Ken Litwak
Jeffrey Gibson wrote:
> On Sat, 5 Jul 1997 RHutchin@aol.com wrote:
>
> > 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