Q and A: Divine Identity

There was a period for questions and answers. I fear that perhaps the best questions weren’t always asked or were presented without sufficient clarity for my mind. To be sure there were several really good questions, but I didn’t take notes, and my mind only conjures up my own question and Peter Head’s question on messianism and its impact on divine identity. Dr. Head’s question was especially significant since I’m not sure that the speakers spent much time dealing with Jesus’ Messiahship as a part of his divine identity.

My own question was this:

“We’ve been working under the higher criticism template that the New Testament documents had a low Christology, and that Christology evolved over the centuries until it reached full Trinitarian expression at Nicaea and Chalcedon. Yet you [Profs. Bauckham and Hays] have attempted to smash this template, and to argue for a high Christology in the New Testament writings, along with others such as Prof. Bockmuehl, Prof. Fee in his Pauline Christology, Dr. Gathercole in his The Pre-Existent Son, Prof. Hurtado in his Lord Jesus Christ, and others. My question is, Are you being persuasive, and would you prophesy to us about the future state of the question in about ten years?”

I was satisfied with the answers, and also struck in several ways. Prof. Bauckham expressed his hope that their message would fall on listening ears especially among younger scholars, confessing that many seasoned scholars may already be too entrenched to hear. He also shared with us his own experience of moving away from the old template with which he could have been pleased to keep as his own, except that the evidence itself pushed him to abandon it (as I blogged earlier).

Prof. Hays then stated that the two lines of interpretation have been clearly delineated, and that the conflict between the two sides was fierce. He stated that there are some on the other side of the line who dismiss arguments from his side as poor scholarship. He said much more, but sad to say, I can’t recall several other aspects of his response. I myself have not read the book reviews or heard the polemics play out at meetings such as Society of Biblical Literature, etc. However, I have read one review—James D.G. Dunn’s review of Dr. Gathercole’s The Pre-Existent Son, and judging by Dunn’s comments, I’d have to say that Prof. Hays’ characterisation of the raging conflict is justified.

Richard Hays on Divine Identity in Luke

This is the fourth post in a series of posts dealing with the deity of Jesus.



I’m struggling to find the words to express how good both speakers were. They both gave really, really important papers, made really, really significant points throughout, and spoke very, very persuasively. In my little world, I doubt I could overestimate the value of these two papers. This was indicated by the audience’s expression of appreciation at the end of the day. The applause went on and on and on. The applause seemed more typical of the response an audience would give to a great opera performance. Someone called for an encore….

Interestingly, some people were quite sure that Prof. Bauckham gave the better of the two papers. Not so, in my estimation. Perhaps it was simply my American ears which gravitated toward Prof. Hays’ presentation more so than the subtleties of Prof. Bauckham’s reading. But I think also that I probably have a predisposition for Prof. Hays’ use of narrative to discern Jesus’ identity. I learned a great deal about general methodology in Prof. Hays’ presentation which will be useful not only in the quest for divine identity, but for the whole range of interpretive issues in the Gospels.

Thus, I appreciated Prof. Hays beginning with the question of how narrative impacts the issue of identity: 1) identity unfolds cumulatively through the whole book so that one must not focus merely on isolated pericopes; 2) in order to appreciate the cumulative impact of narrative, one must engage in multiple re-readings—reading it from the back to the front; 3) narrative allows for irony and ambiguity; 4) narrative identity isn’t simply what is unique, but what is characteristic of a person; 5) identity is enacted, and is not merely a matter of one’s nature. All of this I think is extremely important for any understanding of the theology of the Gospel writers and, in regard to divine identity, will ultimately lead the sensitive reader to an understanding that Jesus is portrayed as nothing less than Israel’s LORD/Lord.

Prof. Hays made it clear that he thinks that due appreciation of these five aspects of narrative will result in a high Christology in the Gospels. In this regard, it is remarkable that Prof. Hays makes his stand for a high Christology in Luke—the subject of his paper—which is otherwise reputed to have the lowest Christology of the four Gospels. But Prof. Hays is so overwhelmed by the evidence as it arises through narrative analysis that he can, in good conscience, direct Jesus’ Emmaus road statement toward his sceptical colleagues: “‘How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:25). This was one of the great moments in Prof. Hays’ presentation.

Let me hasten to say that despite my previous comment, I’m not so sure that Prof. Hays would make his stand for a “high” Christology in any book. He does not think the categories of “high” and “low” are helpful. Yet, he does buck against the consensus of modern New Testament critics who deny that the Gospels held to Jesus’ pre-existence or who think that they assume Jesus to be a subordinate being to God. Since I didn’t fully grasp his critique against the traditional terminology of high and low Christology, I will end up retaining it throughout this post with the caveat that the reader should understand that Prof. Hays avoids those terms.

An important corrective for me was Prof. Hays’ claim that Lucan depictions of Jesus as the Son of God entails more than just royal-political identity. For the last 15 years I have thought that in the Synoptic Gospels, the title Son of Man (cf. Dan 7) entails a higher Christology than the title Son of God. I had understood Son of God in the Synoptics to refer to Jesus’ kingly, messianic status as heir to the Davidic throne, as opposed to the Johannine understanding of Jesus being in nature God the Son. In contrast, Prof. Hays argued that Son of God in Luke indicates Jesus’ origins, and serves as a polemic to the worship of the emperors who made claims about their own divine nature. Jesus’ statement about his Sonship in Luke 10:21-22 that “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" must be understood in terms of Jesus’ divine identity and not merely in terms of his right to David’s throne. The fact that this passage sounds as if it had been lifted out of John’s Gospel amidst all its high Christology (what Prof. Hays calls a Jubelruf) reinforces the notion that Son of God in Luke has major implications for divine identity. See also 1:26-38; 3:22; 9:35; 22:29; 23:46.

After discussing Jesus as the Son of God, Prof. Hays turns to Jesus as the awaited LORD of the New Exodus/End of Exile. The Baptist claimed to be preparing the way of the LORD (3:4-6; Isa 40)—the LORD who would bring about the New Exodus. In light of the Baptist’s declaration, who is it that actually comes? What does this say about Jesus’ identity? Was he not the LORD himself? And when the Baptist is in prison and questions Jesus’ divine identity, does not Jesus make further claims about his identity as Israel’s LORD when he tells John to look around and see the fulfilment of Isa 35? This precipitated one of the great moments in the lecture, as Prof. Hays proceeded to recite the lines from the Wesley hymn, “Hear him, ye deaf; his praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ; ye blind, behold your saviour come, and leap, ye lame, for joy.” Thus, Luke depicts Jesus as the “coming one” in fulfilment of those Old Testament passages which speak of the LORD leading Israel out of captivity and back to Zion. The capstone to all of this is Luke’s declaration through the mouth of Peter that this Jesus whom they hanged on a tree, was vindicated by God who raised him to life and is now Lord of all (Acts 10:36). Indeed, reading from back to front, we see that all the references to Jesus as Lord, when taken cumulatively, ultimately blur the distinction of the Lord Jesus and Israel’s LORD.

If Prof. Hays is right in seeing all this as indicating Jesus’ divine identity, then there are a number of elements which fall into place with greater clarity: 1) the fusion of Jesus’ action with God’s; 2) the visitation theme; 3) calling on the name of the LORD; 4) Jesus’ sending of God’s Holy Spirit; and others.

