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Article

Recasting Paul as a Chauvinist within the Western Text-Type Manuscript Tradition: Implications for the Authorship Debate on 1 Corinthians 14.34-35

by
Joseph A. P. Wilson
1,2,3
1
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT 06824, USA
2
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT 06825, USA
3
Department of History and Political Science, Worcester State University, Worcester, MA 01602, USA
Religions 2022, 13(5), 432; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050432
Submission received: 17 March 2022 / Revised: 16 April 2022 / Accepted: 2 May 2022 / Published: 11 May 2022
Browse Figure
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
The mandate for women’s silence in 1 Corinthians 14.34-35 is an incongruity within Paul’s undisputed writings. Critical scholars expressed doubts about these verses’ authorship beginning in the nineteenth century. The consensus of egalitarian Paulists today is that vv.34-35 are not Paul’s sentiments. Disagreements about circumstances beyond this fact remain unresolved. Supporters of the quotation/refutation (“Q/R”) hypothesis argue that Paul quoted a letter from Corinth in vv.34-35 and refuted it in v.36. Supporters of the interpolation hypothesis regard the passage as a marginal gloss by a later author, inserted at one of two locations (after v.33 or v.40). The present work favors the Q/R position. Tertullian of Carthage (c.155-220 CE) was the first known exegetist of vv.34-35. Tertullian and his successors employed the Western text-type manuscript tradition. The second century CE displacement of vv.34-35 (following v.40) in this text stream is not evidence of haphazard interpolation. It coheres with a pattern of anti-feminist redactions in the Western texts of the epistles and Acts. The editors of the Western text-type sought to harmonize the genuine epistles with pseudo-Pauline material. This harmonization effort shaped later orthodox exegesis, which established canonical norms by domesticating Paul and recast him in the image of a Greco-Roman gender traditionalist.

A text without a context is just a pretext for saying anything one wants—Ben Witherington III1
34 the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. 35 If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
36 What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached?
-1 Corinthians 14.34-36, RSV, 1946.

1. Introduction

Generations of scholars have built an egalitarian paradigm in critical Paulist studies. There is ample textual evidence that the historical Paul of Tarsus supported women in positions of early Christian leadership (MacDonald 1999; Elliott 2006; Westfall 2016). Nonetheless, the above-quoted passage of 1 Corinthians 14.34-35 continues to vex scholars on all sides. Taken in isolation, these two verses constitute the most forthright curtailment of women’s public leadership prerogatives anywhere in the New Testament. But read in context, they are strikingly dissonant with many other passages in Paul’s genuine epistles, and especially with those verses where women’s liberty to speak in church is simply taken for granted (e.g., 1 Corinthians 11.5). I concur with the majority of egalitarian Paulists that the historical Paul did not support the mandatory silencing of women. But my colleagues are sharply divided between those who maintain these verses were interpolated by a later scribe (the so-called interpolation hypothesis), versus those who believe they were included as a quotation from the earlier Corinthian correspondence, which Paul then negated in v.36 (the quotation/refutation hypothesis).2
This debate arose in twentieth century anglophone biblical studies literature and shows no sign of abatement today. The most recent rekindling began with Kirk MacGregor’s (2018) article, followed by Philip Payne’s (2019) critical response. Reading the Payne/MacGregor exchange, I experienced déjà vu because of my familiarity with a series of earlier publications by David Odell-Scott (1983, 1987, 2000) and the late Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (1986, 2009, pp. 266–82) covering much of the same ground. Odell-Scott, like MacGregor, favors quotation/refutation (henceforth “Q/R”). Murphy-O’Connor, like Payne, favored interpolation. Both iterations of this debate began with critical reactions to monographs. MacGregor (2018) challenged the interpolation argument in Payne’s (2009) opus Man and Woman, One in Christ. Likewise, Murphy-O’Connor’s (1979) commentary, 1 Corinthians anticipated Payne’s argument about an interpolated marginal note. This prompted Odell-Scott’s (1983) response in Biblical Theology Bulletin. The authors continued the exchange in various publications until shortly before Murphy-O’Connor’s death in 2013. Payne’s (2019) response to MacGregor (2018) in Priscilla Papers is the most recent volley in this collegial dialog and shows that this question is still far from settled. Payne admirably defended the interpolation hypothesis, closely mirroring Murphy-O’Connor’s (1986) rejoinder to Odell-Scott, four decades after Murphy-O’Connor’s book.
The present work will continue this conversation, taking a position in defense of the Q/R hypothesis. I will further address the post-apostolic patristic context, and the distorting influence of Pauline pseudepigrapha in shaping traditionalist understandings of Paul. Tertullian of Carthage (c.155-220 CE) played an outsized role as the first external witness to vv.34-35 and the principal author of what became their normative exegesis. Tertullian did not write from a neutral position, and it is likely he knew manuscripts which did not adhere to canonical verse order. His personal agenda was deeply entangled with controversies related to women’s authority, and he worked within a Western text-type manuscript tradition that underwent corruption in particular ways to facilitate the codification of Hellenistic gender norms as Christian gender norms. Most crucially for this discussion, the second century “Western” surgical displacement of vv.34-35 (disjoined from v.36) renders the Q/R reading impossible within this text-type. This “Western” corruption of the text, and Tertullian’s normative exegesis, diffused throughout Christendom in the centuries that followed. The corrupt text-type eventually fell out of favor, but the normative exegesis which it facilitated has nonetheless endured.

2. Background

2.1. Whose Paul Is It Anyway?

The use of contextual clues to situate difficult passages in ancient Greek is complicated. The neutral continuous script of the manuscripts (lacking spaces or punctuation) resulted in variable reading renditions, interpretive scoring, and quote-harvesting at an early phase of transmission. Vastly discrepant views of Paul and his message were held by early Christians of different stripes (Odell-Scott 2018).3 This problem was exacerbated by an elitism surrounding Greek literacy. Inconspicuous reading aids were deleted by knowledgeable scribes concerned with gatekeeping subtle meanings (W. A. Johnson 2000). Paul’s intent is difficult to grasp when a single letter is read continuously. His bold provocative wordplay was decontextualized and isolated into discrete dogmatic claims. Paul’s agenda and later church agendas became muddled. Ian Elmer says, “it seems clear that from the very earliest years after Paul’s death, his disciples in the late first-century church attempted to press-gang the departed apostle into the service of their causes” (Elmer 2015, p. 41).

