marginal inspiration and inerrancy in the NET Bible
Ken Schenck has been blogging about 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and the ministry of women. He points out that although he doesn’t think that these verses are in the original, we don’t need to prove that to allow women to minister in church. At least, that’s how I read his recent post.
I finally resolved the issue in this way. Evangelical exegesis suggests that these two verses were in the margin of the text. However, they are still accepted as inspired. This, of course, causes a total shift in our view of God. He doesn’t know ahead of time what he is going to say, and needs to go back and add notes in the margin, just to deal with the sticky problem of women.
Here is the note in the NET Bible,
Some scholars have argued that vv. 34-35 should be excised from the text (principally G. D. Fee, First Corinthians [NICNT], 697-710; P. B. Payne, “Fuldensis, Sigla for Variants in Vaticanus, and 1 Cor 14.34-5,” NTS 41 [1995]: 240-262). This is because the Western witnesses (D F G ar b vgms Ambst) have these verses after v. 40, while the rest of the tradition retains them here. There are no mss that omit the verses. Why, then, would some scholars wish to excise the verses? Because they believe that this best explains how they could end up in two different locations, that is to say, that the verses got into the text by way of a very early gloss added in the margin. Most scribes put the gloss after v. 33; others, not knowing where they should go, put them at the end of the chapter.
Fee points out that “Those who wish to maintain the authenticity of these verses must at least offer an adequate answer as to how this arrangement came into existence if Paul wrote them originally as our vv. 34-35” (First Corinthians [NICNT], 700). In a footnote he adds, “The point is that if it were already in the text after v. 33, there is no reason for a copyist to make such a radical transposition.” Although it is not our intention to interact with proponents of the shorter text in any detail here, a couple of points ought to be made.
(1) Since these verses occur in all witnesses to 1 Corinthians, to argue that they are not original means that they must have crept into the text at the earliest stage of transmission.
How early? Earlier than when the pericope adulterae (John 7:53-8:11) made its way into the text (late 2nd, early 3rd century?), earlier than the longer ending of Mark (16:9-20) was produced (early 2nd century?), and earlier than even “in Ephesus” was added to Eph 1:1 (upon reception of the letter by the first church to which it came, the church at Ephesus) – because in these other, similar places, the earliest witnesses do not add the words. This text thus stands as remarkable, unique. Indeed, since all the witnesses have the words, the evidence points to them as having been inserted into the original document.
Who would have done such a thing? And, further, why would scribes have regarded it as original since it was obviously added in the margin? This leads to our second point.
(2) Following a suggestion made by E. E. Ellis (“The Silenced Wives of Corinth (I Cor. 14:34-5),” New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis, 213-20 [the suggestion comes at the end of the article, almost as an afterthought]), it is likely that Paul himself added the words in the margin. Since it was so much material to add, Paul could have squelched any suspicions by indicating that the words were his (e.g., by adding his name or some other means [cf. 2 Thess 3:17]). This way no scribe would think that the material was inauthentic. (Incidentally, this is unlike the textual problem at Rom 5:1, for there only one letter was at stake; hence, scribes would easily have thought that the “text” reading was original. And Paul would hardly be expected to add his signature for one letter.)
(3) What then is to account for the uniform Western tradition of having the verses at the end of the chapter? Our conjecture (and that is all it is) is that the scribe of the Western Vorlage could no longer read where the verses were to be added (any marginal arrows or other directional device could have been smudged), but, recognizing that this was part of the original text, felt compelled to put it somewhere. The least offensive place would have been at the end of the material on church conduct (end of chapter 14), before the instructions about the resurrection began. Although there were no chapter divisions in the earliest period of copying, scribes could still detect thought breaks (note the usage in the earliest papyri).
(4) The very location of the verses in the Western tradition argues strongly that Paul both authored vv. 34-35 and that they were originally part of the margin of the text. Otherwise, one has a difficulty explaining why no scribe seemed to have hinted that these verses might be inauthentic (the scribal sigla of codex B, as noticed by Payne, can be interpreted otherwise than as an indication of inauthenticity [cf. J. E. Miller, “Some Observations on the Text-Critical Function of the Umlauts in Vaticanus, with Special Attention to 1 Corinthians 14.34-35,” JSNT 26 [2003]: 217-36.). There are apparently no mss that have an asterisk or obelisk in the margin. Yet in other places in the NT where scribes doubted the authenticity of the clauses before them, they often noted their protest with an asterisk or obelisk. We are thus compelled to regard the words as original, and as belonging where they are in the text above.