Prof. Hays also remarked on how Luke’s use of sources does not negate the theology explicit in the source. For example, if Luke appropriated pre-existing hymns in Luke 1-2, it means that he embraced their theology. The same is true for Luke’s use of Mark. Whenever Luke does so, it means that he probably liked Mark’s theological emphasis. This is so obvious, but yet a scholar no less than James D. G. Dunn, for example, tries to water down Paul’s high Christology in Phil 2 by suggesting that since Paul borrowed the “hymn” from another source, then it is questionable whether Paul really embraced its theology—an argument strongly refuted in Prof. Fee’s Pauline Christology. All this leads to the conclusion that if Luke appropriates Marcan material without substantially altering it, then Luke also imports Mark’s Christology as well.

On a side note, Prof. Hays expressed some degree of scepticism about Q. His narrative analysis is viable despite either the use or non-existence of Q.

Prof. Hays concluded with several implications for theological reflection on divine identity: 1) Luke’s Gospel requires a fundamental rethinking of God: God is not a theological/philosophical construct, but an acting person (this is why the categories of high and low are not helpful, for God reveals himself in lowliness); 2) Jesus makes good on the Second Exodus prophecies—he is the LORD of the Exodus present with his people; and 3) preaching needs to recover narrative intertextual continuity.

What more can I say? ‘Twas a tremendous day for Cambridge. Ultimately, I walked away feeling that Moses and all the prophets had been opened up to me, as to Cleopas on the road to Emmaus, and that I had clearly been shown how the Christ had to suffer and then enter his glory.

Richard Bauckham on Divine Identity in Mark

This is the third blog on this colloquium; scroll down for the first two.

Intro
Prof. Bauckham, if he doesn’t already assume this matrix (i.e., as outlined by Don Lewis here) certainly does reinforce it. He emphasises first the assumed monotheism of the earliest Christians and then traces how they incorporated Old Testament language and characterisations of God in their assessment of Jesus’ own identity. As such, Bauckham argues more for a Christology of divine identity rather than divine nature.

Prof. Bauckham himself suggested a matrix for understanding God: 1) God is the sole creator, and distinguished from the creature; 2) he is the sovereign ruler, and distinguished from his subjects; 3) he will achieve his eschatological rule; 4) he has his unique name YHWH; 5) he alone may be and should be worshiped.

This interpretive framework for understanding divine identity was applied to Jesus as the earliest Christians sought to understand his own identity. Jesus was not identical to God, but uniquely shares his identity or is included therein. The whole of Prof. Bauckham’s paper shows how this was worked out in Mark’s Gospel.

One of Prof. Bauckham’s important points was the insistence of the early Christians to apply Ps 110 to Jesus: “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’” (the most quoted Old Testament text in the New Testament). The early Christians took the inviolable Old Testament principle that God’s rule cannot be asserted by the creature, yet Jesus is the one who ushers in the kingdom. This has implications for not merely Jesus’ pre-existence, but also for his eternality. If Jesus shares the divine identity, he must have shared it eternally. Along these lines, Prof. Bauckham debunks the low Christology of the old adage which stated that Jesus merely functions as God by asserting that in order for Jesus to function as God, he must truly be God.

Six Passages
Prof. Bauckham commented on six passages in Mark, as quickly outlined below….

In the exorcism of 1:21-27, the striking element is the new authority which Jesus displays. He casts out the demon not by some technique or by prayer to God, but by his own striking authority.

In the healing of the paralytic (2:1-12), Jesus is accused of usurping the divine prerogative to forgive sins. His accusers appear to have made a correct deduction. After all, the psalmist says, “Against you alone have I sinned” emphasising that sin has a personal effect toward God, requiring his personal forgiveness. This is reinforced by the Marcan reference to the Shema (Deut 6:4-6) in the Pharisee’s rhetorical question, Who can forgive sin but God alone? “But God alone” rendered literally is “God is one.” Moreover, the text does not say, “Your sins have been forgiven,” as some have (customarily?) suggested that a priest perhaps might have said in connection with Temple prerogatives, but rather, “Your sins are forgiven.” Indeed, Simon Gathercole suggests that there may be no example in extant literature that a priest ever said, “Your sins have been forgiven.”

In the stilling of the storm (4:35-41), the question of Jesus’ identity becomes an open question, one which is not explicitly answered until late in the Gospel. The motif of rebuke and obeying is found in this text, and is part of a constellation of passages which appropriate divine prerogatives to Christ’s own identity: 1:25, 27; 4:39, 41, 42.

Walking on Water (6:47-52): ego eimi (cf. 14:62).

In Jesus’ conversation with the rich man (10:17-22), monotheism is again reinforced with the same Shema formula as found in Mark 2:7: God is one. Jesus’ reply about God alone being good is not a radical disassociation of himself from the divine identity, but rather a provocative irony.

Only in Jesus’ answer to the high priest (14:61-64) is the question of Jesus’ identity explicitly answered. It comes as a climax to the whole narrative of Mark’s Gospel. It is then reinforced by the centurion at Jesus’ death who declared that Jesus was the Son of God. Strangely enough, however, Prof. Bauckham seemed to deny that the Old Testament text behind this passage (Dan 7) has implications for divine identity, a point which Prof. Hays rightly pressed him on.

Thus, questions regarding Jesus’ identity arise in 1:27; 2:7; 4:41; 10:18; which are finally resolved in Jesus’ answer to the high priest’s question, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed” (14:61). I would argue that Jesus’ reply claims more for himself than the High Priest could have imagined, but I’m not sure that Prof. Bauckham himself made this point.

My Reflections
Prof. Bauckham’s background contrasts greatly from my own. He says he used to be perfectly happy with the old template that the New Testament documents began with a low Christology, but evolved over the centuries into Trinitarianism. This all changed, he says, as he looked more carefully at the New Testament documents himself.

In contrast, I have fundamentalist roots, and at Free Will Baptist Bible College, we examined the deity of Christ primarily from the standpoint of prooftexts but also through occasional good exegesis. Certainly the good exegesis was reinforced at Regent College, especially with an appreciation of the appropriation of Old Testament theological concepts by the New Testament writers. Consequently, I’m not surprised at Prof. Bauckham’s conclusions.

In many ways, what Prof. Bauckham presented today is a more nuanced and sophisticated version of the understanding of the deity of Christ that was taught to me back at Free Will Baptist Bible College. Perhaps the most striking difference is in the personalities. On one hand, fundamentalists from Bob Jones University taught me the deity of Christ in the early 1980s. On the other hand, yesterday, a scholar highly respected by everyone, who is at the absolute apex of academia, stood up at the lectern at the University of Cambridge and declared, “Mark’s Gospel portrays Jesus as sharing in the divine identity,” which, as far as I can tell, does nothing less than affirm the deity of Christ. If he had done so at Free Will Baptist Bible College, the crowd would have shouted, “Amen.”

A final comment in this regard, I’m not sure I share Prof. Bauckham’s concern to distinguish the issue of Jesus’ nature as being divine and the issue of Jesus’ divine identity. It seems that the emphasis on Jesus’ divine identity leads nowhere else except to Jesus’ full deity in nature.

Primitive Christian Christology

Don Lewis’ Christian History course has been helpful in my understanding of the Christology of the earliest Christians. Here is his basic interpretive matrix: 1) the earliest Christians were fiercely and uncompromisingly monotheistic; 2) they believed that God intervened in human history; 3) this intervention in human history culminated in the incarnation: God became flesh—and this was human flesh, a human being; 4) the incarnation was that of Jesus Christ; 5) God continues to dwell with his people through the Holy Spirit. Whatever your view of Jesus, it must fit into this five-fold matrix if it is to fit into the theological parameters of the primitive Church.

