That is what I have thought.  .  .  that vs. 34-35 are quotes by the Judiaizers, quoting from the Mishna.  Because there are Mishna's that say that.

But Fee is not being irresponsible.  He and others who have researched the original copies have been curious over why those verses appear in different places on different copies.  We many never know for certain.

The thing to see is that the Corinthians themselves would have recognized it as a quote, assuming it was a quote.

Forum members may find this link interesting if they want to investigate this a bit further.

http://www.energionpubs.com/wordpress/2006/12/does-gordon-fee-discard-part-of-the-bible/

By the way, i'm not campaigning for a particular view. Although i certainly lean towards Fees'
IMO we should be aware of various views.

I haven't explored the author's blog much however the heading under gender roles looks interesting http://www.energionpubs.com/wordpress/category/gender-roles/

I think we can likely all agree on that. 

And I think we can also all agree that Paul did not believe in permanently silencing women or forbidding them to speak in church. 

Larry,

The blog I was looking at is here:

http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.com/search/label/Bible

Scroll down for a series of posts on "chauvinistic Bible passages":

"Saved through Childbearing": Women and Authority in 1 Timothy 2:11-15
The Silence of Women Is Golden: 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:3-16
'Redemptive Threads' in the Bible

I like the Henry Neufeld blog posted by Larry above-- but the Chris Carroll Smith ones made me feel sad.  Here is what she herself said about her view of the Bible:

I admit I felt a great sense of loss as I watched my evangelical faith entirely unravel before me. And yet I think it would have been a great act of cowardice to shy away from the pulling, and I have found that the redemptive threads themselves are so precious, especially now freed from their association with threads of lesser value, that I would not trade them for the unity that I lost.

And in another blog she says:

Alternatively, we can face up to the facts at hand and find fresh ways to interpret Jesus and the Bible that require neither to have been infallible. The latter option, I believe, is the more faithful and the more realistic.

What Ms. Smith appears to do in her interpretations is actually something very simiilar to what atheists do (not that she is an atheist!).  She chooses an almost extreme fundamentalist hyper-literalism, calls that the correct interpretation, and then uses that as a reason to reject the Bible as a divinely inspired foundation for faith and practice.  She believes the Bible is a dated work, and simply "pullls out threads" that she finds helpful to her, rejecting the rest.

I don't see what justification she has for tossing out egalitarian interpretations of the text, other than that she doesn't find them compelling.  I suspect this is because the particular form of evangelicalism that she was raised with insisted on "plain-sense" readings that as a reasoning, modern human woman, she can no longer accept-- but she is unable to accept a different method of exegesis either.  So she just throws the whole inerrancy-inspiration issue out too. 

KR

Correction
"He" and "Mr. Smith"


"Christopher Smith
    has an MA in Christan History from Wheaton College and a BA in Biblical Studies (with a minor in Classics) from Fresno Pacific University. He is a Christian pluralist in the tradition of Ernst Troeltsch. He also reads and writes fiction; his favorite author is Orson Scott Card. "

clay, do you know him ?

No, I just read his bio in the sidebar of his blog..

and frankly, I would feel much more comfortable with a daughter of mine dating a fellow like him than one of those fellows from EV.  He seems like a fine respectful young man!  I've taught them since they were knee high to hold out for "a godly man".  I suppose my definition of "godly" has shifted from (superficial? trivial?) doctrinal concerns to whether the young man knows how to value and respect women.

Clay's comment reminds me about what a father said to me once about his daughter who had divorced her Christian husband (who had physically abused her) and eventually married a person who was not a Christian (but who didn't abuse her). He said, 'at least he doesn't beat her.'

what's a Christian pluralist?

Good shift.  A lot of other things can be worked through if they have that foundation.

Hi All,

I noticed there was a link from here pointing to my blog, so I popped on over to check out the discussion.


Feminine pronouns withstanding, there is truth to this assessment.  If a believer in the Qu'ran or the Book of Mormon tried to convince me that all the problems in his or her holy book can be explained away by adopting a different method of exegesis-- something other than the "plain-sense"-- I would just chuckle to myself and not take him or her seriously.  Since I want to be taken seriously by outsiders and unbelievers myself, I believe I need to be realistic in my assessments of the text.

I was also raised as someone who believes the Pentecostal gifts of prophecy and apostleship still continue today.  It never made sense to me to say that the apostles of the first century were perfect, infallible writers and teachers whereas the apostles of today fall and err quite frequently.  (It also never made sense to me to say, alternatively, that the gifts had ceased.)  At some point I concluded that the New Testament was the apostles' fallible human account of and reflection on their (genuine) experiences of God.  The Church tends to treat it as infallible only because of the momentum of human tradition.  This view made a lot of things make sense that hadn't made sense before.


A Christian pluralist believes that God is revealed and salvifically active in every religion, as evidenced by the fact that members of every religion exhibit the "fruits of the Spirit," often as much or more than evangelical Christians do.  The pluralist believes that the apostles' experience of God in Jesus was so powerful that they incorrectly assumed it was the only way of salvation, and that members of the other great religious traditions have made similar assumptions about their own ways of experiencing God.  In truth, however, "Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God [...] because God is love" (1 John 4:7-8).

Blessings,

-Chris

I would then say taht I am not a pluralist. jesus is the only way as far as i concerned if i get this meaning correctly.

Hi Chris,

Very nice to have you visit 

I posted as "Gem" on your blog.  (and I appreciate your good heart which shows through in your writing)

I was just thinking today about the phrase "after the flesh" and Jesus said this:

"Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man."  Jn 8:15

I think Jesus is so right about that!  I mean, our tendency to "judge after the flesh". 
HE Knows people's hearts.

I was also thinking about that phrase "there are many roads to heaven" and I was thinking that its true- but probably not in the sense that some people (christian pluralists?) believe.  I think they are seeing an aspect truth, but not the whole truth.  (not that I have "arrived", or anything...  )
Anyway, I think you'll like the folks around here.  We are rather theologically diverse (though you may be the first "christian pluralist"  )