Let your women keep silent in the churches … as the law also says.” (1 Cor 14:34, NKJV)
If the pinnacle of Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 14, about order in the church during prophetic proclamations, is verse 32, “and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets”, then the statements following it are not necessarily about women in general, but about women whose husbands are involved with the prophecy and the judging thereof, and who then want to give their opinion of it. These women, Paul says, should rather be quiet, as the rest of the church is quiet when someone is speaking (verse 30). Charles Trombley paraphrases this passage in an enlightening manner – “Don’t ask your prophet husbands questions during the time he’s judging prophecy. If you have any questions ask him at home. Don’t cause confusion during the service.”
If this is now clear there is another problematic question which we have not discussed – where in the Old Testament is it stated that women should be quiet, and why would this be the case? After all, verse 34 states, “Let your women keep silent in the churches … as the law also says”.
In the teaching of Day 410 we also explained how the traditional Jewish frame of thought had considered women as inferior to men, and had subjected them to various instances of sexist oppression, and that this was clearly the result of human laws and interpretations. In the teachings that followed we gave many examples of how Jesus had reacted to women in his dealings with them. What He had spelled out in Matt 15:3 is still relevant when it comes to women – “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?”
The Jewish historiographer of that time, Josephus, who introduces himself as a very religious Pharisee, writes in his Apion II: “The woman, says the law, is in all things inferior to the man. Let her accordingly be submissive.”
But in this lies the crux of the matter – what is so adamantly cast around as the law, is merely human law and tradition, not the law which is decree by God. All Jewish requirements for the submission of women stems from the ancient sources in the Mishna and not from the Old Testament. (Remember – the Mishna is the rabbis’ commentary on and interpretation of the Torah. Then there is also the Aramic Gemara, which is a collection of additional discussions and notes about the Mishnah, and the true interpretation thereof. This is collectively accepted as the oral law which was recorded in the second century after Christ, and is held in high regard by the Jewish communities. It has since then become an ipso facto part of the law.)
The revered German lexicographer of the Greek language, J.F. Schleusner, in his The Tyro’s Greek Lexicon, unambiguously affirms this position about the phrase as the law also says, stating that “The expression ‘as also saith the law’ refers to the Oral Law of the Jews now called the Talmud.”
If we look at 1 Cor 14:34 in this syntactic light it indeed becomes very clear – Paul says: Women keep silent in church because it was not permitted (as the oral tradition has dictated) for them to speak, but to be submissive.
The exact opposite meaning is what has been taught over the years.
- Sela: Pray for women to be delivered from false exegesis and teaching about this matter.
- Read: Lev 22-24
- Examine how this has been fulfilled: Lev 23:5 (Tip: 1 Cor 5:7).