This interpretive matrix falls short of the exactitudes of Chalcedonian Trinitarianism, but provides the basis for its later development. Thus, Gordon Fee can rightly refer to Paul’s “latent” Trinitarianism. This matrix also marks the parameters for Divine Identity in the Gospels. For example, the fierce monotheism of the earliest Christians bars various theories that Jesus was some sort of subordinate deity. Also, the emphasis on the reality of the incarnation bars theories which would claim that Jesus was less than God or less than man.

Bauckham and Hays on Divine Identity: Tyndale House Colloquium

Today, Tyndale House featured a premiere conference on “Divine Identity.” The old template which scholars have laboured under for about a hundred years has been that the New Testament documents began with a low Christology and eventually evolved over the centuries, culminating in the high Christology Trinitarianism of 4th and 5th century Nicaea and Chalcedon. Accordingly, Peter, Paul, and Mary or any other early Christian could never have believed that Jesus was God.

Our speakers today smashed the template. It is a tribute to Tyndale House that two scholars of such sterling and high reputation were brought in for a day long conference on this important topic.

The first speaker was Richard Baukham. Yes, of course he is a great scholar and retired professor at St. Mary’s College at St. Andrews University, Scotland. More significantly is that he produces scholarship and books which shake the academic establishment not merely on account of the radical nature of his claims, but on account of the importance of the subject material. The last book of his which I read was Jesus and the Eyewitnesses which made the revolutionary claim that the Gospels actually are traceable to eyewitness accounts. Yes, I know that this is not revolutionary for conservative Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, but it is altogether revolutionary that a major, highly respected biblical scholar would make such a claim. Prof. Baukham is reputed to be perhaps the leading New Testament scholar in all of Great Britain.

The second speaker was Richard Hays, Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School. I first encountered Prof. Hays through one of my own professors, Gordon Fee who himself is one of the few really great Pauline scholars. Prof. Fee urged me to read Prof. Hays work Echoes of Scripture way back in 1992, and Prof. Hays’ scholarly capital has done nothing but grow since then. He is currently working on a mammoth project dealing with the use of the Old Testament in the Gospels. This work was reflected in today’s colloquium as Prof. Hays opened up to us how the Old Testament was employed to reveal Jesus’ divine identity in the gospels. I’m pleased to say that Prof. Hays and I share a study carrel together at Tyndale House while he is on sabbatical, and he has consistently been a very kind and considerate person during these last five or six months. I look forward to reading his work in the coming years.

I suppose we had about 125 people for the colloquium. This is a large number, considering Tyndale House did not advertise the event. We had students and professors from way up north in Scotland as well as south England. I had lunch with Dr. K. Brower of Nazarene Theological College, Manchester, and several of his students (two from Russia, one from Swaziland, and one from England). I also met several students from Oak Hill College, an evangelical pastoral training school here in England.

It was a great day for New Testament scholarship, and Tyndale House Warden Pete Williams should be commended for organising such an outstanding event. I will post a couple of more blogs about the lectures themselves.

Incarnation and Omniscience

In trying to sort out the question of the incarnation and divine omniscience, we're mixing together several ingredients. First, we throw in the biblical texts which say a) Jesus is God; and b) Jesus' knowledge was limited. Then, we mix in the divine attributes, including omniscience. Finally, we mix in our philosophical attempts to understand the ins and outs of the Trinity--and since philosophy is rational and since our reason is often faulty, we should expect some uncertainties in this endeavour.

Some ingredients simply don't mix well, and maybe they shouldn't be thoroughly mixed together. I'm not sure. But the point is that it is going to be hard to make all the data fit with each other.

Bottom line:
1) Jesus is God
2) God knows everything
3) The Bible speaks of Jesus' knowledge being limited
4) Somehow the first three points fit together without contradiction


In all this, we should fully embrace the incarnation. Jesus wasn't born fully aware that Mary must eat protein in order to produce the stuff in her mammary glands which would deliver milk from her breasts into his stomach if he capably sucks her nipples, and that his body would produce waste which would soil the clothing rags which Zach the merchant sold to her ten years ago as a blanket. (Forgive me if this is a bit crude--I hope not.) He didn't lie there in her arms sucking her breast and thinking, "Oooh, the pizza she ate last night is a bit spicy."

But by the time he was 12, he did have a sense of his special and unique relationship with God so that he could refer to him as MYFather."

This understanding of his special relationship with God as his Father was confirmed to him by the voice from heaven at his baptism: "This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased." The divine revelation propelled Jesus into the wilderness to contemplate his mission. Yes, indeed, he was God's Son, but the question remained, what kind of Son would he be?

In the baptismal declaration, the divine voice cited passages from Gen 22 (God telling Abraham to take his son, his only son whom he loved) with a Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah. The implication here is that Jesus as God's Son would be the Suffering Servant who would be offered up as a sacrifice; for (as in Gen 22), God himself would provide the sacrifice. The time in the wilderness was a time of contemplation and meditation on the baptismal declaration, and Satan tempted him along those lines: "If you are the Son of God, then...."

All this suggests that while Jesus understood himself as having a unique relationship with God as his Father, Jesus did not have a clear vision of his ministry until about age 30 when he was baptised. The plea at Gethsemane then was a genuine plea that another way would be made manifest.

More remarkably, Jesus' faith in God was a real faith--not one based on the omniscient knowledge of final outcomes. In his full humanity, he trusted God with his life, holding fast to his belief that God would raise him on the third day. Not being omniscient, Jesus allowed himself to be arrested, beaten, mocked and crucified. Not being omniscient, he cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." Not being omniscient, he could only put his faith in God, as reflected in his final cry, "Into your hands, I commit my Spirit."

This is our God, the Servant King.

Gender Neutrality and Bible Translation

First, let it be clear that I think it is silly for us to have to change language in order to appease the squeaky wheel.

I think that if someone says, "If any man would follow me, let him take up his cross and follow me," everyone knows that he is talking generically. There is no need to say, "If any person would follow me, let him OR HER take up his OR HER cross and follow me."

However, let me point out that those who claim that gender-neutral translations are inaccurate do so on weak grounds. The complaint is that gender-neutral translations change the wording of the Bible. This simply isn't true.

Here is the crucial question: if the Greek uses a masculine pronoun, does it always mean male only, or can it include both genders? The answer to this is, of course, that it can include both genders.

This being the case, then the question arises, Which pronoun in English is best to use in order to convey the inclusion of both genders?

My answer, as indicated in the first couple of paragraphs above, is that the masculine gender is perfectly capable of conveying the inclusion of both genders. However, if an English translation does indeed use some means of conveying the inclusion of both genders, it does not follow that the genderless translation is inaccurate.

If the genderless translation reads, "If any person would follow me, let him OR HER take up his OR HER cross and follow me," it may be cumbersome and pedantic, but it is nonetheless accurate. The same is true for, "If anyone would follow me, let them take up their cross and follow me."

If we want to criticise NLT, NRSV, TNIV, etc., for something, let us criticise them for being so committed to appealing to the spirit of the day as to produce awkward translations. But we cannot criticise them for producing inaccurate translations.

And let us not forget that even the ESV, which in its sales propaganda criticises these other versions for their gender neutrality, consistently translates the Hebrew phrase for "the sons of Israel" as "the children of Israel"--which boggles my mind given the ESV translation philosophy.

