Here is the text, "...women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." (I Cor 14:34-35 NIV)
Ellis first notes that this passage has four qualifications to it. Before mentioning them, however, it is important to note that the word "women" (Gk: γυνη) can be translated as "women" or as "wife." Context decides. Ellis understands the word to be "wives," but is this justified? Several contextual clues point to the more specific reading of "wives":1) Paul mentions that they should ask their husbands. Surely Paul would not be so careless as to assume that all his female church attendees are married. It makes sense that he is limiting his discussion to married women. 2) Paul mentions that the Law states that wives should be in submission. This is most likely not a reference to the regulations given on Sinai, but is more generally a reference to the first five books of the OT - the Pentateuch which are also regularly called "the Law." Paul is probably referencing Gen 3:16 and the results of the Fall for women which states that the husband will "rule" (NIV) the wife. "The Law" does not speak about women being silent, but it does speak of wives being submissive to their husbands.
Now to Ellis' qualifications: First, the teaching is directed to married women and not to women in general. This is seen by the reference to asking "their own husbands." Obviously, if you are not married then you cannot ask your husband. Second, this only applies to wives of Christian men because a saved women would not go home from church and ask her unsaved husband. The image is laughable. Third, it seems to apply only to Christian wives married to Christian husbands which are actually present at the service. This makes sense in that a wife would most likely ask her husband about some teaching/event happening at the church service. If he is out of town, then he cannot answer as he wasn't at the meeting in the first place. Lastly, this passage is probably specifically written to instruct gifted wives of male prophets. These specific wives should be silent and submissive when their husbands are prophesying. For Paul, it is disrespectful for the wife to publicly challenge her husband as he is exercising his gift of prophecy. She should wait and talk with him at home so that the marriage roles are not violated.
Since the last point is the most significant and debatable, I will separate out his reasons supporting it in a new paragraph. First, the immediate context surrounding the text is about the proper use of the gift of prophecy in the worship service (14:29-33 and 39-40). This significantly supports Ellis' argument that the restriction regards the proper way for married couples to exercise their gift of prophecy in the church. Second, in verses 29-30 Paul directs prophets to speak in an orderly manner, to keep their numbers limited, and then weigh carefully what is said by the other prophets. In other words the prophecy/prophet needs to be tested. This involves discussion - orderly discussion. But what if the situation involves a husband and wife who both have the gift of prophecy? Does Paul want husbands and wives to be debating each other publicly as they practice their gifts? Ellis concludes that this is the specific situation happening in Corinth.
To summarize Ellis' argument for this passage: Paul's command is that in situations where both a husband and a wife have the gift of prophecy, then the wife should wait until they get home if she needs to disagree or discuss the husband's prophecy. In this way, the marriage roles are kept in place as per the Genesis passage.
This blog has already broken a key blog rule: keep it short. However, I am very interested in hearing critical readings of Ellis view. Is this reading tenable?
Hey brother, I really appreciate you bringing this topic to the blog. My input here is a bit technical, so I will humbly beg the reader's indulgence.
ReplyDeleteThe palette of words available to Paul when writing this is actually fairly limited. Using Louw and Nida's lexicon which is based on semantic domains, one can see the words used in the New Testament to refer to both males and females married or not.
When it comes to females, Paul had to make a choice between seven different words: two of the words are specific for young (unmarried) women, two for old women, one for a foolish woman and two related words for adult women of marriageable age. One of the words for 'woman' also indicates 'wife' and as you mentioned, context must decide. So from the semantic field for adult woman, Paul really only had one choice: the woman/wife word.
What is interesting here is that the word translated husband, and central to Ellis' argument is also a general word for man. So, looking at the available terms for man, we find the same sort of scenario: two general terms for man/husband, five for eunuch (ouch), two old men and two young (unmarried) men. Thus from the available choices, Paul needs a word that will be broad enough to cover most situations.
Ellis' argument may be on life support here as the verse can be legitimately translated: 'they should ask their own man at home.' With the consequent situation that if the woman has something to ask about a church situation, she should inquire of her closest male relative: husband, father, brother, etc.
It would probably be rare for a woman to have no male relative to ask about problems in church and in such a situation, Titus advises that the older women teach the younger and she should inquire of another mature woman of faith.
I realize this is a sensitive subject and I don't claim to have an absolute answer. Ellis' argument fails to consider the words Paul had available for both men and women and his intentional use of general words for both. It isn't possible to push the language into a wife/husband box apart from more context.
Thanks guys - keep those thinking caps on and continue, PLEASE!
