Persio-American War: the Contractors

One angle of this upcoming war I haven't mentioned is the role that so-called Defense Contractors play. As far back as 1961, President Eisenhower warned against the "Military-Industrial Complex." The Revolving Door practice, by which Defense Department jobs are filled with ex-Contractor employees, and ex-Defense Department workers pick up lush jobs at a Contractor, is well known. Thus it is inevitable that the Military-Industrial Complex will have a say in every war. And indeed, if it has any say it all, it will say that War is Good for Business.

I remember back in the late 1980's, when the veterans of America's last big war were starting to die off, and the veterans of America's last military conflict were starting to retire. There seemed to be no more role for the Army--all military engagements were being carried out by special forces, Marines, or the Navy. Pundits mused that the age of the large-scale battlefield was over. Then along came the invasion of Iraq, and once again the armies took to the field. Officers who had cut their teeth in Vietnam, serving under generals who had WWII experience, were now the generals. New Officers were earning the Combat Badges they would need to compete for promotion. The cycle of war, which ensures that everyone will have the chance to see combat at least once in a military career, came back around despite the Pundits' musings.

That was 20 years ago. For two decades, American forces have been facing hostile fire in one theater or another. Although downsized after the Cold War, the Standing Army has not gone away altogether. But since the conquest of Iraq in 2003, there has been no all-out war to put a large army to use. Worse yet, there has been no all-out war to put to use the hugely expensive armaments put out by the Military-Industrial Complex.

What America needs, it seems, is a war that will make full use of its Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. There hasn't been one now for 65 years--nearly a mortal lifetime. With the Cold War over, it's hard to justify the submarines, the supersonic fighters, the nuclear bombers--the ballistic missiles. But the Military-Industrial Complex is quite eager to justify them, because even if they aren't its bread and butter, they come very close to its bottom line.

A war with Iran would mean lots of business for the Military-Industrial Complex. As opposed as President Obama is to war, Contractors will eventually pressure him to change his mind. But I don't see this happening real soon. America is not likely to initiate a war against Iran without proof that it has already developed an atomic weapon. Since this is likely to happen within a year, even by the US Government's admission, that provides a terminus ad quem for the start of the war: somewhere between the 21st anniversary of Operation Desert Shield and the 10th anniversary of Operation Enduring Freedom.

First shots already fired

Israel hasn't attacked Iran yet. Iran hasn't attacked Israel yet. But behind the scenes, both are feverishly preparing for war.

Having had little success in the helicopter-attack route, Israel is preparing to give over to the US the responsibility for taking out Iran's nuclear sites housed deep in caves. The US is moving missiles into position at the Talil Air Force Base in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Israeli submarine force has take up position in the Arabian Sea, also armed with missiles. The opening salvos of this war will likely be missiles fired in synchronization--whichever side uses them first will have the advantage. If Iran, several US warships are going to head for the bottom of the Persian Gulf. If the US and Israel, Iran's nuclear capability is going to be set back several years in just a few seconds.

This synchronization, as far as Israel is concerned, is coming at a price. Israel has agreed to let the US take the lead for now, given the at least half-hearted assurance that the US will not let Iran develop The Bomb. This means that an Israeli first strike in the next few weeks or even months is increasingly unlikely--especially as the US takes a more and more belligerent stance itself.

Iran, on the other hand, has already taken the lead in moving ahead, and Syria is stepping up to follow. Syria, the last big holdout in making peace with Israel, is getting prepared to open up a northern front in Galilee as soon as hostilities break out. In a sense, the first shots have already been fired: An Israeli spy drone was recently shot down over Syria.

Meanwhile, Hamas is gearing up for a major offensive beginning this week, regardless of what happens between Israel and Iran.

And don't forget the Yemeni front: Iran is backing the Shia rebels in that country. How much of a role they will be able to play in throwing a monkey wrench into the works remains to be seen, but it's in Iran's interests to be able to close off both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to oil tankers.

