Then, after abruptly returning for a couple of verses to a defense of his rights, Paul again protests that he hasn’t used them.The first is Paul’s desire not to “put an obstacle in the way of the gospel.”.335)Īnd, as Daniel Völter and others have called attention to, the passage provides different and textually separated motives for the waiver of Paul’s rights: But no one takes such trouble to establish the other fellow’s argument, only to dismiss it and establish one’s own position in a few words, as we would have to read Paul as doing here if he wrote the whole thing. Modern harmonizers plead that the first argument is Paul’s statement of agreement on basics with his critics regarding an apostle’s right to receive compensation, whereas the second argument presents his extenuating reasons for, nonetheless, not exercising the rights for which he has so eloquently argued. There are several things wrong with this passage.įirst of all, its author spends a lot of time defending certain apostolic rights that he doesn’t even use. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?ĭo you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake that the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk? Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” This is my defense to those who would examine me.ĭo we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only (….) and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Pauline passages that still contain traces of Helen 1 Corinthians 9: 1 – 18Īm I not an apostle? Have I not see Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. This post will take a look at some of them. 244-5).īut although for one reason or another Helen’s name may not have survived the redactor’s eraser, there are Pauline passages that, in my opinion, may still contain traces of her. And it “interrupts the flow of the argument.” Its verses “seem to intrude in the passage.” So it is generally deemed acceptable to hold that “These verses in chapter 14 were not written by Paul” (Bart Ehrman, Forged pp. It is a zag they find too hard to reconcile with other zigs like 1 Cor. Nevertheless, there are zigzags that are just too jagged even for many mainstream scholars to harmonize. These verses are present in one place or another of chapter 14 in all extant manuscripts that possess the chapter. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. The interpolator, as a member of the mid-second century proto-orthodox community, would presumably have shared its desire to limit the influence of women in ecclesiastical matters, a desire that many scholars see reflected, for example, in the following passage from 1 Corinthians:Īs in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. And not just because she was so closely associated with Simon and his teaching. Any clear references to her would almost certainly have been removed or rewritten by the interpolator. Now if this scenario is correct, one would not expect to find mention of Simon’s companion Helen in the letters as they currently stand. In this scenario the redactor’s aim would have been to turn Simon/Paul into a proto-orthodox Paul and thereby co-opt his letters for proto-orthodoxy. My hypothesis is that the Paul who wrote the original letters was the first-century Simon of Samaria and that the inconsistencies were caused by insertions to his text by a second-century proto-orthodox redactor.
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