This is Week Fifty of Giford's Bible Study Programme.

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

- 1 Cor 14:34-35

Length: 3/5

Controversy: 3/5

This, one of the few openly mysogenistic passages in the New Testament, was moved around in early texts, and conflicts with Paul's earlier teachings on women praying and prophesising in church. (He's just got through writing: 'But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head'¹; praying and prophesying would both have been done out loud in the early church).

Christian Responses

The Christian response is actually quite sensible - this is a later insertion by another writer. (Some Biblical literalist Christians maintain this applied only to certain women in certain churches, but there is no Biblical basis for this).