2.2. A Brief Note on Verse Partitions

To illustrate an instance of minor confusion caused by the absence of punctuation in the original Greek, note that MacGregor (2018) closely follows Odell-Scott’s (1983) first publication in citing vv.33b-35 (not vv.34-35) as the full Corinthian quotation. However, v.33b (“as in all the churches of the saints”) is a framing clause that can be intelligibly grouped with either v.33a or v.34. On purely linguistic grounds v.33b could indeed be the preamble to vv.34-35, and modern English translations often reflect this view. But because it closely adheres to the pattern of Paul’s concluding statements in 1 Corinthians 4.17 and 11.16, Charles Talbert (1987, p. 91) argues that it does not in fact introduce vv.34-35. Aļesja Lavrinoviča (2017) further demonstrates that the decision to split verse 33 in two is unsupported by ancient manuscript evidence and originates with modern exegetical concerns. Twentieth century translators used v.33b to introduce and validate the prohibition of women’s speech “by appealing to the customary practice of all the other churches” (Lavrinoviča 2017, p. 383). Payne also firmly rejects the modern reading on paleographic grounds, noting that “in NT manuscripts, 14:34-35 is a discrete unit and 33b should be linked to 33a, not to 34” (Payne 2019, p. 29). This is affirmed by Odell-Scott (1987) who independently changed his view, anticipating Payne on this point. Verses 34-35 are the relevant unit of analysis and our main concern in the present work.

2.3. Multiple Independent Derivations of the Q/R Hypothesis

Prior to MacGregor, several scholars proposed the Q/R hypothesis to resolve the difficulty of vv.34-36, based on plain-text reading. The hypothesis was pioneered in 1889 in by Katharine C. Bushnell (Methodist), and her work subsequently influenced the MNT (see Table 1), a groundbreaking egalitarian Baptist translation of the New Testament by Helen Barrett Montgomery (Bushnell 1889; Montgomery 1924). Montgomery indicated the Q/R device simply by using quotation marks and square brackets to clarify pronoun references. Surprisingly “Bushnell and Montgomery are virtually unknown in the recent scholarly debate” (Dowd 1992, n.38). Several mid-to-late 20th-century authors proposed the same reading, each evidently unaware of earlier work. Guy B. Dunning (Restorationist) proposed the Q/R hypothesis based on a plain reading of the KJV (Dunning 1977). David Odell-Scott (Disciples of Christ) proposed this reading in 1983 without knowledge of earlier proponents. He became convinced that v.36 was a rhetorical foil for vv.34-35 because he had heard a public reading in which the speaker’s intonation made the Q/R interpretation seem obvious (Odell-Scott 2000). Neal Flanagan (Catholic) and Edwina Hunter Snyder (Baptist) published in the same journal two years earlier and likewise appeared independent of earlier work on the subject, citing only grammar and context as the basis for the conclusions (Flanagan and Snyder 1981). None of these scholars appealed to any earlier exegetists. These authorities run the gamut from liberal to conservative, representing a wide range of denominations. They were nonetheless all inspired to draw a singular conclusion via straightforward reading.

2.4. English Translation Issues

Flanagan and Snyder (1981, p. 10) note “v.36 is truly puzzling, especially for those reading it in Greek or who are helped by a very precise translation.” Anglophone opponents of women’s ordination assert that vv.34-35 is Paul’s own directive, and the rhetorical query in v.36 is meant to chastise the Corinthians for leniency regarding women’s speech (Martin 1984, p. 87). For that reading to work in the original Greek it requires that Paul blame the men for alleged misconduct by women. An English reader does not detect this odd rhetorical turn, because the “only ones” [Gk. masc. pl. μόνους] in v.36 can be implicitly read as “only women", due to the lack of gendered plural pronouns in English. MacGregor (2018, p. 25) refutes this interpretation. Verse 36 cannot unambiguously affirm the mandatory silencing and subordination of women in vv.34-35 because Paul’s avoidance of a Greek feminine plural pronoun here is inherently ambiguous.4 The change in gender throws the referent into doubt. English translations obfuscate this puzzling feature.
The first of two etas, disjunctive particles of separation (ἤ … ἤ), bracketing the first clause of v.36 is commonly translated into one of two different English words. Each produces a slightly different feeling in the translation. The initial eta particle can be translated as a punctuated expletive “What!/?”. Alternatively, it can be translated as an unpunctuated conjunction “or”. Where Paul uses this construction to indicate a rejoinder, the “What!/?” variant is appropriate. Eta doublets serve as reading aids in the absence of Greek punctuation. Before ca. 1950, many English language translators used “What!/?” here, facilitating our Q/R reading by conveying a sense of indignation toward the previous statement. Paul’s incredulity in the Q/R interpretation is brought forth with the subtle use of tone and inflection and resolves the pronoun gender confusion. However, late 20th century English language translations favor the more neutral conjunction “or” or drop the first disjunctive particle entirely. “New” revisions of older translations invariably follow this pattern. These revisions are uniformly more susceptible to a complementarian misreading in English, because the target of Paul’s admonishment in verse 36 could easily be applied to women alone. Compare the original and revised translations in Table 2.

3. The Earliest Witnesses to 1 Corinthians Never Mention 14.34-35

First Corinthians is one of the earliest Christian texts to be cited. The epistle deeply influenced each of the three chief apostolic fathers, Clement of Rome (died c.99 CE), Ignatius of Antioch (died c.108-140 CE), and Polycarp of Smyrna (died c.155 CE), indicating it was widely circulated in the early second century (Berding 1999; Mitchell 2006; Hagner 1973, p. 204). Yet none of these authors cited vv.34-35. Payne (1998) argues from silence that they were unfamiliar with this passage. Payne (2009, p. 66) nonetheless admits these verses must have existed in a major first century manuscript lineage. Payne’s arguments for hypothetical textual witnesses lacking vv.34-35 have not gained wide support among specialists (Miller 2003; Shack 2014). The overwhelming evidence points to the origination of these verses in canonical verse order, after v.33 and before v.36. As Joël Delobel writes:
The impressive range, age and variety of witnesses which place the verses after v.33, plead in favour of the originality of this sequence. The witnesses for the alternative sequence (vv.34-35 after v.40) are not only rare, but, more importantly, exclusively “Western”.
(Delobel 1994, p. 110)
I will concede that a possible interpolation could have predated the prototypes of all extant texts. However, given extremely early hypothetical interpolation, it is unlikely that the apostolic fathers never encountered these verses, regardless of which hypothesis is favored (interpolation or Q/R). So, the problem for interpolation proponents (and for gender traditionalists) is explaining why there are no surviving patristic references to vv.34-35 prior to Tertullian of Carthage (writing circa 200 CE), despite this being one of the most provocative passages in one of the most popular Christian texts during the second century.
It is likely that the early apostolic fathers would have ignored vv.34-35 if they were recognized as an inconsequential aside within an epistle which otherwise overwhelmingly “presumes female prophetic activity” (Niccum 1997, p. 242). If women’s prophetic authority was presumed, the normative reading of 1 Corinthians in the early second century must have accommodated this. Paul’s rebuke (v.36) is unambiguous. Apostolic fathers might have had reason to regard the controversy as settled. This only seems incongruous considering the enormous weight given to these verses by subsequent exegetists whose pronouncements invariably paraphrase/harmonize with 1 Timothy 2.11-15 into a singular directive toward women’s silence and subordination. The received interpretation of these verses is not based on vv.34-36 alone, but upon this conventional harmonization. The verses became worthy of citation only when first (incorrectly) construed as Paul’s endorsement of male supremacy within ecclesiastical governance.

