Understanding the “Head-Coverings” in 1 Corinthians 11

One of the most useful commentaries for addressing questions regarding difficult passages is James Burton Coffman’s series. He has a great way of simplifying what appears to be complex, and presenting an honest understanding of the Bible by using the Bible. When addressing a specific Scripture, he gets right to the point of the different understandings and then reflects on Scripture.

Many believe that 1 Corinthians 11 teaches that women must wear garment head-coverings when practicing their faith around men, but the Greek text reveals something different just as Coffman points out. Here is what Coffman had to say.

“Verse 4
Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head.

Having his head covered…
Here is where the misunderstanding of this passage begins. This clause, as rendered in the popular versions, is commentary, not Bible. As Echols noted:

‘Having his head covered’ is a commentary, not a translation. Lenski translated the sense correctly: ‘having something down from his head.’ What the ‘something’ is is neither stated nor implied in 1 Cor. 11:4. The logical understanding of this would refer it to ‘long hair,’ being long enough to hang down from the head, as clearly indicated by the apostles’ words a moment later: ‘If a man have long hair, it is a dishonor to him’ (1 Corinthians 11:14).

The ancients accepted Paul’s dictum on this and went so far as to define the length of hair that was considered an infraction of Paul’s words.

The hair of the head may not grow so long as to come down and interfere with the eyes … cropping is to be adopted … let not twisted locks hang far down from the head, gliding into womanish ringlets. Significantly, the words ‘hang far down’ strongly resemble Paul’s words ‘having something down from his head.’ The above is from Clement of Alexandria and was written in the second century.

The notion that Paul in this place referred to the [Hebrew: tallith] (shawl), or [Greek: yarmelke] (skull cap) worn by Jewish worshipers is refuted by the fact that the Greek New Testament does not indicate in this verse an artificial covering of any kind. This does not mean, however, that Paul would have approved of the use of either in Christian worship. ‘For Paul such a covering probably symbolized that the Jewish male continued in spiritual darkness, from which Christians had been liberated.’ We may therefore interpret this verse as a simple admonition that it was a disgrace for any long-haired Christian male to participate in praying and prophesying; and this interpretation certainly harmonizes with verse 14. History has certainly vindicated this view; because universal human behavior has departed from it only in isolated instances and for relatively very short periods of time.

Every man…
It is wrong to understand this in the generic sense as ‘every man or woman.’ Russell said:

There are two Greek words for ‘man’; one for man as a human being; the other contrasting man with woman or child; the latter form is used for man in every instance in this chapter (1 Corinthians 11:3-16).”

Referring to verse 5, Coffman also writes,

‘With her head unveiled…
The word here rendered ‘unveiled’ is [Greek: akatakaluptos]. ‘There is no intrinsic meaning in this word which suggests either the covering material or the object covered; it is simply a general word.’ (See under 1 Corinthians 11:15.) Only in 1 Cor. 11:15 does Paul mention any kind of garment ([Greek: peribolaion]) and even there he stated that the woman’s hair took the place of it.’ [Katakaluptos] means covered completely. [Akatakaluptos] means not completely covered. Thus again, the passage falls short of mentioning any kind of garment. To suppose that Paul here meant ‘mantle’ or ‘veil’ or any such thing is to import into this text what is not in it. We have seen that he was speaking of ‘hair’ in 1 Cor. 11:4; and that is exactly what he is speaking of here. ‘Not completely covered’ would then refer to the disgraceful conduct of the Corinthian women in cropping their hair, after the manner of the notorious Corinthian prostitutes; which, if they did it, was exactly the same kind of disgrace as if they had shaved their heads. It is crystal clear that Paul is not speaking of any kind of garment; because he said in 1 Cor. 11:15, below, ‘For her hair is given her instead of a covering.’”

Still, some may ask about verse 5-6, which seem to imply that not having a garment covering is like hair being cropped or shaved. Actually, these verses are mistranslated to imply such. A literal translation is “But every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered [with hair as mantle covering] dishonors her head; for it is one and the same thing being shaven. [In other words, having your hair cut short is the same being shaved.] For if a woman is not covered [by hair], also being cropped: and if it is a shame to a woman to be cropped or shaven, let her be covered.” The contrast is between not being covered by having short hair is the same as being cropped hair and being shaved. Nevertheless, if society has an association between customary appearance of a practice that sinful before God, then Christians should avoid such appearances as verse 6 say, “if it is a shame”.

Addendum: What about verse 10′s reference to angels saying, “because of the angels“? Here is an answer as in the comments. “Regarding the angels, this is one of the hardest passages in all of the Scriptures for many scholars admit that they do understand. This is what we can know. This is clearly referring to authority in verse 10, so let’s look to the context and see what is said about authority. The woman is receiving revelation from God through angels to be able to prophesy (Heb. 2:2, Rev. 1:1) and the woman is having her prayers delivered by angels (Rel. 8:3-4), and therefore “every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered dishonors her head” (1 Cor. 11:5). The dishonor is to herself being the glory of man. This also goes back to 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.” The woman is submitting to the man and is not bypassing the man to communicate with God and God with her through the angels. Her hair hanging down to her shoulders was customary symbol of authority. Again, I must say that if any are contentious about this, then we have no such custom.“