Head Coverings: The Quotation/Refutation View

The sixth segment of a summer blog post series on 1 Corinthians 11:2-16…

Most Christians have probably never heard of the “Quotation/Refutation View” of anything in the New Testament. There is an understandable reason for this.

The original Greek manuscripts of our New Testament contained no punctuation, particularly no quotation marks. In modern English today, we use quotation marks in general to show when someone else is speaking. In contrast, in ancient New Testament Greek, you have to look for contextual and grammatical clues to figure out when someone else is speaking. Sometimes picking up those clues is fairly straight-forward, if you pay attention. At other times, it is not so easy at all. But without some knowledge of what the author is doing, certain passages in the New Testament make no sense at all.

This is partly why, even though it is perhaps the most beautiful, elegant, and classic translation of the Bible, the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is not to be recommended for a close, verse-by-verse analysis of what the Scriptures are teaching, without having some kind of help to go along with it. For the KJV includes no quotation marks anywhere in the text. Some KJV Bibles try to get around this limitation a little bit by printing out the words said by Jesus in red, so-called “Red Letter Bibles,” but these red letter Bible printings rely on a lot of guesswork that can easily mislead the reader.

Everything about head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11 (well, maybe not “everything,” but we try to hit the highlights here at Veracity)

Modern English Bible translations make more use of quotations, in order to help the reader to understand the text better. A classic case for this can be found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Many Christians do not realize that our two letters to the Corinthians are part of a multi-letter back-and-forth conversation between Paul and the Corinthian church, where only two of these letters have actually survived. We only see a small part and one side of that conversation!! In fact, our “1 Corinthians” might be the second letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians, where the first letter is now lost. Thankfully, Paul does quote and respond to certain Corinthian slogans, even refuting them when necessary, thus assuming that at least some of these slogans were probably in the letters written by the Corinthians addressed to Paul, letters that are now lost to us.

The Quotation/Refutation Rhetoric at Work in 1 Corinthians

One brief example can start to help us see how this quotation-refutation rhetorical mechanism in Paul’s writing works. The English Standard Version (ESV) has Paul quoting and then refuting a saying, two times in a row, just in one verse, 1 Corinthians 10:23. Here the quotation has regular italic font, while Paul’s refutation is in bold italic font:

“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.

The Corinthian saying is “All things are lawful,” repeated twice. Presumably, the Corinthian letter to Paul used this language to engage Paul, as in “Dear Apostle Paul: Here in Corinth we believe that all things are lawful, since we now have our freedom in Jesus.” However, Paul sees some big problems with this saying. It could be simply used as an excuse for licentiousness and lawlessness. Instead, Paul wants the Corinthians to use their new found freedom in Christ, not to tear down, but rather, to build up other believers.

“Yes, you do have freedom in Christ as believers, but do not misuse your freedom to bring down another Christian,” is essentially Paul’s message back to the Corinthians, a lesson that we should apply today in our own lives. For example, you may have the freedom in Christ to drink alcohol, but if a believing friend in your local fellowship has a serious problem with alcoholism, you might want to think twice before offering your friend a glass of beer or wine when you gather together for a small group Bible study or pot luck meal.

Most modern translations today use quotation marks to signal when Paul is referencing a short, Corinthian slogan, in order to refute it. This rhetorical device shows up more times in 1 Corinthians than you would expect. The mostly undisputed examples among scholars include 1 Corinthians 1:12; 3:4; 6:12-13; 7:1; 8:1, 4, 8; 10:23. Other possible examples include 1 Corinthians 4:6b; 6:18b; 8:5a; 12:3; 15:12, 35. In other words, there could be as many as thirteen different occurrences where this quotation/refutation rhetorical device is used in this letter…. and possibly more! ¹

In a previous blog post, I argue that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, about “women must keep silent in the churches” is actually using the quotation/refutation rhetoric. However, there is another instance of the rhetoric’s use earlier in 1 Corinthians 14.