4. The Importance of “the Pastor” and 1 Timothy

The Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) are the three canonical letters of Paul which most critical scholars regard as pseudonymous, i.e., late first or early second century forgeries written by someone using “Paul” as a penname. The writer is commonly assumed to be one individual, called “the Pastor”. Second Timothy follows the ancient literary genre conventions of the “farewell discourse”. In contrast, 1 Timothy and Titus, are both framed within the epistolary genre but convey distinctly legalistic agendas anticipating much later apostolic constitutions and canon laws (Collins 2001, pp. 135–37). Pervasive similarities between 1 Timothy and the work of Polycarp suggest the Pastor and Polycarp may have worked in the same circles, possibly a second century anti-Marcionite climate (Hoffmann 1984, pp. 281–83).
The Pastoral Epistles were not uniformly known or accepted within the early church. They were evidently unknown (or were rejected) by second century ‘heretical’ witnesses including Marcion’s Apostolikon (c.140 CE) and Basilides (c.117-138 CE) and were only unevenly defended by proto-orthodox writers. Tatian of Syria (c.120-180 CE) defended Titus alone among the three disputed epistles (Guthrie 1990, p. 610, n.2). Origen of Alexandria (c.184-253 CE) confidently asserted 2 Timothy was impossible to reject, thus subtly implying that the status of 1 Timothy was not clear-cut (Metzger 1987, p. 138). The apocryphal proto-orthodox Acts of Paul (written c.100-160 CE) appears to respond directly to both 1 and 2 Timothy, but echoes and reaffirms many of the views expressed in 2 Timothy while flatly contradicting many of the views expressed in 1 Timothy (den Dulk 2012).5 All three Pastoral Epistles are absent in the earliest codices 𝔓46 (c.175-225 CE) and Vaticanus/Unical 03 (c. mid fourth century CE). It is possible a small Pastoral codex was added later to the canon (Collins 2002, p. 2). Early authors indirectly alluded to them, but not until c.180 CE did Irenaeus of Smyrna (c.130-202 CE) directly cite and ascribe 1 Timothy to Paul. Evidence of the canonization of the Pastorals first appears in the Muratorian fragment, an Old-Latin canon list dating somewhere between the late second and the mid fourth century (Hahneman 1992; Elmer 2015, pp. 39–47).
Traditional arguments for pseudonymity lump the three Pastorals together; incongruous attributes of one are generalized to all three. But the case for pseudonymity is not equally strong for each. The synoptic qualities of the trilogy could indicate a small codex was expanded in stages. Pseudonymous contributor(s) would depend on an older nucleus.6 Among the three, 2 Timothy has by far the strongest case for Pauline authorship on linguistic grounds (LaFosse 2001, p. 140). If a forgery, it is a good one. It lacks anachronistic references to church offices of the post-apostolic era, and consistently portrays women in authority (Ieraci 2012; Murphy-O’Connor 1996, pp. 358–59). First Timothy has the strongest case for pseudonymity for each of the converse reasons. Skepticism of that epistle’s authorship reaches back two centuries to the roots of Protestant historical criticism; Friedrich Schleiermacher first critiqued 1 Timothy in 1807 (Hoffmann 1984, p. 281). I concur with Jens Herzer (2019) that the case for the pseudonymity of 1 Timothy is among the strongest in the Pauline corpus. For the remainder of the present argument, I refer only to the author of 1 Timothy as “the Pastor”. We may remain agnostic about the status of all other deutero-Pauline Epistles (i.e., Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, Titus), because their authorship does not directly relate to the question at hand.
Several who favor interpolation of vv.34-35 suggest the interpolator was a scribe emulating 1 Timothy 2.11-15 (Payne 2019, p. 29; Murphy-O’Connor 1999, pp. 164–65; Fitzer 1963, p. 39). Forms of the verb “permit” [Gk. ἐπιτρέπεται / ἐπιτρέπω] are not found in any writings attributed to Paul except for 1 Corinthians 14.34 and 1 Timothy 2.12,7 strongly suggesting the two passages mechanistically mirror each other (Schweizer 1959, pp. 402–3, n.12). I nonetheless doubt the existence of an interpolator dependent upon the work of the Pastor, because vv.34-35 are likely substantially older than 1 Timothy 2.12, based on the greater diversity and antiquity of manuscript evidence.8 The gradient of derivation must have been reversed; the Pastor imitated 1 Corinthians, making him (rather than Tertullian) the first exegetical witness to vv.34-35, writing in the late first or early second century CE. The later epistle reflects broad awareness of the earlier one (L. T. Johnson 1999). Like the several apostolic fathers who wrote epistles in their own names around the same time, the Pastor must have been very familiar with 1 Corinthians. First Timothy 2.11-15 likely echoes vv.34-35, not the other way around.
With extensive knowledge of 1 Corinthians, how could the Pastor not discern the Q/R structure of these verses? If the refutative meaning of v.36 is obvious, wouldn’t he know this? Why does 1 Timothy seem to mirror the alleged Corinthian error more than Paul’s correction? Payne makes a fair critique of the Q/R position when he says, “if Paul intended to convey that vv.34-35 quote his opponents, he failed, for every surviving comment on them until recent times treats them as Paul’s restriction on women’s speech” (Payne 2019, p. 25). Nevertheless, scholars on both sides of the interpolation vs. Q/R debate admit that “the author of 1 Timothy does in fact reverse positions once held by Paul” (Odell-Scott 1987, p. 102). Murphy-O’Connor (1986, p. 48) notes 1 Timothy 2.14 “is definitely un-Pauline in its attitude toward Adam and Eve. … For Paul, on the contrary, Adam [not Eve] was the transgressor”. Korrina Zamfir and Joseph Verheyden argue that numerous subtle reversals of Paul’s positions in 1 Corinthians constitute the raison d’être for the author of 1 Timothy. Whereas the historical Paul emphasized individual freedom of conscience and eschewed legalistic notions of blasphemy, the Pastor imitated the structure of Paul’s rhetoric to assert what “could be regarded as the opposite of 1 Cor 10:27-31, an appeal to strict adherence to doctrinal and community rules instead of freedom of conscience” (Zamfir and Verheyden 2008, p. 393). The Pastor’s goal was to amend potential “misinterpretations” of 1 Corinthians, via a series of “unmarked corrective fictitious self-reference[s]. … Thus in 1 Timothy ‘Paul’ reinterprets Paul. … Women are left in an ambiguous position” (pp. 405–6). The Pastor’s reinterpretation casts Paul in an entirely new image.

