sexist Roman slogan (and what Paul may do with it)

Kay Bonikowsky has a post up in which she suggests that "Paul was quoting a slogan" when writing in Greek to men and women in Korinth, Greece.  Translator Ann Nyland, likewise, says the following, right in the middle of her translation of what we call Chapter 14 of Paul's letter; Nyland says: "Paul now quotes from the letter sent to him by the Corinthian assembly."

The Corinthian men had quoted the Law of the Roman empire at Paul.  So how did that go?  Well, in a bit, I'll show you.  First, I want to let Cheryl Glenn remind us about that Roman law:

A particular point of Roman male pride seems to have been the deliberate exclusion of women from civil and public duties; and in the first centuries of its history, Roman law reflected rigid legal inequalities between males and females.  Cicero reportedly contemplated with utter dismay a society which "included women in assemblies" and which allowed women "soldiery and magistracies and commands."  "How great will be the misfortune of that city, in which women will assume the public duties of men" (Lactantius, Epitomes 33.[38.]1-5, ascribed to De re publica 4-5, qtd. in Hallett, Fathers 8)....  Over centuries, Roman law constructed and guaranteed the sexual distinction -- and division -- between males and females.  The differential between the legal status of women and that of men was justified by the natural inferiority of women:  their congenital weakness, limited intellectual faculties, and ignorance of law....  Roman women were perpetually restrained by law. [ Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance, pages 61-62, emphases mine: the red font the Roman exclusions, the blue the more liberal inclusions elsewhere.]

Glenn goes on from her research to discuss at great length the effects of the Law.  The legal constraints applied to women more severely under Roman rule even more than they had under the old laws and customs of the Greek empire.  The oppressive Law worked to silence women in Rome, in Athens, in Jerusalem and in Korinth:

Like the Greek matron, then, the Roman woman was oppressively busy managing her household and family [i.e., the Roman Domum as the counterpart of the Greek οἰκοδομή -- the OIKO-DOMĒ -- the domain of the home].... Because the Romans clung to the ideal of the domina, of the strong privatized woman, they [i.e., the Roman men] often reacted with perplexity or disgust at the women who pursued intellectual or political aspirations. Unlike the very few Greek women who found acceptance and admiration in the public domain, no Roman woman seems to have succeeded in establishing herself as a public figure in her own right....  The Greeks and Romans [i.e., the men] regarded most women as ciphers, whose worth varied according to the property and family connections accompanying them.  Women were to be traded among men.  And historians -- from the first -- have had little more to say about these women, who were always, particularly in their exceptions, defined by the private, feminine sphere.  The women in my study who passed into the public sphere, even if only temporarily, found themselves vulnerable to assaults on their families, their honor, their sexuality, their "feminine" influence.  These women endured the closest of inspections and critiques by males and females alike, usually being disarmed of their influence and respect in the process.  [ Rhetoric Retold, pages 63, 72-73, emphases mine: the red font the Roman exclusions, the blue the more liberal inclusions elsewhere.]

Okay, so what was the slogan, the Roman law, that the men of Korinth wrote to Paul?  And how did he reply?  Let's look, first at their Greek, then at our English.  (What my translation attempts is to show Paul's play with "feminine" words, with HOME-DOMAIN and with SILENCE and with ALL-inclusion in the ASSEMBLY and with the creative, maternal words of BIRTH.)  Here, hear:

Τί οὖν ἐστίν, ἀδελφοί;
Ὅταν συνέρχησθε ἕκαστος

ψαλμὸν ἔχει,
διδαχὴν ἔχει,
ἀποκάλυψιν ἔχει,
γλῶσσαν ἔχει,
ἑρμηνείαν ἔχει.

Πάντα πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν γινέσθω.

Εἴτε γλώσσῃ τις λαλεῖ,
κατὰ δύο ἢ τὸ πλεῖστον τρεῖς,
καὶ ἀνὰ μέρος,
καὶ εἷς διερμηνευέτω·
ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ᾖ διερμηνευτής,
σιγάτω ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ·
ἑαυτῷ δὲ λαλείτω καὶ τῷ θεῷ.

Προφῆται δὲ δύο ἢ τρεῖς λαλείτωσαν,
καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι διακρινέτωσαν.
Ἐὰν δὲ ἄλλῳ ἀποκαλυφθῇ καθημένῳ,
ὁ πρῶτος σιγάτω.

Δύνασθε γὰρ καθ’ 

ἕνα πάντες προφητεύειν,
ἵνα πάντες μανθάνωσιν,
καὶ πάντες παρακαλῶνται·
καὶ πνεύματα προφητῶν
προφήταις ὑποτάσσεται.

Οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀκαταστασίας ὁ θεός,
ἀλλὰ εἰρήνης,
ὡς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῶν ἁγίων.

Αἱ γυναῖκες ὑμῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις σιγάτωσαν·
οὐ γὰρ ἐπιτρέπεται αὐταῖς λαλεῖν,
ἀλλὰ ὑποτασσέσθωσαν,

καθὼς καὶ ὁ νόμος λέγει.

Εἰ δέ τι μαθεῖν θέλουσιν,
ἐν οἴκῳ τοὺς ἰδίους ἄνδρας ἐπερωτάτωσαν·
αἰσχρὸν γάρ ἐστιν γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ.