The Quotation/Refutation Rhetoric on Display in 1 Corinthians 14

Lucy Peppiatt, a systematic theologian in the United Kingdom, has possibly written the most definitive, exhaustive work on how 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 has been interpreted by various scholars. Peppiatt believes that Paul is using this quotation/refutation rhetorical device here in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. She makes her case with two more detailed examples from 1 Corinthians to show how this works in Paul’s mind, that are worth exploring, before diving into the trickiest part of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. You can then judge how well Peppiatt makes her case. These examples are more controversial among scholars.²

The first detailed example, regarding 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, I will link here to a previous Veracity blog post, the controversial “women should be silent in the churches” passage. The second detailed example is more complex, but I will show it below. This may seem like a rabbit-trail, but it might help to explain what might be happening in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 a bit better.

In 1 Corinthians 14:20-25, we run across another head-scratching passage regarding the use of tongues and prophecy. This passage is taught in a number of different ways, but for a number of commentators “tongues” is a reference to unintelligible speech during a worship gathering and “prophecy” is a reference to intelligible speech during a worship gathering. Laying out the whole passage, you might wonder what Paul is up to here:

20 Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. 21 In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” 22 Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. 23 If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. (ESV)

A few initial observations should be made. Verse 20 indicates that what follows requires you to put your thinking cap on; that is, “but in your thinking be mature.” This is hard stuff to think about. Then verse 21 contains a quote from Isaiah 28:11-12.

But the curious part comes at verse 22. If this is truly Paul’s thought, as opposed to a Corinthian saying, it might appear to conflict with verses 23-25. Verse 22 says that tongues are a sign for unbelievers, whereas prophecy is a sign for believers. But Paul in verse 23 says that if the church gathers together and speaks in tongues, and unbelievers enter the gathering, they will think the Christians have gone crazy. However, if the gathered church is instead giving prophecy, and the unbelievers enter, then they will be convicted of their sin and come to worship God.

Broken down, it would look like this:

• (verse 22): Tongues a sign for unbelievers (not believers). Prophecy a sign for believers (not unbelievers).
• (verses 23ff): Tongues undecipherable to unbelievers. Prophecy understood by unbelievers.

This is hard to keep straight, but a careful reading demonstrates the difficulty. Is that not a contradiction between verse 22 and the following verses? I could be wrong about it, but I am inclined to say yes, it is a contradiction!

However, if verse 22 is instead a Corinthian saying, Paul could easily be quoting this Corinthian saying only to refute it in verses 23-25. This would eliminate the thought that somehow Paul is contradicting himself, as the existence of an unresolved contradiction in the New Testament does not fit well with a high view of Scripture, as the inspired Word of God.

The Old Testament context of Isaiah 28:11-12 serves to bolster this quotation/refutation rhetorical device of Paul’s. In the Isaiah passage, those who hear the words of Isaiah the prophet do not understand what is being said, not because the words are unintelligible, but because their hearts are hardened. God has raised up other nations to rebuke the Israelites, and even then the Israelites are stubborn. In other words, those of “strange tongues” are simply non-Israelites speaking truth to the Israelites, the “this people,”  except that the Israelites will still refuse to listen. The Isaiah passage does not need to have anything to do with glossolalia. Nor does the reference to “strange tongues” necessarily imply that there were no translators available to help the Israelites overcome the language differences. It is enough to say that foreign armies waging war against the Israelites was God’s way of trying to get the attention of the people, and repent of their rebellion against God. Again, God is reminding the Israelites just how hardened their hearts were.   ³

In the Quotation/Refutation view, the Corinthians have completely misunderstood what Isaiah is saying. The Corinthians have come to believe that the Isaiah passage is either a case of glossolalia or Israel’s neighbors speaking with “strange tongues” that are unintelligible to the Israelites. The Corinthians believe that in Isaiah God has used unintelligible speech to convict the Israelites, since plain speech (like prophecy) does not work to pierce the heart of the Israelites.  So, the Corinthians are reasoning that hearing unintelligible speech is a sign for the unbeliever, whereas the plain speech of prophecy only benefits believers. If an unbeliever hears prophecy, in language which they can understand, it would do them no real good (verse 22). However, for Paul, this is all wrong.