5. Tertullian vs. Marcion: Discrepant Early Readings of vv.34-35?

The key to understanding these dueling interpretations of Paul lies at the root of the so-called “Western” manuscript tradition which coalesced on the periphery of Roman jurisdiction in the second century CE, i.e., the early post-apostolic missionary frontier.9 Sectarians pulled Paul’s words from their context. Misconstrual of vv.34-35 predated the reordering of the key verses in this Western text-type. To illustrate this, we must examine Payne and MacGregor’s significant impasse. They disagree on the position of early exegetists. MacGregor (2018, p. 24) writes:
Clement [of Alexandria] and the Apostolic Fathers before him knew that 1 Cor 14:34–35 was not Paul’s position but was a quotation of the Corinthians’ position that Paul proceeded to refute. So of course they did not cite 1 Cor 14:34–35 as authoritative.
Payne (2019, p. 25) responds, that “no church father citing 34–35 identifies it as a quotation of the Corinthians’ position. They all cite it as Paul’s position.”
MacGregor and Payne are both correct.10 Conventional wisdom is conveyed in surviving citations ascribing the sentiments to Paul. But this reading likely depends directly on the noncanonical verse order of the Western text-type harmonized with 1 Timothy.11 Tertullian of Carthage (c.155-220 CE), first to cite these verses, used a Western text-type. In his work On the Veiling of Virgins [De Virginibus Velandis] 9.1 he claimed vv.34-35 were Paul’s own sentiments, demanding women’s silence in church and submission to husbands (Dunn 2004, p. 153). How could Tertullian maintain this when v.36 problematizes vv.34-35? Tertullian was himself an adherent of a woman-led charismatic movement labeled a heresy (Montanism), so it seems especially odd that he would provide the first witness to a misreading of this passage (Dunn 2005).12 The answer must lie in some feature of his edition.
Lacking citations prior to Tertullian, we cannot confirm that the church initially viewed vv.34-35 as Paul’s own position – only that Tertullian’s Latin audience did. Multiple citations by Tertullian survive. His treatise against the radical Paulinist Marcion (c.85-160 CE) informs us vv.34-35 were present in the Apostolikon (Marcion’s epistolary canon), c.140 CE, decades before the transcription of 𝔓46 (oldest surviving copy of the epistles). Any alleged interpolation must have been prior to Marcion’s use of this epistle, and the Marcionites (right or wrong) were gender egalitarians.
Donald Guthrie (1990, p. 609, n.5) highlights Marcion’s unsavory reputation, asking “why a heretic like Marcion should be given greater credence than Tertullian”?13 However, Tertullian is no impartial witness, regularly employing fallacious arguments serving higher rhetorical goals, and relying upon corrupted Old-Latin minority readings to contend with heretical opponents (Ehrman 1993, p. 27; Dunn 2004, p. 29). Tertullian’s motives here are transparent. Pierluigi Piovanelli presciently documents rhetorical maneuvers used in the treatise On Baptism (c.198-206 CE), when Tertullian invokes 1 Timothy 2.12 to attack Paul’s female disciple Thecla as portrayed in the Acts of Paul.
Tertullian was so determined to deny Christian women the right to teach or baptize that any scriptural text that would support this kind of claim would necessarily be, in his opinion, false, a forgery perpetuated by a poorly-advised and deceitful author.
(Piovanelli 2018, p. 54)
Marcion’s faithful preservation of 1 Corinthians 14 befuddled Tertullian because vv.34-35 is plainly contrary to Marcionite views of the law. Tertullian argued that Marcion redacted his epistles by habitually deleting objectionable passages (Vinzent 2015, p. 72). Why did Marcion not remove vv.34-35? Marcion must have interpreted vv.34-36 in a way consistent with Marcionism. Tertullian argued that vv.34-35 is radically inconsistent with Marcionism. This suggests the existence of at least two early irreconcilable interpretations of the same passage. Tertullian wrote in Adversus Marcionem 5.8:
…when enjoining on women silence in the church, that they speak not for the mere sake of learning (although that even they have the right of prophesying, he has already shown when he covers the woman that prophesies with a veil), he goes to the law for his sanction that woman should be under obedience. Now this law, let me say once for all, he ought to have made no other acquaintance with, than to destroy it.
(Holmes 1870, pp. 410–11)
Several things are noteworthy. Tertullian, defending female prophetic authority in certain contexts, qualified citation of vv.34-35 with reference to 1 Corinthians 11.5. Second, he expressed surprise that Marcion did not delete these verses. Finally, Tertullian treated only these two verses out of order (at vv.21-26) while otherwise uniformly adhering to canonical verse order in discussing 1 Corinthians 14, “suggesting great uncertainty as to where they should be located” (Inglis 2016). Tertullian’s motive for decontextualizing vv.34-35 becomes clear in his discussion of Marcionite glossolalia linked to vv.21-26. Tertullian denied prophetic authority of “any woman of boastful tongue in his community […] from among those specially holy sisters of his” (Holmes 1870, p. 411). Tertullian’s own Montanist heresy allowed female leadership to speak only after church. Tertullian’s critique of Marcionite sisters was premised upon their flagrant prophesying during church. As Geoffrey Dunn (2005, p. 20) writes, “Tertullian was content to support the Pauline ban on women speaking during the liturgical assembly, provided they could engage in their prophetic ministry afterwards.”
Jason BeDuhn’s English reconstruction of Marcion’s text of 1 Corinthians (BeDuhn 2013, pp. 233–42) and Ulrich Schmid’s (1995, pp. 320–28) Greek reconstruction of the same text rely upon very different methodologies. Neither scholar made arguments from silence, but BeDuhn cast a wider net in ancient literature allowing for educated guesswork with paraphrastic sources; Schmid’s far more conservative approach embodies extreme skepticism toward the veracity of certain witnesses. Nonetheless, both reconstructions of 1 Corinthians 14 conclude with v.35, like the “Western” redactions. However, because the canonical conclusion (vv.36-40) is nowhere present in any ancient commentary, we cannot distinguish between “Western” and non-Western verse order. There is no certainty of displacement. We can merely say that v.36 went uncited by Marcion’s critics. BeDuhn writes:
None of our sources point out any omissions or significant variants in the text of 1 Corinthians found in the Apostolikon. In fact nearly every section of the letter finds mention, and the sequence of Tertullian’s remarks prove that Marcion’s text had the same order as the catholic one. Therefore, the evidence of the Apostolikon does not support any hypothesis that the letter is a composite, or originally had a different order, or has substantive interpolations.
(BeDuhn 2013, p. 219)
Ehrman (1993, p. 27) writes “despite the frequency of the charge that heretics corrupted their texts of Scripture, very few traces of their having done so have survived antiquity.” Despite a stereotyped tendency to downplay O.T. allusions, Marcion’s text of 1 Corinthians retains most O.T. citations and is a significant ancient witness. Marcion’s scriptures are closely related to the Western text-type, often agreeing with European Old-Latin and Old-Syriac against non-Western Greek (Metzger 1994, pp. xix–xxi; Waltz 2013, pp. 1345–46). However, Marcion’s text was a precursor, not a true Western text. Tertullian is the first named authority to witness the Western text-type as properly construed (Zuntz 1953, p. 85). Tertullian read Western text-type Greek manuscripts and produced early Old-Latin manuscripts.
The “Western” displacement of vv.34-35 likely originated in a single Greek manuscript in the mid second century CE, from which all surviving Old-Latin translations are derived (Niccum 1997, p. 250). Even though the Western text-type did not contribute many majority readings to the modern canon, its unique features constrained the exegesis of the early patristic sources, and thus deeply affected Christianity’s institutionalization in the Roman Empire. Western eisegeses rebounded throughout Christendom, influencing normative readings elsewhere. Tertullian is the first “Western” theologian and “the father of Latin Christianity” (Ekonomou 2007, p. 22). The cultural context for early arguments against women’s ordination was not interrogated by critical scholars until modern times.

