This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 597: 1 Corinthians in Context 14 - Inspiration and Divine Speech with Sean Finnegan

This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode.

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597 1 Corinthians 14.mp3
Transcript

00:00
Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to restitutio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:12
This episode is a deep dive into the world of prophetic utterances, frenzied manifestations, divine possession, and all other sorts of inspired speech that I could find in Greco Roman literature. Honestly, I wasn't thinking I would find much. I was wrong. This episode is probably the longest of the entire first Corinthians and context class.

00:35
Still, I wanted to keep it as one episode. So.

00:38
You get the.

00:38
Full survey of what kinds of divine speech ancient Mediterranean people knew about then, after going through all the data, we turn our attention to 1st Corinthians 12 through 14 to see how Christian spiritual experiences differed.

00:54
My hope is that this background information will make this section of First Corinthians come alive for you. Here now is Episode 597, part 14 of our first Corinthians and context class, inspiration and divine speech.

01:17
I'd like to begin in First Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 4. It says now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities. But it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

01:37
Speech is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.

01:42
To 1 is given through the spirit, the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one spirit to another. The working of powerful deeds to another prophecy to another the discernment of spirits.

02:04
To another various kinds of tongues to another, the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by 1 and the same spirit, who allots to each one individually, just as the spirit chooses.

02:19
Reading from the new revised standard version, in case you're curious, this is the Christian perspective on how God's spirit miraculously shows up or manifests becomes visible or becomes heard. In this case, a lot of these are speech acts.

02:39
This is how God's spirit shows up in the believers. Those who are in Christ in Corinth.

02:46
Today I want to focus on divine speech. Arguably six of these listed gifts or manifestations involve speech, so we have the utterance of wisdom. Notice that word utterance, utterance means speaking.

03:04
#2 utterance of knowledge, and we have prophecy. Tongues, tongues is just another word for languages.

03:11
And then we have interpretation of tongues. And then the last one, discernment of spirits. I I would say that technically it's not a speech act, it's more of an intuition, but.

03:22
What good is it if you don't actually say something? So arguably that's also a speech act, but we.

03:27
Have at least 5.

03:28
For sure we bring so many assumptions to this list and our text.

03:34
Based on our experiences based on movies we've seen TV shows, stories we've heard.

03:42
It's important to calibrate our understanding based on what was there in the ancient world rather than importing our thoughts onto the text.

03:53
One of the things that many, many people have in their minds, whether they call it this or not, is an enlightenment skepticism.

04:04
The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement that profoundly affected how Western people think.

04:10
And if you're the kind of person that says, oh, well, yeah, the ancient people worship the gods, but they're all false.

04:16
That's an enlightenment sort of thing to say.

04:20
Or if you say all.

04:21
Pagan profits were con men.

04:24
Were just superstitious.

04:26
Or, all ancient miracles were just coincidences or misunderstandings of physical phenomena.

04:35
Then you're just leaning on your Enlightenment heritage, OK? And let me tell you something. Before the Enlightenment, before that time, people didn't think that way. So I want to challenge you to calibrate your understanding based on the way the Ancients thought about divine speech and divination and hearing from the gods. And then.

04:55
Taking that understanding.

04:58
Read first Corinthians 12 through 14 over against that background and see what Pops.

05:05
And I bet you is something different than what currently pops for you.

05:09
All ancient people were not just superstitious and gullible. They had gullible and superstitious people just like we do. But they also had a lot of skeptical people and a lot of smart people too.

05:20
So let's explore inspiration and divine speech in the Greco-roman world.

05:27
And I want to start with.

05:27
The disclaimer.

05:29
I have a lot of quotes for you. This is really going to test your ability to focus the mind and stay engaged.

05:40
And I know that, but I think it's worth it. I'm gonna make a big point at the end. And this big point.

05:45
Will not work.

05:48
If you don't have a significant sampling of how ancient people talked about this subject, it's just not going.

05:54
To.

05:55
Work. So I'm asking you to trust me. There's going to.

05:58
Be a payoff.

06:00
But it might hurt a little in the meanwhile.

06:04
So please hang in there. All right. First up, the organ enabling divine communication.

06:11
Plato and his Timaeus wrote for they who constructed us. That's like the people that made or the I guess gods that made the humans, for they who constructed us, remembering the injunction of their father when he enjoined upon them to make the mortal kind as good as they possibly could, rectified the vile part of us.

06:31
By thus establishing therein the organ of divination, hmm. Tell me more Plato that it might in some degree lay hold on truth.

06:41
And that God gave unto man's foolishness the gift of divination, A sufficient token. Is this no man achieves true and inspired divination, when in his rational mind, but only when the power of his intelligence is fettered in sleep, or when it is distraught by disease or by reason of some divine inspiration.

07:03
Which organ is the organ is the liver. The liver is such as we have stated and situated in the region we have described for the sake of divination. I know you were just curious. Like what? What part of our body is the antenna for spiritual things? It's the liver.

07:21
Now you know.

07:22
I doubt that's true, but that's what Plato thought, and probably because of that. That's why.

07:29
These ancient priests were cutting open their sacrifices and looking at the liver to see if.

07:34
It was mishaped.

07:35
Probably because of Plato. Now there are different kinds of inspiration the Ancients talked about and they didn't think that gods would just like show.

07:43
Up to people.

07:45
They thought the gods would speak to them indirectly.

07:48
So Cicero writes about this in his book on Divination Propriate title do we wait for the immoral gods to converse with us in the forum? That's like the grocery store on the street and in our homes.

08:00
While they do not, of course, present themselves in person, they do diffuse their power far and wide, sometimes in closing it in caverns of the earth, sometimes imparting it to human beings. The Pythian Priestess at Delphi was inspired by the power of the Earth and the Sybil.

08:20
By that of nature.

08:23
Now we're going to talk about.

08:25
Delphi and sybils. OK, so just stick a pin in it. We'll come back to it. But Cicero saying, hey, the God speak to us in different ways. You know, some of it comes from the Earth and some of it comes by nature. And we have the priests. So at the Temple of Delphi, and we have sybils. So like. Yeah.

08:45
We know about this stuff.

08:48
Plato once again in his book Ion talks about.

08:53
Inspiration, he says, in the same manner as a magnet, the muse inspires men and women herself. See Muse is important and then by means of these inspired persons, the inspiration spreads to others and holds them in a connected.

09:08
Name for all the good epic poets utter all those fine poems, not from art, but as inspired and possessed. And the good lyric poets likewise, just as the Corey Bantian worshippers do not dance when in their senses. So the lyric poets do not indict those fine songs.

09:29
And their senses. But when they have started on the melody and rhythm, they begin to be frantic, and it is under possession as the Bacchantes are possessed and not in their senses.