And what the Iranian Navy most hopes to block these straits with are the sunken hulks of US warships. Their new missile boats are now deployed and able to swim circles around a destroyer or cruiser. All it takes is multiple missiles fired in sync to defeat the US Close-in Weapons System missile defense.

Although they are more ready now than their adversaries, time is still on Iran's side. While the US drags its feet, every day puts Iran closer to having one or two operational A-bombs. But neither side is quite ready to start the shooting. It looks like it's going to come down to whomever's ready first.

I'm glad I bought 30 gallons of gas before the price went up 20¢, but it's headed a whole lot higher. And there will soon be another Gulf Oil Spill to worry about.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35: an interpolation? Part VII, So What?

We have looked both at the manuscript evidence and the record of church history in order to answer the question,

Is 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 an interpolation?

The apparent answer, in both cases, is No.

But does it really make any difference?

It didn't made any difference 1800 years ago when Tertullian first quoted this passage. Even then, heretics were going ahead and ordaining woman preachers, maugre 1 Corinthians 14 and maugre 1 Timothy 2. And so they continue to do to this day. 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is sufficient to keep women from serving as bishops, so shepherdess-ordainers who accept it as Scripture must weasel their way out of its prohibitions, regardless of what they think of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35.

But how about those who hold to the traditional interpretation and application of 1 Timothy 2--does it make any difference to them if 1 Cor 14:34-35 is really Scripture or not? For most such people, it really doesn't. They accept 1 Timothy 2 and apply it as if 1 Cor 14 never existed. Certain it is that their women would consider it no sin to whisper a question to their husbands, nor a command to their children, while sitting in the assembly. I know of some women who actually come close to literally applying this passage--but even they speak freely during the church service, provided they're in the sheltered confines of the church nursery. And even in the auditorium, they think nothing of lifting up their voices in song along with the rest of the congregation. For all practical purposes, most Christians live as though 14:34-35 were a marginal note in Paul's autograph of his first letter to the Corinthians that was removed once it was joined to 2 Timothy in a single volume.

Does it make any difference to anybody whether or not 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is removed from the English Bible? As one who believes in both the divine inspiration and profitable applicability of every word of Scripture, I maintain that it does.

Post-Reformation Christians are known for rejecting all the books of Maccabees--yeah, the Apocrypha entire--on the basis of one verse, 2 Maccabees 12:44--

For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead.

Prayer for the dead--heresy! Therefore the Apocrypha cannot be inspired Scripture. It's a massive interpolation, as it were, wedged in between the Testaments.

There are some problems with this view. First of all, what Paul wrote in the very next chapter after the famous passage under review differs very little. 1 Cor. 15:29--

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

So far all the manuscripts agree. And the church fathers, who were so unanimous in accepting 1 Cor. 14:34-35 as Scripture? Well, they were just as lief to look to the currently rejected books for answers on this topic as to those universally considered canonical.

Ambrose, for example, had all 14 chapters in his copy of Daniel--and he specifically called 'scripture' those parts now rejected. In deciding what the Bible teaches about the afterlife, he turned to 4 Esdras, an apocryphal book that Jerome included in the Vulgate, but which never even existed in the Septuagint. And the story of Susanna in the apocryphal section of Daniel was the source of a lot of controversy. Julius Africanus denied its canonicity on the basis that Daniel could not possibly have written it; Origen, in response, defended it as inspired Scripture whose origin was just hard to explain. Furthermore, he was convinced that the reason it wasn't in any Hebrew copies was that the Hebrew elders had deliberately taken it out--the very sort of argument advanced by those who now defend Acts 8:37 as inspired, preserved Scripture.

So what are we to do? If 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 isn't an interpolation, then how do we know that The Story of Susanna isn't either? On what grounds do we reject IV Esdras and 2 Maccabees? Whatever we find universally present in the earliest Greek manuscripts, and universally accepted by the patristic writers, is immune from rejection as canonical--or so the theory goes, but only for the New Testament.

