Overwriting of the NT Corpus (10): Let's Hear It For Christian Women!

[Rebbe]

FUNDAMENTALS: THE OVERWRITING OF THE NT CORPUS [10]

Let's Hear It For Christian Women!
 
Copyright © BRI 2014 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

CAUTION: BRI Yeshiva notes are not available to the general public. They are not for distribution. They are not for reproduction. The notes may also bear little or no resemblance to the actual audio or video recorded BRI Yeshiva lecture.

"If by chance, Christ Himself had been taken by His later followers as the model and pattern of a new way, and a serious attempt had been made to set up His life and teaching as the standard and norm for the church Christianity would have been something vastly different from what it became. Then 'heresy' would have been as it is not now, deviation from His ways, His teachings, His kingdom...What we may properly call 'Galilean Christianity' had a short life, though there have been notable attempts to revive it and make it live again, and here and there spiritual prophets have insisted that anything else other than this simple Galilean religion is 'heresy'; but the main line of historic development has taken a different course and has marked the emphasis very differently" (Rufus Matthew Jones, The Church's Debt to Heretics, 1924, 15,16).

"If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (David, in Psalm 11.3).

"How can you say, 'We are wise because we have the word of the Lord,' when your scribes [translators of Scripture] have twisted it with their pen by writing lies?" (Jeremiah 8.8]

When most of us give thought to the universal church today -- in all its forms -- we acknowledge two essentials things (in an arm-long list of perceptions):

1. We think of an exclusively male-dominated priesthood and a largely ignorant laity that needs to be taught about the Bible and to be made aware of relevant matters regarding salvation.

2. We blindly accept the notion that this priesthood is hierarchical by its very nature.

As to the second point, we have been conditioned to just accept without question the principle of hierarchy (and especially a male-dominated hierarchy) in the church. In other words, we just accept that the church is (i) ruled from the top down and (ii) by men (as in Roman Catholicism, more often than not in Protestant churches, and we locate this principle in the Eastern Orthodox form as well) because its always been this way. But this latter sentiment is a nonsense.

History records that the very notion of a hierarchy did not take initial form until the latter period of the first century after the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE and it only made its appearance in a mildly structured way in the mid-second century CE. Indeed, it appears Ignatius -- a serious student of the apostle John -- may have started the whole ball rolling as far as the exercise of hierarchic authority is concerned.

Remember this! Our Lord Yeshua had commanded the apostles: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave" (Mt 20.25-27).

Luke expands on this teaching of Yeshua. "And he said to them, The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called 'Benefactors.' But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves" -- (Lk 22.25-27).

That the early Messianic Movement was anything but hierarchical is missed in some renderings of Scripture:

KJV (AV) Heb 13.17 "Obey them that have the rule over you..."

Greek: "Be courteous and accepting toward those who are your guides..."

KJV (AV) Heb 13.7 "... who have the rule over you..."

Greek: "... who are guiding you..."

KJV (AV) Heb 13.24 "Salute all them that have the rule over you..."

Greek: "Salute them who are your guides (leaders)..."

It was in the interest of King James to insist on obedience to the powers of the Church of England which ruled directly beneath his awful hand of tyranny.

IGNATIUS & HIERARCHICAL GOVERNMENT

So who was Ignatius and what did he contribute to the development of the Church?

Ignatius (c. 35-108 CE; others c. 50-98/117 CE) of Antioch was also known as Theophorus and was one of the Ante-Nicene Fathers (or, if you wish, Apostolic Fathers) -- part of a second-generation leadership (which also included Papias, Clement, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Polycrates, Irenaeus) within the Christian congregations and a student of the apostle John. Irenaeus (130-200 CE), a pupil of Polycarp, speaks of John's notable disciples as "Papias, Polycarp and Ignatius."

The rare number of extant Christian writings that survived this dark period of ecclesiastical history makes it extremely difficult to gather much in the way of informative data that is not at some point questionable.