The Difference between Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology

Systematic theology is an exposition of truth about God and his purpose and interaction with humanity based both on scripture and what can be known or surmised from general revelation (e.g., psychology, science), as it is probed from a person’s contemporaneous perspective and synthesised into a coherent logical system to address the comprehensive life questions facing the world in which he currently lives.

This definition is rather off the cuff and may have some weaknesses, but two points worth emphasising is that 1) systematic theology employs the logical categories and priorities of the contemporary world, and 2) systematic theology is not solely based on scripture (special revelation), but also on knowledge culled from other sciences (general revelation).

This may be compared with biblical theology. Biblical theology is an exposition of biblical truth according to the Bible’s own terms and categories and urgencies. It is limited in terms of its basis to the biblical text itself apart from the sciences, although the disciplines of archaelogy, history, sociology, etc., may shed light on our understanding of the text.

Biblical theology is descriptive, while systematic theology is prescriptive. Thus, biblical theology tells us what they believed back then, while systematics tells us what we ought to believe. Of course, the biblical writers wrote with a view that their theology was something which should be imported and imposed world-wide for all time and for all people, and thus, the prescriptive nature of the text cannot be gainsaid. Yet, the task of biblical theology as a discipline is to sort out their beliefs back then precisely so that systematic theologians can put it into modern categories and logical systems to prescribe to moderns how they should now live.

On a side note, one should distinguish that systematics is an exposition of what one should believe, while apologetics is a defence of that exposition.

Two further observations are in order. First, a person can take a biblical theology approach to individual books and corpuses of the Bible and produce such a thing as a “biblical theology of the Pastoral Epistles” or a “biblical theology of the Pentateuch.” The same is true of the two testaments. There is such a thing as a “biblical theology of the Old Testament” and a “biblical theology of the New Testament.

Of course a proper biblical theology takes into account the entire canon. One certainly cannot do a biblical theology of the Johannine writings and call it simply a biblical theology. This is especially true of a biblical theology of the New Testament; one can produce a biblical theology of the New Testament, but without the Old Testament, it cannot truly be called a biblical theology.

Secondly, biblical theology can be organised in various schema and still be considered a biblical theology. Biblical theology does not require a sequential or a synchronic presentation in order to qualify as biblical theology. In Gerhard Hasel’s Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate, examples of these various schemas are outlined. He discusses 1) Dentan’s paradoxical attempt to present a biblical theology in traditional dogmatic categories, 2) the Genetic-Progressive presentation, 3) the Cross-Section presentation, 4) the Topical presentation, 5) the Diachronic presentation, 6) the “Formation-of-Tradition” presentation, and others (28-114). My point here is that the no matter how you organise or present the “stuff” of biblical theology it will still be recognisable as a biblical theology, so long as it is descriptive of the biblical text and retains its same categories and priorities.

In passing, one should note that the older systematic theologies cannot be relied upon for accurately distinguishing between systematics and biblical theology for the simple reason that biblical theology is a relatively young discipline, with relatively few biblical theology works being published prior to the 20th century, and only blossoming into full flower in the last half of the 20th century.

This concludes my discussion of the differences of biblical theology and systematics. Here are some supporting citations and thoughts from important works (all EMPHASES belong to me):


Waltke (An Old Testament Theology): Dogmatic (systematic) theologians serve the church best when they rely on orthodox biblical theology for explications of Scripture from which they frame abstract universal propositions in accordance with a coherent system APPROPRIATE TO THE CHURCH’S CONTEMPORARY SITUATION (31).

Waltke: [Famed systematician Charles] Hodge failed to realize adequately that the biblical writers had their own priority of ideas and coherency of thought and that the biblical theologian aims to honor that priority and arrangement by tracing the trajectory of the themes that are found in and run through the books (51).

Waltke: Systematic (dogmatic) theologians present the Christian message to the CONTEMPORARY WORLD. They draw the impetus for organizing this message from outside the Old Testament. John Calvin…organized his material according to the four divisions of the Apostle’s Creed. Philip Melanchthon organized his theology according to one book of the Bible, Romans. Since the seventeenth century, theologians typically employed philosophical categories derived from Greek thought, such as Bibliology, (the study of the Bible), hamartiology (the study of sin), penumatology (the study of the Spirit), and so on (64).

Waltke: Biblical theologians differ from dogmaticians in three ways. First, biblical theologians primarily think as exegetes, not as logicians. Second, they derive their organizational principle from the biblical blocks of writings themselves rather than from factors external to the text. Third, their thinking is diachronic—that is, they track the development of theological themes in various blocks of writings. Systematic theologians think more synchronically—that is, they invest their energies on the church’s doctrines, not on the development of religious ideas within the Bible (64).

I. Howard Marshall (New Testament Theology): “[Systematic theology] is intended to DESCRIBE a theology that is not so much a description of what Christians believe as rather what they OUGHT to believe” (43).

Gerhard Hasel (Old Testament Theology): In detailing the birth of the discipline of biblical theology Hasel writes, “…Johann Philipp Gabler…made a most decisive and far-reaching contribution to [biblical theology]…. Gabler’s famous definition reads: ‘Biblical theology possesses a historical character, transmitting what the sacred writers thought about divine maters; dogmatic theology, on the contrary possesses a didactic character, teaching what a particular theologian philosophizes about divine matters in accordance to his ability, time, age, place, sect or school, and other similar things” (17).

Hasel: “Biblical theology is not aiming to take the place of or be in competition with systematic theology as the latter expresses itself in the form of system building based on its own categories either with or without the aid of philosophy” (33).

Millard Erickson (Christian Theology): “So we propose a more complete definition of theology: that discipline which strives to give a coherent statement of the doctrines of the Christian faith, based primarily upon the Scriptures, placed in the context of CULTURE IN GENERAL, worded in a CONTEMPORARY IDIOM, and related to ISSUES OF LIFE… (21).

Erickson: “Theology must also be CONTEMPORARY . While it treats timeless issues, it must use language, concepts, and though forms that make some sense in the context of the present time…. It is not merely a matter of using today’s thought forms to express the message. The Christian message should address the questions and the challenges encountered TODAY” (24).

Erickson: In distinguishing two competing approaches to biblical theology with systematic theology, Erickson writes, “We might today call this the distinction between descriptive biblical theology and normative biblical theology. Note, however, that neither of these approaches is dogmatics or systematic theology, SINCE NO ATTEMPT IS MADE TO CONTEMPORIZE OR TO STATE THESE UNCHANGING CONCEPTS IN A FORM SUITABLE FOR OUR DAY’S UNDERSTANDING” (24-25).

D.A. Carson (“The Role of Exegesis in Systematic Theology” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, Woodbridge and McComiskey, eds.): Biblical theology is bounded in two ways. “First, its subject matter is exclusively biblical…. Second, it organizes its subject matter in ways that preserve corpus distinctions. It is less interested in what the New Testament or the Bible says about, say, the sovereignty of God, than it is in what Paul (or Isaiah, or John) says about this subject…. This means, in turn, that biblical theology is organized chronologically, or better, salvation-historically…--both within any one corpus…and from corpus to corpus (45).

Carson: “Systematic theology, then is Christian theology whose internal structure is systematic; i.e., it is organized on atemporal principles of logic, order, and need, rather than on inductive study of discrete biblical corpora (45).

Since Carson is not so interested in contrasting systematics with biblical theology, some of his statements about systematics which actually do contrast with systematics need to be elucidated. For example, when he emphasises that systematics poses atemporal questions (45-46), this implies that biblical theology addresses the priorities of ancient Israelites and early Christians which may not necessarily coincide with those urgencies facing humanity in other cultures or time spans.