Leading the Post-Reformation Christians, Luther referred to the apocryphal sections of the Old Testament as 'wildflowers' that needed to be uprooted from the canon and transplanted in a special garden adjacent, so as to be of benefit to the reader, but not to serve as a final appeal to authority. And thus the Apocrypha continued to be translated, along with the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Scriptures, all the way up to their revision for publication in the King James Bible of 1611. And how were the Apocryphal scriptures distinguished from the sacred canon? Well, the litmus test was whether or not they were included in the Hebrew Bible.

And thus it is to this day. On the sole basis of its inclusion in the Hebrew Bible, 1 Samuel 13:1 escapes condemnation as an interpolation. Better to wrest it all out of its true shape than to admit it was never in the original text. But why? Would it not be better by far to be guided by common sense as well as rabbinical tradition? If its absence in multiple Greek copies was finally enough to banish the 'na' of Manasseh to the margin, what forbids us from using the same rationale to remove an attempted Who's Who on the Israeli Throne entry for King Saul?

It's high time that Bible translators started practicing their textual criticism on a level field of play. What's good in the New Testament ought to be good enough in the Old. If it took great caution to follow the minority reading of Codex Alexandrinus at Judges 18:30, where was that caution at Revelation 5:9? If the Masoretic Text was so wrong in omitting Joshua 21:36-37, how could it be so right in adding 1 Samuel 13:1?

It appears (e.g. in the TNIV) that Bible Translators have already begun the process of moving 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 to the bottom margin, where it will join the nun in Judges 18:30. Let them do so--what difference, after all, does it make for most anyone who reads it? But while they're at it, there are a whole lot of verses in the Old Testament far more deserving of the same treatment.

Is or is not 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 an interpolation? There is yet one hypothesis which I haven't yet brought forward, which answers the question with a resounding YES.

Remember this hypothesis?

1. After having penned First Corinthians, Paul went back over it and added this comment as an explanatory note in the margin--much as do people today who pen letters on lined paper. When Paul's Epistles were collected into a single book, the marginal note was left out.

Well, it's wrong on two counts.

In the first place, Paul didn't pen the letter, he only signed it:

The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand. --16:21

And, Paul would no more have included such an audacious passage in his margin than in his text.

We don't know who wrote the letter for Paul, but it seems to have been his co-author Sosthenes. The only other mention of Sosthenes in the Bible is in Acts 18:17, where he is mentioned as the ruler of the Corinthian synagogue who got beat up in court--literally. Aha, obviously Sosthenes is now traveling with Paul as a fellow missionary, and Paul has enrolled his help in sending a letter back home. The letter had already gone overlong, so there wasn't any room for individual greetings (on this web page, Rendel Harris provides evidence that all of the epistles ended "at the bottom of the page"; this accounts for the somewhat "oh, and one more thing--and another--and one more" nature of some epistles)*. Sosthenes, however, was able to fit in one personal message--but he had to put it in the margin of ch. 14. For an example of this sort of thing, observe this postscript to Origin's letter to Julius Africanus, referenced above:

My lord and dear brother Ambrosius, who has written this at my dictation, and has, in looking over it, corrected as he pleased, salutes you. His faithful spouse, Marcella, and her children, also salute you. Also Anicetus. Do you salute our dear father Apollinarius, and all our friends.

Sosthenes, remember, is a former synagogue ruler. He knows the teachings of the rabbis about the need for silent women. He was used to them being excluded from the life of the synagogue. He fondly remembers how much more orderly things were back in the day, before his parishioners found liberty in Christ. So, as co-author, he feels quite free to go back over the letter after Paul is done dictating it, and adds a few choice comments in the margin. Off goes the letter to Corinth, and the church listens with stunned silence as it is read to them. They go to work implementing the commands in the letter, and the congregation becomes much more orderly as a result.

