Thomas Schreiner on 1 Cor. 11:2-16 Part 2

What is the Adornment for Women in this Passage?

A better, less tendentious question would be "What sort of covering is Paul asking women to use?" "Covering" is the best English translation of the Greek word; the term "adornment" is Dr. Schreiner's own interpretation of the covering and he is imposing it on the text, as there is no reason whatever from the text itself for us to conclude that the covering is anything but a covering, something meant to cover, conceal or hide, rather than a decorative item, which can suggest something inessential, even something that doesn't have to cover anything really.

One of the perplexing questions in this passage is this: What custom regarding adornment is referred to here?

As I point out above, we don't have to think in terms of a "custom" at all, nor in terms of "adornment" at all, if in fact the apostles are requiring something entirely new of the churches, and if what they are requiring is simply intended to cover or to conceal, which is the practical function of clothing in general, and certainly implied in Paul's whole discussion of the covering he advocates.

We cannot treat this complex question in detail,...

What makes the question "complex?" Shouldn't that be explained even if not "in detail" before going on to speculate on a couple of answers? Isn't this chapter aimed at getting to the root of the meaning of this passage? Then you can't leave the reader hanging like this. But on we go nevertheless.

. . . but the two most probable suggestions can be set forth: (1) The custom Paul recommends is for women to wear shawls. (2) Paul objects to long, loose hair that falls down the back; he wants women to follow the usual custom of piling their hair up on top of their heads.

Why are these the only two? Are we to be favored with an explanation of what makes these two possibilities the "most probable"? The idea that long loose hair was Paul's complaint strikes me as extremely IMprobable. In fact this is one of those unwarranted leaps to a conclusion I said earlier that Dr. Schreiner sometimes suddenly springs out of the blue, a breathtaking non sequitur. And calling these selections the "most probable" leaves the reader wondering what other possibilities are being left out.

Well, now I want to see if he gives any explanation for this choice.

He's going to address the second of the two "most probable suggestions" first:

In favor of the view that Paul is speaking against women wearing their hair loose and falling down the back are the following arguments:2

Don't you first need to give an explanation why anyone would think hair is what Paul is talking about at all? The suggestion comes as a jarring non sequitur it seems to me. Paul is saying we are to cover our heads, so how is this is about hair which ALREADY covers our heads without our doing anything?

(1) There is no extant evidence that full veiling, familiar in Islam, was current in Paul’s time. Therefore, the custom described cannot be veiling.

It can't? I don't see the connection. Pardon my incredulity but I'm trying to keep careful track of the confusing logic here as it could easily bulldoze me into confused silence if I don't. I don't understand how this article managed to get published in this condition. Where was the editorial staff?

This seems to be another non sequitur just pulled out of a hat. Where are these ideas coming from?
1). Why is "full veiling" the only kind of veiling we are being invited to consider? "Veiling" can also refer to merely covering the head or hair, not the face.
2) How would "full veiling" answer the idea that hair is the meaning of the covering? Those who argue for a woman's hair as the covering Paul has in mind don't refer to Islamic veiling in anything I've read.
3) Just as a matter of fact there is evidence that full veiling of the Islamic kind was current at least within a hundred and fifty years of Paul's time: Tertullian (c.207) wrote at some length about the head covering, much of it objecting to what he considered to be inadequate coverage of the head in most churches of his day, and at one point comments: "Arabia's pagan females will be your judges. For they cover not only the head, but the face also." So here is some reason to question Dr. Schreiner's statement that full Islamic type veiling was not known in Paul's time. Also, some of the other church fathers of the early centuries advocated covering not only the head and hair but also the face, Clement of Alexandria for one. [This is all from A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs edited by David Bercot].
4) Why is any custom being taken as the standard here at all? Paul refers to NO extant custom whatever. What he is recommending does not necessarily rest on custom at all and there is nothing in the passage to suggest it does. This is an assumption often imposed on the text completely without justification.

(2) The same Greek word that describes the practice of the Corinthian women in 11:5 (akatakalyptos ) [“unveiled,” according to rsv] is used in Leviticus 13:45 (LXX)3 about a leper’s hair, which is to hang unloosed. The problem with the Corinthian women, then, is that they were wearing their hair loose and flowing down their backs.

