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Women's Silence and Jewish Influence: The Problematic Origins of the Conjectural Emendation on 1 Cor 14.33b–35

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2019

Karin B. Neutel
Karin B. Neutel*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Blindernveien 9, 0371 Oslo, Norway. Email: k.b.neutel@teologi.uio.no
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Abstract

This article explores the origins of the conjectural emendation on 1 Cor 14.33b–35, first made in 1863 by Jan Willem Straatman. It shows that Straatman attributes the instruction on women's silence to Jewish influence and bases his view on a reconstruction of early Christianity in which Paul and his Gentile message were opposed by Jewish adversaries. This anti-Jewish tendency persisted in subsequent scholarship and has continued to characterise the understanding of this passage into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Keywords

1 Corinthiansnineteenth centuryanti-Judaismconjectural emendationgendertextual criticism
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 65 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 477 - 495
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank my colleagues in the project New Testament Conjectural Emendation: A Comprehensive Enquiry (VU University Amsterdam), Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Jan Krans and especially Bart Kamphuis, whose initial work on Straatman laid the foundation for this study.

References

1 The focus in this article is on the verses 33b–35, which was the scope of the first emendation on this passage. Other conjectures have also been proposed for these verses: Karl Holsten first suggested that 1 Cor 14.33b–36 is spurious (Das Evangelium des Paulus. Teil 1: Die äussere Entwicklungsgeschichte des paulinischen Evangeliums (Berlin: Reimer, 1880) 495–97Google Scholar); Wilhelm Bousset did the same for 1 Cor 14.34–5 (‘Der erste Brief an die Korinther’, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments neu übersetzt und für die Gegenwart erklärt, vol. ii: Die Briefe. Die johanneischen Schriften (ed. Weiss, J.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1907) 64–141, at 123–4Google Scholar. For the details of these conjectures and their reception, see The Amsterdam Database of New Testament Conjectural Emendation, http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/nt-conjectures. All biblical translations in this article follow the NRSV. The NRSV places verses 33b–36 between brackets; the opening bracket has been omitted here.

2 Already in 1898, Ellen Battelle Dietrick had rejected the authenticity of this and similar passages about women as ‘bare-faced forgeries, interpolated by unscrupulous bishops, during the early period in which a combined and determined effort was made to reduce women to silent submission, not only in the Church, but also in the home and in the State’. See ‘The Book of Acts’, The Woman's Bible, Part ii: Judges, Kings, Prophets and Apostles (ed. Stanton, E. C.; New York: European Publishing Company, 1898), 146–51, at 150–1Google Scholar (quotation from 150). The debate continues in many parts of the world, see e.g. S. O. Ademiluka, ‘1 Corinthians 14.33b–36 in light of women and church leadership in Nigeria’, Verbum et ecclesia 38/1 (2017), available at https://verbumetecclesia.org.za/index.php/ve/article/view/1672/3254, accessed 7 May 2019; and for a more recent Dutch discussion: https://cip.nl/58711-mogen-vrouwen-preken-dit-zijn-de-voors-en-tegens/FRgHUwQBUS1waxoRQBwZcRUUGQ.

3 Ryan Wettlaufer describes the dominant attitude towards conjectural emendation as ‘one of rejection, dismissal and condemnation’ (No Longer Written: The Use of Conjectural Emendation in the Restoration of the Text of the New Testament. The Epistle of James as a Case Study (Leiden: Brill, 2013) 14)Google Scholar. According to Joseph Fitzmyer, ‘the majority of commentators today’ see the verses as a ‘post-Pauline interpolation’ (First Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Yale: Yale University Press, 2008) 530)Google Scholar. Scholarly commentaries on 1 Corinthians that consider the passage to be an interpolation include Conzelmann, H. G., Der erste Brief an die Korinther übersetzt und erklärt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969) 289−90Google Scholar; Fee, G. D., The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) 699–702Google Scholar; Hays, R. B., First Corinthians (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997) 244Google Scholar; Horsley, R. A., 1 Corinthians (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1998) 188−9Google Scholar; Schrage, W., Der erste Brief an die Korinther (Zurich: Benziger, 1999) 479−501Google Scholar. Philip Payne has been one of the most vocal advocates for the interpolation hypothesis: see e.g. Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul's Letters (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009)Google Scholar; ‘Fuldensis, Sigla for Variants in Vaticanus, and 1 Cor 14.34–5’, NTS 41 (1995) 240–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and most recently ‘Vaticanus Distigme-Obelos Symbols Marking Added Text, Including 1 Corinthians 14.34–5’, NTS 63 (2017) 604−25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Payne's hypotheses about ‘distigmai’ and their significance are not undisputed, however; see e.g. J. Krans, ‘Paragraphos, Not Obelos, in Codex Vaticanus’, NTS (2019) 252–7. For a more detailed overview of the reception of the emendations proposed by Straatman, Holsten and Bousset, see The Amsterdam Database of New Testament Conjectural Emendation, http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/nt-conjectures. Since I am not concerned here with the validity of the emendation as such, but only with a particular aspect of its history, I refer in what follows only to those scholars who see the text as an interpolation and attribute it explicitly to a Jewish source or context.