Instead, Paul is refuting that idea by suggesting that the Israelites were simply refusing to listen.    Verse 23 then serves the purpose of Paul showing how absurd the Corinthian explanation of Isaiah really is: Unintelligible speech does not benefit the unbeliever. It only suggests that Christians are a bunch of crazy people.

Going on, in verses 24-25, Paul teaches that it is better for the unbelieving visitor to hear intelligible prophecy, as opposed to “speaking in tongues,” that way they can understand the message and then be convicted of their sin, and come to faith in Jesus.

To summarize, Paul is trying to teach the Corinthians that they have completely misunderstood what the passage of Isaiah is meaning, and that their saying in verse 22 is totally wrongheaded, in need of correction. Here is the passage again, but now it is broken out with the Isaiah quote, followed by the Corinthian saying of verse 22 in bold italic font, and then Paul’s own words in normal italic font. The beginning of verse 23 :

20 Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. 21 In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” 

22 Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. 

23 If, therefore [Except, in contrast with what you Corinthians say], the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. (ESV)

In other words, verse 22 is the Corinthian quotation. Verses 23-25 is Paul’s refutation of the quotation. While some might not be completely convinced that this is the most correct way to read this passage, at least it shows another instance of how this quotation/refutation rhetorical mechanism actually might work in this letter to the Corinthians. It is pretty convincing to me!

Some might object that the quotation/refutation method in principle comes across as forced. But we should be mindful of the fact that the original Greek text of the New Testament did not have quotation marks, so it would be difficult to figure out where the quotations are in the text without some clues in the text.

Here is probably the strongest objection to the quotation/refutation view:  The beginning of verse 23 is ambiguous and a bit tricky.  At the very least, the Greek phrasing  of “If, therefore” (ESV) in the beginning of the verse is quite awkward in the quotation/refutation view. However,  the Common English Bible is consistent with what is spelled out above: “So suppose that the whole church is meeting and everyone is speaking in tongues. If people come in who are outsiders or unbelievers, won’t they say that you are out of your minds?” Paul is linking verse 22 to verse 23 by showing just how ridiculous the Corinthian saying is. The NET translation does something similar: “So if the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and unbelievers or uninformed people enter, will they not say that you have lost your minds?” While the clues in the grammar are not totally obvious, the logic of the passage when read this way is more coherent.⁴

Some say that the quotation/refutation view fails on this point, and suggest an alternative. Instead of verse 22 being a Corinthian quotation, it is really Paul’s way of saying that the sign of tongues is a sign of judgment. With respect to the Isaiah quote, the presence of foreign armies coming against Israel is a sign of God’s judgment against the rebellious Israelites.  In this perspective, the “strange tongues” are really physically unintelligible to the Israelites. As the Israelites hear foreign armies speaking different languages in their midst, they then will know that God is upset with them. Therefore, tongues indeed is a sign for unbelievers.

But Paul thinks that prophecy is better than tongues because ultimately God does not want unbelievers to perish due to his judgment against them.  Instead, prophecy is better because then the unbeliever will be able to understand the word being preached to them, and then come to belief in Christ.  God wants the unbeliever to be saved, and not perish. This is part of Paul’s rationale to say that prophecy is better than tongues.

I admit, up to this point, this makes a lot of sense. However, this approach to the passage has a serious flaw to it. Look at verse 22 again.

Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers.

The first part works with this “tongues is a sign of judgment against unbelievers” interpretation. However, it does not explain the second part.  How is prophecy a sign not for unbelievers but for believers, if Paul’s point in the latter part of the passage, verses 24-25,  is to show how great it is for the unbeliever to hear prophecy, in words they can understand, so that they can then repent and believe the gospel?

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. (ESV)

For the life of me, I do not understand how this particular interpretation comes anywhere close to the explanatory power of the quotation/refutation view described above.