"For fifty years after St. Paul's life, a curtain hangs over the church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises, about 120 A.D., with the writings of the earliest church fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul" (Jesse Lyman Hurlbut, The Story of the Christian Church, 1918, 41).

This period of 50 years is called the "missing" age of the church. A lot can happen in some 50+ unrecorded years, and it did.

It is generally conceded that Ignatius penned seven letters which are ascertained as genuine. All told there have been 15 epistles bearing his name, but eight of them have been classified by competent scholars to be fraudulent. This is due to the fact that both Eusebius (300 CE) and Jerome (495 CE) are silent regarding the first eight of his letters which he was thought to have written. These scholars claim that the eight letters must have been written after Jerome's period, and they may well have been. Indeed, these fraudulent letters "swarm with offences against history and chronology" (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol.II, 1910, 661) but Schaff adds that even those considered genuine "have not wholly escaped the hand of the forger" (663). So, in any study of Ignatius' letters it is appropriate that a proper caution be exercised.

There are some moderns who totally reject all 15 of them as pious, spurious fakes. I cannot agree with this assessment and am in Schaff's camp in relation to them, especially for the reasons he outlines in his second volume of the History. The letter of Ignatius to the Romans, for example, has a freshness and quality to it which deems it unusual for that future time period which is dominated by the Papal ascendancy. And, Ignatius may extol the Romans for their spiritual standing in Christ, but he fails to acknowledge Rome as the centre of world faith, and while he encourages the Roman Christians he nowhere mentions the bishop -- a strange thing indeed if it was composed at a later period. As one reads Ignatius there remains a glory of martyrdom which is a formidable undercurrent in the seven accepted epistles.

The genuine epistles are listed as:

Ignatius to the Ephesians
Ignatius to the Magnesians
Ignatius to the Trallians
Ignatius to the Romans
Ignatius to the Philadelphians
Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans
Ignatius to Polycarp of Smyrna

The letters from Ignatius are evidently penned in a hurry (he wrote some of them while journeying to Rome under a military escort for his execution) and in an unsystematic system of thought. It is evident that he is deeply troubled and filled with a sense of anxiety (this reveals itself in his "run-on" sentences) which would be quite normal under such horrendous circumstances. His death came about during a severe persecution of the church and he was torn apart by starving lions in the Colosseum in 108 CE (Jerome's Latin trans., Chronicle) -- in the 11th year of the reign of Trajan.

What is intriguing about Ignatius is the fact that he referred to himself as Theophorus -- "God-bearer" -- due to the story which circulated in his time that he was one of the little children who had been lifted into the arms of Yeshua when he was very young. While this story may be entirely mythological, Ignatius (who knew of it) did nothing to discountenance it. Due to the dearth of surviving texts from this period of early church history (it is remarkably silent from around 70-120 CE) we must assume that Ignatius is the earliest "pastor" who has left us with the first real emphasis regarding "loyalty" to those presiding in positions of authority -- i.e., absolute single obedience to "bishops" or overseers accompanied by elders and deacons. He grants us the first actual glimpse of an evolution of ecclesiastical structure. This change seems to have been sudden, and occurring late in the first century or very early second century. But, and keep this fact in mind, nowhere does Ignatius speak of a bishop as having any authority over churches, but only within the sphere of his own congregation!

In his letter to the Magnesians he notes, "For your part, the becoming thing for you to do is to take no advantage of your bishop's lack of years, but to show him every possible respect, having regard to the power God has conferred on him. My information is that the sacred clergy themselves never think of presuming on the apparent precocity of his rank; they give precedence to him as a sagacious man of God -- or rather, not so much to him as to the Father of Him who is the Bishop of us all, Jesus Christ. So for the honour of Him who loved us, propriety requires an obedience from you that is more than mere lip-service... What it comes to is that we ought not just to have the name of Christians, but to be so in reality; not like some persons who will address a man as bishop, but in practice take no notice of him... Let the bishop preside in the place of God, and his clergy in the place of the Apostolic conclave [Apostolic Council] and let my special friends the deacons, be entrusted with the service [business] of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from all eternity, and in these last days has been made manifest... Maintain unity with your bishop and leaders... [see that] yourselves... never act independently of your bishop and clergy. On no account persuade yourselves that it is right and proper to follow your own private judgment..." (Extracts from Ignatius to the Magnesians 3.4.6.7, as translated by Maxwell Staniforth, Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers, 1968, 87,88).