4 Crüsemann, M., ‘Irredeemably Hostile to Women: Anti-Jewish Elements in the Exegesis of the Dispute about Women's Right to Speak (1 Cor 14.34–35)’, JSNT 79 (2000) 19–36, at 24Google Scholar.

5 Crüsemann, ‘Irredeemably Hostile’, 28.

6 Straatman's name occurs in connection with this conjecture in N13-NA27. The omission is, however, incorrectly listed as including only verses 14.34–5, rather than 14.33b–35. For a brief discussion of Straatman's conjecture, see Kamphuis, B., Krans, J. L. H., Castelli, S. and Peerbolte, B. J. L., ‘Sleepy Scribes and Clever Critics: A Classification of Conjectures on the Text of the New Testament’, NT 51 (2015) 72–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 See Buitenwerf-Van der Molen, M. F., God van vooruitgang: De popularisering van het modern-theologische gedachtegoed in Nederland (1857–1880) (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2007) 212Google Scholar; also Straatman's farewell address to his congregation: Broeders, ik bid u, gij hebt mij geen onrecht aangedaan: Afscheidswoord naar aanleiding van Gal 4. 12b (Groningen: L. van Giffen, 1867)Google Scholar.

8 The two earliest studies of Dutch Modernism (Brouwer, A. M., De modern richting: Eene historisch-dogmatische studie (Nijmegen: Firma H. ten Hoet, 1912Google Scholar) and Roessingh, K. H., Het modernisme in Nederland (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn, 1922)Google Scholar) do not mention Straatman. A more recent work does offer a few brief discussions, see Buitenwerf-Van der Molen, God van vooruitgang, 30, 77, 212.

9 See Kapic, K. M. and McCormack, B. L., eds., Mapping Modern Theology: A Thematic and Historical Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012) 1–18Google Scholar, which offers a detailed discussion of the origins and nature of European Modernism.

10 Bos, D., ‘“When Creed and Morals Rot …”: Orthodoxies versus Liberalism in the Nineteenth-Century Netherlands Reformed Church’, Orthodoxy, Liberalism and Adaption: Essays on Ways of Worldmaking in Times of Change from Biblical, Historical and Systematic Perspective (ed. Becking, B.; Leiden: Brill, 2011) 115–48, at 131–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Straatman, J. W., De realiteit van’s HEEREN opstanding uit de dooden en hare verdedigers: Een kritisch onderzoek kritisch onderzocht (Groningen: K. de Waard, 1862)Google Scholar. The subtitle translates as: ‘A Critical Examination Critically Examined’.

12 Straatman, De realiteit, 85–9.

13 Straatman, De realiteit, 95–6. The translations of Straatman's Dutch original throughout the article are mine.

14 Straatman, De realiteit, 95–6.

15 Straatman, De realiteit, 96.

16 Straatman, J. W., Kritische studiën over den 1en Brief van Paulus aan de Korinthiërs, vol. i: Hoofdstuk xi–xiv (Groningen: Van Giffen, 1863)Google Scholar; vol. ii: Hoofdstuk xv (Groningen: Van Giffen, 1865)Google Scholar. Whereas Straatman originally claimed that the entire opening of 1 Cor 15 was spurious (De realiteit, 85–9), he amends this slightly in his subsequent work Kritische studiën, where he argues that verses 1 and 2 are original but have suffered some alterations, while verses 3–11 constitute a later addition (Kritische studiën, ii.42, 57–218).

17 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.134.

18 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.iii–iv.

19 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.iv.

20 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.iv.

21 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.v.

22 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.v.

23 Straatman proposed emendations on 1 Cor 11.10, 11, 16, 18, 23–8; 12.2, 13; 13.3; 14.5, 10, 11, 13, 37; 2 Cor 6.14–7.1 and 1 Peter 3.1 (sometimes more than one emendation is suggested for these verses).

