Back in 1988 I published a detailed scholarly article on this passage. (Robert W. Allison, “Let Women Be Silent in the Churches (I Cor 14:33b-36): What Did Paul Really Say, and What Did It Mean?” Journal for New Testament Studies vol. 32 (1988) pp. 27-60) After analyzing in detail the various interpretive theories that attempted to make sense of this passage, it I demonstrated that Paul was quoting an objection made by male members of the Corinthian Christian community -- specifically men of Hellenistic Jewish background. Paul used a common Greek expression for introducing a rebuttal, an expression he actually uses in other places in his letters as well. It is often translated "What!" or "What?". I wrote, "To the men of Hellenistic Jewish background, and perhaps to others who shared their dismay at the breakdown of [what eemed to them to be the] 'natural' patterns of relations with the women in the Corinthian church, and who believed that the solution to the increasing disorderliness of the services was to impose a Jewish synagogue order in which women were required to be silent and subordinate, Paul responded with a vehement and decisive 'no!', standing firm in his original eschatological egalitarianism:
What! Did the word of God proceed only from you (males), or are you the only ones it has reached?
Sound familiar?
Bob Allison
Back in 1988 I published a detailed scholarly article on this passage. (Robert W. Allison, “Let Women Be Silent in the Churches (I Cor 14:33b-36): What Did Paul Really Say, and What Did It Mean?” Journal for New Testament Studies vol. 32 (1988) pp. 27-60) After analyzing in detail the various interpretive theories that attempted to make sense of this passage, it I demonstrated that Paul was quoting an objection made by male members of the Corinthian Christian community -- specifically men of Hellenistic Jewish background. Paul used a common Greek expression for introducing a rebuttal, an expression he actually uses in other places in his letters as well. It is often translated "What!" or "What?". I wrote, "To the men of Hellenistic Jewish background, and perhaps to others who shared their dismay at the breakdown of [what eemed to them to be the] 'natural' patterns of relations with the women in the Corinthian church, and who believed that the solution to the increasing disorderliness of the services was to impose a Jewish synagogue order in which women were required to be silent and subordinate, Paul responded with a vehement and decisive 'no!', standing firm in his original eschatological egalitarianism:
What! Did the word of God proceed only from you (males), or are you the only ones it has reached?
Sound familiar?
Bob Allison