6. Answering Philip Payne’s Objections to the Q/R Hypothesis

Payne (2019, p. 26) argues that Paul’s use of eta particles in 1 Corinthians never “contradicts the immediately preceding statement or indicates a change of speaker”; therefore, the Q/R interpretation is unjustified. In unpunctuated Greek, quotations are indistinct from paraphrastic caricatures. The line is muddy between contradictions and subtler corrective caveats. I reject Payne’s blanket assertion of exclusively affirmative/reinforcing characteristics of disjunctive particles in Paul’s writings. Payne mirrors the gymnastics of traditionalist apologists who are compelled to deny the double-edged nature of Paul’s sublime admonishments (e.g., see Carson 2021, pp. 179–97). I will nonetheless concede a modest restatement of Payne’s objection. Paul’s use of disjunctive particles is not always so stark as in v.36. But this cannot influence our verdict about the Q/R hypothesis. A tally of mundane grammatical parallelisms has limited analytical utility for exceptionally difficult passages. We must not constrain Paul’s rhetorical range so severely.
Payne (2019, p. 28) further argues “a thirty-six to forty-word transposition five verses away with no obvious reason is unprecedented in any Pauline manuscript.” He insists the several universally accepted Pauline Q/R devices only attack “short slogans” (Payne 2019, p. 26). These objections are overstated. Thirty-nine words is a short quotation for modern editors. Paul’s disciple quoted a longer passage of the Septuagint at Luke 3.4-6, unparalleled in his gospel or Acts. It logically follows that Luke’s teacher could once quote forty words. Intentional editorial displacement is entirely precedented; numerous significant textual displacements occur within the surviving Western text-type manuscripts of the epistles, including three major displacements in Romans alone (Abbott 2015, pp. 127–29).
Payne (2009, pp. 229–31, 254–56) believes the discrepant location of vv.34-35 after v.40 in all surviving Western text-type manuscripts reflects a haphazardly interpolated gloss. MacGregor (2018, p. 23) likewise suggests that this displacement was an innocuous correction motivated by the incongruous “flow” of the canonical text. Both Payne and MacGregor neglect to consider evidence for deliberate displacement rooted in the observed anti-feminist bias of the Western text-type manuscript tradition (Odell-Scott 2000).
I disagree with Payne (2009, p. 225) that the Q/R hypothesis “does not explain why every Western text-type manuscript puts verses 34-35 at the end of the chapter.” Odell-Scott (2000) shows that the Western scribe’s displacement of vv.34-35 is not haphazard but intentionally disjoins the claims from Paul’s response (v.36), sheltering these provocative verses away from Paul’s pointed scrutiny. As Odell-Scott writes:
Given the view of women that was becoming common among western Christians in the end of the second century, the interpolation of verses 34 and 35 from the location at 33/36 to the end of verse 40, would bring the text in line with emergent orthodox gender convictions. […] So placed, the reader is led to assume that the subordination and silence of women are expressive of the decency and order which Paul asserts is proper in worship.
(Odell-Scott 2000, pp. 68–70)
Philip J. Abbott (2015, p. 3) corroborates Odell-Scott, noting the Western displacement renders “an unmistakable mandate for universal feminine silence in Christian churches.” Editors/scribes responsible for Western text-type epistles demonstrated clear knowledge of the distinctly negative functions of Paul’s disjunctive particles; they freely interpolated an eta into the Western text-type of Romans 6.15-16, “to clarify Paul’s rejection of the question posed in v.15” (Abbott 2015, p. 131; see Figure 1). The Western displacement of vv.34-35 is just one of many asterisks in a constellation of anti-feminist redactions surrounding Paul in the Western text-type. Western “corrections” favoring gender traditionalism are widely attested. Instances are summarized in Table 3.
Witherington (1984, p. 84) states it “likely that the ‘Western’ text was simply reflecting Roman and Western ideas about women not playing prominent roles in public life.” Displacement of vv.34-35 to the end of chapter 14 follows this pattern. First Corinthians shows grammatical harmonization across Old-Latin and bilingual Western epistles. Several verbs are adjusted, and there are other significant Western “corrections” in nearby verses.14 Examples are theological (e.g., singularizing “spirit” in 14.32), moralizing (e.g., insertion of “ought to” in 15.2) and/or pedantic (e.g., number of disciples in 15.5; Wire 1990, p. 152). Sheltering vv.34-35 after v.40 is simply one in a long series of misguided “corrections” found throughout the Western text-type epistles.
Table
Table 3. Anti-feminist redactions in the Western text-type recensions of Acts and the Epistles.
Table 3. Anti-feminist redactions in the Western text-type recensions of Acts and the Epistles.
Biblical
Reference		Western Text-Type Redaction/Corruption
Summary		Manuscript
Witness *		Scholarly
Citation
Acts 1.14Women are not mentioned as an independent group but are only identified as the wives of male apostles.(Dea/Unical 05)(Witherington 1984)
Acts 16.13-15Lydia’s group of women are implied to be pagans (not God-Fearers). They are not necessarily introduced within a synagogue context.(Dea/Unical 05)(Epp 1966, pp. 89–90)
Acts 17.4, 17.12, 17.34.Prominent women are reduced in status to wives of male apostles.
Men’s status is elevated. A woman (Damaris) is deleted.		(Dea/Unical 05)(Witherington 1984)
Acts 18
(Numerous verses)		Aquila (husband) is transposed prior to Priscilla (wife) in most cases. Aquila’s name alone is interpolated in v.3.
Aquila’s prominence is raised above that of Priscilla’s.		(Dea/Unical 05)
(gig/Codex
Gigas)		(Ropes 1926, p. 178)
Romans 16.3-5Verse 5a is displaced prior to verse 4, so that Paul praises the entire congregation for “risking their necks” for him, thus reducing the prominence of Priscilla and Aquila.(Dp/Unical 06)
(Fp/Unical 010)
(Gp/Unical 012)		(Abbott 2015, p. 128)
Romans 16.7A conjunction and article is adjusted to limit the esteem of the apostles Andronicus (a man) and Junia 15 (a woman), by expanding Paul’s praise “in Christ before me” to the other apostles.(Dp/Unical 06)
(Fp/Unical 010)
(Gp/Unical 012)		(Abbott 2015, p. 130)
1 Corinthians 14.34-35Verses 34-35 are disjoined from Paul’s critical response at v.36 and sheltered after v.40. The mandate for women’s silence thus stands unchallenged at the conclusion of the chapter.(Dp/Unical 06)
(Fp/Unical 010)
(Gp/Unical 012)		(Odell-Scott 2000)
Colossians 4.15Nympha, proprietor of the house-church in Laodicea, is changed from a woman to a man.(Dp/Unical 06)
(Fp/Unical 010)
(Gp/Unical 012)		(Witherington 1984)
* Representative manuscripts are not a comprehensive list of corroborating Western witnesses.

