The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul's Rhetoric.

By Antoinette Wire
Clark. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995). Pp. v+316. Paperback, $19.95

Contributing a “historical imagination” to previous exegesis of 1 Corinthians, Wire asserts a

reconstruction of the social and theological behaviors of a group of Corinthian women who
appear to have been recognized as prophetic Christian leaders. This intricately woven tapestry
based off a close criticism of Paul’s rhetoric in his first epistle to the Corinthian church attempts
to create an image of Paul’s audience from his arguments. Closely analyzing the entire text of 1
Corinthians, Wire elucidates a clear witness to the identity and message of these women prophets
from broadly addressed rhetorical remarks.
Introducing her aim, method and procedure for recovering the identity of Corinth’s
prophetic women in her first chapter, Wire proceeds to systematically lay out thematic
reconstructions from the rhetorical content of 1 Corinthians. Drawing an outline of Paul’s
rhetoric chapter two, Wire defines the many ways by which Paul’s general message to the
Corinthians subtly implicates the behavior of those women who identify as prophets. In the third
chapter, derived from 1 Cor 1-4, Wire descriptively pictures how Paul attempts to corral the
freedom the women prophets have found in Christ, addressing their claims to wisdom, elevated
statuses, and leadership roles in the church of Corinth. From 1 Cor 5-7, Wire’s fourth chapter
emphasizes how Paul’s reprimanding of male immorality uses language which implies an
attempt to curb the radical sexual abstinence of the women prophets by placing on them the
burden of relieving communal impurity. In chapter five, Wire explicates how Paul introduces
concerns of communal idolatry in 1 Cor 8-11 from behaviors of eating and sexual abstinence out
of devotion for God likely practiced by the women prophets in Corinth. Taking time to especially
address 1 Cor 11.2-6, Wire offers her own interpretation of why Paul commands women to cover
their heads when publicly praying or prophesying as connected to the issue of communal
idolatry, deriving from previous statements concerning female responsibility to help prevent
male sin. In chapter seven, Wire uses Paul’s remarks to the “Spiritual” persons in Corinth from 1
Cor 12-14 to piece together the women’s prophets claims of authority as derived from the Spirit
of God. Wrapping up her detailed exegesis in chapter eight, Wire describes a conflict between
Pauline theology of resurrection and the experience of Christ’s resurrection as interpreted by the
women prophets in 1 Cor 15-16. In a final chapter, Wire summarizes her own work by
comparing her hypotheses about the women’s changed social statuses due to their new prophetic
roles through Mary Daly’s “Group/Grid” analysis, concluding with a brief postscript on her work
as a mere beginning to uncovering the identities of the Corinthian women prophets.
Including twelve informative hypotheses, several thorough indexes for reference, along
with an additional section of selected ancient text exemplifying women in prophetic roles, Wire’s
scholarly audience if provided with valuable means to unpack her analysis. Wire’s clear
presentation helps a non-academic reader comprehend her complex, but accomplished, goal of
reviving the lost persons of the Corinthian women prophets, though not without a thorough
reading. Wire maximizes every word, consolidating the meat of this intense contribution to under
200 pages, enlightening not only the personages of the women prophets in Corinth, but also
shedding light on the individualistic style by which the apostle Paul communicated theology to
his churches. The depth and intricacy of Wire’s analysis offers valuable insight into sociological
consequences of the early Jesus movement, providing inspirational models of faith for men and
women today from the self-understandings as Christ followers of the Corinthian Women
Prophets.

Hannah M. Mecaskey
Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley, CA