Response: There is no debate about the passage alluding to these scriptural concepts, but what is actually said about them and how are they used in Paul’s argumentation? To claim the directives are not culturally relevant is to ignore not only the original audience, their particular circumstances, and the occasional purpose of the letter, but the relationship at the time between gender roles (divinely enjoined) and Corinthian head-coverings and hair styles (culturally relevant), involving the societal implications of honor and shame (vv. 4-6, 14-15), collective judgment based on propriety (v. 13), and a “custom” [συνήθεια] that Paul says “we do not have,” neither apostolic nor congregational in its origin or significance (v. 16). There is also “the nature itself” [ἡ φύσις αὐτὴ] in relation to social decorum. Biblical examples (e.g., Judg. 13:5; 2 Sam. 14:25-26) and the realities of the natural world (a man’s hair can naturally grow long) make a convincing case that the shamefulness of which Paul speaks is based on the native sense of propriety in a particular cultural setting rather than some innate sense of shame inherent in all humans. In the broader context there is also Paul’s consistent use of ἐξουσία (“liberty,” “right,” “authority”) in the letter (v. 10; cf. 7:37; 8:9; 9:4, 5, 6, 12, 18), along with synonymous expressions (7:39; 8:9; 9:1, 19; 10:29), serving as an inspired commentary that makes strained explanations and added modifiers unnecessary.
Question #8: If hair “is given” to a woman to be her covering, is it to remain uncut?
Response: In 1 Cor. 11:15 Paul does not say “is given by God” or “is given by the natural world,” which would ignore the fact that a man’s hair can also grow long. In many societies beyond mid-first-century Corinth, long hair on a man was natural, normal, and acceptable. And in some cultures the given norm was for a woman’s hair to be cut short (e.g., married women in ancient Sparta) or shaved (e.g., Maasai women in Kenya).
Since a man’s hair can naturally grow long and there is no way for the natural world to define or quantify hair length, reference to “the nature itself” apparently applies to “the native sense of propriety,” i.e., “a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature” (Thayer 660). Paul is not talking about what nature teaches just anybody, but what it teaches “you” (plural), viz. his first-century Corinthian audience. In the cultural context of this Greco-Roman society, hair length not only distinguished women from men but also respectable ladies and gentlemen from immoral persons.
In this particular setting, a woman’s long hair served as a natural covering and demonstrated the appropriateness of her being covered. The significance of δέδοται (“having been given”)1 cannot be that God has provided to the woman and not to the man the ability to grow long hair. A man’s hair can in fact grow long, and “God” is not even mentioned here. In view of the allusion to their natural sense of propriety (v. 14) and the admonition to “judge among yourselves” (v. 13), the point seems to be that the woman’s long hair is recognized as peculiarly hers and characteristic of normalcy and dignity among Corinthian ladies. Her long hair in this context “corresponds to” a covering. The preposition ἀντί may have signified “instead of” in Classical Greek but is not limited to this sense in the Koinē Greek of the NT.
Question #9: In regard to hair length and “nature,” what about the contention that biologically there appears to be some difference due to hormones and other factors in the length-potential of women vs men with head hair and facial hair, both indicating some biological differences, at least in growth-potential, as a normative rule?
Response: Length-potential of head hair as a biological difference between men and women is not factual (note, e.g., 2 Sam. 14:25-26). If modern-day hair growth is comparable to hair growth among the ancients, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry notes very little if any difference in growth rates between males and females <Link>, while studies have shown that male hair actually grows faster than female hair <Link>.2 Moreover, the hair of the head [κεφαλή], not facial hair, is the topic of discussion in 1 Cor. 11:14-15.
Women having longer hair than men is a gender distinction relevant to a cultural convention (see, e.g., Rev. 9:8), when men customarily cut their hair short, but is not a biological rule of nature. If φύσις (“nature”) in this passage refers to natural law, and if neither women nor men ever cut their hair, then hair length would not be a distinguishing feature between the sexes. Any observable distinction, then, would have to be culturally discerned (notwithstanding the normal and natural gender differences). Paul does not say the nature itself teaches you (the Corinthians) about hair growth potential but about “long” and “short” hair, which is subject to and defined by cultural perception.