At this point we hear no more of Sosthenes. Apparently he went back to Corinth and helped implement what Paul and he had commanded in the letter.

Comes news back to Paul, and he realizes that they were over-reacting to his epistle in some areas, and under-reacting in others. He writes back that they should receive back the repentant member, but stop being yoked with unbelievers. He rebukes them for scoffing at the requirements in his letters, and reminds them that he really does mean what he wrote. He hurriedly wraps up this second letter--another one of record length--mentioning his intention to clear up the rest of the problems when he gets there himself. But before he can, the record ends--we hear no more of the Corinthian church from the pages of Scripture.

Why then, despite the virtually unanimous external evidence, do I reject 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as Scripture? Well, because I subject it to the same test by which I reject any apocryphal passage, maugre the manuscripts, maugre the church fathers: it doesn't fit with the general teachings of the rest of the Bible, and the rest of the Bible is better off without it. Let's look at a few points:

1) It claims to be quoting the law, but nowhere in prior Scripture is there any mention that women have to be under submission in a way that forbids them speaking in an assembly. One has to look to the Talmud for such a teaching, and the Talmud has no place in the Christian canon.

2) It makes something shameful that is not shameful. What could possibly be shameful about women singing the ladies' parts of a congregational song? How can it not be shameful for a woman to compose a song (careful here--several such are in the canon), but shameful for a woman to sing it in front of anyone? Absolute silence mandated upon all Christian women is totally foreign to Paul's Corinthian depiction of the body of Christ, where every part plays a vital role. It doesn't even fit the teaching of the chapter it is in, where both men and women are to sit in silence until the person who has something to say is done speaking.

3) It puts a ridiculous demand on women. How is a woman to pray, or ask for prayer, without speaking out in the assembly? How is she to play the catechumen at the baptismal font, without confessing with her mouth? And what of the widows, who have no husband to ask at home? What about Lydia of Philippi, who, possibly along with Nympha of Colosse, is the spiritual leader of her home? What of Priscilla, whose husband may well have questions to ask of her? There is nothing of divine inspiration here-; nothing of practical applicability. To find anything of either, we must wrest it like the Masoretes wrested 1 Samuel 13:1, to the point where we may as well have dispensed with it entirely. Women can no more fulfill what these verses demand than men or women can keep all of what Paul elsewhere darkly refers to as 'the law'. Whoever penned these verses fits the grim profile of those of whom Paul warned Timothy only a chapter earlier than his only other mention of the silence of women:

Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.

So, I read 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as apocrypha: not as the canonical teaching of Paul, but as the misguided instructions of a neophyte that, like other uninspired, apocryphal writings, was universally accepted as authoritative by the early church.

Let those who argue for the canonicity of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 continue to read it in their Bibles. But I dare them to actually try applying it. And while they are at it, they may as well take up praying for the dead.

Now, what became of Sosthenes' marginal note in Paul's letter? Well, he probably saw to it that it was always included in copies of the letter that were made available to other churches. It's a wonder if any copies at all emerged without it, and scribes who passed on the copies of the autograph dutifully included it--some moving it out of the margin into one spot, some into another--but evidence, however tangential, has nonetheless come down through the centuries of an awareness that 14:34-35 did not represent the teaching of Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. An awareness I hope will increase, so that those of us who believe and apply 1 Timothy 2:11-12 don't overshoot the mark by clumsily trying to believe and apply 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as well.

*Nowadays, we purchase legal pads or spiral bound notebooks in which to pen our thoughts. Back in the Apostle's day, what they used were rolls of papyrus. Rather than tearing a sheet off the pad or out of the notebook, the author used a knife to cut off the written-on papyrus and roll it up into a scroll of its own. Thus it was most economical of space to end an epistle at the bottom of a column--or what we would think of now as the end of a page. Since scrolls were typically only written on the inside surface, that left the outer surface for addresses, delivery instructions, and, later on, a summary of the contents for ease of identification by the owner. The scroll would then be sealed shut with wax to keep it from being read until it was delivered.