Again, Ignatius reveals himself as a hard-liner (much as in the spirit of his teacher, John):

"Follow your bishop, every one of you, as obediently as Jesus Christ followed the Father. Obey your clergy too, as you would the Apostles; give your deacons the same reverence that you would to a command from God. Make sure that no step affecting the church is ever taken by anyone without the bishop's sanction. The sole Eucharist you should consider valid is one that is celebrated by the bishop himself, or by some person authorised by him. Where the bishop is to be seen, there let all his people be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is present, we have the world-wide church. Nor is it permissible to conduct baptisms or love-feasts without the bishop" (Extract from Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans 8].

That Ignatius seems to reflect an idea of autocratic church government cannot be denied, but we need to ask the reason as to why he is so strong in his emphasis in this manner. It is my own view that he is combating the rise of spurious sects under the sway of the pervading rise of Gnosticism that was prepared to rip apart the remnants of the Messianic Movement. With such a mounting threat from the outside to the continued existence of the Messianic Community (church) and the threats from within with the assembly itself with too close an association with false brethren Ignatius became somewhat dictatorial in his approach to the situation -- but not without reason (again, in my opinion).

By the turn of the century, the largely Gentile church was dominated by a monarchical system, of government. As Boer states, "in about A.D. 100 the office of monarchical bishop was fully in effect. Ignatius (110) speaks of it as a generally recognised office. He refers to the bishops in several churches in Asia Minor. He himself was the bishop of the church in Antioch. His letters urged the churches to whom he wrote to submit to the authority of [their particular] bishop" (Harry R. Boer, A Short History of the Early Church, 1976, 68).

Clement of Rome, on the other hand, fails to mention any such all-powerful single office in his writings and for him the bishop and the elder were the same office -- that of an overseer, or guide, for the brethren in the same assembly. Most scholars place 1 Clement circa 95 CE, but I am absolutely firm on my stand that he ought to be dated much earlier than this (See Real Apostle Paul Lecture 4). Clement was a recognised co-labourer of Paul's (Phil 4.3). It was Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses III, iii, 2-3) who informed (and confirmed) to us that Clement saw "the blessed Apostles and conversed with them, and had yet ringing in his ears the preaching of the Apostles and had their tradition before his eyes, and not he only for many were then surviving who had been taught by the Apostles." In a similar vein Epiphanius shares with us (extracted from Hegesippus) that Clement was a contemporary of Peter and Paul. The Canaanite Father, Tertullian, writing around 200 CE claimed that Clement had been ordained by Peter (De Praescript XXXII). At the time of Jerome "most of the Latins" believed that Clement was the successor of Peter at Rome (Illustrious Men 15).

Again, there are some who believe that Ignatius may have created the system of monarchical government in the church single-handedly (but such would not appear to be the case) or he may have been, along with other colleagues, simply speaking in his letters of what was already well established as far as church order was concerned.

Whatever the case, in the NT Codex the holy Spirit empowers believers with certain gifts, one of which is "administration." However, as many NT epistles make plain, such positions were for guidance, and not for rulership. There was no actual "laity" as opposed to "clergy." All Christians were standing on a foundation of equality. Giftings of the Spirit were always understood to be horizontal, not vertical. Paul made it candidly apparent that the ministry of the ekklesia was one of a "priesthood of all believers." The prayer-oriented widow was just as vital to the growth of the Messianic Community as was someone with a remarkable ability to share God's Word in a teaching capacity or someone with a healing ministry. All were on the same footing. Administrative "control" and general order was not to be interpreted as control over others except in severe cases of discipline in relation to deportment: and this was exercised through the elders but with common general assent.