But some may still ask, if the quotation/refutation view is the right way to read this passage, why are the clues in the text not so obvious? Some scholars respond by saying that in ancient Greek letters like these, it would have been essential to read them orally to the listening crowd and act out the rhetorical features found in the writings. Reading a letter in Greco-Roman times was not simply about mindlessly reading off of a page. Rather, it was about a performance, orally presenting a message with a particular rhetorical style. If you were to read the above passage out loud, with the right inflection at certain points, it sounds more comprehensible.⁵

Amish women at the beach in 2006, heads dutifully covered. (Photo: Pasteur/CC BY-SA 3.0). Does Paul’s Quotation/Refutation Rhetoric apply to the 1 Corinthians head coverings passage?

Does 1 Corinthians 11:21-6 Use Quotation/Refutation Rhetoric?

The reason why Lucy Peppiatt suspects that Paul is using the quotation/refutation rhetorical device in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is that she identifies some problematic statements in the passage, which would suggest that the Corinthians were spouting off bad theology to Paul. For brevity sake, I will just identify one particular issue that made me think twice about this passage.

In verses 7-8 we read:

For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.

Peppiatt points out that this text says that man is created in the image of God, but nothing is said about the status of woman being created in the image of God. The text does say that man is the glory of God, and woman the glory of man, but the fact that woman is also created in the image of God is totally neglected in this passage. Genesis 1:27, on the other hand, is emphatic that both man and woman are created in God’s image. By neglecting the image-bearing-ness, if you will, of woman, this would indicate that the Corinthians are misreading and twisting Genesis around to distort the teaching of Scripture.

So, what we have here, according to Peppiatt, is a case where the Corinthians were misquoting Genesis in order to justify their practice of making women wear head coverings while they pray and prophesy. Paul then goes on to refute and correct the Corinthian error. Paul does this type of thing for three separate Corinthian sayings in this passage. The best way to show this is to use Peppiatt’s translation of the passage by breaking out the Corinthian sayings from the words of Paul. Paul’s teaching/refutation will be in the normal italics font, non-idented, while the Corinthian quotation(s) will be in bold italics font, indented:⁶

2 Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. 3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.

4 Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. 5 But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.

6 For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head.

7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; 9 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. 10 Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

11 However [πλήν; except that], in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.

13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not…

…even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him,

15 but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering.

16 But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.

It is a pretty complicated argument, for sure, so it is better to actually go read Lucy Peppiatt’s work for the details (or you can listen to an interview with Dr. Peppiatt for a summary of her views). But in short, Lucy Peppiatt is saying that the women of Corinth should not be forced to wear head coverings, since the men of Corinth were pushing a faulty narrative based on a misreading of the Old Testament, to erroneously teach that women were of an inferior status when compared to men.⁷

Evaluating the Quotation/Refutation View of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16

I am convinced that the quotation/refutation rhetorical device explains the logic of Paul very well on several occasions in 1 Corinthians. However, I am not so convinced that the quotation/refutation device works well in this particular passage, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. There are several reasons why I find Lucy Peppiatt’s proposal lacking.

First, the most well-established Corinthian quotations found in the letter are all brief slogans, but not so in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. In this passage, Peppiatt is arguing that several of the Corinthian quotations are unusually quite lengthy: verses 4-5, even longer in verses 7-10, and then only a brief one in verse 14. This is very unlike every other occasion where Paul uses this quotation/refutation rhetorical device in 1 Corinthians.

Each time, the grammatical and contextual clues for picking out where the Corinthian sayings are to be found are very difficult to detect in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. Unlike the two instances in 1 Corinthians 14 that Lucy Peppiatt cites in favor of quotation/refutation rhetorical device, it is very confusing in this instance to determine where the quotations of the Corinthians all begin and end, and when Paul is interjecting his refutation of each quotation. With the other incidents in throughout 1 Corinthians where Paul employs the quotation/refutation method, it is much, much easier to pick out these grammatical and contextual clues.

Furthermore, it could be argued that Paul’s reference to man being created in the image of God is simply a shorthand way of saying that both men and women are created in God’s image. Paul may not have felt the need to go into any more detail than he already had. Genesis 1:27-28 gives everything we need to know and all that the Corinthians needed to know. As a stronger pushback to the Quotation/Refutation view, it might be fair to note that Paul never says that the woman is not the image of God. It is just that Paul does not discuss the woman as the image, which is not the same thing as actually denying that the woman is the image.