 

Part VI, The Answers: The Patristic Evidence (in the series: Is 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 an interpolation?)

Given that at least identifiable fragments of this passage are present in the text of two early papyrus manuscripts, and that it's even present in both the favoured mss of Westcott and Hort--which leave out hundreds of phrases, whole verses, and passages of several verses--it's extremely difficult for anyone to imagine how it could have originally been absent from the text of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. And yet this very notion is a growing belief among textual critics: that a church which had grown and flourished for over a century would gradually accept such a tradition-altering passage into their Bibles.

Anyone who hypothesises that this passage is an interpolation has to account for two things: firstly, how it got into the text following verse 33, and secondly, how it got into the text following verse 40. These are two separate processes, which are typically joined to the single hypothesis that it started out as a marginal note. Depending on when they believe the note was first penned, additional hypotheses will be needed to explain why, when the note left the margin, it found its way into the text of every single surviving copy.

Given the textual and historical evidence, there are at least three possible theories to account for the presence of this passage as interpolated into the text of First Corinthians chapter 14:

1. After having penned First Corinthians, Paul went back over it and added this comment as an explanatory note in the margin--much as do people today who pen letters on lined paper. When Paul's Epistles were collected into a single book, the marginal note was left out, perhaps because the same ground was already covered by 1 Timothy 2:12. This archetype was the source of the hypothesized manuscripts that didn't contain the passage, including those read by the long list of early patristic writers who don't appear to have commented on it. From the autograph, some copies got the note inserted into the text after v. 33, from which descended all but 3 extant Greek copies, and some got the note inserted after v. 40, from which descended most of the Latin copies and GA-915. Any other copies made directly from the autograph have gone extinct, although a slight trace remains in the text of Greek minuscule 88 and the margins of Codex Vaticanus and the Latin Codex Fuldensis.

2. The editor who compiled Paul's epistles into the archetype of the non-Latin manuscripts added the interpolation, probably first as a marginal note to synchronise 1 Corinthians 14 with 1 Timothy 2. Some subsequent copyists moved the marginal note into the text of the manuscript from which descended most copies extant today. Another editor moved it into the text of the archetype of the Latin family of manuscripts, but at a location slightly farther down the page. At least one Greek manuscript, along with one Latin manuscript, was copied from an exemplar that lacked the note in the text: once with the shortened version in the text, the other with it in the margin.

3. The interpolation began as a marginal note in a Latin manuscript, and was subsequently translated into Greek for the Greek side of several different diglots--resulting in the variety of readings. It was separately moved into the text in the Latin stream following v. 40, and in the Greek stream following v. 33. Although widely used by Christians in the late second century, manuscripts without the interpolation were suppressed and eliminated from the transmission stream by church leaders who felt a need to keep women in their place. Part of this process was the destruction of all manuscripts that had the note from the margin but not in the text.

All of these theories have serious problems. The main problem is that of all the controversial passages we've studied--in which some Greek manuscripts contain them and some omit them--we can go back to the patristic writers and see signs of the same controversy raging as far back in history as our oldest collection of the entire New Testament reaches--around the dawn of the 5th century. Any writer who advocated inclusion of one of these passages would nonetheless concede that many scribes left it out. But when we look for a textual discussion of this passage, we find it entirely wanting, though we find at least ten citations of it in the patristic writings, from Origen to Augustine. What we find instead is that every writer either failed to take note of this prohibition, or cited it as being fully authoritative Scripture, whether he was able to easily make sense of it or not.

Tertullian, writing sometime around the turn of the 3rd century, referred to this passage in the context of expounding on First Corinthians 11-14. Although clearly uncomfortable with it, he nonetheless feels duty bound to quote it as Scripture.

