Tension in the Letter

Last updated on: May 6, 2015 at 12:16 am by Scot McKnight

Tension in the Letter 2015-05-03T19:15:13-05:00 Scot McKnight

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Any sensitive reader feels the tension in 1 Corinthians. Now some claim Paul is patriarchal and thinks only males are to be teaching and talking in the gatherings of the early Christians. They can appeal quite quickly to 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 or even more forcefully to 1 Corinthans 14:33b-36. Game, set, match.

But that conclusion for the one who reads the whole letter in the context of the Book of Acts and other letters of Paul creates some serious tension with other elements in the text. Lucy Peppiatt, in Women and Worship at Corinth: Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians, lays out the opposing evidence that forces good readers to ask how the tension can be explained. Here is her simple, irrefutable evidence:

… the obvious reality that many of Paul’s fellow workers were women. In Romans the names Mary, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and Persis are mentioned (Rom 16:6, 12). He was happy with women as leaders of house churches (Lydia in Acts 16:14-15 and Phoebe in Rom 16:1 [Nympha in Laodicea in Col 4:15]). We know of Priscilla and Aquila, who were both leaders and who both discipled Apollos in the faith (Acts 18:26), and Phoebe, who led a church at Cenchreae (Rom 16:1). Paul refers to his friend and coworker Junia as an apostle (Rom 16:7). Furthermore, he is clearly happy with women prophesying and praying in public in Corinth, and obviously approving of Philips four daughters, who were known as prophets (Acts 21:9).

Before we continue with her statement just this observation. No one questions that women were prophets in the apostolic churches and that Paul knew it and approved of it. This to me is a clinching argument: Paul values prophecy above all gifts. Speaking the mind of God to the people of God is what Paul saw as the highest of gifts. So, Peppiatt continues:

Given the way in which he describes the gift of prophecy as being that which edifies the whole church, and given that he elevates the gift of prophecy above the gift of teaching (1 Cor 12:28 is expressed in terms of priority and precedence: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers), it would seem strange for him to implement a contradictory practice that women should stay silent. This poses an immediate problem for the verses on silencing of women.

There’s the tension. Isn’t it odd, you must agree, that he can tell women to be silent? How to explain it? If one simply appeals to hierarchy, or to patriarchy, one is dealt a self-defeating blow by the reality that women were prophets in public places (prophets don’t talk to themselves). Thus, we must have a different explanation for the silence in those two Pauline texts. What might that be?

Peppiatt’s conclusion is that (1) Paul’s relationship with the Corinthians has a long history and that the letter reflects conversations and correspondence between himself and them, and (2) 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 reflects that complex back and forth. It is not simply Paul speaking but Paul citing and responding and commenting and quoting and responding and their responding … and as I said in an earlier post, the one who read the letter to the Corinthians knew how to perform the letter just as the Corinthians knew exactly who was saying what because they, after all, knew their own communications with Paul.

Put another way, there is tension here and it might not be an inconsistent Paul but readers who are sensitive enough to Paul’s tension with some at Corinth who don’t like it that God has empowered women to prophesy, pray and teach. The tension can be resolved by positing citations in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. [I will develop her argument in later posts. Today I just want to observe tension and resolution through citation discovered by observing rhetoric at work.]

I quote again what I quoted earlier: this is Peppiatt’s reconstruction of who said what in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.

The italics are words from those Corinthians with whom Paul is disagreeing:

1Cor. 11:2   I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you.  3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ.

4 Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head,  5 but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved.

6 For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil.

7 For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man.  8 Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man.  9 Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man.  10 For this reason a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman.  12 For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God.  13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled?  14 Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him,  15 but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.  16 But if anyone is disposed to be contentious—we have no such [“no other”] custom, nor do the churches of God.

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