09:41
Each is able only to compose that to which the Muse has stirred him. God takes away the mind of these men and women and uses them as his ministers, just as he does soothsayers and godly seers. Some more categories for you in order that we who hear them may know that it is not they who utter these words.

10:03
With great price when they are out of their wits.

10:06
But that it is God himself who speaks and addresses us through them. So that is about as good as it gets for a theory of inspiration.

10:15
It's the muses.

10:17
OK, Plato, what's a muse?

10:20
Amuse is when you hear something that's really funny and you laugh. No, that's that's not it. That's terrible. Thank you for laughing though. That's really.

10:31
Muses are kind of like lower level gods that inspire all the great works of art.

10:39
Before I talk a little bit more about that, I want to talk to you about this word possess.

10:45
It's a Greek word, katako.

10:48
And it means to hold.

10:52
Occupy or possess. So like if you're holding a pin, you can cut Techo a pen.

11:01
Because you're holding it right. And so the idea is like the human is the pen and the God is holding you and and working through you. These works. In his case of great poetry, poetry is a.

11:14
Big deal to the Greeks.

11:16
So we don't need to get into that, but that's this idea. He talks about how artists are frantic, they're not in their senses, they're out of their wits. That's his theory of inspiration. The idea is that the Muses are displacing the poets consciousness temporarily to get across some great work of art.

11:36
Diodorus writes about the Muses, he says. Has he had even gives their names when he writes, Cleo Euterpe, and Thalia, Melpomene III, Terpsichora III and Erato and Paulinia Yania Kelly Opay too. This is a good name for kids, huh?

11:56
No, not in the English world. No. Of them all the most comely to each of the Muses, men assign her special aptitude for one of the branches of the liberal arts, such as poetry, song, pantomimic, dancing, the round, dance with music, the study of the Stars and other liberal arts. The funny they include.

12:17
Astronomy with the liberal arts muses, inspire, writing poetry, history plays of tragedy, plays of comedy.

12:27
Songs, dancing, choruses, all this kind of stuff, and then also astronomy.

12:33
Another thing that Plato mentioned is the Corey Bantian worshippers, and this is a reference to those who are following sibling civilly is an ancient ancient God Pre Greek. It's a friggin deity from Phrygia.

12:49
Place where it's always cold. Launch. I'm full of it tonight. It's not always cold and frigid. It's a pH. So anyhow, the fridge indeedy sibilly is sort of taken over by the Greeks and identified as RIA. Ria is the mother of The Olympian gods. Rea is the wife of Kronos.

13:09
And she is the mother of Zeus, the mother of Demeter, the mother of Poseidon, the mother of all these Olympian gods, Hera Hades. She's the mother of all of them. Ria. OK, so the Greeks identify RIA with the Phrygian sibly. And this is just basically the mother goddess.

13:28
She has worshippers that worship her in frenzied dances. Strabel writes about this. He says they invented suitable names for the flute and for the noise of the rattles, symbols and drums, and for the shouting, the banquet cries and foot stomping as well As for the servants, choral dancers and the attendance.

13:50
Of the sacred rites similar to these rituals are those among the Thracian one holds in his hand the bombyx.

13:57
The result of a great effort with the tuning lathe and it fully fills the fingered melody. The call that brings on the madness. That's where it gets interesting. It's like all music stuff until.

14:07
We get there. The call.

14:09
That brings on the madness. Another makes a loud sound with the bronze bound cotile because the core bantis are ecstatic dancers.

14:19
We say that those who are moved to frenzy are Corey Bantik.

14:24
So these are worshippers of Sibley who will go out, and they would have these.

14:30
Big musical events where they would dance and some of these were male worshippers who would wear armor and they would clash their armor and their Shields into each other and make all this noise. And some of them. And this is possibly blow your mind. But some of them got so worked up.

14:50
And were so committed devoted that they castrated themselves as part of this worship.

14:57
So those are the priests of Cybele. Sibille, by the way, is spelled with a CCYBELE. OK, Hugh Bowden writes about these unfortunate fellas. He says, insofar as the Metra Gerte, which are priest beggars, we're following at us and.

15:18
Castrating themselves, they were demonstrating their commitment to the mother alone in an excessive form of devotion. I couldn't agree more. It's definitely excessive.

15:26
It is possible that this behavior was stimulated by the experience of taking part in ecstatic rights in honor of the mother's self, castration was clearly not expected of the crowds who took part in her festivals, whether in Greek cities or even at Rome.

15:42
The more universal experience of her worship was the music of pipes and horns and the noise of drums, tambourines, and castanets.

15:51
Now I want you to just mentally stick a pin in this because like when it comes to inspiration and these are like ecstatic dancing events where you're just sort of like ecstatic means you stand out, you say you're like outside, you're out of your mind. Like we have the drug ecstasy. It's like named after that. It's like we we you're not in your normal state of consciousness.

16:11
Think about like raves, or really powerful musical experiences that you've had where, like you, you kind of like, transcend in the moment you sort of get outside of yourself.

16:23
And touch something spiritual. OK, so this is this is a universal human experience, OK? And ancient people knew about it, and they were using it in the worship of this God sibling. Next, we have worshippers of Bacchus, which is the Roman name of the Greek God Dionysus. This God also gave ecstatic.

16:44
Prophecies Euripides writes about it in his Buckeye. He says the God Dionysus is also a prophet for the ecstatic and the manic have mantic powers in large measure mantic means.

16:58
Prophetic.

17:00
It's very similar word manic, right? So if manic, manic means crazy mantic means prophetic. So crazy prophecy. You're sort of like out of your mind, you're prophesying, you're speaking, and you don't know what you're saying. Really. So once again, the God dying, ISIS is also a prophet for the ecstatic and the manic have mantic powers in large measure.

17:19
And the God enters someone in force. He causes him in madness to predict the future.

17:26
Livia writes about this in his history of Rome, says men, as if insane, with fanatical tossing's of their bodies would utter prophecies.

17:36
This is just like basically our our typical description of demon possession, right? Like you have somebody that's sort of like forced. They've got weird body motions, and they're speaking these prophecies. They don't know what they're speaking, right. Just that just sounds like it to me. But they didn't have that category. They just didn't call things that way.

17:56
They had a different way of.

17:57
Talking about it, and they're like, overwhelmingly positive about this stuff, which is really weird for me as a Christian in the 21st century. William Cassidy talks about this cult. He says women are prominent among Dionysus's devotees. Indeed, the civic cults are exclusively women's.

18:17
The revelers forsook their homes and cities to gather at night in the wilderness, especially on mountains to hold torches and dance to wild music, especially of the flute, drum and symbol.

18:30
An important object of the ritual induced through the music and dancing was the attainment of ecstasy, which was understood in terms of coming under the power of the God himself.