Against Marcion Book 5 Chapter 8:

on the subject of the superiority of love above all these gifts, He even taught the apostle that it was the chief commandment, just as Christ has shown it to be: “Thou shalt love the Lord with all thine heart and soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thine own self.” When he mentions the fact that “it is written in the law,” how that the Creator would speak with other tongues and other lips [v.21], whilst confirming indeed the gift of tongues by such a mention, he yet cannot be thought to have affirmed that the gift was that of another god by his reference to the Creator’s prediction. In precisely the same manner, when enjoining on women silence in the church [v.34a], that they speak not for the mere sake of learning [v.35a] (although that even they have the right of prophesying, he has already shown when he covers the woman that prophesies with a veil [ch. 11]), he goes to the law for his sanction that woman should be under obedience [v.34b]. Now this law, let me say once for all, he ought to have made no other acquaintance with, than to destroy it. But that we may now leave the subject. . .

It's apparent that knowledge of this passage coloured his interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12, to which he appears to allude in chapter 9 of On the Veiling of Virgins:

It is not permitted to the woman to speak in the church, nor to teach, to baptize, to present, nor to pretend to any kind of function reserved to man, to say nothing of the priesthood.

In On Baptism 15.17, he joins the prohibitions against speaking out and leading in a single paragraph:

For how credible would it seem, that he who has not permitted a woman even to learn with over-boldness, should give a female the power of teaching and of baptizing! "Let them be silent [v.34a]," he says, "and at home consult their own husbands [v.35a]."

Writing a few decades after Tertullian, Cyprian quoted the two passages together in his Testimonies, leaving out the awkward latter parts of verses 34 and 35:

In the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: “Let women be silent in the church [v.34a]. But if any wish to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home [v.35a].” Also to Timothy: “Let a woman learn with silence, in all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to be set over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not seduced, but the woman was seduced [1 Timothy 2:11-14].”

Origen, at about the same time, wrote a commentary on this passage, affirming the need for women--even prophetesses--to keep silent in the assembly, contra the Montanists, of whom Tertullian himself was one for part of his career.

Everyone speaks or would be able to speak, if he receives a revelation, except women who should remain silent in the church, the Apostle says [v.34a].

Had there been any textual question on the validity of this passage, it would have been very characteristic of him to affirm that it was present in the best manuscripts. He didn't even so much at hint, however, that it was absent from any.

So it really doesn't matter whether the early church leaders were reading this passage after v. 33 of 1 Corinthians 14, or after v. 40. Either way, they read it as Scripture, even if embarrassment over certain of its wording kept them from quoting it in full.

And less we think that the Bibles of any of these patristic writers lacked these embarrassing sections, we have the testimony of a fourth-century Latin known as Ambrosiaster, in his magnum opus Commentaries on Paul:

Because sin began with her, she must wear this sign [ch.11]; as she may not let her head remain uncovered in the church out of reverence for the bishop, so too she should have no power to speak; for the bishop assumes the place of Christ . . . . Now he states that which he passed over, when he commanded that the women should veil themselves in the congregational assembly [ch. 11]; now he shows that she should be silent and reticent. . . . For if the man is the image of God but the woman is not, she is on the basis of the law of nature subordinate to him [v.34b]. How much more must she be subordinate in the church on account of the reverence for him who is the ambassador of him who is also the head of the man: For they are not allowed to speak, but must be silent, even the law says[v. 34b]. What does the law say? "You should turn to your husband, he will rule over you." This is a special law; because of it Sarah called her husband Abraham "Lord," and because of it they should be silent. . . . If she also is one flesh, she should, moreover, be subordinate for two reasons: first because she came from the man, and then because through her sin came. . . . "For it is shameful for women to speak in church [v. 35b]." It is shameful because it is contrary to discipline that in the house of God, who has commanded that they be subordinate to their husbands, they should presume to speak on the law . . . . But as the heretics appear to base their reasoning on the words rather than on the meaning of the law, the words of the apostle strive against the meaning of the apostle; thus, although he commands that woman shall be silent in the church, they on the contrary claim for her an authority of ministry in the church.

