Tongues as a sign to unbelievers in 1 Cor 14:22: Madness, Mystery or Miracle?

My paper on 1 Cor 14:33b and its 6 syntactic possibilities went well.

Now as promised, I am publishing here my abstract for the other presentation, for tomorrow, the 2nd of August at the SBL International meeting in Helsinki. Ah, Helsinki is so lovely! I will definitely come back for holidays!

Here is my abstract:

Tongues as a sign in 1 Cor 14:22: Madness, Mystery or Miracle?

This paper aims to strive for balance in exegesis of 1 Cor 14 by claiming that the context speaks about the valuable benefit of both gifts – tongues and prophecy, albeit different for each of the participants. The focus of the presentation is not so much a translation of sēmeion [sign], but the meaning of „sign” in 1 Cor 14:22. I would like to propose that sēmeion here can be better understood to mean a mystery or a miracle. In that case 1 Cor 14:22 could be understood as follows: “Tongues, then, is a mystery not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is not [a mystery] for unbelievers but for believers.” The meaning of ‘sign’ as a mystery would better reconcile v. 22 with v. 21. 1 Cor 14:21 makes an allusion to Is 28:11, 12 saying that the people will not listen, hear or obey, when God speaks through the foreign nation and foreign language. This paper suggests the reason behind not listening or hearing - people struggle to understand. Understanding and clarity seems to be the main thread in 1 Cor 14:2, 5-9, 11, 13-14, 16, 19 et al. Thus, in the discourse of 1 Cor 14, unbelievers do not understand tongues and might think they are madness (v. 23); believers who speak to God do not [need to] understand tongues, but they use the Charisma for their own benefit (v. 2, 4, 14, 18); unbelievers do understand the prophetic message and acknowledge God’s presence (v. 24-25), but believers do not [need to] understand the prophetic message when it reveals particular secrets of the hearts of the newcomers (v. 25).

Second part of my research on 1 Cor 14:33b "as in all the churches of the saints"

Tomorrow I will go to the SBL International conference. This time the conference will take place in Helsinki, Finland.

The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), founded in 1880, is the oldest and largest learned society devoted to the critical investigation of the Bible from a variety of academic disciplines.

I plan to participate in 2 seminars. 

One will be on textual criticism of the New Testament. My presentation will be about 1 Cor 14:33b and its syntax. In my conference abstract I promised to demonstrate 6 different syntactical reading of 1 Cor 14:33b. But in fact there are 7. 

So, let us see, how it goes for me. I would like to publish my research afterwards - after I will get the feedback from the experts in the field of textual criticism. Despite my 2 Master Theses with this method I count myself more of an amateur in this field (there is no textual criticism on my diploma supplements). Let's see if I survive.

Here I publish my abstract (note, there are 6+1 readings):

1 Cor 14:33b without vv34-5:  internal evidence and its 6 possibilities

The background of this topic is my in-depth research on 1 Cor 14:33b-34 with a focus on v 33b and its place in the oldest Greek and Latin manuscripts. In my study presented at the SBL International Meeting in Vienna in 2014, and in my article[1] published in the NTS in 2017 I displayed external evidence for a separation of 1 Cor 14: 33b from vv 34-35. Following the study on external evidence, this presentation aims to continue the discussion on a place of v 33b and its syntactic function now focusing on internal evidence. The main question is: if v33b is not to introduce Mulieres Taceant, how shall we read and reconcile it with the context? In the first part of the presentation I will outline (at least) 6 different exegetical reading possibilities of v 33b that are found in the scholarly literature (i.a. Westcott and Hort, von Harnack), as well as argumentation from the Greek syntax for each of them. In the second part of the presentation I will discuss the following issues of syntax and semantics: Is v 33b a prepositional phrase or a subordinate clause assuming that the verb is elliptic? What are the two things ὡς compares to each other? How common it is for Paul to introduce a new sentence with ὡς and how Paul uses ὡς in a verbless clause elsewhere in 1 Cor. The goal of this presentation is to advance scholarly discussion on the role of v 33b in the context.

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[1] Aļesja Lavrinoviča, "1 Cor 14.34–5 without 'in All the Churches of the Saints': External Evidence," New Testament Studies Volume 63 Issue 3, Cambridge University Press, 2017.