18:42
Not all participants who were called menades Buckeye Theodis were similar titles experienced this Dionysiac grace. So.

18:54
This was something that was happening. The ladies would go out to the woods, they would have all this music and they would get in these trances and they would hear prophecies or they would speak prophecies to the God Dionysus, Dionysus, as you recall, is the God of wine and partying. Right. So there's also typically a lot of drunkenness.

19:15
Also, they talk about ******. I don't know how historical that is or not, but it was a wild time. I'm sure. Next, let's talk about nymphs.

19:26
And Sybils Pausanias writes in his guide to Greece, he says there is a rock sticking up out of the earth at which the delphians say the Sybil herophilus. I stood to sing her oracles. Couple things. Let me just pause it here. Couple things. OK, so now we're on to symbols. Symbols are female prophet.

19:45
Bits and they do often sing, and they are also associated with oracles, which is predictions of the future.

19:53
And what poisonous is doing Postumius is writing a travel log. He's writing a travel guide. It's probably even a better way to say it, so he's going throughout all these different places in Greece and he's saying, oh, well, you gotta stop here. And then he tells the story about the place and a lot of times it's just like a story that he heard from the locals. He might believe in it or he might not believe in it.

20:14
And then sometimes he'll just summarize everything he knows about a subject, and this is like a moment where he's, like, let me tell you everything I know about sybils. So you can know what?

20:22
You know and everything that's similar to Sybils, which is these female prophetesses. Alright, so continuing.

20:30
He says I discovered that the earlier Sybil was among the most ancient in the world.

20:37
The Greeks say she was the daughter of Zeus and Lamia, daughter of Poseidon. They say she was the first woman to sing oracles and was named Sybil by the Libyans.

20:47
The Delians record her hymn to Apollo and the verses she calls herself Artemis, as well as her Offaly, and then says she is Apollos sister and again his daughter. She wrote all this when raving and possessed by the God.

21:05
And he's like, just saying it as like a positive thing. And then he keeps going elsewhere in the Oracle. She said her mother was an immortal, and he goes on to to talk about a second Sybil.

21:16
Hypertrichosis of Kumai has written about the succeeding Sybil, who prophesied in the same way how she came from Kumai in the optician territory, and her name was demo. Then later than demo there was a prophetic woman reared among the Jews beyond Palestine. Her name was Sabang.

21:37
Finest daughter of the king of the Quoniam's and the rock pigeons at Dodana gave oracles from the God, but people never called them sybils. Alright, so this is another one I'm going to raise this guy. All right, so.

21:53
Pausanias is like hey I.

21:54
Got 4.

21:56
I got her awfully. She's a big deal because she's original. She's old school. She's.

22:02
She's top notch, right?

22:05
He says about her. She wrote all this when she was raving and possessed by the gods. So that's.

22:10
Like high marks for.

22:11
Her. OK, then you have demo number 2 sabe #3. And then you have finest. And then for finest. He's just like.

22:18
Like.

22:19
You know, she gave oracles from the God, but people never called them sybils. So she's like second tier.

22:27
And then he goes on to talk about others that are.

22:29
Similar to symbols.

22:31
So he's, they say Eucalyptus was a Cyprian prophet. So there's a prophet and museos, the son of Antiphon, US and Lycos, the son of Pantheon, were Athenians and Bacchus from.

22:47
Boy Otia was possessed by the nymphs and there's this term nymphs that I want to focus on. So these three fellows.

22:55
Yukos, Museos and Bacchus are possessed by the nymphs I have and he says I have read their prophecies.

23:03
These are the men and women down to my day who are said to have given oracles from the God, but in the long course of time there could still be as many again.

23:13
So let's talk about nymphs. I told you about muses a little bit. These are these, like, typically an Arthur. Picture is like short people, short naked people with like instruments. So then the nymphs are usually associated with nature.

23:31
So Rivers, springs, fountains, trees, mountains, the sea or the underworld. That's the realm of the nymphs. And so like, if you're out in a wooded area, you might be like, ohh, a nymph might be nearby this tree. Look how big this tree is. Look how nice it is. Maybe there's like a low level deity. Just like chilling here. And so the idea was the nymph.

23:51
Also could inspire you also could give you prophecy.

23:55
And there are mentions of common eye which are water nymphs.

24:00
They had a shrine near a sacred spring on the South end of Rome, so this is big time. If it's in the main city.

24:07
Corycian nymphs were linked to Mount Parnassus, which is near Delphi. We're going to talk more about Delphi and the Doddanna nymphs were associated with oak trees and influenced oracles on behalf of Zeus, Virgil of, say, a couple words about this, so Virgil's famous book is called the Ennead.

24:27
It's a. It's a book of poetry.

24:28
It's an epic poem.

24:31
It's a founding myth for the civilization of the Romans, OK and.

24:36
So it's not a history and that's my big point. It's like his poetry. So it's it's exaggerated, but like at the same time, it's somewhat loosely based on what he knows is possible. Let me show you. He talks about a civil that Apollo possessed.

24:53
Virgil says the following this is book six of his Ennead. He says now carved out of the rocky flanks of Kumai, lies an enormous cavern pierced by 100 tunnels, 100 miles with as many voices rushing out, the sybils wrapped reply.

25:08
They had just gained the sacred sill when the virgin cries allowed. Now was the time to ask your fate to speak. The God look the God. So she cries before the entrance.

25:22
Suddenly all her features, all her color changes. Her braided hair flies loose, and her breast heaves. Her heart bursts with frenzy as a key word for this sort of thing. She seems to rise in height, the ring of her voice no longer human. The breath, the power of God comes closer, closer.

25:43
Why so slow Trojan aneus? She shouts.

25:47
So slow to pray to swear your vows. Not until you do will the great jaws of our Spellbound House gape wide so.

25:57
This is Apollo.

25:59
Talking through this Sybil, this virgin girl.

26:05
And it's in a cavern. Aneus is this adventurer, a warrior who has come?

26:11
And he is talking to this woman, but he's really not talking to this woman. He's talking to Apollo. And Apollo's, like, yo, why don't you pray? Why don't you swear any vows?

26:21
And then what Apollo says is, until you do the great jaws of our Spellbound House will not gape wide. In other words, the House is the person he's possessing.

26:35
And like her mouth is going to stay shut until he does. So then I skipped this part, but and he has praised to Apollo, naturally.

26:43
And then the response comes, but the Sybil still not broken in by Apollo storms with a wild fury through her cave. And the more she tries to pitch the great God off her breast, the more his bridal exhausts, her raving lips, overwhelming her untamed heart, bending her to his will.