Question #10: Could the difference between a man’s hair and a woman’s hair according to “nature” (1 Cor. 11:14) be an allusion to the more common tendency of hair loss and baldness among men?
Response: Paul alludes to hair length, not hair loss. A man who is bald on the top of his head can still grow the rest of his hair long, while female hair loss and pattern-baldness are not uncommon plights of the natural world.
Question #11: Is Revelation 9:8 (“like women's hair”) a general statement without alluding to cultural context, thus standing against the cultural idea?
Response: Everything in the Bible is written in a particular context, and before anything in scripture says anything to present-day readers, it has already spoken to those to whom it was first addressed. The book of Revelation was written to real people comprising real congregations in a real geographical locality (western Asia Minor) in a real historical-cultural setting (late-first-century Greco-Roman cities) dealing with real issues (chiefly persecution by the Roman government). If chap. 9 is dealing with judgment against Rome, how would the late-first-century Greco-Roman provincial Asians have understood “hair like women’s hair”? If men typically had their hair cut short and women typically wore long hair in this setting, the description is understandable. If the so-called barbarian forces on the outskirts of the Roman Empire (which ultimately contributed to the empire’s downfall) typically had long hair, the original readers of John’s symbolism are thus provided insight into the prophecy’s fulfillment. If John had communicated the same words to the long-haired men of Rome’s enemies, it would have been nonsensical. Long hair on a woman cannot escape cultural perception nor establish a distinctive biological idiosyncrasy.
Question #12: Long hair given to a woman as a covering (1 Cor. 11:14) indicates the hair is analogically similar to the covering and demonstrates the propriety of the woman being covered rather than the man. Does Paul mean visually or functionally, or both? If visual similarity is the point, was it just a convenient happenstance in Paul’s day that he was able to utilize that as an analogy? Did culture and Paul’s purposes here just happen to merge because long hair, which is visually similar to a covering, happened to be a gender distinction and matter of shame and propriety for women in Paul’s setting? Does the ability to draw the analogy from the visual similarities of the hair and covering seem too convenient? If φύσις (“nature”) is understood from biology, the analogy was possible for Paul to utilize not by the convenience of the cultural moment but by design. Therefore, would it follow that visual similarity is not the analogy but the function?
Response: This line of inquiry seems to be looking for precision of meaning that is not explicit in the text. Whether visual or functional comparison or both served the intent of Paul’s point, in mid-first-century Corinth it was not necessarily just one to the exclusion of the other, i.e., respectable women customarily wore long hair with some type of headdress (cultural variation of styles notwithstanding) and respectable men customarily had short hair and no artificial covering, whether visual, perceptually functional, or both. This was no more “a convenient happenstance” than Jesus using the analogy of different types of soil affecting planted seeds. The Lord employed imagery already familiar to his listening audience, and Paul employed what was already familiar to his Corinthian reading audience to illustrate the point he wanted them to understand.
Even if 1 Cor. 11:2-16 had never been penned, hair length and head-coverings still communicated the same thing in ancient Corinth. It wasn’t merely “too convenient” any more than the kiss-greeting was already customary in ancient Corinth (and elsewhere) when Paul gave directives about the “holy kiss,” or that feet-washing was already customary in ancient eastern cultures when Jesus used it as an object lesson (which some have interpreted as a binding religious ritual). Paul’s arguments are based on cultural design rather than biological design. Otherwise, why were men created with the natural ability to grow long hair?
--Kevin L. Moore
Endnotes:
1 Unless noted otherwise, scripture quotations are the author’s own translation.
2 The American Academy of Dermatology at one time published this finding, but it has since been removed from the site <Link>, presumably due to current transgender debates.
Related Posts: Female Head-coverings: Questions & Criticisms Part 1, Part 2, Part 4
Image credit: https://www.thoughtco.com/roman-dress-for-women-117821
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