Different Rules for Different Cultures? A Response to James R. Payton Jr.

In the Priscilla Papers, published by the evangelical feminist group Christians for Biblical

Equality, James R. Payton Jr., upbraids me, as "a seminary-trained Ph.D." who ought to know better, for trying, in an article that appeared in a denominational magazine, to interpret 1 Cor 14:33b-35 at face value within its scriptural context. It was "startling" to Payton that "nothing in the entire article indicated any awareness of the potential importance of the cultural situation for understanding the New Testament passage examined." In fact, my article was "the most striking example" Payton had ever seen "of this lack of attention to historical context in treating the question of women's roles in the church."¹

My purpose here is not to defend my exegesis of that passage, as disconcerting as my interpretation may be to egalitarians, but rather to consider the relevance of "the cultural situation" and to examine how Payton uses it to explain the apostolic rules about women speaking at Corinth and in other cities. The passage reads in the ESV:

As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

Hermeneutical Considerations

There are indeed sometimes special circumstances in the situations addressed by Scripture that determine the instructions that are given. Those instructions would not apply in situations where those circumstances do not obtain. The chief example of this, of course, is the commands given specifically to the people of Israel under the Mosaic covenant. We do not literally apply to the church today the Lord's condemnation of his people "who eat pig's flesh" (Isa 65:4), because that passage invokes the dietary laws of the Mosaic economy, which have passed away. This limitation of the passage's applicability comes from an understanding of its place in redemptive history, as revealed in Scripture as a whole.

In the case of the New Testament, there are some passages that presuppose the Mosaic economy (especially in the Gospels), but generally the New Testament presupposes the new covenant economy, which will continue until the return of Christ. Thus, the teachings of Christ and the apostles must be presumed to have universal applicability throughout the church until the end of the age. Nonetheless, we must be alert to the possibility that an instruction even in the apostolic writings may be determined by a particular circumstance in a specific situation, and thus would not apply today in the absence of that circumstance (cf. 1 Cor 7:26).

But that circumstance would have to be evident in the immediate context, or in a related passage, because Scripture as a whole teaches us that the apostolic context is our context. For example, it is sometimes said that women were uneducated in Paul's day, and for that reason were required to keep quiet in church (1 Cor 14:34) and not teach men (1 Tim 2:12). Now if either passage (or any related passage of Scripture) mentioned educational attainment as the determining factor in such situations, then it would be appropriate to limit the scope of these passages to situations where women are uneducated. However, since that supposed factor is nowhere mentioned in the passage itself or anywhere else in Scripture, it is at best an unreliable guide to interpretation. The teaching of every passage of Scripture should be accepted on its own terms, unless a limitation of its scope is indicated either by its redemptive-historical context or by the circumstances of the immediate (or a similar) context. But in either case the limiting factor comes from Scripture itself. To bring in an extrabiblical consideration, such as presumed cultural mores, and to use it to limit the applicability of a text, can very easily be turned into a denial of Scripture's authority.²

When we turn to 1 Cor 14:33b-35, we find that Paul's injunction is not limited to the circumstances at Corinth or to a specific cultural situation; rather, he sets forth a rule that applies "in all the churches" (cf. 7:17), in whatever cultural setting. The silence of women (learning in submission) is said to be consonant with what "the Law" (the Old Testament) teaches—not what may be appropriate in a certain cultural setting. The only possible reference to societal values is the concluding reference to what is "shameful," but even if this meant "what is shameful in Corinthian society," which we strongly doubt, it would only be an additional consideration, which, if removed, would still leave the other two.³ These considerations make the universal applicability of this passage explicit. Without them, its universal applicability would be implicit as apostolic teaching.

Payton's Argument from History and Culture

But what is the "historical context" of 1 Cor 14:33b-35 that Payton thinks is so important for the proper interpretation of the passage? He explains that two cultures were operative in the Roman Empire: the Hellenistic culture that dominated in the East, especially in the Greek cities (like Corinth), and the Roman culture that dominated in the West. In the first century, when the New Testament was written, Roman culture penetrated the East only in the Roman colonies, where "Roman practices prevailed." "In Roman culture," he explains, women "had almost the same rights as men" and "could be seen and could speak in public without damaging their reputation." But in Hellenistic culture, as in Corinth, "women had almost no personal legal rights," and "it was considered unseemly for a woman to speak with or interact with a man or men other than her husband." The only women who "spoke openly with men in public," he asserts, were the hetairai, who "offered intellectual intercourse before the other kind." Thus, "women could not engage in open discussions with men in public or else they would soil their reputations."⁴

The reason, then, why Paul told women in Corinth that it would be "shameful" for them to speak in church was that "in this Hellenistic cultural setting, for a woman to speak publicly was tantamount to declaring herself available for a variety of sexual activities." The same was true in Ephesus, to which 1 Timothy was written. But in Rome, Payton argues, women like Phoebe, Prisca, Mary, and Junia (Rom 16:1, 3, 6, 7) no doubt spoke to men in church in the manner forbidden in Corinth. Similarly in Philippi, which was a Roman colony in the East, women such as Euodia and Syntyche were Paul's colaborers (Phil 4:2-3) and no doubt spoke publicly in church. Thus, Payton concludes, "the much-discussed apostolic prohibitions against women taking a place fully equal to that of men in the church are all found in letters written to churches in the Hellenistic cultural sphere." Only "in that cultural setting," where such speaking would be grossly misunderstood, did such restrictions apply—and thus they do not apply today.⁵

For the reasons that we have outlined, Payton's appeal to the supposed cultural context at Corinth and elsewhere is contrary to a sound understanding of the authority of Scripture in the church. He introduces a controlling exegetical factor, the cultural setting, that is nowhere indicated in the text or in related texts as relevant. Moreover, the controlling exegetical factor contradicts the biblical patriarchy that Paul clearly advocates elsewhere as rooted in God's good creation (e.g., 1 Corinthians 11; 1 Tim 2:13). Payton also forgets that the church was a new society, beginning to establish a new culture that was in many respects different from the surrounding culture and often clashed with it. The apostles set forth rules that were appropriate for God's people in the new covenant age, often in opposition to the values of the surrounding culture. Thus, in the absence of any evidence in Scripture that 1 Cor 14:33b-35 was intended to be specific to a particular cultural setting, it is wrong to argue that it was.