27:02
Now the 100 immense mouths of the house swing open all on their own and bear the sibyls answer through the air. I think if we read this in the original Latin that Virgil wrote it in, we'd all be very impressed by the beauty of it. But I think we're actually horrified by the violence of this God.

27:21
Taking over this poor girl to speak through her.

27:27
All right, let's switch gears, but not really switch gears because it's really a lot of overlap between sybils and oracles, both female, both giving information on behalf of the gods.

27:40
So here's how oracles work. Typically oracles.

27:46
We're working in temples. Someone could go to the temple, pay a fee and ask a.

27:52
Russia.

27:53
Some professional person that worked at the temple, typically a priest or a priestess, would take your question and your money and go to the inner part of the temple, the inner sanctuary, and give that to the Oracle and the Oracle would then conjure up the God and get a response, and then gives that response.

28:14
And then the priest would turn that response into like a poetic verse.

28:20
Right. So it's like polished, it's fancy, it's nice. And then give that back to you. So sometimes there's a little bit of a Riddle in these oracles, and then that will give you the answer to the question you were seeking. Usually something about the future.

28:35
Zeno, the founder of the Stoics, consulted an Oracle.

28:40
And the Oracle told him.

28:43
That when he consulted an Oracle about what he should do to live the best life, that God replied that he should have intercourse with.

28:50
The dead.

28:51
Grasping the oracles, meaning he read the works of the ancients.

28:56
It's a perfect example of how oracles work. Like don't actually have intercourse with the debt. Well, like what it means is. So you got you asked the question, you got your answer, but you know your answer is kind of a Riddle and then you solve your Riddle. So there's a lot of opportunity for subjective interpretation.

29:15
Along the way here.

29:17
My opinion, not so impressive. How inspiration works for oracles is something that Plutarch wrote a lot about, and I think there is a lot we can learn from Plutarch even as 21st century Christians. I think whether we're talking about inspiration to receive a message from the God Apollo or inspiration to receive a message.

29:37
From the God Yahweh, there's still some like universals that that come into play, as I think you'll see as well.

29:44
Plutarch wrote a book called The Oracles at Delphi, and this is from Chapter 7. He says even if these verses of the Oracle of Delphi be inferior to homers, let us not believe that the God has composed them, but that he supplies the origin of the incitement, and then the prophetic priestesses are moved.

30:04
Each in accordance with her natural faculties.

30:08
As a matter of fact, the voice is not that of a God, nor the utterance of it, nor the diction nor the meter. But all these are the womans he puts into her mind only the visions and creates the light in her soul. In regard to the future. For inspiration is precisely this.

30:28
So that's his theory of inspiration. Is that rather than the God possessing and taking her over.

30:36
The God is actually going to work through her existing knowledge and abilities.

30:42
Now, there are limitations. Plutarch writes. Now, this power cannot move to flight. That which can only walk or run, nor move a lisp to clear speaking nor.

30:53
A shrill thin.

30:54
Voice to a melodious utterance. So in the same way, it is impossible for the unlettered man who has never read verse to talk.

31:02
Like a poet.

31:03
So Plutarch's actually going against Plato a little bit here. He's saying, look, the gods are going to work with what you are, what you have your native abilities. And so like, if you already have a lisp, you're going to keep having a list. When you make an utterance for the gods.

31:20
Then, he says, certainly it is foolish and childish in the extreme to imagine that the God himself, after the manner of ventriloquists who used to be called auricles but now pythoness enters into the bodies of his prophets and prompts their utterances, employing their mouths and voices as instruments.

31:40
So Plutarch is kind of making fun of this now. Plutarch is a little later. Plato IS300 plus years before Christ.

31:47
Plutarch is 150 years AD. OK, so times have changed and and Plutarch has a little more sophisticated knowledge of how inspiration works. He's like, it's not going to be like a ventriloquist. It's not going to be the God change, like in the the creepy movies where, like, the the girls voice changes, right? He's like, no, no, no. That's not how it works.

32:08
Interesting.

32:10
Those seeking inspiration must prepare, mentally and physically, as what Plutarch says, he says. It is not true, as Euripides says, that the best of seers is he that guesses well now. There's a real skeptic. There's an ancient skeptic, right. The best of seers is he. That guesses well. No, the best of Sears is the intelligent man following the guidance of that in his.

32:29
The soul brought about by a temperament and disposition of the body as it is subjected to a change which we call inspiration. The prophetic current and breath is most divine and holy, whether it issue by itself through the air or come in the company of running waters. For when it is instilled into the body it creates in souls and unaccustomed.

32:50
And unusual temperament, the peculiarity of which is hard to describe with exactness, but analogy offers many comparisons.

32:59
That's a long sentence, he goes on.

33:02
It is likely that by warmth and diffusion it opens up certain passages through which impressions of the future are transmitted, just as wine when its fumes rise to the head, reveals many unusual movements and also words stored away and unperceived. But I inclined most of the opinion that the soul acquires.

33:21
Toward the prophetic spirit, a close and intimate connection of the sort that vision has toward light.

33:28
Which possesses similar properties for, although the eye has the power of vision, there is no function for it to perform without light, and so the prophetic power of the soul, like the eye, has need of something kindred to help Kindle it and stimulate it further. So he believes that All Souls have a prophetic power within them.

33:48
Unlike Plato, who identified it as our liver, Plutarch is identifying it with our soul, which is invisible, immaterial, OK. Seemed like a more plausible theory, and he is saying you have to have a temperament for it. You have to have a willingness to it.

34:08
And openness.

34:11
Now we saw with the followers of Sibili, the Corey Bantis dancers. There was always music we saw with the followers of Dionysus. There was always music.

34:25
OK, this is not so strange.

34:28
Because even in our own scripture we find this sort of thing in first Samuel Chapter 10.

34:37
There's a band of prophets with a harp, A tambourine, A flute and a liar.

34:43
This is over 1000 years before Christ. This is before Plato. This is 56700 years before Plato and Soul meets Samuel the Seer and Samuel the SEER says to Saul. Hey, you're going to meet this group of prophets and you're going to prophecy. And so soul meets them. And guess what, these prophets.

35:05
Have all these musical instruments and soul encounters them, and they're playing all these instruments and he just starts prophesying. He he's just like goes into this whole prophecy mode.

35:15
The NRSC translates it a prophetic frenzy.

35:17
The.

35:19
The New American Bible translates it prophetic ecstasy. It's just the word prophecy. But like, there's something more going on here. So they're trying to bring that out because in first Samuel Chapter 19, when coming to capture, Samuel's soul sends some guys to capture him and those guys.

35:39
Start prophesying when they ran into Sami.

35:42
And they fall into a prophetic frenzy. Then Saul himself goes. He's like you can't get a job done, right? You do it yourself. And Saul goes to take Samuel and he goes up to Samuel and Saul himself, who's not trying to prophecy. He falls into a prophetic situation where he just starts getting inspired.

