> We have:
> 1 Corinth 11: 3
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the
> head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
> 4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth
> his head.
> 5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered
> dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
>
> Is it possible that Paul sets up a metaphor in v 3 that is to be carried
> forward into the following verses? Thus, Paul expects the reader to see v 4
> as, "Every man...having his head (Christ) covered (under authority)..." In
> this fashion, Paul could be using the Corinthians' preoccupation with the
> form of obedience (wearing of a hat) to illustrate the superiority of the
> substance of obedience (the subjection of man to Christ, and woman to
man).
> In this manner, he shows the error of arguing over form when substance is
> what really matters. In other words, I don't think Paul (nor God) cared
> (cares) whether a man or woman had (has) long hair or short. >
It seems to me that there is a metaphor here, but it is one which (so far
as an admitedly quick perusal of) the discussion so far hasn't seemed to
entertain, namley, that the "head" a woman "dishonours" when she does not
wear a veil is not her own (or not *only* her own), but that of her husband?
How would this occur? Consider two possibilities.
(1) Not all women in the Corinthian congregation had husbands who were
believers. Some (all?) of the women Paul speaks of may be of this group.
(2) The kind of woman who went about Corinth without a head covering was,
I believe, a prostitute.
Combining these two ideas, we get a command to Corinthian women to keep
their heads covered so that they are not viewed by outsiders as
Prostitutes, and that they don't bring shame on their non beliveing
husband's for this identification, nor convey a misunderstanding to
them concerning what Christiainity is all about.
Does this add anything to the discussion?
Jeffrey Gibson
jgibson@acfsysv.roosevelt.edu