Payton's Historical Error

We could stop here, having established on hermeneutical grounds that Payton's argument is lacking. But what do we make of his explanation of the cultural situations in the various churches? Well, his entire argument deserves criticism, for his descriptions of Hellenistic and Roman culture are oversimplified and his inferences drawn from Paul's epistles to the Romans and the Philippians are less than convincing. But, for the sake of argument, we will grant that all he says about Hellenistic and Roman culture is valid, even though we disagree that "there is no scholarly question whatsoever" about it.⁶

Instead, we will simply point out that a historical error lies at the heart of his argument. Contrary to what he says about Corinth, it was not a Hellenistic city in the first century A.D., but rather a Roman colony. Thus, his entire analysis of the New Testament teaching regarding the place of women in the church, which is based on the assumption that Corinth was a Hellenistic city, collapses like a house of cards. It is startling to me that a professor of history, who confidently informs the reader how "familiar" he has become with "the historical contexts of the first-century churches,"⁷ would be so unfamiliar with the basic historical context of the key city of Corinth, but such is apparently the case.

There was once a Hellenistic city of Corinth, but it was destroyed by the Romans in 146 B.C., and its surviving inhabitants were sold into slavery. The site remained derelict (and nearly deserted) until it began to be rebuilt as a Roman colony in 44 B.C. and was repopulated with Romans. It remained a predominantly Roman city during the first century A.D.⁸ Latin remained the official language of Corinth in Paul's day; of the 104 inscriptions antedating the reign of Hadrian that had been uncovered by 1966, 101 are in Latin and only three are in Greek.⁹ The absence of a cult of Roma in Corinth (prior to Hadrian), by which non-Roman populaces acknowledged Roman supremacy, indicates that the Corinthians regarded themselves as Roman.¹⁰ An earthquake devastated the city in about A.D. 77, after which it was again rebuilt by the Romans. During the reign of Hadrian (117-138), an official effort was begun to rehellenize Corinth, and Greek became the official language of the city by the time that Pausanias visited it in about A.D. 165 and wrote of it in his Description of Greece.

But when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in the middle of the first century, as Horrell and Adams state, "Corinth reflected, to a very significant degree, Roman patterns both in its physical appearance and its political and cultural makeup, even if Greek language and culture remained important at the popular level."¹¹ "It would be exaggerated to claim that there were no Greeks in the city that Paul knew or that their language was unknown to the inhabitants," observes Jerome Murphy-O'Connor (after all, Paul wrote to the Corinthian church in Greek), but "the structure and administration of Corinth was Roman."¹² Anthony C. Thistleton notes the growing cosmopolitan character of Corinth, with Greeks, Macedonians, Jews, and Syrians joining the Roman population, yet he also notes "the prominence of Roman, rather than Greek, patterns of culture in the most respected mores of the city," which he considers "important for an understanding of a number of specific details of our epistle."¹³ David E. Garland similarly remarks that 1 Corinthians "should be read against the background of Corinth as a city imbued with Roman cultural values."¹⁴ David W. J. Gill concludes, "It is right for both classical archaeologists and New Testament scholars to stress the Roman nature of the city which was visited by Paul in the first century A.D."¹⁵

So the cultural setting of Corinth in the middle of the first century was predominantly Roman, just like that of Rome and Philippi. There was a sizable Greek element in Corinth, to be sure, but so was there in Rome and in Philippi (to which Paul also wrote letters in Greek). Thus, Payton's effort to limit the applicability of 1 Cor 14:33b- 35 by setting "Hellenistic" Corinth and Ephesus over against "Roman" Philippi and Rome (and the modern world) is refuted by the historical evidence upon which he relies.

Concluding Observations

The precise historical and cultural context in which Scripture was written is difficult to determine, apart from clues provided by the biblical text itself. Furthermore, biblical scholars too often exaggerate the significance of extrabiblical information in their interpretation of Scripture. Especially objectionable is any attempt to use the supposed historical background to overturn the clear meaning of the text and undermine the teaching of related passages. Yes, extrabiblical sources do shed light on the meaning of obscure words and provide useful information about people, events, customs, and other matters mentioned in the text. But only Scripture itself, understood as the unfolding revelation of God for our salvation, provides the definitive interpretive context for any passage in it, not the presumed cultural context of its writers or original readers.

Payton's description of the cultural context at Corinth falls short on historical grounds, but my criticism of him is not so much that his research was faulty, as it is that his methodology is inconsistent with the divine authority of Scripture. He attempts to use extrabiblical information to nullify the creational hierarchy that Paul clearly affirms both in 1 Cor 14:33b-35 and elsewhere. Not surprisingly, Payton reaches erroneous conclusions about the role of women in the apostolic church.