36:03
There's prop sign and it says he stripped off all his clothes and laid naked all day and all night.

36:08
So this is weird. There is a weird thing that even the Bible testifies to.

36:14
In first Samuel 16, Saul has an evil spirit tormenting him. He has David come in. What does David do? Does he do a little tap dance? No. He plays a liar. He plays some music and says the evil spirit left him.

36:32
So there is a connection here.

36:34
That is going on and then in Second Kings three, we read when the King requested a prophecy from Elijah.

36:42
Elijah said get me a musician.

36:46
So the king brings in a musician. The musician starts playing and Elijah it says while he was playing the hand of Yahweh came upon him and he prophesied.

36:58
So this is something that we see that there is sort of like an openness that music can bring into the inspiration. And I don't think it's necessarily demonic or Holy Spirit. I think it's just a human thing.

37:11
I think it's just sort of like a universal.

37:15
Now I will say this, if you're at a festival honoring Apollo or Dionysus, I'm going to say is probably going to be a demonic experience.

37:27
But if you're at a festival or a service or some sort of meeting with Christians where you're worshipping the one true God and you open yourself to it, then I'm going to say it's probably going to be a Holy Spirit that you're going to experience. If you do experience it in this kind of way.

37:43
That's what I was trying to say about Plutarch, like giving some, like, kind of universal statements, alright on to the Oracle at Delphi, the Oracle at Delphi is the most important, most well attested ancient prophetic example.

37:58
Inspiration for the Oracle at Delphi was based on some sort of they call it exhalation from the Earth. They call it a breath. Basically it there was some sort of a gas. There was some sort of a gas in either the Apollo Temple itself or a cave nearby.

38:18
There are conflicting reports on this.

38:22
Plutarch writes, I think then, that the exhalation is not in the same state all the time, but that it has recurrent periods of weakness and strength.

38:32
Of the proof on which I depend, I have as witnesses many foreigners and all the officials and servants at the shrine.

38:38
It is a fact that the room in which they seat those who would consult the God is filled not frequently or with any regularity, but as it may chance from time to time with a delightful fragrance coming from a current of air which bears it towards the worshippers.

38:56
As if its source were in the Holy of holy, I thought this translation was.

39:00
A little squirrely.

39:02
Holy of holies. That sounds super biblical. I'm like, why would Plutarch?

39:06
Use that phrase.

39:07
And then I.

39:08
Looked up at the Greek and it's actually this is the word for spring here.

39:13
And this is the word no trespassing. Basically, it's like a forbidden spring. So it doesn't mean holy of Holies at all. That was just like the translator taking a lot of license.

39:23
So anyway, there's some sort of a exhalation or fragrance. There's some smell that comes from this spring, and he says it's there sometimes it's not there other.

39:32
Times.

39:33
He goes on.

39:34
And it is like the odor, which the most exquisite and costly perfumes sent forth. If this does not seem credible, you will at least all agree that the prophetic priestess herself is subjected to differing influences, varying from time to time, which affects that part of her soul with which the spirit of inspiration comes into association, and that she does not.

39:54
Always keep one temperament like a perfect Concorde, unchanged on every occasion.

40:00
For many, annoyances and disturbances of which she is conscious and many more unperceived lay hold upon her body and filter into her soul. And whenever she is replete with these, it is better that she should not go there and surrender herself to the control of the.

40:14
God.

40:16
When she is not completely unhampered, as if she were a musical instrument, well, strong and well tuned. But it is in a state of emotion and instability. So if she's emotional, if she's instable, if she's got disturbed.

40:29
Kisses in her soul. She's had bad day. She's under stress, don't have her go prophecy. It's not a good time.

40:40
That's what he's saying. He's saying she needs to be like a well tuned instrument. She needs to be in tune with the situation so that the God can speak through her.

40:51
Strabo writes about the Oracle of Delphi as well in his geography. He says they say that the Oracle is a is in a hollow cave that is deep with a with a rather narrow mouth and from which a divinely inspired breath rises up. A high tripod is placed over the mouth, which the Pythia mounts.

41:12
And that the priestess the Oracle and receiving the breath utters both metrical and umm metrical oracles, with the latter put into meter by certain poets who are in the service of the sanctum.

41:24
They say that the first Pythia was simono and the prophetess and city were so-called from to inquire peste.

41:35
Greater honor resulted for the temple because of the Oracle for it obtained the reputation of being the most truthful of all.

41:43
Alright, let me give you my take on this. You have some sort of crack in the earth. Gas is coming up from the.

41:51
Could be a lot of different things. Some scholars have suggested ethylene. They say ethylene has a sweet, musky odor.

42:00
They say it could also be carbon dioxide, could be methane. I don't think methane has a sweet odor, so I don't think that's likely, although Plutarch maybe is just wrong about that, right? That's possible too. But there's some sort of a gas. There's some sort of a thing going on. If you start inhaling these gases, you know what happens.

42:19
Your blood oxygen level goes down, and if your oxygen goes down and your blood, your brain starts hallucinating, your brain becomes open to spiritual influences. Either just like from yourself, like in a dream, you're just sort of like hallucinating when you're dreaming, right. Or if there is a spirit.

42:39
Nearby that is looking for someone to inspire or to speak through. That's the person they're going to go for because that's the person who's in a sense, most open to it. So those are some quick thoughts on that.

42:54
In my opinion, her altered mental state and openness to the divine more likely resulted in actual experiences. Actual spiritual experiences, though I totally grants that they're probably also plenty of times where they were just like hallucinations from herself. OK.

43:13
Now, Plutarch also talks about a time when they forced the Oracle to prophecy, and she didn't want to.

43:21
And it was disastrous, he.

43:23
Says.

43:24
Whenever then the imaginative and prophetic faculty is in a state of proper adjustment for a tempering itself to the spirit as to a drug inspiration in those who foretell the future is bound to come.

43:36
And whenever the conditions are not, thus it is bound not to come.

43:40
Or when it does come to be misleading, abnormal and confusing as we know, in the case of the priestess who died not so long ago.

43:49
As it happened, the deputation from abroad had arrived to consult the Oracle.

43:54
The victim, it is said, remained unmoved and unaffected in any way by the 1st libations. But the priests, in their eagerness to please, went far beyond their wanted usage, and only after the victim had been subjected to a deluge and nearly drowned, did it at last give in. What then was the result touching the priestess? She went down into the Oracle unwillingly.

44:15
They say and half heartedly. And her first response is it was once plain from the harshness of her voice that she was not responding properly. She was like a laboring ship and was filled with a mighty and baleful spirit.