Ἢ
ἀφ’ ὑμῶν ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθεν;
Ἢ
εἰς ὑμᾶς μόνους κατήντησεν;

Εἴ τις δοκεῖ προφήτης εἶναι ἢ πνευματικός,
ἐπιγινωσκέτω ἃ γράφω ὑμῖν,
ὅτι κυρίου ἐστὶν ἐντολή
Εἰ δέ τις ἀγνοεῖ, ἀγνοεῖται.
Ὥστε, ἀδελφοί μου, ζηλοῦτε τὸ προφητεύειν,
καὶ τὸ λαλεῖν μὴ κωλύετε γλώσσαις·
πάντα δὲ εὐσχημόνως
καὶ κατὰ τάξιν γινέσθω.

In English, that goes something like this:

What is it, then, brothers?
When you meet together, each one may

have a Psalm,
have an Instruction,
have a Revelation,
have a Tongue,
have a Translation.

All gives birth to the Domain of the Home:

Whether it's a Tongue that is uttered,
by two or at the most three,
both a Top Part,
and through to a Translation.

Should there, however, not be the Translation, then: 
Silence in the Assembly!
To oneself, nonetheless, is an Utterance, and to God.

Prophesy, nonetheless, by two or three Utterances,
And the others through to a Judgement. 

Should there come, in fact, some Revelation to another seated, then:
For the first one, Silence!

You all, in fact, are quite able:

One and all may Prophesy
So that all may be Apprenticed
And all may be Called to Encouragement.
And may the Spirit of a Prophecy
Be given Order Under Prophets.

There's not, in fact, a God of Disruption,
but rather of Peace,
which is in all, in the Assembly, of the Holy ones. 

Your women, in the Assembly, are to be Silent! 
Give, in fact, to them no Turn to Utter anything there,
but rather give them their Order Under. 

just as the Law also states

If, however, some wish to be Apprenticed,
Then it's in the Home where their own men are that these may Question.
It is shameful, in fact, for women to Utter anything in the Assembly.

What?!
Is that from you all, The Statement of God springing out like your baby?
What?!
Is this your special delivery?

If someone opines that they have so Prophesied, or are so Spiritual,
then let him understand what I have written to you all:
our Master is giving Commandments.
If, nonetheless, someone is without understanding, then he lacks understanding. 
Therefore, my brothers, yearn to Prophesy,
and to Utter (don't forbid it) a Tongue.
All, nonetheless, with Blessed Form
and according to Arrangement be birthed! 

The (NIV) Bible (Men) Upset

The Bible's position on women couldn't be upside down
if there were no male-over-female hierarchy.

Okay, let's unpack this:

What follows below is a little bit from one writer (a man, of course) that shows how he (the writer) places a man (or two) over a woman (or two). The writer is a reader of Greek (a reader of such writings as the medical journals of men: of Hippocrates, who follows Hesiod, and of Aristotle, who follows both of these men and Pythagoras as well). The male knows something as he writes the Bible bit below; he knows how

“Aristotle accords to the male in the act of procreation the role of active agent, contributing ‘motion’ and ‘formation’ while the female provides the ‘raw material,’ as when a bed (the child) is made by a carpenter (the father) out of wood (the mother).”

The male writer of a bit of the Bible below, who is a reader of other male writers, is like the other men:

he is a male, a writer with active agency, a physician. He’s interested in physics, in the reality of nature, and stands above nature as the male standing above the female.

(You and I get this reading in Greek and in translation. The above quotation on Aristotle is from Anne Carson writing Men in the Off Hours. The quotation below is from Dr. Luke, as translated from his Greek into English by a team of men only (no women, not 1 of more than 100); the translation of these men is the version--as Kevin Sam notes--that's“the most authoritative translation today.”)

The little bit below from the Greek-male-physician-reading writer is what we call in English Luke 2:25-38 NIV (and we can read a Greek version of that too).

To illustrate the hierarchy (men over women) of the NIV men and of the Greek male Dr. Luke, I’ve just inverted the bit of text. I’ve just put the woman where the man is, and the men in the textual bit where the women were.

Here is that long awaited bit of the Bible. Here’s how that (upset wooden interpretation) reads now:

25Now there was a (wo)man [not a goddess] in Jerusalem called Anna, who was righteous and devout. [We don't need to know who her father is because she's not an Athenian citizen whose father's name must be registered in the text because she's a female.] She was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon the child. 26It had been revealed to her by the Holy Spirit that she would not die before she had seen the Lord's Christ. 27Moved by the Spirit, she went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for the child what the custom of the Law required, 28Anna took the child in her arms and praised God, saying:

29"Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your daughter in peace.
30For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
32a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people [the nation of father] Israel."

33The child's mother and father marveled at what was said about the child. 34Then Anna blessed them and said to Joseph, his father:

"This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in [the nation of father] Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

36There was also a prophet-man, Simeon, the boy child of father Phanuel, of the tribe of the son Asher. He was very old; he had lived with his spouse seven years after his marriage [to which he gave his virginity to a woman, to his spouse], 37and then was a widow-er until he was eighty-four. He never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38Coming up to them at that very moment, he gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

The Bible's position on women couldn't be upside down
if there were no male-over-female hierarchy.

I think we’ll see something else,
if we keep reading this story,
the story that Dr. Luke is trying to write so “faithfully to nature” as the Greek men then (so “faithful to nature”) and the NIV translator men (so “faithful to Greek male nature”) would have it.

What we see (and this requires multiple witnesses) is that the little boy in the story grows up to be a man who considers the image of the Creator. This re-consideration turns upside down the wooden things crafted by men. This re-consideration upsets their tables in the most sacred of places. To notice how upsetting this is will require multiple witnesses. It requires the merger of nature and the supernatural. It requires parable, and hyperbole, and other rhetorics of women forbidden by the man Aristotle. It requires witnesses who also (we see) are women.