7. Discussion: The Enduring Influence of the Western Displacement

Before Tertullian, apostolic fathers had used 1 Corinthians to defend women’s prophetic speech within liturgical assemblies. All surviving manuscripts include vv.34-35. Canonical verse order is consistent with an ancient Q/R interpretation in Greek. Irenaeus (an older contemporary of Tertullian whose career spanned Asia Minor and France) must have known about vv.34-35 when he attacked the “pseudo-prophets” of Tertullian’s Montanist sect. He contrasted the elitism of Montanist prophesy with the more egalitarian prophetic tradition espoused by Paul. “For, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, he speaks expressly of prophetical gifts, and recognizes men and women prophesying in church” (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 3 11.9; Roberts and Rambaut 1868, p. 296). Tatian eloquently defended Christian social egalitarianism and ascetic Christian women’s moral authority in opposition to Greek norms (Oratio ad Graecos 32-33; Coxe 1885, pp. 78–79). Tatian’s ascetic theology was rooted in 1 Corinthians 7 (Clement Alex., Stromata 3.12.81; Wilson 1869, pp. 122–23).16 Recent archaeological discoveries suggest that women held a wider range of liturgical offices in early Christianity than historians had previously suspected (Finlayson 2013; David 2021). Ally Kateusz (2020, p. 19) shows hard evidence from liturgical iconography proving “the Christian tradition of women’s leadership in the assembly was ancient, orthodox, and widespread”, but a “slow degenerative process resulted in our modern false imagination of the early Christian past as a time of an all-male clergy.”
Early Western/Latin fathers edited 1 Corinthians 14 to recontextualize vv.34-35, (alongside 1 Timothy 2.12) mandating silencing and subordination of women. Cyprian of Carthage (c.200-258 CE), Tertullian’s successor, also read Western manuscripts. He quoted relevant portions of both epistles side-by-side within his concise Old-Latin manual of Christian practices, effectively elevating vv.34-35 to “tenets” of the Western faith (Abbott 2015, p. 80). Novatian (c.200-258 CE), a Latin theologian whose texts were closely related to Cyprian’s, inaugurated a branch of the Western text-type including the oldest surviving manuscripts displacing vv.34-35. The corrupted tradition “became the ‘received’ text, being circulated from Italy through the rest of the Roman empire” (Niccum 1997, p. 247).
In the East, the rise of Western-influenced eisegesis was gradual. Origen of Alexandria (c.184-253 CE) is the only early Eastern Father who cited vv.34-35 as Paul’s own sentiments.17 Jennifer Shack (2014, p. 110, n.75) affirms that Origen knew these verses in canonical order, after v.33.18 Nonetheless Origen followed Tertullian’s lead, invoking 1 Timothy 2.12 and vv.34-35 in conjunction to silence women (Jenkins 1908, p. 41). Ironically, he used Tertullian’s exegesis to attack the women of Tertullian’s Montanist sect; Origen’s opposition to women’s speech extended beyond the public assembly to any forum outside the domestic sphere (Coyle 1983, pp. 139–40). Origen traveled widely between Alexandria and Caesarea and visited Rome in 211-212 CE. His fragmentary writings survive in imperfect Latin translations, reflecting far-flung text-types (Waltz 2013, pp. 1348–49). He used several different bibles originating from the different locales of his career’s journeys (Epp and Fee 1993, p. 186). Origen’s writings notably indicate knowledge of Western texts of the Epistles (Aland et al. 1975, p. 564). The globetrotting theologian had exposure to early Western readings and interpretations.
Western interpretations became normative. Later Eastern Fathers adopted Western interpretations of vv.34-35 harmonized with 1 Timothy 2.11-15. A tipping-point was perhaps the Greek Apostolic Constitutions (forbidding female ordination) of late fourth century Syria (where Western and non-Western text-types coexisted). Abbott (2015, pp. 90–93) summarizes the muddled, self-contradictory views of Eastern Fathers during this period when the influence of the West grew rapidly. It is to their credit that church authorities ultimately rejected the influential Western readings in favor of the exegetically difficult canonical verse order. The corrupted Western text-type largely went extinct. But the damage was done in terms of “conventional wisdom” about Paul, too late to decelerate the growth of male-supremacist institutional culture.
Ironically, the latest textual witnesses of the displacement (vv.34-35 after v.40) originated in the East; Byzantine text-type Greek miniscule manuscripts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (88 and 915; Niccum 1997, p. 251). Payne (1998) conjectures a manuscript lacking vv.34-35 and infers identical displacement recurred independently of Western manuscripts. Payne believes an eastern scribe found vv.34-35 missing at the canonical location, and haphazardly appended the verses after v.40, coincidentally mirroring the Western text. Is it likely two accidental displacements of one contentious excerpt yielded one outcome? Occam’s razor counsels otherwise. Curt Niccum (1997, p. 251, n.62) notes the scribe of 88 used several manuscripts of different origins. Shack (2014, p. 111) submits that scribe must have used an exemplar having a Western text-type displacement whether-or-not the text itself was “Western” in the holistic sense. I concur with Antoinette Wire (1990, p. 151); “the twelfth-century date suggests a rebound from the ‘Western’ tradition rather than a lone survival”.

