Loading...I recently received this important question from a reader that is closely related to the current thread about whether we have the “original” text of the books of the New Testament.
QUESTION:
The question was specifically about about women’s roles in the church based on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.
“Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is something they want to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”
The questioner said: I was raised in a strict fundamentalist sect where this was actually practiced. The women were allowed to sing but that was it.
According to the Harper-Collins Study Bible some think that this was a later, non-Pauline addition to the letter, more in keeping with the Pastoral letters. Is this the common view among scholars?
RESPONSE:
I’ve dealt with this issue before on the blog, and think it’s good to deal with it again.
Two preliminary points I need to make: one about different views about Paul’s views of women in early Christianity and the other about a technical distinction that scholars make between (ready for this?) textual variants and textual interpolations. (Hold on: I’ll explain. It ends up mattering)
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Dr Ehrman, Have you thought about publishing some of your sermons from the days you were an ordained minister on the blog? I think that might be of interest to your readers, certainly to me.
Ha! Nope. Interesting idea. I can’t even remember if I wrote them out word for word….
Hi, Bart,
Could you please explain Luke 17:7-10?
What is Jesus’ message for his followers?
[7] “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? [8] Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? [9] Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? [10] So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’ ”
You shouldn’t be proud and arrogant of simply doing what God demands you to do. You are his slave and obedience is simply expected, even if it’s hard and you’re tired.
Dr. Ehrman, what alphabet(/abjad) would the Jews of Jesus’ Galilee or Jerusalem have read Aramaic in? Although Jesus probably couldn’t read, what kind of Aramaic letters would he be seeing around him, the classic Aramaic Syriac alphabet that Arabic would develop from, or the traditional Hebrew-Babylonian script?
I should know the answer ot that one, huh? One problem is that most of them didn’t read. They SPOKE Aramaic. I would assume that those who did write used the traditional script, but I’ve never actually looked into it, since we don’t ahve any Aramaic Christian writings from the period, and the later Syriac writings (including Syriac versions of the NT) are over a century after Jesus.
Don’t the Dead Sea Scrolls provide an answer?
We do, however, have writings from literate Jews from that period – the Essenes. Were the Qumran texts all written in Hebrew, in Aramaic, or in a bit of both? I assume they would have used the traditional Hebrew-Babylonian script. And I wonder if other Jewish texts from that time period survived.
Yes, about one out ten of the Scrolls is in Aramaic. I’ve looked it up now, and they were written in traditional Aramaic script (that is, square script, he kind that looks like Hebrew)
Question about “interpolation”, referencing “Peter’s Declaration” [Mk 8:27-30, Mt 16:13-20; Lk 9:18-21].
The synoptics seem to all agree with the exception of Mt vs.17-19 wherein Peter, getting the “right answer” is give the “keys” and, seemingly, apostolic authority. Do you think this may be an interpolation, and if so, when might it have been inserted? This would be of some importance if church patricians did so at a later date, inviting accusations of being self-serving.
If by “interpolation” you mean a statement/passage that was added later by an editor but was not originally in the text that was first circulated (in this case by matthew) (that is what “interpolation” normally means), then no, I think the verses were original to matthew’s account. And yes, he put them into a shorter account he inherited from Mark.
Thanks for your reply. I did think the verse may have been inserted at a future time. So, I presume Mt. used M source(s) for the verse. Strange no one else recorded it since it seems important (at least to me).
That was a great explanation of variant versus interpolation, especially when it comes to the weeds of Paul’s writings LOL which when I was reading had me thinking about a question that I would like to ask.
Is 1 John 5:7 [ the longer reading] an interpolation?
I remember reading a a threat of your articles on this matter in 1st John, I think I understand it to be an interpolation. Thank you
It’s a textual variant because it is found in some manuscripts but not in others. An interpolation, strictly speakig is an addition to a text that is found in all the manuscripts but nonetheless appears not to be hat the author originally wrote.