Friday, August 26, 2022

Interpolation (1 Cor 14:33-36)

1 Cor 14:33b-36 is considered an interpolation by many scholars. I told my students that this passage was out of the blue. It is not connected with all previous chapters and all the following. This passage is abrupt. It is said that women should not speak in the church and if they have questions they must ask their husbands at home.

But this above advice to women is untrue and impractical because not all women are married. Some may have lost their husbands already. Even if they had their husbands at home, their husbands would not know all the answers.

If Paul prevented women's participation in the church, he must have been conflicting himself or schizophrenic because elsewhere he advocated women's leadership and their free participation in worship. All men and women in the church equally received the gift of the Spirit. Therefore, we can hardly believe that Paul wrote the above passage.