44:30
Finally, she became hysterical and with a frightful shriek, rushed toward the exit and threw herself down with the result that not only the members of the deputation fled, but also the Oracle interpreter, Nicander, and those holy men that were present. However, after a little they went in and took her up, still conscious, and she lived on for a few days.

44:51
Presumably, then, she died.

44:53
It is For these reasons that they guard the chastity of the priestess and keep her life free from all association in contact with strangers and take the omens before the Oracle, thinking that it is clear to the God when she has the temperament and disposition. This is what I'm talking about, temperament and disposition suitable to submit to the inspiration.

45:13
Without harm to herself, the power of the spirit does not affect all persons, nor the same persons, always in the same way. But it only supplies an enkindling and an inception. We have a movie called that.

45:26
As has been said for them that are in a proper state to be affected and to undergo the change, the power comes from the gods and Demi gods. But for all that it is not unfailing, nor imperishable nor ageless, lasting into infinite time, by which all things between Earth and Moon become wearied out according to our reasoning.

45:49
I hope you believe that I have only selected just a few.

45:54
Of the words of these ancient sources so that you can have a a feeling for it, a sense for it, how they talk about prophecy, how they talk about divine speech.

46:07
Let me show you a really juicy one. This is Israelis talking about an Oracle who sees a vision.

46:14
He says. And if any Greeks are present, let them approach in an order determined by lot, as is the custom for I prophecy as the God guides me. So this is an Oracle speaking. She goes into the temple a moment later, she comes out again, terrified, crawling on hands and knees like a baby. It is some time before she can speak.

46:34
Things truly fearful to speak of, fearful to behold with the eyes they have taken away my strength and made me unable to stand upright so that I run on my hands instead of making speed with my legs. I am on my way to the inner shrine, richly hung with wreaths, and there I see a man sitting at the naval stone as a suppliant for purification.

46:54
A man polluted in the eyes of the gods, his hands dripping blood, holding a newly drawn sword. This is actually part of a play, and then it switches to the guy.

47:04
Who's?

47:05
Gonna now start talking, but.

47:08
The fact is still plays are based on reality, at least to some degree. You could exaggerate, but like there are no spaceships in this play, right? There's an Oracle seeing a vision in a cave or a holy place.

47:23
Epicurus rejected all divination, so there's your there's your true skeptic brother Epicurious like. No, that's it.

47:33
No means of foretelling the future exists, according to Diogenes in his lives of eminent philosophers. Epicurus says no means of foretelling the future exists, but even if it did, we should regard what happens according to it, as nothing to us.

47:49
You said I'm not going to buy into it Cicero, and he's writing a little before Christ, 44 years before Christ, he says. Why are the Delphic oracles of which I have just given you examples, not uttered at the present time?

48:00
And have not been for a long time, so already by the time of Christ that the Oracle at Delphi was was getting passe, it was getting old. We know at the time that Paul was in Corinth. Galio was there. Next he went to Delphi and he was shocked at how empty the city was. It wasn't a happening place anymore.

48:18
Still, it remains somewhat active for up to like 4 centuries, until it was finally shut down later in the 4th century. Lucan mentions this. He writes in the year 61, so it's right around our time of First Corinthians. About 10 years later.

48:37
And what he writes is pretty crazy. So I'm just going to have to read it to you. And I I will come back to Luke and I think next time and consider a little bit more of what he said. But I just want to read it to you just to get it out there and then we're.

48:53
Going to go to 1st Corinthians, then we're going to be done so.

48:56
Let's just hang in there. Few more minutes. We'll get this done. It's going to. This is going to be great. Maybe not great, but it's going to be.

49:05
I'll promise you that. All right? Lucas says the following Themis was then Queen and mistress of the Oracle, but when Apollo saw that the huge chasm in the earth breathed forth divine truth, and that the ground gave out a wind that spoke, then he enshrined himself in the sacred caves, brooded over the holy Place, and there became a prophet.

49:26
When this inspiration has found a harbor in a maiden's bosom, it strikes the human soul of the priestess audibly and unlocks her lips. For if the God enters the bosom of any untimely death, is her penalty.

49:41
Or her reward.

49:42
For having received him because the human frame is broken up by the sting and surge.

49:47
Of that frenzy.

49:49
And the stroke from heaven shatters the brittle life. Sounds terrible, right? Scared at last, the maiden took refuge by the tripod, so now he's narrating the actual scene.

50:00
They actually just kind of tossed this girl and they're like, go get us a prophecy and she didn't want to do it. And they forced her. She drew near to the vast chasm and their state and her bosom for the first time drew in the divine power. So that's probably the gas.

50:15
Leaking out of the earth.

50:17
Which the inspiration of the rock still active after so many centuries forced upon her at last, Apollo mastered the breast of the Delphian Priestess as fully as ever. In the past he forced his way into her body, driving out her former thoughts and bidding her human nature to come forth and leave her heart at his disposal.

50:39
Frantic.

50:40
She careers about The Cave with her neck under possession.

50:46
The fillets and garlands of Apollo, dislodged by her bristling hair, she whirls with tossing head through the void spaces of the temple. She scatters the tripods that impede her random course. She boils over with fierce fire while enduring the wrath of Phoebus, when she found it first the wild frenzy.

51:06
Overflow through her foaming lips.

51:09
She groaned and uttered loud and articulate cries with panting breath, next to dismal wailing filled the vast cave. And at last, when she was mastered, came the sound of articulate speech.

51:23
Roman thou shalt have no part in the mighty ordeal, and shalt escape the awful threats of force. This is her actual speaking. On behalf of Apollo.

51:36
Contrast that with First Corinthians chapter 13, verses 1 and 2. Two were the most staggering verses.

51:45
Once you read them in light of the expectations of ancient divine speech.

51:52
We read, if I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels, but do not have love.

52:00
I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol, and if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge.

52:09
And if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. Here is the thing.

52:19
Nobody.

52:21
Nobody talks about.

52:26
Nobody talks about it.

52:29
Love.

52:32
Nobody talks about how divine speech should be subject to concern for others.

52:40
Nobody cares about the priestess who's being entered and forcibly displaced by the God.

52:49
Nobody cares about her.

52:51
Like even when Plutarch talks about the girl that killed herself because she couldn't handle it, he doesn't even sound sad.

52:58
He doesn't even say rest in peace.

53:01
You know, they had a saying like that in Latin as well, wasn't recipe, it was something different. But my point is he he doesn't care. Nobody cares about.

53:08
Her.

53:09
And you know what?

53:10
She never cares about the people that ask her questions.

53:15
If she prophesized that this important person who's paying all this money is going to die, she doesn't say I'm sorry.

53:21
She says. Ohh, whoa. Paula says you're going to die.

53:24
Next, nobody. There's no love. Where's the love? There's no love with Plato talking about the Muses, inspiring the poetry. There's no law.