Again, it isn't apparent where in his copy of 1 Corinthians that this author found the passage in question. Given that he was a Latin, it almost certainly had to be at the end of chapter 14, but he considers it more in the context of chapter 11, or even 1 Timothy 2, than of chapter 14 of First Corinthians.

Ambrose, the 4th-century Bishop of Milan, tied the silence of women into the paradox that news of the resurrection was first given to women to pass on to the apostles:

And if she is also still not a witness of perfect faith, she is nevertheless sent as a messenger to the disciples. Nevertheless she is forbidden to touch Jesus because she had not yet comprehended, as Paul had, that in Jesus the fullness of divinity dwelled incarnate. . . . What does it mean: don’t touch me? Do not lay hands on the greater, but go to my brothers, that is to the more perfect — for he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is brother, sister and mother to me. Because the resurrection can be comprehended only by the more perfect, the prerogative of this faith is also reserved for those who already have a more established position. I therefore do not permit the women to teach in the congregational assembly; they should ask their husbands at home[v.35a]. She is therefore sent to husbands and receives mandatory tasks.

One more patristic author must be quoted before we can fix the location of this passage in its exact context: Chrysostom, who wrote a commentary on First Corinthians in the latter part of the 4th century.

“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak [v.34a]; but let them be in subjection, as also says the law [v.34b].”

Having abated the disturbance both from the tongues and from the prophesyings; and having made a law to prevent confusion, that they who speak with tongues should do this in turn, and that they who prophesy should be silent when another begins; he next in course proceeds to the disorder which arose from the women, cutting off their unseasonable boldness of speech: and that very opportunely. For if to them that have the gifts it is not permitted to speak inconsiderately, nor when they will, and this, though they be moved by the Spirit; much less to those women who prate idly and to no purpose. Therefore he represses their babbling with much authority, and taking the law along with him, thus he sews up their mouths; not simply exhorting here or giving counsel, but even laying his commands on them vehemently, by the recitation of an ancient law on that subject. For having said, “Let your women keep silence in the churches;” and “it is not permitted unto them to speak, but let them be in subjection;” he added, “as also says the law.” And where does the law say this? “Your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you.”  Do you see the wisdom of Paul, what kind of testimony he adduced, one that not only enjoins on them silence, but silence too with fear; and with as great fear as that wherewith a maid servant ought to keep herself quiet. Wherefore also having himself said, “it is not permitted unto them to speak,” he added not, “but to be silent,” but instead of “to be silent,” he set down what is more, to wit, “them being in subjection.” And if this be so in respect of husbands, much more in respect of teachers, and fathers, and the general assembly of the Church. “But if they are not even to speak,” says one, “nor ask a question, to what end are they to be present?” That they may hear what they ought; but the points which are questioned let them learn at home from their husbands. Wherefore also he added,


“And if they would learn any thing, let them ask their own husbands at home [v.35a].”

Thus, “not only, as it seems, are they not allowed to speak,” says he, “at random, but not even to ask any question in the church.” Now if they ought not to ask questions, much more is their speaking at pleasure contrary to law. And what may be the cause of his setting them under so great subjection? Because the woman is in some sort a weaker being and easily carried away and light minded. Here you see why he set over them their husbands as teachers, for the benefit of both. For so he both rendered the women orderly, and the husbands he made anxious, as having to deliver to their wives very exactly what they heard.

Further, because they supposed this to be an ornament to them, I mean their speaking in public; again he brings round the discourse to the opposite point, saying,

 “For it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church [v.35b].”

That is, first he made this out from the law of God, then from common reason and our received custom; even when he was discoursing with the women about long hair, he said, “Does not even nature herself teach you?” And everywhere you may find this to be his manner, not only from the divine Scriptures, but also from the common custom, to put them to shame.

2. But besides these things, he also shames them by consideration of what all agreed on, and what was every where prescribed; which topic also here he has set down, saying,


“What? Was it from you that the word of God went forth? Or came it unto you alone [v.36]?”