Carson rightly discerns that biblical theology is imminently concerned with the theology of a given corpus (the doctrine of land in Joshua, resurrection in the Johannine literature, the kingdom of God in Matthew, etc.). He also rightly discerns that there is such a thing as unity and diversity between the corpora, and that one corpus might take a different perspective on any subject matter, and that good biblical theology must ultimately integrate these different perspectives into a unified theology. It is important to note, however, that the synthesis of a given theological issue in the various corpora is neither the product nor the task of systematic theology. Such a synthesis is still entirely the domain of biblical theology. Now, if the results of such a synthesis were to be applied to the contemporary and eternal questions which dog humanity, and re-cast in logical hierarchies and categories, as well as integrated with whatever other knowledge can be culled from the realm of general revelation, then the final result would be systematic theology.

Doing Coptic Papyrology in Leipzig

I attended the Second International Coptic Papyrology Summer School in Leipzig, Germany last month. It was a first class experience. We had an 18:6 student to teacher ratio, with 26 lectures, a tour of the Egyptian museum, a papyrus-making practicum, and about 28 hours of hands-on manuscript analysis. Students were given their own Coptic manuscript (dating back to 5th to 8th centuries), and were given responsibility for transcribing, translating, analyzing and presenting them to the Summer School, with guidance from the teaching staff. Additionally, students and teachers alike generally ate all their meals together, affording the opportunity for excellent informal discussion. The setting at the University of Leipzig also was first rate.

Well known Coptologists on the teaching staff included Anne Boud’hors, Stephen Emmel, Sebastian Richter, guest speaker Uwe-Karsten Plisch, and others. Georg Schmelz (Mannheim/Heidelberg) in particular spent hours with me working on my transcription. Students attended from Spain, Sweden, United States, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, Finland, and Canada.

I was given a papyrus manuscript about the size of a regular sheet of paper (27 cm x 17 cm) with seventeen lines of text written lengthwise. The text itself measures 23 cm x 14.5 cm. Perhaps as much as 20-30% of the text has been lost, mostly broken off on the right (especially in four finger-like lacunae), but also due to ink fading and holes elsewhere. The manuscript varies unevenly from a light to medium brown colour, with dark brown ink.

The manuscript is a letter, written from someone named Stephanos John the Less (or perhaps, the Lowly) to a superior named Papa Damine; their names are written on the verso (back side). Given the extensive reference to prayers and to God, a reference to the Church and to a deacon, as well as the reverential tones of address, the letter seems to have been written in a religious setting, perhaps having something to do with a monastery. The main topic of concern, judging from the surviving text, is that certain books had arrived in good order. The Coptic word for book occurs six times. Its provenance is unknown.

This letter had not been analysed previously by any modern scholar. In recent years, it was encased in glass, but had not been catalogued in the old inventory at Leipzig. Indeed, since this was a letter sent from one individual to another, one might assume that I was one of the very few people to have ever read it, now or then. While somewhere deep in my subconscious mind I may have held out hopes that the letter contained clues about the whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant, or about some important bit of missing history, letters of this kind usually are not important by themselves. Instead, they are most useful when they are fitted together with scores and hundreds of other letters to give us a picture of life in antiquity.

The text was written in a “regular hand;” the scribe lacked the sort of skill typically requisite for fine literary works. The letters are rather awkward, tight, and thin, without artistic variation in thickness. They typically have a pronounced slant, especially with the letters tau and iota, and were written in unligatured block letters. Sometimes the letters are so tight that they were probably difficult to read even when the ink was fresh. At places, one may easily discern where the scribe had to re-ink his writing tool. Further analysis is necessary to discern if the formation of the letters might suggest a date or provenance.

The text is written in fairly “normal” Sahidic, with few dialectical indications. For example, there is but one occurrence of the beta personal suffix instead of fai. At some points, there is deviation from literary Sahidic, such as the unexpected use of the definite article with holokotte, as if the gold coins were some specific, known coins, as well as the unexpected absence of one or two object markers. There occurs also an otherwise unattested variation of the name Enoch. There appears to be three instances of apparent spelling errors. In the six occurrences of ϫwwme(book), it inexplicably occurs once as ϫwwmi. In addition to nomina sacra, there is one titular abbreviation.

The text seems to follow standard letter writing conventions of the day. A good half of the letter appears formulaic. The actual issue which is addressed is found in the middle nine lines, while the introductory and concluding lines consists of standard greeting and closing formulae.

One of the unresolved difficulties of this letter is the shift of narrative voice. It begins in the first person plural. Then at some point, it shifts to first person singular. Later, it makes a reference to a certain Stephen. This last fact is especially odd since the author’s name is said to be Stephen. Indeed, although the text is lacunose, the closest context is a warning not to look (or consider?) something…of Stephen.

Here is a preliminary translation:

With God, before all things, we greet and bow a multitude of times
before the footstool of the feet of your piety of honoured father
…from least to greatest
…greatly your prayers…
through your fatherhood in… …these two books…
(to receive?) the money in books to us. As for the rest, I sent (and) they…
…to us on the fourth. And they brought them in good shape. Behold God!
your prayers brought the remaining books to us. And…
…the matter which satisfies the will of God. Do not look…
…a book of Stephan to us a little of Marine. You…
…go up to them… …well that…
book and your… God … of the books…
we work well. And as the prayer be upon us, then we are (habitually) doing it for your pi-
ety. And the prayer [be] on us and your holy prayers [be] upon the
church. …bow to your piety…
the Deacon greets you nicely. And Enoch salutes you. Salvation
be to you. Until next time. Be well.


With God of Jesus, Papa Damine. Stephanus the Less.

Developments in Textual Criticism and the Münster Colloquium

25 years ago, people were writing articles about the death of textual criticism, as if everything that could be said about the field had already been said.

Now, we are experiencing some important developments in various aspects of the field. Specifically, we are facing a major attack on the reliability of the transmission of the text, as well as a new method behind the publication of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament text.

Last week, the Institute for New Testament Text Formation Research (INTF) held a major colloquium in which about 55 of the very best text critics were present. If you care to know, I'm talking about people such as Eldon Epp, Larry Hurtado, Barbara Aland and all the Münster people, David Parker and the Birmingham [England] people, the Tyndale House people, Dan Wallace, Bill Warren, Tjitze Baarda and the Amsterdam people, Joel DeLobel, Paul Foster, David Trobisch, Maurice Robinson, Michael Holmes.) No, Bart didn't come.

I was the junior-most member present. I was entirely star-struck, but all the legends of the field were so gracious and warm and welcoming. We all stayed at a hotel which had a couple of lounges which were conducive to sitting down and chatting over coffee, even to the late hours of the evening. We had our meals together too. These personable conversations were so good that the conference was worth attending even if you didn't attend any of the sessions.

Early on, it became obvious that a good number of people think that the transmission of the text from about 80 C.E. to 170 C.E. was so wild and erratic that we will never be able to backtrack from our oldest manuscripts (late second to early third century) to the "original" text.

My PhD project focuses on this particular issue as it is reflected in one particular "wild" manuscript which is one of the oldest manuscripts of Matthew's Gospel.

The other major issue is the new method for assessing textual variation being used by the INTF which produces the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament text. This is THE critical text which serves (more or less) as the basis for all our recent translations of the New Testament, as well as most commentaries.