53:37
This is radical. This is exciting. This is new in divine speech. Look at this. The tongues of humans and of angels. That's divine speech, prophetic powers, mysteries and knowledge. This is all divine speech. This is all the stuff that all these accounts I've been reading to you about.

53:57
And he says, look, if you don't have love, it's worthless.

54:02
Never in the history of humanity has anybody said something like that.

54:08
I know that for us as Christians, we're like, yeah, everybody know, this was it, this was this was the shift in human history where it's like, alright, you want to be spiritual, you gotta be loving too.

54:20
This was it.

54:24
First Corinthians, chapter 14, verse 2, says for those who speak in a tongue, do not speak to other people but to God.

54:32
For no one understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the spirit.

54:36
But those who prophecy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. Those who speak in tongue build up themselves. But those who prophecy build up the church.

54:52
There's nothing like this.

54:55
These words upbuilding encouragement, consolation.

55:00
These words don't belong with prophecy. Prophecy is about cheating. It's about learning about the future that you shouldn't even know.

55:11
There's no sense of like ohh I'm. I'm just going to be encouraged by the Prophet.

55:16
Right, this is this is new. This is radical. When you when you read first Corinthians over against the all this background over here you're like, OK so prophecy should be done with love and it should be encouraging and bringing up building not just to the individual who pays a lot of money but.

55:33
To the church.

55:35
For the common good.

55:38
It's such a contrast.

55:40
They didn't look for encouragement. They just looked for direction. That's all they wanted. Just show me what to do. Show me which way things are going.

55:47
And then I'll go hide or I'll I'll grab my army and I'll go fight. That's that's all. It's transactional.

55:54
Now it's different. Now it is community building.

55:59
We'll close in first Corinthians 1427 to 33. It says it, and if anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be only two or at most 3, and each in turn and let one interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let them be silent in the church and speak to themselves and to God. Let two or three prophets speak.

56:20
And let the others weigh what is said. If someone's sitting receives A revelation, let the first person be silent.

56:28
For you can all prophecy 1 by 1 so that all may learn and all be encouraged.

56:33
And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is a God, not of disorder, but of peace.

56:43
As in all the churches of the Saints, and then verse 40, but all things should be done decently and in order.

56:51
This is totally different than the frenzied dancing of the Corey Bandies or of the balconies, who would get themselves whipped up with the music and then castrate themselves, or have an ****, or do something crazy that I'm sure in the morning. They're like, what was I thinking?

57:11
That's not this at all. This this is saying you can have divine speech in a meeting and have it be under the control of the human.

57:21
All these examples were under the control of the muse of the nymph of the God. This is a much better way. As Paul says, there's no frenzy, there's no madness. There's no losing your mind.

57:36
Christians can turn off their prophecy at anytime, and they should in order to express love.

57:44
It says that the person who is prophesying should be silent if somebody else is is saying I'm feeling inspired, I'd like to prophesize now. You can actually subject your prophecy to your own.

57:56
Will.

57:58
Well, that's enough of divine speech for tonight.

58:01
I hope you.

58:04
Can see the contrast between the Greco-roman worlds and the world of Christianity described in First Corinthians 12 through 14. Next time, we'll look at speaking in tongues, in particular as we continue through our class 1st Corinthians and context.

58:23
Well, that brings this presentation to a close. What did you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find episode 597 inspiration and divine speech and leave your questions and feedback there. Well, we got a new comment in on Spotify from someone using the name R.

58:41
Riddle on Episode 595, which was.

58:45
Women in Corinth, looking at First Corinthians Chapter 11 and Chapter 14.

58:51
And this person wrote what about single women and widows? Are they just left out with no one to ask biblical questions? The location doesn't make sense. Jumping from one subject matter to another and then back. Did Paul just take off on a rabbit trail? #2 single women not addressed.

59:10
#3 Jesus, the Liberator of women. And now he's putting them back to being ruled by men.

59:17
Yes, women might not be as educated as men.

59:20
But why ask husbands? Why not the teacher slash leader makes more sense for verses to not be in original text. Well, thanks for writing in on that episode and making your points and asking your questions. This text is a difficult text, but I wanted to address it. I didn't want to.

59:40
Run away from it because it's hard.

