From: Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat Jun 28 1997 - 15:29:49 EDT
At 10:29 PM 6/27/97 EDT, Paul S. Dixon wrote:
PAS ANHR PROSEUCOMENOS H PROFHTEUWN KATA KEFALHS EXON KATAISCUNEI THN
KEFALHN AUTOU
PASA DE GUNH PROSEUCOMENH H PROFHTEUOUSA AKATAKALUPTWi THi KAFALHi
KATAISCUNEI THN KAFAHN AUTHS
Paul acknowledges that both men and women were praying and prophesying. In
verses 4 - 16, he says that women should cover their heads when they do so,
and men should not. If he didn't want women to prophesy, why would he say
that they should cover their heads when doing so? How can a woman cover her
head when praying or prophesying if she isn't supposed to pray or prophesy
in the first place?
>Jonathan: I disagree. 1 Cor 11: 5 can be accurately represented
>logically as an "All P are Q" proposition where:
>
> P = all women who pray or prophesy with heads uncovered, and
> Q = same women shame their heads.
>
>This, of course, is equivalent to the conditional proposition:
> If P, then Q.
>
>The negation of this is, "If not P, then not Q." It fits perfectly.
>And, of course, the negation is not a valid inference.
The negation would be: if women do not pray or prophesy with heads
uncovered, they do not shame their heads. Do you mean to imply that for
women to pray might shame their heads, or that for women to prophesy with
heads uncovered might shame their heads, or both? I agree, this passage does
not formally prove that a woman does not shame her head by praying or
prophesying with her head uncovered, nor does it prove that such a woman
might not shame her head in some other way. But the argument you have
constructed avoids the issue that Paul gave women instructions on what to do
when they pray or prophesy, under the assumption that they do both.
At this point, I think I've said as much as I care to on your discussion of
the negative inference fallacy, and since it isn't really directly related
to any questions of biblical Greek, maybe we should drop it.
Jonathan
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Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie
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