Moore Perspective: Female Head-coverings: Questions and Criticisms (Part 4 of 4)

Question #13: Is it still wrong for men to have long hair and for women to have short hair?

Response: In 1 Cor. 11:14-15, what constitutes “long hair” vs. “short hair”? The text does not give specific measurements, so how do we make this determination? How “long” can a man’s hair grow and how “short” can a woman’s hair be before the passage is violated? When Paul says, “You all judge among yourselves” (v. 13),¹ he is not speaking directly to present-day readers in a variety of cultural environments where hair length is assessed differently (e.g., long-haired Indigenous-Native-American men, or short-haired African tribal women), not to mention the connotations (or lack thereof) of the artificial headdress. He is speaking to mid-first-century Corinthians already accustomed to a standard of dress and hairstyles that would enable them to make their own judgment in relation to their particular circumstances.

It was not always considered degrading or shameful for a man to have long hair. Jewish male Nazarites were not allowed to cut their hair (Num. 6:1-21). Solomon’s horsemen let their hair grow to considerable length (Josephus, Ant. 8.185). There was a time in history when Israelite men typically wore longer hair (2 Sam. 14:25-26; Song 5:2, 11; Ezek. 8:3; cf. Judg. 13:3-5; 16:13-22). In fact, the 9th-century BC Assyrian Black Obelisk of Shalmanezer III depicts Israelite men with shoulder-length hair.² The significance of hair length must be gauged by the societal norms of any given time and culture.

Question #14: Based on 1 Corinthians 11:15, are women with shorter hair going against what the Bible says?

Response: This depends on which women are under consideration. If the Christian women of mid-first-century Corinth are in view, then yes, because in their cultural environment it was disgraceful for a woman to appear in public without her customary headdress or with short hair, deemed immodest and shameful. If Christian women in modern-day western societies are in view, then no, as long as exposed hair or “short” hair (however that is to be measured) is not regarded as inappropriate or disreputable.

Question #15: If a man wears a hairpiece and is thus “covering” his head, does he violate 1 Cor. 11:4, 7 when he prays?

Response: No. As Paul penned these words, the men he had in mind, unless they were all completely bald, had their heads covered with hair, albeit with a Roman-style haircut. To forbid the wearing of a hairpiece in modern times is to force a meaning on the text that is foreign to its original purpose. Contextually these Christian men in mid-first-century Corinth were expected to refrain from covering their heads with a female garment while praying or prophesying.

Question #16: If one accepts the underlying principles of gender roles and appropriate dress and demeanor but rejects the literal female head-covering, isn’t this a non-literal view of the Bible?

Response: It is not a matter of literal vs. non-literal but discerning what the inspired writer was seeking to convey to his targeted audience and how they would have understood the directives in the context in which they were originally communicated. Once this is ascertained, we are in a much better position to comprehend and make application of the relevant teaching, albeit in a very different cultural environment with different connotations and expectations.

Question #17: If in Paul’s time men customarily wore short hair and it was disgraceful for them to wear it long, would it follow that Paul growing his hair for a vow (Acts 18:18) would have been disgraceful? Why would he continue to take such vows, especially since he had just been in Corinth?

Response: With respect to hair length, the concept of “long” is subjective. What constitutes “long”? Presumably this could vary from one culture to the next, not to mention individual perception.³ In the context of ancient Judaism, hair growth as part of a vow involved allowing the hair to grow for a specified period of time, whether or not it actually reached the point of being viewed as “long” (however that might be defined). Acts 18:18 does not say Paul cut his “long” hair in Cenchrea but had his hair sheared or shaved, irrespective of the length it had grown. The point about men customarily having short hair in Paul’s time needs to be qualified. We’re talking about a Greco-Roman context, particularly the mid-first-century Roman colony of Corinth. Paul was a Hellenized ethnic Jew writing 1 Corinthians to a predominantly Gentile congregation in a particular cultural setting.

We cannot be any more precise than the text allows. Cultural peculiarities (whether Jewish, Greek, Roman) and the distinctiveness of each must be taken into account, but also the inevitable blending of cultures throughout the first-century Mediterranean world. Other variables would include time periods, e.g., the different historical contexts of Rebekah (Gen. 24:65) and Tamar (Gen. 38:14-15), Samson (Judg. 13:5), Absalom (2 Sam. 14:25-26), and Paul (1 Cor. 11:13-15), as well as geography (western, central, eastern provinces). We should not assume that Palestinian Jews would share the same cultural views as Gentiles or even fellow-Jews in Corinth, or that a Jewish person in the eighth century BC would be representative of first-century Judaism.⁴ While Paul was not divorced from his ethnic heritage, he thoughtfully and strategically conformed to and communicated in a variety of cultural environments to most effectively advance the gospel (1 Cor. 8:13; 9:19-23; 10:32-33).

--Kevin L. Moore

Endnotes:

¹ Unless noted otherwise, scripture quotations are the author’s own translation.

² See Warren Reinsch, “The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser,” Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology (11 Dec. 2018), <Link>.

³ When I was a kid and buzz cuts, crew cuts, and flat tops were common hairstyles for most men, my older brother, whose hair merely touched the top of his ears, was criticized by a visiting missionary for having “long hair.”

⁴ There were occasions in the distant past when Jewish men were expected to wear on their heads an artificial covering (Ex. 28:4, 37-40; 29:6, 9; 39:28; Lev. 8:9; 10:6; 21:10; Ezek. 24:17, 23; 44:18; Dan. 3:21).

Image credit: https://www.pitara.com/non-fiction-for-kids/features-for-kids/roman-holiday/