All the talk about “glory,” though admittedly not identical to the language of “image,” could simply be a way of extending the logic of creation, whereby both male and female are created to glorify God, while at the same time affirming a kind of order between male and female, in that Adam was created before Eve, thus indicating why woman is the glory of man. Nevertheless, scholars offer different understandings of what Paul means by “glory”, as the concept of women as the “glory” of men is a thought not found elsewhere in Paul.⁸

In my judgment, applying the quotation/refutation rhetorical logic to this passage is a case of trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. Once one begins to see the immensely helpful value of using a hammer and a nail, then everything begins to look like a hammer and a nail, when really there are other cases where a screwdriver and a screw are really at play. In other words, once one sees the explanatory power of Paul’s quotation/refutation rhetoric, it is very tempting to force just about anything in Paul’s letters into that interpretive paradigm, thus distorting Paul’s teaching. So, while the quotation/refutation rhetoric makes a great deal of sense in numerous instances throughout 1 Corinthians, it simply does not work so well here in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.

You might read Dr. Peppiatt’s work and find it compelling on how to interpret this passage. I found it very interesting, but ultimately, rather convoluted and overly complex. When you have to work that hard, as Lucy Peppiatt tries to do with this passage, to envision the quotation/refutation rhetorical paradigm on display, it comes across as more contrived. In contrast, her examples found in 1 Corinthians 14 are much simpler, more elegant, much more explanatory in scope, and are therefore more convincing.

In our next installment, we will discuss the “Interpolation” View of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. The word “interpolation” is normally a mathematical term, but you can judge for yourself how well the Interpolation View of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 really adds up….

…. you can go ahead and laugh now 🙂

Notes:

^{1. More on the Quotation/Refutation rhetoric at work: …… The 1 Corinthians 6:18b is a bit tricky since it is proposed that the first part of 6:18 (a) are Paul’s words, then followed by (b) the Corinthian slogan, and then followed by the last part (c), which is Paul’s response. With respect to “immorality,” most commentators suggest that Paul is specifically referring to sexual sin:
— Paul: Shun immorality.
— Corinthians: Every sin which a man may commit is outside the body.
— Paul: On the contrary, the immoral man sins against his own body.
The logic here suggests that the Corinthians believed that sexual immorality, along with other sins, only has an external impact; that is, outside of the body. In contrast, Paul is saying that sexual immorality has a direct impact on the body. Without this contrast in mind, which offers a framework for a quotation/refutation perspective, this passage can seem terribly confusing, as though Paul is stating something in one phrase, only to contradict it in the very next phrase.  A number of translations, such as the ESV, NIV, NASB, and CSB cheat a little bit by suggesting that “every other sin which a man may commit is outside of the body,” adding the qualifier “every other sin,” which is an inference made to smooth out the translation. However, the NRSVue, and NET translations get it right and avoid inserting the “other” into that part of the verse.  Note the full translation in the NET version of the passage, which acknowledges the presence of the quotation:  ‘Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body”—but the immoral person sins against his own body.”‘  Interestingly, the older HCSB translation considers 1 Corinthians 6:18b to be a Corinthian slogan, whereas the CSB translation, the HCSB successor, does not!  I wonder why the CSB translators chose to divert from the HCSB tradition.   To the ESV’s credit, they have “Every sin” as a footnote for this phrase, thus removing the offending “other.”  The normally very conservative NASB includes the word “other” but italicizes it, signaling to the reader that the translation added the word in order to aid in readability. But does it really add to clarity? As Jerome Murphy-O’Connor argues in “Corinthian Slogans in 1 For 6:12-20″, The Catholic Biblical QuarterlyVol. 40, No. 3, July, 1978, without a quotation/refutation framework, this would lead to the peculiar idea that sexual fornication is essentially different from every other kind of sin, which is inconsistent with anything else we see in Paul. Instead, Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for not taking the detrimental impact of sexual sin as seriously as they should. See Denny Burk, Discerning Corinthian Slogans through Paul’s Use of the Diatribe in 1 Corinthians 6:12–20. In fairness, it should be noted that a quotation/refutation framework for 1 Corinthians 6:18 is not accepted by all scholars. For example, some scholars argue that Paul does not clearly introduce 1 Corinthians 6:18b as a quotation, as compared to clearer instances found in 1 Corinthians 1:12 and 7:1..  Also, the implied “other” regarding “every sin,” as in “every other sin,” can be deduced from a similar passage, Matthew 12:31, which lacks “other” in the original Greek:  “ Therefore I tell you, every [other] sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.”  However, the context of Matthew 12:31 found in the following verse 32 gives the clue for the clarity of this interpretation, a contextual clue lacking in 1 Corinthians 6, which suggests that adding “other” in 1 Corinthians 6:18b should be excluded as a legitimate possibility, particularly since some translate 1 Corinthians 6:18b as “Every sin, whatever a person commits, is outside the body.” See Matthew 12:32 (ESV): “And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”   See this survey of the discussion by Andrew David Naselli, “Is Every Sin outside the Body except Immoral Sex? Weighing Whether 1 Corinthians 6:18b Is Paul’s Statement or a Corinthian Slogan,” Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 136, No. 4 (Winter 2017), pp. 969-987.   As Naselli points out, Saint Augustine’s reading of this passage suggests that Paul is indeed making out sexual sin to be worse than any other sin. Augustine says: “It seems that the blessed apostle, through whom Christ was speaking, wished to make the evil of fornication greater than other sins. These others although they are committed through the body, do not bind and subjugate the human soul to fleshly lust as the overpowering force of sexual desire does. Only the sexual act makes the soul mingle with the body, fastening the one to the other with a kind of glue. The result is that the person engaged in such vice has a mind submerged and drowned in carnal lust and can think of or intend nothing else.” (trans. Judith Kovacs, in 1 Corinthians: Interpreted by Early Christian Commentators, Church’s Bible, 2005, p. 100).  However, this could also be Augustine being unaware of the possible quotation/refutation framework, and reading this text through his autobiographical lens as a recovering sex addict himself.  Augustine lacked a nuanced understanding of New Testament Greek, despite his dominant influence on biblical interpretation in the Christian West. Like Andrew Naselli, I am about “90 percent sure” that 1 Corinthians 6:18b is indeed a Corinthian slogan, which Paul refutes in the remainder of the verse….    
1 Corinthians 8:8 is the least intuitive in the list of “undisputed” quotation/refutation rhetorical examples. Notice that in the ESV rendering of 1 Corinthians 8:8 that the ESV places no quotations in this verse, as compared to the other “undisputed” examples where the quotation/refutation technique is used. However, the late Roman Catholic New Testament scholar Jerome Murphy-O’Connor in this essay, “Food and Spiritual Gifts in 1 Cor. 8:8,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 2 (April, 1979), pp. 292-298, argues that verse 8 is a quoted Corinthian slogan and verse 9 is Paul’s response:
— Corinthians: Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.
— Paul: But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.
Murphy-O’Connor supports his view by arguing that verse 8 is in the future tense, analogous to a Corinthian slogan, whereas verse 9 is in the present tense, analogous to Paul’s response/refutation (Murphy-O’Connor, p. 292). Verses 8 and 9 both begin with the Greek word de, which signals an “adversative parenthesis” (Murphy-O’Connor, p. 293). Murphy-O’Connor argues that the conclusion to the passage in 1 Corinthians 8:13 reinforces the adversative contrast with verse 8: “verse 8 affirms that eating is always morally neutral; it makes one neither better nor worse. V 13, on the contrary, insists that under certain conditions eating has a moral dimension; it can be a sin against Christ (v.12)” This parallels another clear example of the quotation/refutation rhetoric at work in 1 Corinthians 6:13,
— Corinthians: ‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’—
— Paul: and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
(see Murphy-O’Connor, p. 293). Murphy-O’Connor concludes by comparing 1 Corinthians 8:8 with 1 Corinthians 8:1, another instance of the quotation/refutation rhetoric at work within that same chapter: “Even though the men of knowledge ate meat that had been offered to idols, their spiritual gifts were in no way diminished. Conversely, abstention from such food did not produce any increase in spiritual gifts. Hence, idol-meat was morally neutral. One can detect a polemic sneer in the fact that the reference to abstention is placed first; the weak did not show any signs of being better off in terms of spiritual gifts. And so, puffed up with knowledge (v.1), the strong went their contemptuous way (v.10)” (Murphy-O’Connor, p. 298). Murphy-O’Connor illuminates how Paul’s teaching about “disputable matters’ here in 1 Corinthians 8 shows that Paul does not want believers to abuse their freedom at the expense of another believer who possesses a “weak” conscience. In contrast, the Corinthians were abusing their freedom by having such a permissive view about eating food dedicated to idols…. See this Jackson Wu blog post for where this list of “undisputed” versus “disputed” instances of the quotation/refutation framework can be found in 1 Corinthians.  ↩}

