KATA MATTHAION (According to Matthew)

Women and Silence: Is "Saul the Rabbi" Employing a Rabbinic Formula in 1 Corinthians 14:33-35?

For my ethics class at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, I decided to engage the "women's issue" as my topic (but more specifically, "the women and silence" issue of 1 Cor 14). I thought it would be good for me--in my final semester--to wrestle with this issue, especially since it is one of the hot-button topics in post-Christian NYC. I chose to interact with Richard Hays on the matter: (1) because I agree with a handful of his outcomes; and (2) because I disagree (as of now) with his hermeneutical entry-gate into the issue. But to engage Hays means I must also engage Elizabeth Shussler Fiorenza, Victor Paul Furnish and others, since Hays follows their lead on a variety of issues.

1 Corinthians 14:33-34 reads:

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. (NIV)

Preliminary Considerations
(1) The first thing we must remember is that the punctuation is interpretive.
(2) With the punctuation in mind, the "As in all the congregations of the saints" of v. 33b should be read as continuing the thought of v. 33a, not beginning the thought of v. 34 (as the NIV renders/obscures it). By following the NIV, the thought of v. 33b is redundant, since the Greek for "congregations" and "churches" is the same word, ekklesia. "As in all the churches...in the churches."
(3) Hays uses Gal 3:28 as the hermeneutical lens into the 1 Corinthian passage. (Moreover, Hays believes that 1 Cor 14:33-36 is an interpolation. Fiorenza, on the other hand, says we must deal with it regardless if it is Pauline or deutero-Pauline.)
(4) Most commentators, including Hays, recognize that Gal 3:28 has rabbinic roots--it is part of the prayer that every good Jew of the first-century would say each day:

Rabbi Jehuda said, One must speak three prayers every day:
Blessed be God that he has not made me a Gentile.
Blessed be God that he has not made me a woman.
Blessed be God that he has not made me a boor. (T. Berakoth)

(5) If Paul is echoing a rabbinic formula in Gal 3:28, why not in 1 Cor 14:33-35?
(6) With point (5) and point (1) in mind, can we read 1 Cor 14:34b-35 as follows: "[Women] are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says, "If [women] want to inquire about something, they should ask their husbands at home..."
(7) We do know that the women of the first-century were not entitled to speak in the ekklesia, both Jewish (the "assembly," in the LXX) and Greco-Roman (the "assembly" of the polis).
(8) Is Paul just carrying this understanding into the church?
(9) If so, what does that do to how we understand Paul's understanding of the "law?" Is Paul's understanding of the "law" wider than we have come to believe?

Of course, point (6) is not fully substantiated at this moment. But I am hopeful to find something in the rabbinic sources that makes some sense of it.

Again, these were just some of my initial thoughts.