I take this note as saying that there is no doubt that these verses were in the margin. In addition, there is no doubt that Paul wrote them. What then is inspiration? Does God inspire marginal notes? Why? Why does God deal with women in marginal notes here, and in 1 Tim. 2:12 with vocabulary not used anywhere else in the Bible? It makes me feel absolutely queasy that God would deal with women in this way. Are we not also human? No, I don’t think so, when I read notes like this. I am so tired of Christian men constantly producing scholarship which has the sole purpose of diminishing women. I always feel a little ill after reading the notes from this Bible.
Hi Suzanne – do you see another possible reading – as here and elsewhere in the letter, Paul is quoting the Corinthian correspondence. John Hurd has a very good analysis of this with respect to other passages in the letter but I can’t find a direct reference to an ironic reading for this passage. It certainly works to read it with some irony. That would also explain the margin – the amanuensis writing notes on what Paul was replying to.
John C Hurd – The Origin of 1 Corinthians SPCK 1965
John C. Hurd – The Origin of 1 Corinthians – SPCK 1965
John C. Hurd – The Origin of 1 Corinthians – SPCK 1965 (3rd try at posting this comment)
Yes, John Hurd’s commentary points out that 1 Corinthians was interlaced with quotations and this is most likely one of them. But then why is it in the margin. If it is a quotation, like many other phrases in this book, why only this one in the margin? The argument would not make sense if the quotation was left out.
So, it is possible, but does not interact with the evidence that these verses were in the margin.
Another reason why some of us may resist considering it a quotation is that I am not sure that there was a “law” that women were to be silent in Judaism. Franky, it seems that there were liberating strands in Judaism, Roman customs, and Christianity as well as legalism in all three. We always want the bad stuff to belong to somebody else’s religion, but in fact, there is good and bad across the spectrum.
Well, NET editors have an argument. To be sure, it is not a very compelling argument, but at least the editors briefly summarized the reasoning of their opponents, and then briefly gave their own argument, so that a critical reader could decide the issue for herself. That’s better than many study Bibles which simply make assertions in the footnotes without support or ignore opposing views.
But, it does seem that the editors are more motivated by ideology than an open-minded, fair examination of the evidence.
Bob, I’m still not sure why your messages keep getting marked as spam. The account you used for your first comment, though, seems to not be triggering the false labeling as spam.
Suzanne, I love your questions! And this post where you ask them.
Willis Barnstone, who hardly has as some do any of the hang ups about trying to reconcile this text to something God would have inspired that would be inerrant, does some odd things to “restore” it in translation. But his footnote is rather instructive:
This made me sputter and laugh out loud.
A very interesting post, though, Suzanne. I had no idea of the marginalia hypothesis.
For comparison, here’s the note from the NABRE:
Here is my question. If these two verses were originally in the margin, then how could they be a citation of some preceding Jewish law? That would mean that the following verse did not related back to the two previous verses. Here it is,
“Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached?”
How could this be a repudiation of verses 34 and 35 if they were not in the original document?
I think the text makes sense (maybe even makes better sense) if those verses are omitted, because then v36 is a pointed culmination of the admonishment that those given the gift of prophecy should yield to one another.
Here’s the passage with those verses omitted:
It seems to me that the location of the verses could indicate that someone put them in the margin, and they were afterwards assumed to be Paul’s because of human bias– the scribes wanted them to be in the text. Or they could have been written by Paul in that location, with his refutation occurring immediately afterwards– and someone moved them because they couldn’t believe Paul put them there only to refute them. What it comes down to is that the scribes wanted these words to be in the text as prohibitions against women speaking. It’s the same mentality that accepts hoaxes because they’re in line with what one wants to believe.
So, are there any other cases where verses are present in all witnesses but in different places? Or are these verses unique in that respect?
There is the ending of Mark and the pericope adulterae, and some textual differences at the end of Romans 16. Here is are the differences for Romans 16:23-27
1. 24 omitted but verses 25-27 present 23 25-27
2. 24 placed after verses 25-27 23 25-27 24
3. 24 present but verses 25-27 omitted 23 24
4. 24 placed before verses 25-27 23 24 25-27
So Romans has two endings: either v. 24 (benediction) or vs. 25-27 (doxology). A basic fact about 16:24 is that “the verse is omitted in the earliest and most important MSS” (Moo 933).
So this is different from 1 Cor. 14:34-35 since they are omitted in no manuscripts, but appear in two different locations, which is supposed to indicate that they were not in the original text.