1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

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Stuart
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Stuart »

Ben,

I only argue Cambridge group has a hidden weight of the sociopolitical pressure in their decision making. I do not extend that to most exegetes.

Yes, you can do that with 33b. Which is what you are forced to do, and what exegetes do. I conceded that. A bridge to far to argue that about a nonsense sentence. Very bad argument on my part. I rescind it. Good point Ben.

**************

But even here I think it's easier to argue the internal conflict between verses 14:26-33 and verses 14:36-38 (as well as with verses 14:22-25) argues for those to have been later additions. Not only are they not attested in Marcion (as an early witness, but this alone is not close to enough of an argument), but they show a different internal situation. In verses 14:21, 26-33 prophecy and tongues are allowed and considered part of the normal practice, with mostly a call for order in the assembly. We are looking at a world with Christians alone in the assembly (a consistency in the attested Marcionite verses across all the Pauline letters).

But when we look at verses 14:36-38 we are seeing two significant later developments. First the authority of the prophecy and tongues are largely voided, negating the prior verses. Second, the authority of the letters of Paul is cited and claimed to be a command of the lord, and that the letter is the standard for being recognized. In short it is pointing to an era where schism within the congregation has developed to a point where orthodoxy needs to intervene, and the standard is no long Paul himself but looking back at his letters. This implies a clerical hierarchy to determine what is acceptable and what is not.

I would extend the material which is secondary to verses 14:39-40 as well, as they seem tacked on to 14:36-38 to compromise, saying OK we laid down the law of Orthodoxy, but we don't ban it. These verses only make sense if 14:36-38 are present, otherwise they are making a point not necessary, since there is no hint of the practices of charisma being limited or banned, simply orderly.

I would also extend the inserted material to 14:22-25 because we are looking at yet another development from a later era in Christianity, the concern with the image of Christianity in the larger community. The argument here is the exclusion of απιστοις, or non Christians, because tongues are a sign (σημειον) for the faithful (τοις πιστευουσιν). They are worried about the image to unsophisticated (unschooled or "idiots") and non-Christians who come to the assemblies (ιδιωται η απιστοι). This is a curious situation. We are definitely past the era of the house church, and into something much larger and more formal, such that it's large enough to draw in the curious passerby (note 14:24 contains ἐλέγχω, a rather rare word associated with the pastoral layers for reproving unsound thought and doctrine, this being the only occurrence in the ten letters of Paul besides two verse in Ephesians). Verse 14:25 has too many language problems to cover in a short post (three unusual words, four associated with the pastoral layer), but causing the unbelievers to fall down and worship God seems a bizarre reason to ban something. Unless that is the issue is hierarchical control of content.

Anyway, these verses simply highlight something rather prominent in verses not attested in the Marcionite version, strong emphasis on rank and order, and relations as large and very visible community with the outside non-Christian community. It concerns a church large enough to not have intimate control over all it's members. In short it's a church well past the initial founding days, possibly a couple generations past, where all sorts of organizational and interfaith concerns have moved to the surface. These could hardly be the concerns of an itinerant preacher founding small house churches and spreading the Gospel, which Paul was supposed to be.
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Aleph One
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Aleph One »

To Ben and Stuart:

Is your discussion here tangential to the specific paper mentioned in the link? I'm not in a great position to judge its merits but it sounds to me like the case for the offending verse to be "disputed" from the earliest witness is really strong, especially relative to the amount of subjectivity and ambiguity which is standard for these kinds of things. It's based on notation in the margins from the original scribe(s) hand. That's the impression I get, at least, but perhaps the author has inflated their conclusion more than is warranted? I ask because I don't see where this is addressed in the above discussion, and I'm wondering if maybe I missed something.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Aleph One wrote: Mon Jul 30, 2018 7:05 pm To Ben and Stuart:

Is your discussion here tangential to the specific paper mentioned in the link?
It is a bit tangential, yes. Stuart suggested that the Cambridge scholars in question had sociopolitical reasons for excising the verses rather than redactional reasons, and I pointed out that there are actually textual reasons, as well. We are, in a way, talking about what is or might be going on behind the scenes rather than what the article is actually discussing.
I'm not in a great position to judge its merits but it sounds to me like the case for the offending verse to be "disputed" from the earliest witness is really strong, especially relative to the amount of subjectivity and ambiguity which is standard for these kinds of things. It's based on notation in the margins from the original scribe(s) hand. That's the impression I get, at least, but perhaps the author has inflated their conclusion more than is warranted? I ask because I don't see where this is addressed in the above discussion, and I'm wondering if maybe I missed something.
"Really strong" has to be a relative term, but I have to say that I have been convinced since the nineties that 1 Corinthians 14.34-35 is an interpolation. That judgment was based on two principal factors:
  1. 1 Corinthians 14.34-35 seem to contradict 1 Corinthians 11.2-16. In the abstract, this could mean that 11.2-16 is the intruder, but the next factor tips the scales.
  2. 1 Corinthians 14.34-35 are postponed until after chapter 14 in some manuscripts of 1 Corinthians. When this happens, say, with the pericope de adultera in John, it is a sign that the passage is an interpolation dropped at different points in the text.
Combined, these two factors were enough for me. I now view the composition of the Pauline epistles as more complex than the first factor might imply, so some adjustment has to be in order there, but the postponing of those verses in some manuscripts is still telling to me. Also a bit telling is that verses 34-35 are most commonly paragraphed together as a unit in the manuscripts; scribes obviously read them together as an individual instruction.

