I Corinthians 14:34-35. (disciples, mythology, Baptist, protestant)

[tgnostic]

But the best culture for the Corinthians will be in Montana when it breaks up with the union. What happened to Montanaguy?

[catman]

Even if there was anything to Christianity, Paul messed it up totally with boneheaded statements such as this IMO.

[LuminousTruth]

Their idol has not won against our minds.

[Ceist]

Originally Posted by Vinylly

'Women should remain silent in churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church'.

WOW!!!! I think the protestant churches have some explaining to do, specially when they have female clergy.

What do you expect from men who lived in a patriarchal culture and created their god and religion in their own image?

[Djuna]

The bible is complicit in the subjugation of women for thousands of years. It has no place in this modern era.

Just look at the koran as well...used to keep women from doing all manner of things.

We need to stand up and say enough is enough, throw these ancient , useless books in the rubbish.

[Woodrow LI]

Originally Posted by ptsum

The whole sacred book of Christianity is cultural specific of its time and has no bearing or authority over other cultures and let me tell you something, you try telling the wife of a Native American man that she has to be silent and has to ask her questions through her husband, you're about to get your head smacked and all your belongings thrown outside the front door for even thinking that you could get away with that.....

Gotta love NA women

Try a NA wife who converted to Islam. Especially if she is versed in the Qur'an and fully understands women's rights as explained in Chapter al-Nissa (The women)


I have the scars to show what happens if you ever tell her to shut up.

[whoppers]

Alright people - how about some actual investigation of the verses, rather than quickly jumping to conclusions about the patriarchism of christianity, the sexism of Paul, the inerrancy of scripture, etc?

Protestant churches have done their fair share of "explaining" by the efforts of German Protestant scholars attempting to find the true religion behind all the textual corruptions that have occured over the centuries, all the years of dogma, all the misinterpretations. This German scholarship blossomed out of the 1800s and has become one of the main impetuses for the "historic Jesus" movement: trying to find the actual words of Jesus, rather than what others put in his mouth.

But back to Paul - was Paul a sexist? In order to fully study Paul, we must be aware that not all of the letters attributed to him are genuine - some are disputed. In addition to this, scholars have posited that various later editors had no problem interpolating a verse here or there, when it suited their purposes. For the letter quoted above (1st Corinthians), scholars are mostly unanimous in agreeing that it is genuine, but with several interpolations.
The context of his letter to the church at Corinth was that the church was running into, what Paul considered, problems.
"Apparantly, some of the Corinthians themselves had developed Paul's own theology in directions unpalatable to the apostle. As a result, charismatic experiences and ecstatic prophecy, though not unfamiliar to Paul, played too large a role in this church: the overwhelming abundance of and superior status attributed to their enthusiastic displays went beyond anything Paul had seen." (Betz, Anchor Bible Dictionary, V. 5, 197)
Paul decided to approach the Corinthian church by criticizing 'boasting' and traditional 'wisdom'. The theological approach in the letter is different from his previous letters.

According to most of what Paul's undisputed letters claim - he was not a sexist. He had female supporters, he had female leaders in charge of churches, he wrote letters to women, etc. One of the appealing qualities of Pauline christianity was it's equality - everyone was equal under Christ! Slave, freeman, man, woman, rich man, poor man, etc.
This changed later with the advent of anti-feminine forces in the evolving church. John Ruef comments on the 1st Corinthians passage as follows:

"The idea that women should be silent in the congregational assembly is in direct contradiction to Paul's statements concerning female prophets in 11:2-16 above. This in itself would be a good prima facie reason for suspecting an interpolation which represents more the thoughts behind I Tim. 2:11ff or Eph. 5:22.
Further, the continuity of thought between v. 33a and v. 36 is interrupted by vv. 33b-35." (Ruef, Paul's First Letter to Corinth, p.154)

So...
1: Direct contradiction to previous statements in the letter (11:2-16), and
2: The verses in question appear extremely out of place, and break up the chain of thought contextually. It's as if you are reading a story, then someone breaks in the room screaming something, and then the story continues as if nothing has occurred.

Ruef offers a few reasons why the verses could be considered authentic, but he is not convinced by them, and neither is the rest of scholarship - he is merely following the argument for authenticity out, and finding it lacking.
He concludes:

"The un-Pauline character, however, of the appeal to the law (v. 34), the contradiction implied with Paul's position with regard to the woman in marriage, and the fact that the argument as to what is shameful (v. 35) is quite out of line with the rest of the chapter, all point to non-Pauline authorship for this section." (ibid, p. 155)

So - this is one of the 'proof-texts' that scholars use to show that anti-female editors were monkeying around with various texts of the New Testament - for reasons that would take up a book, so won't be discussed here. One can consult many sources for information.
Now that you know the scholarship behind it, maybe you can see that:
- it doesn't show that religions are falacious
- it has nothing to do with inerrancy or inspiration, unles your only goal is to hunt out contradictions without bothering to research WHY there are contradictions
- it does not prove that christianity is nonsense
- it never even applied to the Corinthian Church of the time (seeing as it was interpolated much later)
- it was not a cultural aspect of the time of Paul's writing the letter, but of the later, specific branch of anti-female christianity
- I wouldn't consider Paul bone-headed from statements probably not written by him
- this verse in no way presents a standard of patriarchism of the time, only of a later group

So - anyways - research, research, research before jumping to conclusions! It can save a lot of trouble, and a lot of false results.

[Oakback]

It's my observation that many atheists defend against fundamentalist christian belief systems.
Many Christians reject fundamentalists dogma.

And fundamentalists are easy pic-kins.

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by Oakback

It's my observation that many atheists defend against fundamentalist christian belief systems.
Many Christians reject fundamentalists dogma.

And fundamentalists are easy pic-kins.

Yes - fundamentalists do not represent the majority of Christianity. That is easily forgotten by many people.

[Fred314X]

The quote from I Corinthians 14:34-35 is just another sterling example of Biblical cherry-picking. You can always find a quotation that manages to offend someone.

The usual example is Leviticus 20:13, "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall be put to death..."

If you don't have a problem with homosexuality, you certainly do with that verse!