INTF has developed a computer program which charts the relatedness of a given textual variant to other variants in the same variant unit. They call it the Coherence Based Genealogical Method (CBGM), although some people are simply calling it the Münster method. The method is probably too complex for me to understand, let alone explain. In fact, one of the concerns is that so few outsiders understand it well enough to be able to critique it. Nonetheless, the Nestle-Aland 28th ed will be corrected against it in the Catholic Epistles (i.e., James-3 John) when it comes out in 2010.

An interesting result of the Münster method is that it is finding more and more individual Byzantine readings to be more plausible. This accords well with the general flow of textual criticism over the last 20 or 30 years. I should hasten to say that this does nothing to help out the theory of the priority of the Byzantine text, but simply reinforces the notion that one cannot dismiss a reading simply because it is Byzantine.

One would have thought that Maurice Robinson--one of the world's only Byzantine priortists--would have been pleased to hear that the Münster method was pushing for more Byzantine readings. I talked to him about the issue on several times. Prof. Robinson has to be one of the very nicest, most engaging, and most interesting personas in all of textual criticism.

If I understood him correctly, Prof. Robinson says that he has read every article written by Gerd Mink (the brains behind the Münster Method) whether in German or in English. While many were hesitant to accept the method on the basis that they really didn’t understand it, Prof. Robinson was stating that he opposed the method precisely because he did understand it. He claimed that if he were to feed his presuppositions into the computer’s programming, the Münster method would spit out a Byzantine Priority schema.

To be sure, Prof. Robinson often has a way of seeing the otherwise overlooked elephant in the room. However, condemnation from one corner of the room probably is not enough to dismiss the Münster method. It will be interesting to see how people like Dan Wallace (Dallas Seminary), Bill Warren (New Orleans Baptist Seminary), the Tyndale House people, and Epp and Holmes react to it in the coming years. David Parker and Birmingham seem to be solidly behind the method.

One wonders if all this will lead to a competing edition of the Greek New Testament.

For a more robust review and discussion of the colloquium, go here and to the blog posts prior to it: http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2008/08/mnster-colloquium-on-textual-history-of_06.html

Goethe-Institut and Learning Theological German

A good reading knowledge of German is important for doing PhD research in the humanities. In addition, a scholar should be adept enough in German to listen to an academic lecture in German. How does one acquire these skills?

The Goethe-Institut is well known and respected for teaching German. The Institute has an extensive program from the beginning steps in German to advanced German. Unfortunately, although there are many strong points about the Goethe method itself, the program is not suitable for academics.

I attended the Institute located in Hamburg. The facilities are truly first rate and conveniently located across from the central train station. The personnel are friendly and dedicated. Perhaps one of the strengths of Goethe is that as soon as you walk into the facilities, there is such a concerted emphasis on German-only that you almost feel guilty for speaking English.

My A4 Intensiv course (four weeks) consisted of an initial introductory day of placement testing on the first Monday, followed by daily (Mon-Fri) instruction over a period of three weeks, until the fourth week. On the fourth week, classroom instruction concluded on Tuesday which comprised a review for those taking the course exam. These details are important to note, for all the course details on the website and correspondence otherwise suggest that the last day of instruction is on the final Thursday of the fourth week. For my part, I did not find out otherwise until the final Tuesday afternoon, an hour prior to conclusion. This had major implications for my travel itinerary. Moreover, instead of getting a good four weeks of instruction, in effect, the A4 Intensive provides only 15 days of classroom instruction, or 16 days if you count the review for the exam.

Classroom instruction was from 9:00 to 1:30. This included a 30 minute lunch break and an additional 15 minute short break.

Classroom instruction was very effective. In my program, we had a 1:6 teacher-student ratio. This was supplemented usually by the presence of a Goethe-Institut teacher-in-training assistant so that we actually had a 1:3 teacher-student ratio for most of the time.

Teaching was generally very lively and engaging. The course was taught 95% in German, even from day one. Not only was this method desirable, but it was nearly necessary since we had two Russians, an Iranian, and a Mexican in my class. There were times, however, that an explanation for a German word would go on and on and on, when a simple English translation would have been more time-efficient. The classroom instruction was effective in helping us students become accustomed to speaking conversational German.

My class had the misfortune of having our initial teacher go on holiday. Then, our assigned substitute missed several days due to illness. We ended up having four different teachers. One got the impression that some exam material was overlooked in the process.

My major disappointment in the classroom instruction was that grammar was taught assuming that students had no background in it. Consequently, the instructor spent a huge amount of time explaining the concept of the accusative case, for example. After several hours, I began to wonder how long it would take to teach the dative case…. On the other hand, some of the other students seemed to never fully grasp the concept and were left with their heads spinning.

On a related matter, the scholar seeking a German Sprachkurs should be aware that Goethe-Institut aims its instruction at a 20-something audience wanting to learn to say things like, “I meet you at the disco at 10 pm” and “I like to go on cruises.” We had one lesson on German beer lexicon.

Another misfortune was that, in my case, I had previously actually finished an entire course book on reading German, and had translated some very difficult academic German. However, because I could not say things like, “I would like a hamburger and coke,” I was assigned to the very beginning German course. To be sure, I needed to take beginning German precisely because I couldn’t say such things. However, I desperately needed to improve my ability to read German, but Goethe-Institut did nothing to help me in this matter.

When I approached the personnel at Goethe-Institut about this problem, I suggested that a reading group would be very helpful. This seemed to the Institute director to be a sensible solution. However, despite her enthusiasm and expressed intention, such a reading group never materialised.

Seeing that my reading skills were going undeveloped, I ended up hiring a private tutor. This was a very beneficial move, especially since my tutor was so good. I paid him 15 euro/hr, and met with him an hour a day. When classroom instruction ended so abruptly for me, I was able to meet with him three to four hours a day over my last four days in Hamburg.

Goethe-Institut is very expensive. For many people, the expenditure may prove entirely beneficial. You get a great teacher-student ratio; you get first rate teachers with a first rate teaching method; you get first rate facilities. However, perhaps a better approach for some people would be to attend a less expensive program and apply the savings to hire a private teacher.

Another indicator that Goethe-Institut is designed for non-academics is its textbook. I can’t recall the title of it, and I can’t look at it to see because I simply threw it away when I was done. It is full of pretty pictures and seems more designed to impress the reader with the notion that learning German is fun rather than being a bona fide grammar. Using the book as a supplemental workbook might be a good idea, but the German student needs a grammar with which he may become intimately familiar so that he can quickly consult it again and again for future reference.

Goethe-Institut has a cultural program to supplement its classroom instruction. The Institute makes this a prominent feature in its promotional literature and website. In my case, it consisted of various cultural experiences in the afternoons daily (perhaps an evening or two as well). I participated in two events: a city tour and a visit to a coffee shop to experience authentic German coffee along the riverfront. I found both experiences of minimal benefit. The city tour in the open-top bus was conducted entirely in a German which was spoken so quickly as to be entirely incomprehensible to most of the students. Consequently, each of us simply conversed to his own friends in his own native language. The authentic German coffee experience was similar, except that we ended up sitting at Starbucks since the other café was too crowded. Both events consumed the entire afternoon. Ultimately, I decided I could more profitably spend my time studying. This was altogether unfortunate, because I think the cultural program could be of great help if only there were some very simple German lessons built into the events.

