50 FEMINIST VIEWS THAT UNDERMINE SCRIPTURE
However, a very sophisticated academic attempt to evade the Bible’s
authority is found in Gordon Fee’s claim that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
should not be considered part of the Bible and that these verses are “cer-
tainly not binding for Christians.”^2 Fee is a highly respected New
Testament scholar who taught for many years at Regent College,
Vancouver, Canada, is also a member of the Committee on Bible
Translation for the NIV Bible, and is now the general editor for the New
International Commentary on the New Testament series (published by
Eerdmans). In Fee’s highly regarded commentary on 1 Corinthians
(NICNT), he argues that Paul did not write 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 but
that these verses were the addition of a later scribe.^3 He says,
The case against these verses is so strong, and finding a viable solution
to their meaning so difficult, that it seems best to view them as an inter-
polation.... One must assume that the words were first written as a
gloss in the margin by someone who, probably in light of
1 Tim. 2:9-15, felt the need to qualify Paul’s instructions even further.^4Fee’s main reasons for this conclusion are (1) that some later Greek
manuscripts move these verses so that they follow verse 40, and, (2) that
the verses cannot be reconciled with 1 Corinthians 11:5, where Paul
allows women to prophesy in the church. But Fee’s arguments have been
strongly rejected by other New Testament scholars.^5
Is Fee’s position here really an undermining of the authority of the
Bible? On the one hand, some who read Fee may see his argument as merely
a text-critical decision based on Fee’s careful analysis of many different
(^2) Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Commentary on the
New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987), 708.
(^3) See ibid., 699-708. Fee makes the same claim again in “The Priority of Spirit Gifting for
Church Ministry,” in Discovering Biblical Equality, ed. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill
Groothuis (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004), 251-252.
(^4) Ibid., 705.
(^5) See the discussion in Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A
Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), 1148-1150, with particular reference to an article by
C. Niccum, “The Voice of the Manuscripts on the Silence of Women: The External Evidence
for 1 Cor 14:34-35,” New Testament Studies 43 (1997): 242-255. Thiselton says Niccum’s
article “seems overwhelmingly convincing” (1149n342). See also D. A. Carson, “‘Silent in the
Churches’: On the Role of Women in 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36,” in Recovering Biblical
Manhood and Womanhood, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway,
1991), 141-145.