BUT WHAT OF WOMEN IN ECCLESIASTICAL OFFICE?

While this is not the place to delineate the tragedy of woman under the power and control of a male-dominated ecclesiastical empire, nor the place to recount the history of general feminine powerlessness in society -- and over many years I have personally combated such evils, in lectures that span over 40 intellectually productive years -- nevertheless we ought to rethink some of the lessons involving women we have learned in relation to our studies into Pauline theology.

In previous lectures, we have come to the conclusion that women had a very important place in the life of Abraham the "Father of the Faithful" -- for he possessed an entourage of women as his sexual intimates. Perhaps "possessed" is too strong a word for all the women with whom he associated as his concubines and wives were, after all, "priestesses" in their own right. The Biblical revelation tells us that Abraham, himself a prince (Gen 23.6), was surrounded by concubines, plural (Gen 25.5,6) and we know his first wife ("wife number one") was Sarah who was indeed a priestess and a princess. Abram and Sarai were to become an integral part of Hindu mythology (through the children of Keturah) Abram = Brahman and Sarai = Saraisdati (Sarai-Svati) or Saraswati. There was also Hagar, the Egyptian, and she also was a blood royal. Then we have Keturah, probably yet another princess, and to the list we must add the Assyrian Susanna (So'sannes) -- yes, another princess. Then there is the little known Mashek who also had royal blood in her veins. Philo Judaeus calls Abraham "a king" who must needs "learn to govern and not to be governed" (On the Migration of Abraham, ll, 8]. If he wasn't a king he most certainly acted the part! (See my lecture The Austrian Chronicle).

Concerning Hagar, Midrash Rabbah Genesis 45.1 is cited by Rashi:

"R'Simeon ben Yohai said: Hagar was Pharaoh's daughter. When Pharaoh saw what was done on Sarah's behalf in his own house, he took his daughter and gave her to Sarah, saying, 'Better let my daughter be a handmaid in this house than a mistress in another house.'"

Abraham's wives and his concubines were not a bunch of "yes ladies" -- they were rulers in the own right and the example of Abraham's attitude toward Sarah shows him to be meek and even obedient in her presence!

Yeshua and in his ministry was surrounded by women who both loved and supported the Nazarene King of the Jews. This reality was nothing less than revolutionary! Women were the outcasts of society next to lepers, in Second Temple Judaism and even in much of the wider world.

"Now it came to pass, afterward, that he went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities - Miriam called Magdalit, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many other [women] who financially provided for him out of their own possessions" (Lk 8.1-3).

Note that Yeshua did not hesitate to elevate women into a level of equality with that of men. Its astonishing how men overlook this fact of the Lord's life! Consider the following account:

"Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Yeshua saw her, he called her to him and said to her, Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity. He laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Yeshua had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day. The Lord then responded saying, Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound" -- think of it -- "for eighteen years, be released from this bondage on the Sabbath?" (Lk 13.10-16).

Did you notice it? Yeshua called a despicable woman a "daughter of Abraham." Son of Abraham was well acknowledged ... among both sexes. But to be called an actual daughter of the Father of the Faithful was a statement that must have shocked his listeners, women as well as men.

THE TEXT THAT HAS KEPT CHRISTIAN WOMEN IN SPIRITUAL CHAINS

In Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, penned in 57 CE in the Spring -- it was penned prior to Shavuot (1 Cor 16.8) and he was intending to spend the following winter in Corinth (1 Cor 16.5-8) which he most certainly did (Acts 20.2,3) -- Paul writes about the specific problems of disorder that existed in that Greek assembly wishing to correct them. Among his topics covered there was an issue involving women. But note its context:

"How does the matter stand then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a song or psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a divine revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done with a view to edify the congregation. If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three [at a single meeting], each in their own turn, and let one person interpret. But if there is no interpreter available, let him keep silent in the ekklesia, and let him speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others evaluate their discourse. But if anything is revealed to another who is seated, let the first keep silent. For you can all function as a prophet one after the other, that all may be learning and all may be encouraged. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of harmony. In all the assemblies of the saints let the women keep silent, for they are not permitted to speak; but to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is a disgrace for women to speak in the assembly. Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. But if anyone is ignorant [of the fact that Paul is inspired], he is being disregarded. Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order" (1 Cor 14.26-40).

