, so he would probably not bothered to bring them up. Whereas a Jewish Christian convert living in Corinth and regularly attending meetings full of noisy females with ideas above their station, would have seen it as almost his responsibility to address the problem in such a way as to make it look as if it had the authority of Paul himself. How else do we explain the separation of the "I commend you - - but I don't commend you in the following", statement by Paul. It fails to make much sense with the other material 'poked in', but makes perfect sense with the other material 'taken out'.
All of which is also absolutely true. But these issues are just as likely, or even more so, to be issues that were of greater concern to an interpolating scribe actually IN the Corinthian church, than a St Paul who was responding to a report from Chloe's people on rather more generally serious issues than 'women's hair' and 'talking in church'.
2 Cor. is another matter, I agree. Clearly we don't have either Paul's original letter to Corinth or the letter that Paul wrote that 'made them sorry'.
"For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. 2 Cor.7:8.
There is a possibility that the 'Hard Truth' letter has been stitched into 2 Cor. at chapters 10-12. In any event it seems conclusive that there were dirty dealings going on in Corinth to do with copying and reassembling Paul's letters so as to save face for the 'leaders' that Paul's tough talk was aimed at.
Yes, but it does not need a feminist viewpoint to work out that Paul was not necessarily as misogynistic as some would like us to believe. It should not be hard to see that the degree of equality between men and women that Paul's Gospel advocated would have raised considerable opposition, particularly among Jewish converts, who were still quite 'law bound', 'conservative' and 'traditional'. I would expect to find quite a bit of 'comeback' from that quarter by way of subverting his message if the opportunity arose. Given a fresh, (and not too complimentary), letter from Paul to copy for church use might have been a temptation to great to resist.
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In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 2 Cor. 5:19. Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Pet. 4:8.
Is that a scribal interpolation too?
*In fact noticing this was a key factor in me reversing my position on women's ministry.
I'm firmly in category 2. in my 'point of departure' assumptions. i.e. 'An inspired text with an interesting and complicated history".
Though I don't automatically assume that anything I can't understand which comes from Paul is obviously written by some pseudonymous idiot, I am suspicious of passages that suddenly get incomprehensible, especially when prefaced and followed by sober and sane perfectly comprehensible sentences.
At the very least I would not base my whole attitude to women's ministry on an supposed comprehensive understanding of 1 Cor. 11:3-16. I think no sensible theologian should.
But if that is the kind of problem one is looking to solve, I would suggest it's easier and quicker to solve it by appealing to the "simpler texts trump difficult ones" line of argument - specifically, here, Galatians 3:28, already mentioned upthread - than by trying to find reasons for it being an interpolation.
[*]hmm "an supposed comprehensive understanding"? The words "supposed comprehensive" are clearly a later scribal interpolation