ReplyDelete-Roland
Todd thanks for the input and Roland thanks for the encouragement. Todd and I enjoy this blog and both wish we had more time to contribute to it.
ReplyDeleteTodd, although I am not completely persuaded of Ellis' exegesis, I don't think your criticisms of him "put him on the ropes." First, he is not centering his argument around any Greek word. He is just noting for those who don't know Greek that the word for woman and man here can also be wife and husband which your summary also states. So that means context determines the meaning as you stated. Just as an aside, Paul could have made it crystal clear by using anthropos which means "man" and does not also mean "husband." Since he used aner (man/husband) he is leaving the door open. I don't think there is any Greek word that only means "husband" used in the NT, so Paul had to use aner here if he is referring to husbands. See John 4:16 where Jesus tells the Samaritan women to get her husband (aner sou).
Secondly, the context as you noted talks about "your husband" or as you translated it "your man." Personally, I have a hard time seeing the phrase "your man" referring to anyone other than a women's husband. Once again, Paul could have said talk to any "brother" in the Lord. This would include believing fathers, brothers, uncles, elders, etc. It is much more plausible IMO that this is a reference to a woman's own husband. Also there is the reference to the Law and submission. What part of the Law talks about women submitting to men? Well, Gen 3 and the results of sin refer to the women being ruled by her husband. I honestly cannot think of another viable explanation. If this is correct then the context has two significant clues pointing to a husband and wife relationship.
It is important to see Ellis' argument in light of the context of I Cor 11 (women CAN pray and prophesy in church), the immediate context (the correct church order for the practice of prophecy assuming both men and women), and the marriage context. These three areas boost the plausibility of Ellis' understanding significantly.
Just a quick follow up with some computer magic. The NET translators whenever they thought the text was meaning "husband" (and thus translated the Greek with the English "husband), they were always translating the Greek word "aner" except in 2 of the almost 40 instances. This is significant, because it means that modern scholars seem to think that when the NT authors were referring to a "husband" they almost always used "aner".
ReplyDeleteYes, but in the context of 1 Corinthians the word is used for both man and husband. From an admittedly quick survey, the usages in chapter seven (16 x) are 'husband' universally and the context is crystal clear. In chapter eleven, they are 'man' (14 x plus one in ch. 13) and again, quite clear.
ReplyDeleteIf 14:35 occurred in either of those contexts, there is enough information to resolve the situation quickly and easily. As it is, Paul uses the word in 1 Corinthians almost equally to refer to 'man' or 'husband.'
If Paul used anthropos in 14:35, he would be excluding husbands, which is not his intent. He's including them with a term broad enough to encompass other men. If he had used 'brother' as you suggest, it would have been confusing and socially awkward if a woman chose to bypass her husband for a discussion with another man.
I disagree with you (most agreeably, good friend) about Ellis' reliance on 'husband.' Point number one in the blog post specifically references 'husband,' and all of his points seem to relate back to that translation.
'aner' can mean 'husband' or 'man' with only context determining the appropriate translation.
So, I wonder what is the procedure by which this can be reconciled? What is the biblical data which would create a persuasive argument for Ellis' reconstruction? I think it would require research into the way wives and husbands are identified in 1 Corinthians and in Paul generally. In my mind this becomes an observation chart listing the contexts and the observations of them. It's a shame we don't have students to do the grunt work...
Just in case anyone is listening in to our discussion of Ellis’ interpretation of various texts related to women in ministry, please be assured that Michael and I are having fun discussing this issue. Often the back and forth interpretational debate can look like hair-splitting or ‘things that don’t matter.’ The truth of the matter is that this is part of the process of persuasion.
ReplyDeleteOne exegete will offer an interpretation: in this case Michael offers Ellis’ understanding and he is willing to defend it for the sake of argument. I, on the other hand, am in the role of antagonist to Ellis’ position and will probe for weaknesses. Michael on Ellis’ behalf (mostly because he’s passed on), will seek weaknesses in my responses to Ellis. We both work to distance ourselves from preconceived notions about the issue involved, seeking instead the best possible exegesis of the text. Perhaps we will end up with a unified agreement on the exegesis of the text, but perhaps not.
In a sense, you have a ‘ring-side seat’ to an exegetical slug-fest, with the opportunity to throw a few punches yourself. At the end of the discussion, there is no danger to our relationship with each other, with any contributors, and hopefully our opinions about the exegetical discussion of the texts involved will be better.
Huh. Interesting discussion guys. -Ric
ReplyDelete