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1 Corinthians 14:34-35 — What Changed in the Bible Text

Edit · disputed · Feminine

What the source readsin the Western manuscripts (D, F, G) these two verses stand after verse 40 — the classic signature of a margin note later pulled into the text

What this version readsfixed at 34-35: 'Let your women keep silence in the churches… it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church.'

The command that women be silent floats — some manuscripts carry it after v40, not here — which is how scholars spot a later insertion that scribes slotted in at different points. It also flatly contradicts 11:5, where Paul assumes women pray and prophesy aloud. Many (Fee and others) judge it an interpolation. Disputed — but the verse silenced women in churches for eighteen centuries.

Read this chapter side by side — 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 →

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