24 Straatman's Dutch contemporary Jan Hendrik Holwerda, for example, employed a more sophisticated methodology, as do scholars of the period such as Tischendorf, and Westcott and Hort (for Holwerda, see Kamphuis, B. L. F., New Testament Conjectural Emendation in the Nineteenth Century: Jan Hendrik Holwerda as a Pioneer of Method (Leiden: Brill, 2018), esp. 104–8Google Scholar; for Westcott and Hort, see Hull, R. F. Jr., The Story of the New Testament Text: Movers, Materials, Motives, Methods, and Models (Atlanta: SBL, 2010) 72–5, 88–108Google Scholar. According to Kamphuis, Straatman ‘simply seems to lack overview of the scholarly developments in his day’ (New Testament Conjectural Emendation, 10).

25 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.11.

26 See Kamphuis et al., ‘Sleepy Scribes’, 78, 88.

27 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.134.

28 Elsewhere Straatman appears to cite the text as found in the Textus Receptus, although he does not generally state which text he chooses, and mentions this in passing only once (see Kritische studiën, i.64). His motives for choosing the Vaticanus text in this case are not made explicit, but doing so does allow him to claim that both the Textus Receptus and Tischendorf have ‘many deviations’ from the text as presented. Since several of these deviations are common to the two, starting from the Textus Receptus would have created less of a messy picture.

29 In contrast to NA28, the version cited here has a comma after ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις in verse 33 and in verse 35 lacks ἐστιν before γυναικί.

30 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.134–5.

31 Ambrosiaster is the earliest known witness to this textual tradition, which also includes Codex Claromontanus, Codex Reginensis and Codex Sangermanensis. For a discussion of the textual evidence, see C. Niccum, who concludes that the transposition is the product of a local text (‘The Voice of the Manuscripts on the Silence of Women: The External Evidence for 1 Cor 14.34–5’, NTS 43 (1997) 242–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

32 Bousset discusses the transposition to argue for his emendation on verses 34–5 (‘Der erste Brief an die Korinther’, 123–4) and it has since become an important argument.

33 Tischendorf's apparatus in the maior here reads ‘34. 35. DEFG 93. it Ambrst Sedul hos v v. post v. 40. pon. Similiter fuvict vv. 36–40. ante 34. adscripsit nec tamen post delevit’, 363). This indicates that several manuscripts, such as the Codex Claromontanus (D), Cantabrigiensis (E), Fuldensis (F) and Sangermanensis (G), as well as Ambrosiaster, all place verses 34–5 after verse 40. See also Niccum, ‘The Voice of the Manuscripts’, 242–55.

34 In order to reconcile Straatman's emendation with the transposition of verses 34–5, Jan Hendrik Adolf Michelsen suggests that 33b and 34–5 were added to the letter in a two-step process (‘Coniecturaal-kritiek toegepast op den tekst van de Schriften des Nieuwen Verbonds’, STT 7 (1881) 137–72Google Scholar).

35 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.135.

36 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.135.

37 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.136.

38 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.136.

39 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.137.

40 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.138.

41 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.138.

42 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.138.

43 See e.g. the discussion in Fitzer, G., Das Weib schweige in der Gemeinde: Über den unpaulinischen Charakter der mulier-taceat-Verse in 1. Korinther 14 (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1963) 6–35Google Scholar; Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 699–702; Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 529.

44 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.3.

45 Straatman proposed, among other things, that the congregation would no longer perform baptisms, or celebrate the Eucharist, and Christian feast days (Buitenwerf-Van der Molen, God van vooruitgang, 212).

46 Straatman, Kritische studiën, ii.143.

47 Straatman, Kritische studiën, ii.144.

48 Straatman, Kritische studiën, i.8–9, quoting Baur, F. C., Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi: Sein Leben und Wirken, seine Briefe und seine Lehre (Stuttgart: Becher und Müller, 1845) 636Google Scholar.

49 Baur develops this view especially in his works ‘Die Christuspartei in der korinthischen Gemeinde’, Zeitschrift für Theologie 4 (1831) 61–206Google Scholar, Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi, and Das Christentum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (Tübingen: L. F. Fues, 1853)Google Scholar.

50 White, B. L., Remembering Paul: Ancient and Modern Contests over the Image of the Apostle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 For a discussion of the origins of Baur's concept of Jewish Christianity, see Lincicum, D., ‘F.C. Baur's Place in the Study of Jewish Christianity’, The Rediscovery of Jewish Christianity: From Toland to Baur (ed. Jones, F. S.; Atlanta: SBL, 2012) 137–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Campbell, W. S., Paul and the Creation of Christian Identity (London: T&T Clark, 2008) 16–17Google Scholar.