8. A Note of Caution against Anti-Judaic Bias

I echo my colleagues in the Q/R school, identifying v.36 as Paul’s correction of Corinthian legal error. I agree with interpolation proponents that vv.34-35 are not Paul’s sentiments. I challenge colleagues on both sides to redress a subtle anti-Judaic bias animating discussions of Paul’s egalitarianism since the nineteenth century. The first published proponents of both hypotheses (Q/R and interpolation) problematically dichotomized Paul’s egalitarianism against a “Judaizing” gender-traditionalism (Neutel 2019). I contend the “law” in question is Roman.
Placing Pauline egalitarianism and Judaism in opposition is unsupported by current scholarship surrounding Paul’s complex relationship to Judaism (Eisenbaum 2009). Amy-Jill Levine (2015, p. 36) writes, “Paul, the only self-identified Pharisee from whom we have written records, trots out his Pharisaic origin as something worthy of admiration (although heaven forbid he would boast; see Phil. 3.5).” Hebraist Joel M. Hoffman (2016, pp. 243–44) assumes a conventional complementarian reading of Paul, identifying extreme women’s subordination as Greco-Roman in origin and contrary to pre-Talmudic Judaism. Ancient inscriptions indicate Jewish women spoke in synagogues; it is implied that Priscilla did in Acts 18.26. Bernadette J. Brooten (1982, p. 150) writes “the inscriptional evidence for Jewish women leaders means that one cannot declare it to be a departure from Judaism that early Christian women held leadership positions.”
Avoiding characterizing Pauline “Christianity” as egalitarian in opposition to “Jewish” patriarchy, I note the religions were not differentiated. Controversy about women’s authority in Corinth was paralleled within post-biblical Judaism. It is anachronistic to caricature all legalistic positions as “Judaizing”. Nascent rabbinical Judaism, like Christianity, was incubated in an atmosphere of Greco-Roman ideology. This congregation founded by Paul was Gentile-dominated in a Roman-Greek colony where Jewish authorities were an elite minority, including Jewish-Christian leaders like Priscilla.19 Paul characterized that church’s cultural orientation as Greek (1 Corinthians 1.22). Paul spread Jewish teachings, interpreted by non-Jews according to Greek and Roman cultural categories (Horrell and Adams 2004).
Efforts to identify a Torah-based “law” in v.34 have failed. Complementarians resort to absurdities, e.g., “the ‘Law’ to which Paul appeals in verse 34 is his own prior ruling” (Carson 2021, p. 188)! Adam Clarke (1836, p. 1596) cited no Hebrew; only established Roman laws explicitly barred women from speaking in public assemblies. Hellenistic prohibition on women’s public speaking goes back at least to Aristotle’s Politics 1.1260a (fourth century BCE). The philosopher writes “the courage of a man is in commanding, of a woman in obeying … silence is a woman’s glory” (Wiesner-Hanks et al. 2021, p. 125).
There are later parallels in Hellenistic Jewish thought. For example, Philo of Alexandria (c.20 BCE-50 CE) argues for wifely submission and servitude in an allegory of Genesis (Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesim 1.27). However, he self-consciously assimilated to Roman customs. “Philo’s picture of the Jewish wife resembles woman according to the letter of the Roman law” (Sly 1987, p. 129, n.33). Later Oral Torah in the Talmud and Midrash was deeply influenced by Greco-Roman legal culture (Feldman 1992). Raymond F. Collins writes about the obvious Hellenizing agenda of the Pastor’s pseudo-Pauline code of virtue ethics in 1 Timothy.
Hellenistic moralists, from the time of Aristotle, taught that some virtues were appropriate for men, others for women. … In such a Hellenistic society, it was important that the Pastor have something to say about the qualities of women who would serve in God’s household.
(Collins 2001, p. 147)
At minimum, precedent for female subordination is as beholden to Greco-Roman gender norms as Jewish ones. Paul’s era was not one where “Jewish” and “Christian” opinions were distinct.

9. Conclusions

The enigmatic apostle has been central to debates about women’s authority since Christianity became distinct from Judaism. Unsettled opinions spurred textual variations in the Pauline corpus. In an overview of the problems surrounding these and other pesky variant readings concerning women’s roles in early Christianity, Eldon J. Epp (2002, p. 231) laments “difficulty so bewildering that textual critics can only ‘throw up their hands’ in despair.” Discussing our displacement (vv.34-35), Delobel (1994, p. 111) acknowledges “at least the possibility that scribes sometimes acted as (re-)interpreters, and that they performed their exegesis by ‘surgical’ intervention, which was their privilege, at least for some time.”
Bart Ehrman (1993, p. xi) notes a blind spot besetting textual critics. “Narrowly focusing on the manuscripts of the New Testament, they often neglect the realia of ecclesiastical and social history.” The surgical displacement of vv.34-35 is an example of a textual variant made less bewildering by acknowledging sociocultural pressures external to the manuscript itself. The displacement of vv.34-35 was no value-neutral editorial decision or conjectural emendation. The struggle over women’s roles unfolded for centuries and reflected the inherent paradox at the core of Christianity’s success. Robin Lane Fox argues it is “likely that women were a clear majority in the churches of the third century” (Lane Fox 1986, pp. 280–81).20 Christianity began as a countercultural outlaw sect and gradually became the state religion of a theocratic empire. A religion of women and slaves grew to encompass the Roman aristocracy. To become socially acceptable, Christianity needed to accommodate Roman gender norms. The misogynist reading of vv.34-35 stems from the outsized influence of Western recensions at a point in church history when Christianity’s divergent gender norms were reformed and brought into alignment with state power.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge helpful feedback and dialog from key scholars at various stages in the writing process, including David Odell-Scott, Ally Kateusz, Philip Abbott and Kirk MacGregor.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Notes