59:42
And I also wanted to address it over against the background information available and specifically the background information I looked at was Plutarch's book on listening to lectures, and I quoted from that somewhat extensively towards the end of that episode. Once again, this was episode 595.
01:00:03
If you want to go back and listen to it, if you haven't already. But anyhow, my point in quoting from Plutarch so extensively is that there were established protocols for asking questions in lectures.
01:00:14
Things, and presumably they would transfer that same culture or etiquette to a Christian setting, especially if it was open for questions and answers.
01:00:24
And so when we look at that background context, we can see that what the women were doing was breaking protocol from just like their own etiquette, their own cultural setting.
01:00:36
You're not supposed to interrupt. You're not supposed to ask questions during the speaking. You can wait for a long pause, but even then, it's preferable to wait even longer and you know the questions were allowed. But there was a certain way of doing them in Plutarch. As I mentioned, that episode goes on and on, describing precisely how questions should be asked.
01:00:56
Properly. But anyhow, this person who had left his comment was asking about single women and widows, basically those without husband.
01:01:06
This might surprise you to hear, but most women were married and they got married young, and they're. I don't think we're that many widows. I think it was more the opposite way because childbirth was so dangerous in the ancient world. And I'm sure there were cases of widows. We have some references to that, but I don't think that was a very large.
01:01:27
Population.
01:01:29
If you were unmarried, if you were what this person is calling a single woman, then that means you were a child and you would be under the authority of your parents. And if you wanted to ask a question, you would be referred to your parents to ask that question as soon as you were able to be married, you got into the adolescent years.
01:01:49
15/14/16.
01:01:51
I mean, you would be as a woman, you would typically be married off and then you would have a husband. So I mean, it's just a very different culture than our like, single forever culture, especially in America today, where many, many people are single into their 30s and even 40s just getting married for the first.
01:02:11
Time, and that's just unheard of in the ancient world. Just nobody would ever do that. Or if they did, they would be very atypical at, at least when Christianity is first getting started. So I think it is reasonable to think that when he says when he gives this instruction to women to ask their husbands at home, he is actually hitting the majority of the people that would have been asking these questions.
01:02:33
Perhaps the widows weren't asking the questions, I don't know, but presumably the widows could ask whoever was around that was available. But the big point, I think, is not so much that it's as the husbands. It's not an authority thing so much as.
01:02:49
Ask somebody that knows the answer to the question. The husband typically did because he would have had access to more education and you know, I think perhaps this commenter missed my point that I took from Craig Keener, which is where he says, when Paul suggests that husbands should teach their wives at home, his point is not.
01:03:09
To belittle women's ability, to learn. To the contrary, Paul is advocating the most progressive view of his day.
01:03:18
Despite the possibility that she is less educated than himself, the husband should recognize his wife's intellectual capability and therefore make himself responsible for her education so that she can discuss intellectual issues together.
01:03:33
And this comes from Craig Keener's book Paul Women and Wives, Page 84, in case you're curious for that quote was coming from. So the first point was the location doesn't make sense. This is a textual issue. I'll come back to that. Your second point was single women were not addressed. I think everybody would just expect single women.
01:03:54
Which were more likely than not to be children.
01:03:54
Where?
01:03:58
To just ask their parents, perhaps for the widows, if there, if there were some widows in the congregation, then they would certainly need to ask somebody. My guess is that there weren't that many. Just as a population in general.
01:04:13
And then you're concerned about Jesus, the Liberator, putting women back to being ruled by men. Well, in what way did Jesus liberate women? I mean, just real. Honestly here they tell everyone, hey, do your marriage is totally differently? I don't think so. What Jesus did was he recognized.
01:04:34
Respected, honored women.
01:04:37
Included women among his disciples included women to learn as he taught. Sure. So if that's what you mean by liberation. But it's not like he told the women. Let's have you all vote. And let's have you all work the same jobs as men and all this. None of that was even, I think, a thought in people's mind.
01:04:57
Until after the Industrial Revolution and the possibility of mechanized help came into the situation. If you're digging ditches with a shovel, there's a clear difference between a male's strength and a female strength.
01:05:12
Most of the time, of course, there are probably some exceptions to that, but you know, ancient people didn't fuss about that. They just sort of recognize that guys are better at doing certain things and women are better at doing certain things. This is, I think, more a product of our technological situation, which I think is wonderful. For the record, I'm not against it. I just don't think you can.
01:05:32
Put that back on Jesus as if Jesus was a feminist in the modern sense of the world. I think Jesus honored and loved women. I think he deliberately chose a woman to be the first witness of his resurrection because he valued the testimony of women and sought to honor women.
01:05:51
I think he valued honor men as well, choosing male disciples as as as his.
01:05:57
12 apostles. But I don't think he was some sort of like progressive proto feminist or something like that. From time to time, scholars will argue for that point of view. They typically run aground when they consider some of what Jesus's other positions were on different issues, where he just seems to have gone with the flow.
01:06:18
More or less as far as like sexuality and the idea of marriage and.
01:06:23
You know, he didn't really challenge arranged marriages, for example, and that was a very disempowering experience, I think for most women, although I'm sure fathers did listen to their daughters a good deal, at least if I was in that situation, I would certainly listen to my daughter. Anyhow, I'm rambling, but my point is I don't think your view of Jesus, the Liberator of women, as you put it in this comment.
01:06:46
Is necessarily establish able and I don't think that Paul is putting women under the rule of men by telling them to ask their husbands questions at home instead of interrupting the meeting while the person is upfront preaching. I don't. I just that to me that doesn't follow.
01:07:02
Now your last point. Well, really your first point was on the location. You say it doesn't make sense to jump from one subject matter to another and then back. Is did Paul just take off on a rabbit trail? Yes. Yes. And Paul does that all the time. Like you, you just need to.
01:07:16
Read more Paul like.
01:07:17
He does this. He will take off on a rabbit trail and then he'll come back sometimes.
01:07:22
In the middle of a sentence, he'll break off a thought and then return to what he was saying before. This is just how he was.
01:07:28
It's it's probably how we all write to some degree and I don't think you can look at the textual evidence of literally every single Greek manuscript we have has the text and say, Oh well, it seems like it interrupts the flow. So let's get rid of the text. It's just not gone in that direction as far as textual critics are concerned.
01:07:50
I don't know of any Bible translation that takes it out of the text and just says this is not Bible. Even those who cast doubt upon the text are going to just put it, put that in the footnote typically. So I mean there is one scholar Gordon Fee that does take this position to.
01:08:09
Excised it from the text. His his position has not won the day. People have not said, oh, well, that really is what it what it must have been. Rather, people are looking at the textual evidence saying, well, it's in all the manuscripts, even in the earliest manuscripts we have of First Corinthians chapter 14. So therefore we can't just get rid of it.
01:08:29
We have to figure out what it means and so this is really an interpretation issue. It's a theological issue and above all, in my opinion it's a context issue. It's a background issue. What was going on?
01:08:40
On at that church at that time, that could warrant Paul's instruction for the women to be silent and asked their questions to their husbands at home. After the meeting. I think Craig Keener's position and Craig Keener is an egalitarian and he recognizes that this text is legitimate.
01:08:57
And what he says, and this is a direct quote, what is almost certainly in view is that the women are interrupting the scripture exposition with questions. This would have caused an affront to more conservative men or visitors to the church. And it would have caused a disturbance to the service due to the.
01:09:12
Nature of the.
01:09:13
Questions once again, that's from his Paul Women and Wives Book, and this was page 81. So interesting thoughts there. Thank you so much for asking about that. I'm still recognizing first Corinthians 14 verses 34 and 35 and 36 as legitimate Bible. And I thank the explanation.
01:09:34
Makes sense. Maybe it's not what we would like in our culture today, but that's not a good reason for us to change the Bible itself because we're uncomfortable with what it says or with what their cultural expectations were.
01:09:47
Now, having said all that, I am a fan of many of the changes that have enabled women to have more agency, more independence, and more freedom in our time, though of course they don't agree with all the feminist positions on this. That and the other. But I will say that I think it's great that women.
01:10:07
Have a right to vote. I think it's great that.
01:10:10
Women are able to work jobs, go to college, and be independent if they choose to be independent, that they don't need to be married. You can be a full, valuable, wonderful woman of God and not be a wife. You can you can serve God as a single woman. You can be single for life. You can.
01:10:30
Be single for a time and then get married later. You know, whatever God calls you to do, I think is fine. And these things have not always been open to women in the past. And I do recognize that. And I do.
01:10:40
I do think that those opportunities are good for women to have. Well, that's well. Hopefully I don't get myself into too much trouble. This is the kind of topic that, no matter what you say, something on you kind of step in it. So I'm just waiting to hear back from you, dear listener, for corrective on that one. If you would like to give any feedback once again that's episode.
01:11:02
This is episode 597, inspiration and divine speech would love to hear your thoughts or if you want to give comments on the subject of first crime is 14 and the role of women in the church.
01:11:12
Recording. You should probably just do that under Episode 595, which is women in Corinth. Well, thanks everyone for listening to the end. If you'd like to support us, you can do that at restitutio.org. I'll catch you next week and remember the truth.
01:11:26
Nothing to fear.