52 White, Remembering Paul, 27.

53 Gerdmar, A., ‘Baur and the Creation of the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy’, Ferdinand Christian Baur und die Geschichte des frühen Christentums (ed. Bauspiess, M., Landmesser, C. and Lincicum, D.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014) 107–28, at 124–5Google Scholar; see also Hester, C. E., ‘Baurs Anfänge in Blaubeuren’, Historisch-kritische Geschichtsbetrachtung: Ferdinand Christian Baur und seine Schüler (ed. Köpf, U.; Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1994) 67–82Google Scholar.

54 Gerdmar, ‘Baur’, 124–5.

55 Baur analyses the apologetic origin of the book of Acts and its consequences for the portrayal of Paul's attitude to the law in the introduction to Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi. See also Mount, C., Pauline Christianity: Luke-Acts and the Legacy of Paul (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 1–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Straatman, Kritische studiën, ii.187.

57 Straatman, Kritische studiën, ii.74.

58 Straatman, Kritische studiën, ii.188.

59 Van Manen, W. C., Conjecturaal-kritiek toegepast op den tekst van de Schriften des Nieuwen Testaments (Haarlem: Bohn, 1880) 149Google Scholar (translation mine).

60 Van Manen, Conjecturaal-kritiek, 149 (translation mine).

61 Van De Sande Bakhuyzen, W. H., Over de toepassing van de conjecturaal-kritiek op den tekst des Nieuwen Testaments (Haarlem: Bohn, 1880) 259–60Google Scholar.

62 Pro: Maronier, J. H., De inrichting der christelijke gemeenten, voor het ontstaan der Katholieke kerk (Haarlem: Bohn, 1874) 156–5Google Scholar; Van Manen, Conjecturaal-kritiek, 149; Michelsen, ‘Coniecturaal-kritiek’, 137–72; Schmiedel, P. W., Die Briefe an die Thessalonicher und an die Korinther (Freiburg: Mohr Siebeck, 1891) 150Google Scholar. Contra: Gronemeijer, C. F., ‘Zijn er in 1 Cor xiv verscheidene interpolatiën te vinden?’, Godgeleerde Bijdragen 40 (1866) 970–82, at 971, 976Google Scholar; Rovers, M. A. N., ‘Die Anwendung der Conjectural-Kritik auf den Text der neutestamentlichen Schriften’, ZWT 24 (1881) 385–408Google Scholar. Discussion: Van De Sande Bakhuyzen, Over de toepassing, 259–60; Baljon, J. M. S., De tekst der brieven van Paulus aan de Romeinen, de Corinthiërs en de Galatiërs als voorwerp van de conjecturaalkritiek beschouwd (Utrecht: Kemink & Zoon, 1884) 97–101Google Scholar. See also The Amsterdam Database of New Testament Conjectural Emendation, http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/nt-conjectures.

63 Moore, S. D. and Sherwood, Y., The Invention of the Biblical Scholar: A Critical Manifesto (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011) 70Google Scholar.

64 Holsten, Das Evangelium des Paulus, 495–97; Bousset, ‘Der erste Brief an die Korinther’, 123–4. Bousset leaves out verse 33b from the conjecture, because of the transposition of verses 34–5.

65 According to Anders Gerdman, Bousset's historiography contains ‘open and frequently aired prejudice towards Jews and Judaism, which reflects the spirit of his age’ (Gerdman, A., Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann (Leiden: Brill, 2009) 161CrossRefGoogle Scholar). On the enduring influence of the anti-Jewish frame of reference of this period on New Testament scholarship, see also Casey, M., ‘Some Anti-Semitic Assumptions in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament’, NovT 41 (1999) 280–91Google Scholar.

66 Fitzer, Das Weib schweige, 5.

67 Fitzer, Das Weib schweige, 39.

68 Dautzenberg, G., Urchristliche Prophetie: Ihre Erforschung, ihre Voraussetzungen im Judentum und ihre Struktur im ersten Korintherbrief (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1975) 260Google Scholar.

69 Dautzenberg, Urchristliche Prophetie, 260.

70 Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 699–708.

71 Strobel, A., Der erste Brief an die Korinther (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1989) 223Google Scholar.

72 Jewett, R., Paul, Apostle to America: Cultural Trends and Pauline Scholarship (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 54–6Google Scholar.

73 Jewett, Paul, Apostle to America, 56.

74 See https://godswordtowomen.org/Preato2.htm; www.womenpriests.org/scriptur/1cor14.asp.

75 See Crüsemann, ‘Irredeemably Hostile’, 24–7.