The Case for Covering: Part 1
Author’s Notes:
I choose to write with a pseudonym for practical purposes but have no problem with people at the Village knowing my name or associating me with this piece.
This article does not represent the official position of The Village Church Columbus, but is a means to engage in thoughtful discussions about obedience and faithfulness to God and His Word.
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I remember the first time, a few years ago, when someone brought up how Christians ought to refrain from eating blood because of the verse in Acts 15:29, which forbids Gentiles from doing so. Following this question was a discussion among me and my friends on whether or not a rare steak qualifies as “blood,” since while rare steak does not contain blood technically, one has to wonder if the biblical authors would have made such a distinction between myoglobin and blood. Since that conversation, I have personally concluded that steak is a matter of conscience to the one who eats it (for my part, I’ve never liked rare steak), but I remember being surprised at the time that I had never considered the quite explicit command from the biblical text.
Since I was a child, I considered the Bible to be split into two halves: the Old Testament, a rule book; and the New Testament, a book where the only rules are the attitudes of your heart. Because of this, New Testament directives that dictate actual behavior have seemed counter to what I considered the New Testament to be! While I wholeheartedly agree that we in the church are in many ways directed by our consciences (cf. the issue of obedience regarding food laws in Romans 14), one cannot deny that the New Testament also offers behavioral guidance (even laws) to Christians.
This brings me to 1 Corinthians 11 and the scriptural command for a woman to cover her head. I have found that many Christians are unfamiliar with this passage of the New Testament and are not sure what to think when they first encounter it. In this two-part article, I hope to introduce the topic to those of you who are unfamiliar with it, and for those of you who are familiar, I hope to outline why I have chosen to wear a head covering during the Sunday service. In this first part, I want to briefly walk through 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 and give the biblical reasons for wearing a head covering. Then, in the second part, I want to make a historical case for head coverings.
The following is 1 Corinthians 11, and for your benefit, I bracket off [like this] the portions of the ESV translation which are not in the text and put in parentheses (like this) a literal translation of the text with clarifying comments if necessary:
1 Corinthians 11:1-16
Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife (lit. “woman”*) is [her] husband (man*), and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife (“woman”) who prays or prophesies with [her] head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife (“woman”) will not cover** [her head], then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife (woman) to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and the glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not [made] from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for (lit. “on account of”) woman, but woman for (lit. “on account of”) man. That is why a wife (“woman”) ought to have [a symbol of] authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent (lit. “separate”) of man nor man of woman; for as woman was [made] from man, so man is [now born] of woman. And all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God [with her head] uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for (lit. “in place of”) a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.
*Greek “woman” can also be understood as “wife,” since there is no separate Greek word for “wife.” The same word applies to “man.”
**the Greek verb is “cover wholly,” which implies the head.
I. A Biblical Case for the Head Covering
While 1 Corinthians 11 certainly sets a New Testament precedent for women veiling during worship, what about the Old Testament? While there are no direct commands to do such a thing, there are a few passages that imply that such a custom was normal. For example, in Numbers 5:18, during the test for adultery, the priest is supposed to “uncover the head of the woman.” It is from this verse that the Jewish tradition of women’s veiling develops: “Who [violates] the precept of a Jewish woman? The one who goes out and her head is uncovered. [As to] her head uncovered, it is [based] on biblical instruction, for it is written, ‘and he will uncover the head of the woman.’ And the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: a prohibition to the daughters of Israel, that they should not go out with head uncovered, [based] on biblical instruction” (from Ketubot 72a here in the Talmud).
Other passages to consider are: Genesis 24:64-65, where Rebecca veils herself before meeting Isaac; Isaiah 47:2, where God tells the virgin daughter of Babylon to “uncover your veil, strip off skirt, uncover thigh…”; and Song of Songs 5:7, where the bride describes, “the watchmen who go around the city found me–they struck me and wounded me. They lifted up my veil from upon me…” Passages from a variety of genres and contexts (narrative, love poetry, prophetic oracle, legal texts) indicate that the custom of veiling was commonplace in the Old Testament.
Furthermore, the apocryphal book Susanna describes a beautiful woman being unveiled in shame, which triggers lament from those who are with her (vs. 31-32; you can read this interesting story here).
So now we arrive at the New Testament mandate in 1 Corinthians 11. Right off the bat, Paul mentions the traditions that he has given to the Corinthians. The word “tradition” comes from the preposition para, “beside, alongside, from” (where we get “parallel”) and the Greek word for “give.” That is, a tradition is etymologically something that is “giving alongside,” from generation to generation. Paul is not claiming in this passage to be saying anything new! Paul emphasizes this at the end of the passage: “if anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.” That is, this is a standard tradition in all the churches at the time of Paul.
“Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.”