Now, Paul is speaking about prophets (in context). Paul would have known the many stories in the Scriptures involving women of Israel as prophetesses. Paul knew well that midwives were the real heroines of the Exodus period when they overturned a wicked scheme by Pharaoh who wanted all male babies eaten by crocodiles or drowned. He was well versed in the realisation that Abraham's wives, and Jacob's wives and concubines, were the ones who gave birth to the entire Jewish nation. Then there was Moses' mother and sister, Deborah and Jael, Huldah, and Esther. All prominent, influential to a fault as well as presenting as powerful speakers. Paul was not an ignorant man and he couldn't tolerate fools gladly (see verse 38). Paul was also well aware, from the traditions circulating in his day, about the life of Yeshua and his relationship with women -- that the Son of God held them up in highest possible esteem, even prostitutes as well as the nobility -- so, in this light, how is it that Paul, years after his conversion could write the following:  

"In all the assemblies of the saints let the women keep silent, for they are not permitted to speak; but to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is a disgrace for women to speak in the assembly"?

There have been innumerable suggestions, including the thought that the Greek women were tantamount to being disruptive in assemblies, chatting away to one another and causing disruption while a teacher was expounding the Gospel. Such a notion is mentioned by Dorothy R. Pape in her excellent book In Search of God's Ideal Woman. A Personal Examination of the New Testament (1976). Yes, this may well have been the case but it doesn't fit the context or narrative here in 1 Corinthians. Indeed, in Acts women are recorded as being actively engaged in the ministry of public prophesying. Joel speaks of the latter days when all human beings (even "handmaids") will be experiencing God's Spirit, men and women will be prophesying, and Peter expanded on the vision because in Acts it was apparent that all those on whom the Spirit descended spoke in tongues -- yes, even Miriam the Mother of Yeshua! (Acts 1.13,14 cf 2.1-4,17,18). Women in Acts are shown to be teachers of men (Prisca teaching Apollos comes immediately to mind). The evangelist Philip had four daughters who were given to public displays of prophesying (Ac 21.9). Women are not only sharing a capacity in leadership but are noted as being apostles. Paul in Galatians speaks authoritatively as disregarding social roles within the ekklesia (Gal 3.28). In Paul's view all are on the same identical footing.

And yet, despite it all, women are to keep "silent in the assemblies."

Or are they?

For, there is extant evidence that the original Greek mss did not have 1 Cor 14.34,35 in Paul's original letter. How do we know this? None of the Apostolic Fathers (the Ante-Nicene Fathers) quoted it and this despite its apparent vital importance and significance as a primary NT commandment. Not Clement of Rome, not Tatian, nor Ignatius, Polycarp, Polycrates -- none of them spoke of it. Bible commentator, talented musician and ex-Armstrongite Todd Derstine tells us (and for once I wholeheartedly agree with him):

"The hypothesis that these verses were not in Paul's original letter helps to explain why none of the Apostolic Fathers -- Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Polycrates -- or Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Shepherd of Hermas, the Gnostic Gospels or second century pseudepigraphae, Tatian, or Clement of Alexandria or Hippolytus ever make reference to them.

"Clement of Alexandria has it in his head that both men and women should 'embrace silence' at church, but extols Miriam as Moses' associate in commanding the host of Israel as a prophetess, which together implies his text of I Cor 14 did not have vv. 34-35. Tertullian (Bap. 15.17) [early 3rd century], then, is our first Christian writer to clearly show his awareness, not to mention wholeheartedly acceptance of, this pseudo-Pauline policy of feminine silence...

