andrewcriddle

I'll try and provide some more sources tomorrow.

One general point: the question about women's role in Christian worship in the early church is probably separate from the question of women's head covering in the early church.

There were probably women who had some sort of authority position in the church but who wore veils, and women without any authority position who sought to demonstrate their freedom in Christ by not wearing veils. (See 'On the Veiling of Virgins' by Tertullian who disapproved of this sort of freedom.)

Andrew Criddle

neilgodfrey

The usual explanation that Paul is arguing for the wearing of a veil is contradicted within the same passage (1 Cor 11:2-16) that says a woman's hair itself is given her as a covering.

Troy Martin in a recent Journal of Biblical Literature article (123/1 2004 75-84) sorts everything out (to my satisfaction anyway) with a closer look at the word "peribolaion" (v.15) usually translated as "covering".

The word is used by Euripides (Herc. fur. 1269) and Achilles Tatius (Leuc. Clit. 1.15.2) as a euphemism for testicles. Ancient medical texts by Hippocratic authors explain: hair is hollow and thus acts as a suction for semen, and semen is, of course, stored in the brain and that is why hair is most profuse around the head. After pubescence bodies are large enough for the semen to travel from the brain way way down to the genitalia. Men have to have hairy bodies because they have more semen and hotter bodies than women, so as the semen makes this journey it froths because of the heat of the male body and thence finds temporary escape hatches in the extra male body hair. Women by nature have longer hair than men because, being hollow and hence a good suction agent it is needed to draw up the semen the male attempts to implant in her.

And who can argue with Hippocrates? Certainly not Pseudo-Phocylides who wrote, "Long hair is not fit for males, but for voluptuous women". Nor Aristotle, who said the male testicles are weights that facilitated the drawing of the semen down from the brain to its place of ejaculatory exit, while women on the other hand need hollow bowls to collect it, assisted by the suction power of her longer hollow hair.

Knowing as the ancients did then that hair was part of a woman's genitalia one could easily devise fertility/sterility tests. If a perfumed device was placed in a woman's uterus the doc should be able to smell it through the woman's mouth. This would prove that her body channels for allowing her hair to suck up semen were in good working order. Naturally the woman could enhance her fertility by shaving her pubic hair which otherwise threatened to distract the semen from its correct path. Troy Martin cites Aristophanes and Soranus et al to indicate the widespread understanding of all this medical knowledge.

And this is why in the view of Tertullian (Virg. 11, 12, 17) prepubescent girls were not expected to wear the veil like adult women were. Only after puberty did hair become "a functioning genital".

So Paul, like his contemporaries, understood that a woman's long hair was a glory for her female nature -- it facilitated her true womanly nature of being the most efficient receptacle of semen -- but would of course be a shame for a man's nature. Martin gives reasons from ancient medical and more popular literature for us to believe that the woman's hair was the counterpart of a man's testicles. (He doesn't quite say it, but I guess one might conclude that the respective glories were in direct proportion to size and length.)

Paul is saying that it is just as shameful for a woman to pray with her long hollow suction-powered hair uncovered as it is for a man to pray with his testicles peaking through his garments somehow. This was obviously a quite ghastly problem in olden days since God even gave seraphim extra wings (total 6) to ensure they had the wherewithal to cover their "feet" (Isa 6:2); and while delivering the ten commandments he apparently saw enough to prompt him to issue a quick follow up command about this very thing (Exod. 20:26); and finally warned the priests that unless they took this sort of thing as seriously as he did they would surely die (Exod 28:42-43)!

No wonder 1 Cor 11:13-15 has never been put to rest with the usual explanations. As Troy Martin observes, it has been our ignorance of ancient philology and physiology that has led us to confuse Paul's references to testicles with head coverings!

Troy Martin is at St. Xavier's University, Chicago, but I don't know if any of this should have implications for Catholic teaching on birth control.

manimal2878

Is the above post for real or is that a sarcastic type writing, either way it is funny and is a better explanation than I am getting over at Christian Forums.

Toto

This is serious scholarly research, done by a PhD at a Catholic University. (Show some respect!) You can read the article online here:

Spring 2004 issue of SBL

Click on "PAUL’S ARGUMENT FROM NATURE FOR THE VEIL IN 1 CORINTHIANS 11:13–15: A TESTICLE INSTEAD OF A HEAD COVERING" by TROY W. MARTIN, St. Xavier University, Chicago, IL 60655

andrewcriddle

Jewish conventions on veiling women have already been covered.
However, I found an interesting article online about veils in Pagan Ancient Greece. Veils

Andrew Criddle

manimal2878

hmmm links in the above two links are very interesting.

Thanks.

TrueMyth

Hello! I'm new to this thread...

I would like to point out that this statement makes it impossible for any Christian to respond without facing the charge of "wriggling" around the issue. Perhaps this is not what you meant to do, however?

I am by no means an expert in ancient Jewish or Roman culture, so I will defer to the much more intelligent on that score, but since there seems to be some genuine desire by some athiests to be answered directly on this question, let me offer an ill-advised attempt:

Paul was giving a prohibition regarding the wearing of the veils which was pertinent to that time period and that setting due to either 1) the behavior of the women in that church, 2) the behavior of women in general in that part of the world, 3) the expectations of other Christians (refer to his "not let a brother stumble" passages), 4) the expected non-universal cultural norms of the time, or 5) a combination of all of the above.

I would also like to point out regarding the "picking and choosing" charge that if human beings were to pick and choose what they wanted and didn't, why in teh world would they pick prohibiting mass sexual intercourse with whomever one wants? This seems almost to be the exact opposite-- that Christians follow the prohibition against promiscuity (which is contrary to their desires) and ignore the prohibition against what could be interpreted as subjugation of women (and the feminists tell us that every man wants this, and the Church was of course run by men, so makes this prohibition also contrary to our desires). It seems that the Christian community as a whole has picked exactly those things which they do not want, which as any good Kantian would tell you, is the true test of virtuous and honest action.

Of course, as I am neither a Biblical literalist or inerrantist, I am not compelled to deny that Paul was simply being human and was making a universal prohibition based on his personal beliefs, and was simply wrong in that.

I hope this instills some measure of faith in fundys and other Christians!

Toto

Lots of cults prohibit promiscuity. Keeping a level of sexual tension is part of their method of control.

If you are not a Biblical literalist or an inerrantist, you are not a fundy (a fundamentalist), so what you say has nothing to do with anyone's faith in fundys.

Of course, then you have to explain why you pick some parts of the Bible to follow and not others. If the Bible got it wrong about women's fashion, why should you believe it on homosexuality? But that's a topic for another thread.

And welcome to BCH. :wave:

neilgodfrey

Damn. All that writing when I could have just entered a link to the online original. Oh well, it was at least an interesting exercise to write up my own notes on it.

manimal2878

By wriggling I mean trying to interpret it to mean something it does not. It means women are expected to wear head coverings in church. There is no other way to read that passage. If you were to read it plainly you can't deny that it says women should wear headcoverings.

Thus if you agree to this meaning, which is the only one possible, then you have to be able to tell me why christians don't have to wear headcoverings anymore.

There are two possible answers unless you try to wriggle out of the meaning of the passage.

1. I choose not to follow that for whatever reason...

To which I then ask then why can't anyone choose not to follow other bible parts for the same reasons.

2. You could point to scripture chronologically revealed in the bible after this which renounces what Paul says

So it looks like you are going with option one which leads to my further question should you choose option one. Why is any of it relevant anymore since all of what he said falls under points 1-5 of your above statement.


Well then how do you know the parts you do believe are not more of Paul or the other authors errors or cultural biases instead of god's instructions?