^{2. See Lucy Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women : Fresh Perspectives on Disputed Texts, chapter 4, p. 58-76 for a full treatment of her view. A shorter work by Peppiatt, though I have not read it, is said to focus on 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 in particular, Unveiling Paul’s Women: Making Sense of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16. . I finished reading Lucy Peppiatt’s more advanced study a few weeks ago: Women and Worship at Corinth: Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians. It is by the far the most thorough analysis of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 available in print today, treating each view fairly. ↩}

^{3. The Isaiah quotation has enough difficulties in and of itself, as noted by Lucy Peppiatt (See Peppiatt, Women and Worship at Corinth, p. 116ff). Because of such difficulties, Peppiatt suggests that the Isaiah quotation is actually a misquotation of Isaiah made by the Corinthians, and therefore should be included in the quotation Paul is seeking to refute; that is, it is not just verse 22 alone which is the Corinthian quotation, but rather it is verses 21-22 together. I am not convinced this is necessary, but I recognize the problems anyway. Paul does not always quote verbatim from the Old Testament, so it is difficult to establish as Peppiatt wants to that Paul is refuting a Corinthian misquotation of Isaiah. Therefore, I am  sticking with how Paul cites the quote in the Corinthian letter. The ESV in 1 Corinthians 14:21 starts off by quoting Isaiah 28:11 with respect to “strange tongues.” Some suggest this is “speaking in tongues” in the sense of being a language unknown to any other human being. But this need not be the case. It could simply mean another way of saying that a different or foreign language is being spoken.  The contradiction in this passage, particularly at verse 22, has baffled many commentators and translators of the 1 Corinthians. For example, in J.B Phillips famous translation of the New Testament, Phillips deliberately reverses the references to the “unbelievers” and “believers” in both cases, of tongues and prophecy, in order to try to clarify its meaning, thus taking excessive liberties with the text in the process! (See Peppiatt, Women and Worship at Corinth, p. 115). However, if 1 Corinthians 14 does not have glossolalia  in view, but rather simply the speaking of a foreign language, a gifting of the Holy Spirit to enable a non-native speaker to supernaturally speak in a different language, then all bets are off as to the plausibility of the quotation/refutation rhetorical mechanism working in this passage. I am not betting the farm on this interpretation!!  The whole issue of “speaking in tongues” goes way beyond the issues in this blog series.  See this early Veracity blog post on this topic.    ↩}

^{4. This is a good reason English Bible readers should have a modern translation of the Bible available to them, alongside the King James Version (KJV). Like the original Greek New Testament text, the KJV has no quotation marks at all, making it very hard to figure out who is speaking and when. More modern translations are better at adding quotation marks where appropriate. Other scholars who reject the quotation/refutation interpretation of 1 Corinthians 14:20-25 adopt other ways of addressing the difficulty found in verse 22. Andrew Wilson argues that the “sign for unbelievers” with respect to speaking in tongues is actually a sign of judgment. Paul “is saying that the experience of being spoken to in languages you do not understand serves to emphasise your distance from God, as it did for Israel” (Wilson, 1 Corinthians For You, Kindle location 2245). Wilson’s explanation is quite plausible, but it tends to disconnect verse 22 from the subsequent verses in this passage. Tom Schreiner recognizes the problem posed by verse 22: “It is puzzling that Paul says that prophecy is a sign for believers but then, in verses 24–25, relays an account of unbelievers coming to faith through prophecy” (Schreiner, 1 Corinthians, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, p. 379). Yet Schreiner rejects what J.B Philips did with the passage “That means that tongues are a sign of God’s power, not for those who are unbelievers, but to those who already believe. Preaching the word of God, on the other hand, is a sign of God’s power to those who do not believe rather than to believers,” by saying that Philips’ solution has no basis whatsoever in the text (Schreiner, p. 379). Given the difficulties other commentators have recognized, I stand with Lucy Peppiatt on this passage.
.↩}