"It is as if whoever invented these verses wanted the church of God to disqualify the role of women in the church and reinterpret the inclusiveness implied in 14.5, 14.18, 14.24, and 14.31. We are led to ask the question, 'What part of all didn't he understand?' If v. 34's unqualified silencing of women were true, then the 'all' and 'every one of you' in vv. 5, 18, 24, and 31 force us to understand Paul's letters as being only addressed to the men in the congregation, which is ludicrous in the extreme and contrary to the prominence given to women throughout his epistles and in the book of Acts written by Paul's most faithful companion, Luke. Ironically, it reflects the same kind of thinking towards women reflected in Talmudic literature which had its inception during the second century, that women were somehow not endowed by their Creator with the same ability as men to appreciate the Torah or truth in general. And frankly, the church fathers, beginning with Tertullian and culminating with Jerome, display this very same kind of perverse marginalization of gender, sex, marriage, and women characteristic of all false religiosity" (Todd Derstine, in America's Prophetic Destiny [internet site]).

The earliest dated versions of this portion of the Greek ms of 1 Corinthians that exist today were copied after 300 CE. While they all include vvs 34,35 several mss position them at the end of 1 Cor 14.40 immediately before the start of chapter 15. What does this reveal? Simply this: verses 34, 35 were marginal notes by a copyist that were not in the original text! Leave these verses out completely and the text flows much more easily. The truth is they do not belong there.

For women to remain silent in the assemblies would mean, essentially, that they have to keep their mouths shut -- completely. No singing, no praise, and no minister, rabbi, or priest may even speak to them if they are unable, by such a sweeping commandment, to reply. There is no sense of equality in this respect, which would blatantly contradict Paul when he refers to women and men as ONE in the ekklesia. Please bear in mind, too, that in 1 Cor 11 Paul gives the green light to women, if they are appropriately attired, to prophesy as well as pray in the congregation. This does not necessarily overlook that in this same chapter women were the main instigators of all kinds of strife. And, look at what Paul stated in verses 28 and 30 where MEN are commanded to keep silent! This is clearly, in context, not a permanent prohibition but a temporary one.

Even IF verses 34 and 35 were Paul's instructions we have no idea where they belong in the letter because originally early copyists may well have left them out somewhere between 1 Corinthians 1.11 and 1 Corinthians 16.18. They may have existed somewhere in-between! Maybe. But it certainly doesn't look like it.

Still, if these are his words, he may have had in mind simple chatter between women which was disrupting a sermon. There is nothing worse for a speaker than to hear people of either sex chatting to each other during a delivery of an important message (which message incidentally is included in that which we term "prophesying"). Such is offensive and distracting to others and not just the speaker. Perhaps this is why the text adds "let them ask their own husbands at home."

Why have we not thought of that?

Why have we not even considered the possibility that the Christian women were probably (not possibly) largely illiterate as was the case for most women wherever they happened to be found during that age of masculine ascendancy and predomination? If this were the case it would answer a lot of questions about this text -- if indeed this odd passage is not a forgery.

The fact of the matter is that none of us possess the original text of 1 Corinthians which was written by the apostle Paul. We only have copies of that ms. It is true that all the extant copies we today possess include those two verses which we have been examining... but this in no way implies that they should be in the copies of the epistle as that letter stands in our modern versions. If they are not meant to exist where they are presently found (and recall again that some mss have them at the conclusion of chapter 14) then where would they more appropriately fit in this letter? The fact is -- nowhere!

The unknown author of Hebrews wrote: "Cast not away therefore your freedom of speech [parrhesia] which carries with it enormous possibilities in relation to reward" (Heb 10.35 Gk; See also Rotherham & Mitchell translations).

He was directing his statement to both men AND women. For a woman "to keep silent in the assemblies" would violate this cardinal principle by invalidating the exercise of that particular freedom empowering women especially by the holy Spirit, and tread under foot with contempt the freedom and the liberty won for women by the shed blood of the Redeemer of both men and women.

1 Corinthians 14.34,35 is a corruption and should be discarded along with all the other over-writings of the NT Corpus that we have been discussing in this series of lectures. Christian women are co-equals with men -- in the ekklesia of God, if nowhere else.