Should Women be Silent in the Church? A Biblical Study of 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 35 (May 2010)

For almost 2 millennia, the voice of women has been stifled in the Church. Interestingly, this has been in large part due to just two references in the New Testament: 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 35. Something about these three verses, however, is that the way they have been translated and handled in the Church is in glaring contradiction to the flow and feel of the rest of the New Testament about women. Right from the start of the Christian Church on the Day of Pentecost, both men and women received holy spirit (Acts 2:17, 18). Women served in the Church and were speaking up in the meetings. There were simple churches in their homes, and there is much evidence that they taught the Word of God.

While 1 Timothy 2:12 has been mistranslated and misunderstood (cp. the audio teaching: "The Role of Women in the Church" at TruthOrTradition.com/role.), there are a growing number of scholars who have concluded that 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 35 were added to the Bible by an early scribe, and that it was not part of Paul’s original letter to the Corinthians. In this teaching, John Schoenheit goes through some of the reasons many scholars now conclude that these verses were added to the text, and also speaks about how we should understand and apply them if they were part of the original text.

For further study visit TruthOrTradition.com/silent.

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