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Recasting Paul as a Chauvinist within the Western Text-Type Manuscript Tradition: Implications for the Authorship Debate on 1 Corinthians 14.34-35
Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications
  • Joseph A. P. Wilson, Sacred Heart University
Document Type
Peer-Reviewed Article
Publication Date
1-1-2022
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.

Comments

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

DOI
10.3390/rel13050432
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Citation Information

Wilson, J. 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(5), 432. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050432