The Silenced Women in Pauline Letters with Possible Interpolation

Abstract

Women silenced in the Assembly, prevented from asking their husbands in public, and having to bring their heads covered. All this points to a situation of subjugation of the woman/wife in relation to the man/husband. This textual situation, present in Paul’s letters which are considered authentic, generally advocates a situation of gender equality, and raises questions about the figure of the Apostle and about the possibility of late textual interpolation in the Pauline letters. In this paper, we seek to analyze Paul’s personality within his cultural and religious background. We also seek to identify who are the women with whom he worked in terms of apostolic and ministerial parity in order to understand the possible reasons for late textual interpolation in his written liberating message. The investigative procedure employed in this research is, mainly, the interpretative and analytic critique of the textual analysis. The main conclusions are that the Word of God is always a force of renewal capable of transforming the structures of a society. Wherever Paul went, this transformation took place in a germ. However, because of the incarnation process, the Word of God can suffer adverse forces, especially in the context of a sexist and misogynist society, making it possible, therefore, to think of textual extracts interpolated within the authentic Paulinum corpus.