^{5. Scot McKnight gives another example of the quotation/refutation rhetoric at work in the letter of James: James 2:18-16. Another blogger Jay F. Guin explains this 1 Corinthians 14:20-25 passage as well. ↩}

^{6. Peppiatt also notes that the use of the term “glory” in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is never used in any of the Genesis material, thus making these statements even more suspect. See Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women, chapter 4. Patheos blogger Jackson Wu explains Peppiatt’s quotation/refutation interpretation of our passage. In a related blog post, Jackson Wu discusses Cynthia Long Westfall’s approach to the Symbol of Protection view, described in an early blog post from this series. ↩}

^{7. In verse 11, Peppiatt translates the Greek word plen as “However,” at the beginning of the verse, just as the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) translation does. Most other translations render this as “Nevertheless.” Of all of the potential contextual clues that might suggest a transition from a Corinthian saying to a Pauline refutation, this is the most convincing. Other advocates of the Quotation/Refutation view would agree on this point, but they do not all agree on where the other transitions occur within the passage. In Mike Winger’s video highlighted in the first article of this blog post series, Mike references the work of late 19th – early 20th century missionary Katherine Bushnell in supporting a version of the Quotation/Refutation view, around the 1:33:30 mark, where the quotation being refuted begins at verse 3 and continue on down to the middle of verse 7, and then Paul begins his refutation at the phrase, “but woman is the glory of man.” I am not sure where Mike got that reference for Bushnell’s views, but I do find a paper she wrote about this passage in two parts.  Bushnell wrote an interesting article about Genesis 3:16, which I have found compelling, but at least in the way Mike Winger presents her view his video, it conflicts with the way Lucy Peppiatt maps out the quotations/refutations, which makes this application of the quotation/refutation method of interpreting Paul highly problematic. The lack of clarity among proponents of the quotation/refutation rhetorical view of this passage as to where the Corinthian slogans/sayings can be found, and where Paul’s responses can be clearly located take away from logical force behind the argument.  ↩}

^{8. See Schreiner, p. 300. The discussion about the exact meaning of “glory” is itself a rabbit hole to go down. Many complementarian scholars, like Thomas Schriener in his 1 Corinthians commentary, suggest that “glory” is tied to the concept of honor, suggesting that what Paul has primarily in mind is the contrast between honor and shame. “The word glory (doxa), particularly in a context where honour and shame play a significant role, points to the honour and praise that God should derive from men. Women, on the other hand, are the glory of men” (Schreiner, p. 306). An egalitarian reading, from Andrew Bartlett, suggests that “glory” is best understood within the context of “desire”:  “The word ‘glory’ has multiple shades of meaning. The meaning which fits the context here is the rich sense of something that one glories in or takes delight in, and which also reflects honour back onto oneself, as in 1 Thessalonians 2:20 (‘you are our glory and our joy’)” (Bartlett, Men and Women in Christ, p. 202)…. I resonate the most with the example that British evangelical pastor Andrew Wilson uses: “I have an apple tree in my garden, which produces apples, from which we make apple crumble. The crumble is the glory of the apple—it reflects its goodness in every way, and brings honour to it—and the apple is the glory of the tree—and none of the three are superior or inferior to the other two.) Men and women bear God’s image together, and reflect God’s glory on earth in different and complementary ways” (Wilson, 1st Corinthians For You, Kindle location 1700) ↩}