Philip B. Payne's work on scribal markings in Vaticanus came to my attention only later. I believe it is at least partly his work that the article references when it mentions such markings.
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Secret Alias
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Secret Alias »

It always struck me as against the spirit of the early Church - however one wants to define 'early.' There seems to have been a very early period where women could attain equality with men. Then there seems to have been a backlash against the early influence of women in the churches. These verses seem to have been a part of that reaction.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Mon Jul 30, 2018 8:39 pm It always struck me as against the spirit of the early Church - however one wants to define 'early.' There seems to have been a very early period where women could attain equality with men. Then there seems to have been a backlash against the early influence of women in the churches. These verses seem to have been a part of that reaction.
It has always seemed this way to me, too, but I have never been sure I could prove that direction of development.
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Secret Alias
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Secret Alias »

Well look at Irenaeus's references to women. The "silly" Marcosian women = bad. Marcellina = bad. Then there are the works from Tertullian which I suspect originally came from Irenaeus like the Prescription "'These heretical women how audacious they are! They have no modesty; they are bold enough to teach, to engage in argument, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, and, it may be, even to baptize!” This is the ground from which 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 sprang I think. These sorts of sentiments.
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Giuseppe »

Stuart wrote: Sun Jul 29, 2018 1:02 pm 1) Verse 14:34 is well attested in Marcion.
surely Marcion, as one of the first promoters of a hierarchical church eager to become the "great church", would have written that verse. Women are too much anarchist in a similar context.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Secret Alias »

It's actually not well attested in Marcion. It's cited that way - i.e. as if it was in Marcion by modern and ancient compilers of information alike (Epiphanius is drawing on Tertullian among other sources for his pamphlet in the Panarion). The citation in Tertullian would actually make you think it wasn't in Marcion. But that's what's wrong with Marcionite studies. We have a model developed as a kind of dogma (not surprising for things related to religion. It goes "if a gospel or Pauline verse is referenced in Against Marcion, that means it was 'in Marcion.'" This sort of dogmatism is absurd on several levels. It assumes that there aren't layers to Against Marcion which there clearly are. As I have been showing in the other thread even Evans the most recent translator of the work acknowledges that what we have is a thrice revised work with the editor who wrote the introduction confessing the 'thrice removed' nature of Against Marcion also inserted the third book (itself a falsified Against the Jews) into the middle of what is now Books 2 and 4.



The Reese's peanut butter cup character of the third edition of Against Marcion means that you have 'anti-Jewish arguments' being passed off as 'anti-Marcion' arguments in Book Three. But even more so the collision of 'chocolate' and 'peanut butter' in this chapter changes the work thereafter as well.

Originally it was enough to say that Marcion thought XC meant 'the kind god' and Marcion was basically criticized for 'the antitheses' something I take to mean the antithetical section in Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. Whether or not people agree with that assessment there are little or no references to falsified arguments of Against the Jews in Against Marcion before Book 3. It's like the author used Against the Jews to completely overturn the original argument in Book 4 especially and so we start seeing in addition to the original 'antitheses' argument, Jesus was born to the virgin Mary, Jesus is the Christ of the Creator, the stories in the gospel point to the Creator and arguments which are deeply rooted in Judaism. I've also argued - alongside Andrew Criddle among others - that Book Four has been reshaped into an argument that Marcion specifically falsified Luke when it was originally something like a commentary on a commonly held gospel except for the 'antitheses' (which if identified with the 5th chapter of Matthew explains why "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" is repeatedly cited along with the strange interjection that Marcion 'removed this' even though it now only appears in Matthew.

The point is that it is beyond silly to pretend that Against Marcion wasn't written in stages or rewritten at least three times. The author tells us so at the very beginning. As such, any responsible person wouldn't fall victim to the dogma "if a gospel or Pauline verse is referenced in Against Marcion, that means it was 'in Marcion.'" In order for this to be true you'd have to suppose that we have the original work. Even if you pretend that by the third edition the author managed to get a copy of Marcion's gospel and Pauline corpus there are still the previous layers of the work where the work was simply a commentary on a commonly held canon. The idea that Stuart suggest - namely that Tertullian is here commenting on another heresy, that of Montanus, doesn't work either. There is a long standing association of females in high positions in heretical communities and Marcion's in particular. The reference to 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 in Against Marcion lays bare the reality that the author and final editor of Against Marcion is not working from a Marcion canon he happens to have in his possession. He is, in successive rewrites, employing an 'orthodox' canon for the most part - albeit with each rewrite a different 'orthodox' canon with different readings was employed.
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Secret Alias
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Secret Alias »

And really? You think this kind of sentiment was in the Marcionite churches:
And in fact a certain female viper from the Gaian heresy (Gaiana haeresis), who recently spent some time here, carried off a good number with her exceptionally pestilential doctrine, making a particular point of demolishing baptism ... Thus it was that that portent of a woman, who had
no right to teach even correctly,1 knew very well how to kill the little fishes by taking them out of the water.[De Baptismo 1.3]

How could we believe that Paul should give a female power to teach and to baptize, when he did not allow a woman even to learn by her own right? Let them keep silence, he says, and ask their husbands at home. [De Baptismo 17.4,5]
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35 Not Authentic Say Cambridge Scholars

Post by Secret Alias »

Andrew here at the forum doesn't think it was in the Marcionite canon (but then again he is from Cambridge):
andrewcriddle wrote: Wed Oct 25, 2017 12:06 pm
Secret Alias wrote: Wed Oct 25, 2017 11:26 am But it is hard to imagine that the earliest Christian tradition including the Marcosian tradition and possibly the Marcionite would have allowed women to have such a prominent place in the Church if - as you suggest - Paul originally told them to keep their mouths shut. Seems like one of a number of additions to the Pauline corpus by orthodox reactionaries.
I doubt if the verses were part of Marcion's text. Even if Marcion knew of them he would probably have seen as even the law says as suspicious.


Andrew Criddle

EDITED TO ADD

See Correction Below.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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