Irredeemably Hostile to Women: Anti-Jewish Elements in the Exegesis of the Dispute About Women's Right To Speak (1 Cor. 14.34-35)

Abstract

The prohibition, 'Let women keep silent in the churches' (1 Cor. 14.34-35) is 'irredeemably hostile to women', since it aims at a fundamental public prohibition of speech for Christian women, including feminist theological work such as this. At the centre of the essay important exegeses of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are classified and described with reference to misogyny and anti-Judaism, with the result that almost all of them—in particular if an interpolation be supposed—go along with a derivation from the supposedly women-hostile Judaism. In Judaism, however, there is no evidence of a fundamental command to silence, though there are similar attestations, both in terms of content and structure, to be found among Graeco-Roman authors. In conclusion, three theses are proposed, the purpose of which is to give pointers to a reception of New Testament texts while at the same time avoiding anti-Judaism and misogyny.