Thus he brings in the other Churches also as holding this law, both abating the disturbance by consideration of the novelty of the thing, and by the general voice making his saying acceptable. Wherefore also elsewhere he said, “Who shall put you in remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in all the Churches.” And again, “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the Churches of the saints.”  And here, “What? Was it from you that the word of God went forth? Or came it unto you alone?” i.e., “neither first, nor alone are you believers, but the whole world. ”Which also writing to the Colossians he said, “even as it is bearing fruit and increasing in all the world,” speaking of the Gospel.”
. . .
Do you see by how many arguments he put them to shame? He introduced the law, he signified the shamefulness of the thing, he brought forward the other Churches.

We can see a bit of progression, first of commenting on Paul's poor choice of words, then admitting the difficulty of the passage but nonetheless accepting it as Scripture, and finally preaching it without reservation in its entire context. All this before the end of the fourth century--and the manuscripts we have that cast doubt on this passage are from the fourth, sixth, and eleventh centuries. Were this passage still in the process of dominating the transmission stream from the second to the fourth centuries, it is inconceivable that no one commenting on the difficulty of applying it would bring up the question of the alleged spurious nature of the passage. Even in repeated disputes with heretics on the topic of women's role in the church, the textual question never even came up. There is every indication that at this passage, the heretics' Bibles read the same as those of the orthodox. So, from Church History we get

ANSWER #2: NO, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is NOT an interpolation, because several outstanding patristic writers of the second to fourth centuries, including one who made extensive textual comments on other passages, quoted it as indisputably authoritative Scripture.

Living in the Calm Before the Storm

The full moon is already shining down on the darkened half of the sphere, which means that we have entered the final half of Ramadan. It's time for another Middle East War update.

I've referred to this upcoming war as one between the US and Iran, or Israel and Iran. That much is inevitable; Iran will not take on 'the lesser satan' without going on to deal with 'the greater satan'. But it also appears virtually inevitable that the conflagration will extend beyond these parties. Hizbullah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, sits across a barricaded border, armed to the teeth and with an itchy finger spasmodically tightening on the sub-ballistic trigger. Hamas is launching more and more sophisticated missiles into the populated areas of the Levant. And a conglomeration of rabid islamists either have set sail or or are making final plans to pierce the Israeli blockade of Gaza, with more bloodshed inevitable. This is shaping up to be a regional war, with the US and Israel on one side and everybody without a standing peace treaty with Israel on the other.

And now comes news that Secretary of State Hillary has scheduled 'peace talks' for September 2 in Washington. Need I point out that a Japanese delegation was busy 'talking peace' in Washington the entire time their carrier fleet was steaming its way across the Pacific to launch a devastating raid on Pearl Harbor? The talks were broken off only hours before the first attack wave took to the air. And the PLO has already threatened to break off these talks before they have even begun.

I've written a bit about how Israel may go about launching their planned and practiced attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. What I haven't mentioned are the attacks on Israel that have also been planned and practiced. For the first time since Yom Kippur in 1973, Israel will face simultaneous attacks on several fronts; and this time, from a greatly retracted battle line. Israel has given up all the land occupied in all its previous wars post-independence, other than the city of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights--both of which have long been made part of Israel proper--and a few heavily armed outposts scattered throughout the West Bank.

So far I have been reluctant to make any specific predictions about the timing, duration, or outcome of this conflagration, but at this point--the first tripwire having been passed over peacefully and the second barely a week away--I'm willing to concede that Israel may very well have chosen to allow itself to be attacked first. Should that happen, I predict that the counterattack will be devastating, like the colonies' response to the first shot fired at Lexington, or the American response to Pearl Harbor. But quicker--it will have to be. And I'll even make a prophecy about the outcome: It may take a long time, but Israel is going to win this one. I'd love to be able to predict more than that, but I don't want to be a millionaire.