Some of you may object, saying that this is a cultural precedent. That is, during the times of this passage, head coverings represented modesty, and today we don’t recognize that cultural standard of modesty any more! From what I can tell, this is the general argument made today by most churches in the United States. Many churches recognize and affirm the principles of male authority, but as for the actual practice of veiling, the act is seen as no longer necessary (for example, my ESV study Bible takes the veiling as merely an indication of marital status: “In cultures where head coverings are not a sign of being married, wives could obey this command by wearing some other physical symbol of being married”).
I see one significant textual problem with the cultural argument, which is in vs. 10: “That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” That is, a woman’s veiling seems to signal something significant in the angelic realm, which is not culturally bound. Paul here ties the “[symbol] of authority” to something transcendent: the heavenly realm. You may very rightly ask at this point: “Whaaaat??” And quite frankly, I have not settled on one good scholarly explanation of this verse. However, there are some other Biblical verses to consider with this passage (I have bolded relevant parts; translation from ESV):
Revelation 8:2-4, where an angel comes before God, “with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints…”
Ephesians 3:10, which speaks of the wisdom of God being made known through the church “to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
1 Timothy 5:21 - “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging…”
Hebrews 13:2, which warns us that in showing hospitality, “some have entertained angels unawares.”
Jude 1:6, which refers to the angelic rebellion of Genesis 6, where “the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling…”
These verses indicate that there is a great deal of importance placed on the interactions between angels and humans. The Jude verse in particular speaks of improper, sexual relations between angels and humans in Genesis 6. Are these inappropriate relations between women and angels what Paul is talking about when he states that a woman should have something on her head “because of the angels”?
I am not absolutely confident that “yes” is the answer, but whether one understands why Paul says what he says, one cannot deny that he says it. Perhaps it will benefit us to look at how the church has traditionally understood this passage throughout history, which I will attempt in the second part of this two-part article. But first, allow me to conclude this first article by making some quick notes on the text:
If the word translated as “wife” is also the word for “woman” throughout this whole passage, why does the ESV choose to translate it differently depending on the verse? For example, the same word is used for “woman” in vs. 9 and vs. 10, which the ESV reads: “Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” Likewise, in vs. 3, the word for “man” and “woman” is translated “wife” and “husband.” Why does the ESV choose to make such a distinction? The ESV footnote in my Bible indicates that they choose this translation because veilings are “a sign of being married in first-century culture.” But is this what Paul is arguing? Since Greek uses the same word for both “women” and “wives,” both interpretations are possible. However, there are several pieces of evidence that argue Paul is referring to men and women more generally. First of all, there is no context here of marriage or family throughout any of the verses in this passage. If one was to translate the Greek word “woman” consistently as “woman” throughout this passage rather than “wife,” there is nothing in 1 Cor. 11:2-16 that would be immediately confusing. Second of all, vss. 3, 7-9, 11-12, and 14-15 are all quite explicit of men and women generally. It does not make sense why Paul would swap back and forth between general categories (such as “man” and “woman”) and specific categories (such as “husband” and “wife”) throughout this passage, nor does the Greek take any pains to clarify such categories. Furthermore, historically (which we will get to), many of the church fathers and later theologians believed this means all women (usually after puberty) ought to start veiling in the church service. It is worthwhile to note that the majority of English translations are consistent in translating the Greek as “woman” throughout this entire passage (eg. NIV, NLT, KJV, NASB, ASV), with the ESV as the outlier.
Doesn’t vs. 15 indicate that a woman’s hair is her covering? The Greek word here is peribolaiou, which is NOT the same as the verb given in vs. 6, katakaluptestho (“let her cover her head”). Rather, vs. 15 appeals to the nature argument made in vs. 14: women, by nature, have longer hair than men which serves already as a covering—how much more, then, should they cover their heads in times of prayer! Additionally, if one takes the covering to be hair, the verses concerning shaving her head (vss. 5-6) make little sense.
Since this passage speaks of veiling while praying and prophesying, and the next passage is a discussion of the Lord’s Supper, many understand the veiling to be practiced in the church service, not necessarily on a daily basis. Again, there are a variety of interpretations on this account (some communities have their women veil all the time), but as we will see in the historical section, this is one of the common traditional understandings.
What constitutes a veiling? Traditionally, it seems that the veiling would have been an opaque scarf-like cloth which fully covered the head. Because vs. 10 states that a woman should have “authority on [her] head” (many translations insert the word “symbol of authority” to help clarify), one can also make an argument that head scarves, hats, or caps can also qualify as a biblical covering (some Orthodox Jewish women today even wear wigs, called the sheitel, though the acceptability of this is debated). On a personal note, while I am open to fully covering my head during a Sunday service, I have chosen to wear a headscarf. I want my practice of head covering to be an act of obedience to God, not a distraction to others. This is still an ongoing debate for me, however.
Cover art: Young Woman Praying in Church by Jules Breton