1
Quoted by Levine (2015, p. 9).
2
Henceforth all verses mentioned without book/chapter designations are presumed to be from 1 Corinthians 14.
3
See 2 Peter 3.16 on early Christian awareness of discrepant readings of Paul.
4
Complementarian exegetists demand a gender-neutral reading of the masculine plural pronoun to ensure Paul doesn’t exclude women from his rebuke. Conceding this, a subtle shift in audience remains explicit. Greek masculine pronouns must imply the presence of some males. English gender-neutral pronouns need not include any males.
5
Acts of Paul was regarded as orthodox by Hippolytus of Rome (c.170-235 CE) and listed in the canon of Codex Claromontanus (Dp/Unical 06) alongside a complete Western text-type of the Epistles.
6
William Richards (2002, pp. 208–9) posits 1 Timothy was written by an author emulating both 2 Timothy and Titus.
7
“I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.” 1 Timothy 2.12, NRSV.
8
The oldest epistolary codex, 𝔓46 (c.175-225 CE) lacks 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, but includes vv.34-35 in canonical verse order. The oldest manuscript of 1 Timothy, 𝔓133 (c. third century CE), includes fragments of chapters 3-4 (Shao 2016). Both 𝔓46 and 𝔓133 have distinct affinities with the Alexandrian text-type.
9
The Western text-type manuscript tradition is multilingual (witnessed in Greek, Latin, and Syriac). Bilinguals often show complex interdependence between Latin and Greek. Early scribes and editors used multiple languages.
10
Clement of Alexandria (c.150-215 CE) acknowledged that women deacons served as co-ministers with men during the apostolic era (Stromata 3.6.53.3-4; Wilson 1869, p. 109). His interpretation of 1 Timothy 3.8-13 was more egalitarian than his successors’ interpretations. But he was not egalitarian with respect to marriage and household order (Reydams-Schils 2012). His writings can thus be selectively cited to support both complementarian and egalitarian arguments.
11
In addition to the displacement of vv.34-35, Antoinette Wire (1990, p. 152) notes that “woman” [γυναικὶ] is pluralized [γυναῖκας] in the Western text-type of v.35, matching the previous verse 34, but also reflecting a pattern associated with the distinctly domestic concerns of several deutero-Pauline texts (including 1 Timothy 2.9 and 3.11, e.g.).
12
Tertullian wrote over the course of approximately two decades. His uncompromising stance against women in Christian authority is characteristic of the early orthodox phase of his career, while his later writings in the rigorist-charismatic Montanist sect are characterized by a notable softening of several of these positions (Carnelley 1989, p. 33).
13
Markus Vinzent (2015, p. 76) asked virtually the same question; “why should we trust Marcion’s view more than that of Tertullian?” Vinzent and Guthrie answered this rhetorical question in opposite ways (Vinzent favoring Marcion and Guthrie favoring Tertullian), reminding us of the ambiguity of open-ended rhetorical queries. Marcion and Tertullian may have read Paul’s rhetorical query (v.36) in very different ways.
14
See note 11 above.
15
Giles of Rome (1243-1316 CE) revised/recast “Junia” as “Junias” in medieval Latin, presuming male-exclusive apostolic authority. Only one ancient exegetist supported this, Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 315-403 CE)—who also asserted Priscilla was a man. Epiphanius is therefore an unreliable witness on apostles’ gender (Epp 2002). Epiphanius’ early Byzantine text-types were “marred by his paraphrases and extremely loose citations.” (Waltz 2013, p. 1338). Rare editions of Origen likewise masculinize Junia/Junias but these are exclusively medieval Latin editions (Epp 2002, p. 253). This has not discouraged complementarians from fallaciously asserting “Church Fathers were evenly divided” (Piper and Grudem 2021, p. 98).
16
For an overview of the Hellenistic background of early Pauline ascetism and 1 Corinthians 7, see Deming (2004).
17
Abbott (2015, p. 57) states “‘Western Fathers’ denotes those from the Western Roman Empire who wrote primarily in Latin. … ‘Eastern Fathers’ refers to those from the Eastern Roman Empire who wrote mainly in Greek or Syriac.”
18
Origen’s use of this passage is found in his Fragmenta ex commentariis in epistulam i ad Corinthios 71.1-3 and 74.1-4 (Jenkins 1908).
19
James F. McGrath (2021, pp. 253–73) discusses the possibility that Paul’s female kinsfolk may have influenced his decision to join the Jesus movement.
20
Lane Fox’s (1986, p. 281) inferrence is derived from the greater than 5-to-1 ratio of women’s garments to men’s, recorded in the large seizure of church property at Cirta, Numidia (Constantine, Algeria) during the Diocletianic persecution in May of 303 CE as mentioned in “Trial before Zenophilus” [Gesta apud Zenophilum], 320 CE (Luijendijk 2008, p. 350).

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Figure 1. Two examples of Western text-type manuscripts interpolating the disjunctive eta to enhance Paul’s incredulity in Romans 6.15-16. (a) Detail of Codex Claromontanus (Dp/Unical 06), fifth/sixth century, Folio 32, verso. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Available online: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84683111/f70.item (Public Domain Mark 1.0; accessed on 5 March 2022). (b) Detail of Codex Boernerianus (Gp/Unical 012), ninth century, Folio 9, recto. Dresden, Sächsiche Landesbibliothek A 145b. (see Reichardt 1909, p. 41). Available online: https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/2966/27 (Public Domain Mark 1.0; accessed on 16 March 2022).
Figure 1. Two examples of Western text-type manuscripts interpolating the disjunctive eta to enhance Paul’s incredulity in Romans 6.15-16. (a) Detail of Codex Claromontanus (Dp/Unical 06), fifth/sixth century, Folio 32, verso. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Available online: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84683111/f70.item (Public Domain Mark 1.0; accessed on 5 March 2022). (b) Detail of Codex Boernerianus (Gp/Unical 012), ninth century, Folio 9, recto. Dresden, Sächsiche Landesbibliothek A 145b. (see Reichardt 1909, p. 41). Available online: https://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/2966/27 (Public Domain Mark 1.0; accessed on 16 March 2022).
Religions 13 00432 g001
Table
Table 1. English bible translations and the standard abbreviations.
Table 1. English bible translations and the standard abbreviations.
Translation NameDate PublishedAbbreviation
King James Version1611KJV
American Standard Version
Montgomery New Testament
Confraternity Bible
Revised Standard Version
New American Standard Bible
New American Bible
New King James Version
New Revised Standard Version		1900
1924
1941
1946
1963
1970
1979
1989		ASV
MNT
CB
RSV
NASB
NAB
NKJV
NRSV
Table
Table 2. Selected English NT translations and revised translations of 1 Corinthians 14:36 *.
Table 2. Selected English NT translations and revised translations of 1 Corinthians 14:36 *.
EditionText *Date
KJVWhat? Came the word of God out from you?
Or came it unto you only?		1611
ASVWhat? was it from you that the word of God went forth? or came it unto you alone?1900
MNTWhat, was it from you that the word of God went forth, or to you only did it come?1924
CBWhat, was it from you that the word of God went forth? Or was it unto you only that it reached?1941
RSVWhat! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached?1946
New/Revised EditionText *Date
NASB
(Revised ASV)		Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it come to you only?1963
NAB
(Revised CB)		Did the word of God go forth from you?
Or has it come to you alone?		1970
NKJV
(Revised KJV)		Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached?1979
NRSV
(Revised RSV)		Or did the word of God originate with you?
Or are you the only ones it has reached?		1989
* English translations of ἤ (eta; “What/or”) are boldface.
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Wilson, J.A.P. Recasting Paul as a Chauvinist within the Western Text-Type Manuscript Tradition: Implications for the Authorship Debate on 1 Corinthians 14.34-35. Religions 2022, 13, 432. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050432

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Wilson JAP. Recasting Paul as a Chauvinist within the Western Text-Type Manuscript Tradition: Implications for the Authorship Debate on 1 Corinthians 14.34-35. Religions. 2022; 13(5):432. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050432

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Wilson, Joseph A. P. 2022. "Recasting Paul as a Chauvinist within the Western Text-Type Manuscript Tradition: Implications for the Authorship Debate on 1 Corinthians 14.34-35" Religions 13, no. 5: 432. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050432

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