If my sole purpose in attending Goethe-Institut had been to work on speaking and hearing German, then I must confess that it helped me enormously. If the course had assumed that the students had a basic understanding of language systems, then we could have approached grammar more aggressively, and I would have had even more practice at dealing with more complex sentences. However, one of my major goals was to work on my reading skills, but I regretfully say that Goethe-Institut was of no help to me at all in this regard. For this reason, I would recommend that the academic who needs to develop his German should try something else.

One possibility would actually involve Goethe-Institut. The Institute does offers special classes for businesses. If there were perhaps five or six academics willing to take a course together, I suspect that Goethe-Institut would be flexible enough to offer a course for academics. If so, I think that this would be extremely beneficial, and that Goethe-Institut would be perhaps the best place to do it.


Here's my shorter review in German:

Ich hatte leider nur 16 Tage Unterrichts bzw. 3-3/4 Stunden jeden Tag. In meiner Klasse waren wir sechs Schüler. Weil wir einen Praktikanten gehabt haben, war das Verhältnis von Lehrern zu Schülern 2:6.

Die Einrichtungen waren prima und modern, die Angestellten waren freundlich und professionell. Nach dem Unterricht bot das G.-I. jeden Tag ein Kulturprogramm an. Die Veranstaltungen, denen Struktur fehlte und die auf junge Leute abzielten, halfen leider nicht, Deutsch zu sprechen.

In mancher Beziehung war der Unterricht nützlich. Wir übten vor allem, miteinander zu sprechen. Das war mir hilfreich, weil ich bisher nur Lesen gelernt hatte. Da ich nur wenig Deutsch spreche, platzierte das G.-I. mich in Start Deutsch A-1.

Es hat weitere Enttäuschungen gegeben. Weil der Unterricht nicht auf Akademiker und Gelehrte ausgerichtet war, war die Grammatik sehr langsam und langweilig und oberflächlich. Der Unterricht hat meine Lesefähigkeit gar nicht verbessert. Weil das Lehrbuch viele schöne Bilder aber nicht viele Grammatikdiagramme oder Grammatikdaten hat, ist es nicht so gut. Ich werde nicht weiter mit diesem Buch arbeiten können.

Ich bat darum, dass das G.I. eine Lesegruppe als einen Teil des Lehrplans anböte. Das ist aber, trotz anfänglichen Wohlwollens, leider nicht geschehen.

Deshalb engagierte ich einen Privatlehrer. Wir trafen uns miteinander für jeweils eine Stunde an sechs Tagen, dann für je 3-4 Stunden an meinen letzten vier Tagen. Wir konzentrierten uns erst auf das Lesen, dann auf die Satzstruktur, danach auf das Verfassen von Texten und schließlich auf das Reden. Außerdem verbrachte ich viele viele Stunden mit Deutschlesen und -hören.

Silenced Women of Corinth: The Text Critical Solution

I need to update this 2008 blog article. For a recent academic discussion: http://alesjalavrinovica.blogspot.com/2017/08/all-churches-of-saints-never-appears.html

The Silenced Women of Corinth

A passage found variously in 1 Corinthians 14 reads,

As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches.  They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.  If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church (NIV).

The passage reduces down to five important points: 

1.      This dictum is for all the congregations of the saints.  This point makes the passage universally binding for all time.

2.      Women are to be silent, and not speak.  This is the definite meaning of sigavw (sigao), which is not ambiguous as its synonym hesuchia is (see above concerning 1 Tim 2:11-12).  Paul is not merely telling them to have a quiet demeanor, but not to speak at all at any time in the church.

3.      In case the previous point is missed, Paul reiterates that women are not allowed to speak.

4.      Specifically, women may speak in their homes, but not in the congregation.

5.      Women speaking in church is disgraceful.

Any attempt to render an interpretation of this passage must deal honestly with all five points.

The prima facie reading of this text is that women must not participate in the Church's worship life vocally or verbally.  It envisions women sitting quietly at all times when the congregation is gathered.  They are not to pray aloud.  They are not to prophesy aloud.  They are not to speak praises or testify to the goodness of the Lord aloud.  Accordingly, the flow of argument in this chapter is that there is a time for speaking in tongues in the church under the right circumstances, and likewise, there is an appropriate time for prophetic utterances.  But never under any circumstances is it appropriate for a woman to make any vocal contribution in the church.  Such is the vision of women for all the congregations of the saints, for, as the text explains, "it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church."

Because God's Holy Spirit teaches us—all of us—that we must not impose such strictures on women, we hardly do have any churches today which obey this passage.  Our churches do not really know how to understand this passage, and so they do their best to follow the leading of the Spirit, even though their practice is contrary to the outright meaning of the text.  Consequently, we find rather desperate and implausible attempts to explain away the plain meaning of the text.

Most frequently, it is suggested that the silenced women were actually silenced wives.  However, it helps not at all to translate wives for women, although such a translation is altogether reasonable.  We must remember that married women enjoyed a higher status than single women.  If wives were forbidden to speak in church, how much more were unmarried women!  Forbidding wives to speak would a fortiori prohibit all women from speaking.

Moreover, this interpretation assumes an old speculative notion that wives sat on one side of the synagogue, and their husbands on the other, and that some bonehead woman would holler to the other side of the building asking her husband for an explanation in the middle of the service.  This imaginative speculation has been rather thoroughly repudiated, for archaeological excavations of synagogues have proven otherwise (the sexes were not separated from one another).  And besides, Christians met in house churches, making the scenario altogether implausible. 

More problematic with this suggestion is that the point of the passage boils down to be that women must not embarrass their husbands.  This is just insufficient for the sweeping magnitude of the text.  We do not otherwise have any indication that the dignity of the husbands is anywhere at stake in the Corinthian correspondence.  If the passage is authentic, then we must face the possibility that it cannot mean what it says.

The question then becomes whether Paul really wrote this passage.  In 1987, Gordon Fee surprised the academic and evangelical community when he argued in the prestigious and widely acclaimed New International Commentary on the New Testament (F.F. Bruce, ed.) that the silencing of women in 1 Cor 14:33b-35 was not original, nor Pauline, nor inspired.  The claim was significant as it came not from some far out radical feminist who lacked a zeal for scripture.  Rather, it came from a person whose reputation in both textual criticism and Pauline studies made him the foremost expert in the merged field of Pauline textual criticism, as well as one of the most biblically committed scholar-preachers in North America.[1]

            Fee's argument was primarily a textual one.  He noticed a textual problem, evaluated various ways to explain the phenomenon, and then decided the best way to explain it was that it must have been a non-Pauline interpolation; it first must have been written into the margin as some scribe's own personal views, and then migrated into the text at two different places in the manuscript tradition.  However, Fee did not stop there.  Rather, his own exegesis of the text and analysis of the flow of argument led him to confirm his explanation.  Here is his discussion.

First, in his 1987 publication, Fee concedes that all known manuscripts, including versional manuscripts, include the disputed passage.  However, in the manuscript tradition, the passage is located in two different spots in the chapter, begging an explanation:

Traditional Placement in 1 Cor 14 (as found in both Byzantine and Alexandrian mss)

What then shall we say, brothers?  When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.  All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.  If anyone speaks in a tongue, two--or at the most three--should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret.  If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.  Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.  And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop.  For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.  The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets.  ³³For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.  As in all the congregations of the saints,  women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.  If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.  Did the word of God originate with you?  Or are you the only people it has reached?  If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command.  If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.  Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.  But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.  Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.

