Re: Women in the Church

From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Tue Aug 18 1998 - 07:46:22 EDT


At 08:02 PM 8/16/98 EDT, Paul S. Dixon wrote:

>In summary, there is a conflict between 1 Cor 11:5 and 1 Cor 14:34-45,
>only if one assumes the negation of 1 Cor 11:5. As you well know,
>the negation of a conditional is not a valid inference. "If A, then
>B" does not imply "if not A, then not B." 1 Cor 11:5 says, "she who
>prays or prophesies with her head uncovered shames her head."
>This does not imply, as most usually erroneously infer, the negation:
>she who prays or prophesies with her head covered does not shame her
>head.
 
Are you saying that she who prays or prophesies shames her head regardless
of what she is wearing? If this were true, why wouldn't Paul have mentioned
such an important factor, instead of telling women what to wear while
shaming their head, letting them know that praying or prophesying with
their heads uncovered shames their head, and somehow failing to mention
that she who prays or prophesies shames her head regardless of what she is
wearing?

Treated as a formal logical syllogism, you are right, but if this were
Paul's belief, then the whole question of covering the head or uncovering
the head is completely irrelevant and the passage is almost perversely
misleading. It would be like saying:

        "He who commits adultery without wearing a hat sins".

I can't think of any biblical admonitions that take that form.

Jonathan
 
jonathan@texcel.no
Texcel Research
http://www.texcel.no

---
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu]
To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-329W@franklin.oit.unc.edu
To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:56 EDT