Jeff Kloha’s Work on 1 Corinthians online

It had escaped my notice that Jeff Kloha’s massive textual commentary on 1 Corinthians is available on the University of Leeds dissertation website. I can remember seeing the 4 volumes on the desk of Peter Head a few weeks before the viva and the sense of awe that somebody could produce so much work for a PhD dissertation. Now for all to peruse at leisure!

Kloha on the silence of the women

One rather interesting paper at SBL was by Jeffrey Kloha of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. I can't remember whether Kloha has recently finished his PhD with Keith Elliott (Leeds), or whether he is nearing the end of it. Anyway, he presented an intriguing study entitled 'The Displacement of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 in D F G and the Latin Tradition'. The background to the discussion is, of course, the view, strongly articulated inter alios by Gordon Fee (The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 699-708) that these verses are inauthentic. Though they appear in all known Greek or versional manuscripts, the Greek-Latin bilingual manuscripts (D F G) and a number of Latin manuscripts place them after v. 40. They are rejected by Fee on 'transcriptional' and 'intrinsic' probability. One of the points in Fee's argument was that it is unlikely that the verses were 'displaced' from after v. 33 to after v. 40 since 'displacements of this kind do not occur elsewhere in the NT' (First Epistle, p. 700). Enter Kloha. Kloha claims to have been able to identify a series of displacements of exactly this sort in basically the same witnesses that have the verses after 1 Cor. 14:40. The relevant examples are: 'and the church in their house' (Rom. 16:5 --> 16:3) 'and all the churches of Christ' (Rom. 16:16 --> 16:21) 'The grace of our Lord [Jesus Christ] be with you [all. Amen]' (Rom. 16:20 --> 16:24) 'With whom I am staying' (1 Cor. 16:19 from Acts 18:3) 'Be zealous for the better gifts' (Galatians 4:17 from 1 Cor. 12:31) 1 Cor. 14:34-35 --> after 1 Cor. 14:40 He observes certain features in common between some of these texts: 1) all the transpositions are triggered by 'key words' 2) church/churches (Rom. 16:3, 16; 1 Cor. 14:34) 3) interest in the role of Priscilla and her activity within the church (Rom. 16:3; 1 Cor. 16:19) The possibility of a series of related transpositions is indeed intriguing and we will await eagerly the publication of Kloha's work. Two areas where clarification is needed are: 1) The overall explanation of how these are related. This is a point on which Larry Hurtado pressed Kloha; 2) The degree to which there are other transpositions that do not fit the pattern or explanation that Kloha has advanced.