Placement in 1 Cor in Europe Prior to 400 A.D. (as found in the pre-Vulgate Western mss)

What then shall we say, brothers?  When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.  All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.  If anyone speaks in a tongue, two--or at the most three--should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret.  If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.  Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.  And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop.  For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.  The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets.  For God is not a God of disorder but of peace as in all the congregations of the saints.  Did the word of God originate with you?  Or are you the only people it has reached?  If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command.  If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.  Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.  ⁴⁰But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.  Women should remain silent in the churches.  They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.  If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.  Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.

Fee explains that "the reading which best explains how all others came about is to be preferred as the original."[2]  There are three possible explanations:

1.      Paul put the words precisely where they are presently found in all our translations, attached to verse 33.  This follows the Alexandrian and Byzantine tradition.  Then someone moved the block passage down to the end of the chapter, after verse 40, which is where the Western tradition has the text.

2.      The reverse of #1:  Paul put the words at the end of the chapter, after verse 40, as reflected in the Western manuscript tradition.  Then someone moved the block passage up several verses, attaching them to the end of verse 33, which is where the Alexandrian and Byzantine traditions have the text.[3]

3.      The block passage was not original, but was a "very early marginal gloss that was subsequently placed into the text at two different places."  According to this theory, the motivation for the marginal gloss was to suppress the favorable status Christian women enjoyed during the apostolic era—an altogether historically plausible motivation.

The external evidence for #1 and #2 are equal.  To be sure, the pre-Vulgate Western text is not attested as widely as the Byzantine and Alexandrian.  However, the manuscripts attesting the Western placement represent the entire Western tradition of the church up to the end of the fourth century, and geographically extend to the Eastern Church.  Fee adds, "All the surviving evidence indicates that this was the only way 1 Corinthians appeared in the Latin Church for at least three hundred years."  Thus, the placement of the block passage at the end of chapter fourteen goes back to a source as equally ancient as the placement of the passage at the end of verse 33.  No doubt, had it not been for the influence of Jerome's Latin Vulgate, or if Jerome had done his translation in Italy or somewhere else in the West, the Western placement would have persisted up to Erasmus' printed Greek New Testament, and perhaps have altered its placement in the KJV!  As Fee explains, "…both readings must theoretically be given equal weight as external evidence for Paul's original text" (1994, 275).

Since the issue of which placement is original cannot be solved by external evidence, we must turn to transcriptional likelihoods.  Again, the first rule for transcriptional probabilities is Griesbach's first principle:  "that form of the text is more likely the original which best explains the emergence of all the others."

In this case, Fee details how one might argue that the flow of argument is both equally good and equally bad for either placement!  (He also elaborates on the flow of argument, as it is affected by either placement.)  The fact that either placement was equally good and equally bad contextually would be unlikely if one placement was original and the other not.  Moreover, the net effect of this is that there are good reasons why a marginal gloss could be interpolated into either position! 

In a different, vein, it is claimed that the block text is a transpositional variant, as if a scribe transposed the seven lines of text from one place to another.  However, transposition is usually a matter of a letter or two, or perhaps a word or two, but not a matter of seven lines.  No other example in the NT can be cited for such a large "transposition," except for the Adulterous Woman pericope which might be said to have been "transposed" from John 8 to various other places in the NT manuscripts.[4]  The "transposition" of the Adulterous Woman pericope to various places in the NT manuscripts is one of the very reasons why biblical scholars almost unanimously reject its originality to John's gospel.  With the very same "transpositional" phenomenon at work here in 1 Cor 14:33b-35, perhaps similar doubts should also be projected onto our passage.

Further, to "transpose" the block text would produce an entirely different line of argument, with an altogether different interpretation.  In effect, as Fee argues, the scribe would have been playing the role of redactor, and this sort of redaction is unprecedented in the manuscript tradition of the Pauline epistles.

All these reasons make it difficult to accept either the first or second option, leaving only the third option.  Here, Fee argues that a migrating marginal interpolation makes perfect sense in light of the historic bias against women in the post-Apostolic period.  Here is a graphic depiction of Fee's suggested reading which best explains how the passage came to be located in two locations:

What then shall we say, brothers?  When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.  All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.  If anyone speaks in a tongue, two--or at the most three--should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret.  If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.  Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.  And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop.  For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged.  The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets.  For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.*  Did the word of God originate with you?  Or are you the only people it has reached?  If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command.  If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.  Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.  But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.*  Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.

 

*As in all the congregations of the saints,  women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.  If they want to inquire about anything, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

From here, Fee turns to the internal evidence.  I won't elaborate at this point, except to say that the silencing of the women in such a wide, sweeping, and universal way completely undermines his earlier discussion about method and manner of how women should pray and prophesy in 1 Cor 11, not to mention the previous discussion about how each one should participate in various ways in worship in chapter 14.  We might try to explain the obvious and unmitigated contradictions between those two passages and the silencing of the women in 14:33b-35, but surely everyone will recognize that the easiest resolution to the contradiction is that Paul did not write 14:33b-5.

This is substantially where Fee's argument stood in 1994.  Basically, Fee had conjectured that the earliest manuscripts did not have the silencing of women in either place.  This was a bold claim to make, since not a single manuscript was known to support his view.  This was a purely rationalized conjecture, based on a hypothesis, without manuscript evidence.

Much has changed in the last decade.  Fee's hypothesized conjecture now has been found to have manuscript support.  This attests to Fee's brilliance and handling of the text.  He came to his conclusions without physical evidence, but on various re-examinations and discoveries, we find that history has vindicated Fee's claim that early manuscripts—at least some—did not include the passage.  (See P.B. Payne, "MS. 88 as Evidence for a Text without 1 Cor. 14.34-5," NTS 44[1998] 152-58, and idem. Fuldensis, Sigla for Variants in Vaticanus, and 1 Cor 14:34-35 in NTS 41 (1995) 250—251.) 

This manuscript evidence is found in perhaps the most important Latin codex (Fuldensis, c. 547) and from Codex Vaticanus (B) which is deemed our most reliable complete NT manuscript by the vast majority of text critics.  In both of these manuscripts, there are markings to indicate text critical issues, and these markings show that the scribe was aware of other manuscripts which omitted the verses.  Likewise, the non-Western Greek miniscule ms 88 has been shown to have been copied from a manuscript which did not have the passage in question.  Thus, we have evidence of the text's omission both in an Alexandrian and a pre-Vulgate Western

manuscript, and  as well as in the distinctive text of ms 88.

In the end, I find it remarkable that Fee did his work out of pure conjecture, and that, sure enough, upon closer examination, we have found evidence to substantiate his work. 

Our discussion then, concludes that this passage which God's Holy Spirit has led us not to interpret according to its prima facie meaning, is actually a passage that Paul was never inspired to write.  On the contrary, an overly zealous scribe after Paul's death must have added it as commentary into the margin of his Bible, and that a patriarchal and sometimes misogynistic church too eagerly incorporated it into its text.  As such, we cannot appeal to this text either to silence women altogether (as it says), nor to keep them out of the pastorate.

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[1] Fee was not the first to make this claim.  He cites a German scholar, G. Fitzer, 1963, as having done so, while citing a number of others with him, including C.K. Barrett, Hans Conzelmann, and even E. Earle Ellis (with some qualification).

[2] This is Fee's rendition of Griesbach's first principle of textual criticism (God's Empowering Presence, 272 n.2).

[3] I'm not sure anyone thinks #2 is a viable option. 

[4] Instead of the usual placement as John 7:53-8:11, it is also found after John 7:36, 7:44, John 21:24, and Luke 21:38.