Apparently Dr. Schreiner is paraphrasing an argument he himself doesn't accept. I don't know whether the original argument makes any more sense, but it doesn't make much sense as he is presenting it. The fact that the same Greek word is used elsewhere in scripture to describe loose flowing hair is considered to qualify as evidence that hair is therefore what Paul is talking about? Am I not following this? This argument is so utterly nonsensical, so utterly lacking in any recognition of the flexibility of language or the context of the passage under discussion words almost fail me. I think I'll let them fail me. What is there to say really? This article is embarrassingly bad even for a novice let alone a well known scholar.

3) The word apokalypto¯ , which is somewhat related to akatakalyptos, is used in Numbers 5:18, where a woman suspected of adultery had to unbind her hair and wear it loosely. The wearing of long, loose hair by an adulteress would support the idea that wearing one’s hair loose was considered shameful.

Yes, but this isn't the subject here. The subject is what is the covering Paul is recommending. So far nothing has been offered to defend the claim that this covering is hair at all. Attitudes toward how the hair is to be worn are another subject altogether.

(4) Respectable women in Paul’s time did not appear in public with their hair long and flowing down their backs. They wore their hair piled up on their heads in a bun. Paul wants the Corinthian women to adhere to this custom.

It may be so as far as hair goes, but again, NOTHING has been offered to show that Paul is referring to the hair as the covering in this passage. These supposed evidences aren't evidences for that.

None of this makes any sense. I don't know why it is included at all. He is going to go on and argue that Paul had a shawl in mind for a covering.

Despite these arguments in favor of the view that Paul is commanding the wearing of hair on top of the head by women, it is probable that Paul is speaking of wearing a head covering of some kind, such as a shawl.

Another startling non sequitur just pulled out of a hat. "Despite" these arguments? We're not going to get something "in answer to" these arguments, only something in spite of them? The mind reels. So we get a lengthy but incoherent consideration of the hair as the covering only to see it flatly dismissed in favor of something merely called "probable" for which no evidence or argument is given at all for preferring it to the previous suggestion. What makes the shawl more "probable"? Apparently we are not to expect an explanation in order to try to think it through for ourselves, we are simply told it's more probable and that's that.

4 That a shawl rather than a full veil is in Paul’s mind is indicated by the word covering (peribolaios) in 11:15, which is not the usual word for veil but probably refers to a wrap-around. The evidence in favor of this position is as follows:

OK, so this is apparently intended as sort of an explanation. But the term peribolaion is used in verse 15 specifically to refer to a woman's natural long HAIR, while katakaluptos is the word exclusively used in the rest of the passage to designate the covering Paul is arguing for. To apply this term to a "veil" at this point is to completely muddy the argument Paul is making.
Paul is using the kind of covering the natural hair forms (peribolaion) as a REASON for an additional covering (katakalupto).

(1) The verb translated as “cover” in the niv (katakalypto¯ ) occurs three times in verses 6-7, and related cognate words occur in verses 5 and 13. These words most often refer to a covering of some kind. For example, the angels who saw the glory of Yahweh in the temple covered their faces (Isaiah 6:2). Judah thought Tamar, his daughter-in-law, was a harlot because she covered her face (Genesis 38:15). Since the word almost universally means “to cover” or “to hide,” the text is probably referring to a hair covering of some kind.5

(2) Philo (30 b.c. - a.d. 45) uses the same words Paul does in 1 Corinthians 11:5,
“head uncovered” (akatakalypto¯ te¯ kephale¯ ), and it is clear that Philo is speaking of a head covering being removed because the priest had just removed her kerchief (Special Laws, 3:60). Akatakalyptos also means “uncovered” in Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II,29, and in Polybius 15,27.2 (second century b.c.). Moreover, it is simply a negative adjective based on the verb katakalypto¯ , which commonly means “cover, veil.”

(3) 119 Esther 6:12 (LXX) employs the same expression found in verse four, kata kephale¯s, of Haman, who hurried home mourning, covering his head in shame. He probably used part of his garment to do this.

(4) A similar expression occurs in Plutarch (46-120 a.d.), where it is specifically stated that the head is covered with part of the toga (himation).6

Now he's on track by my lights, though there's no rhyme or reason to how he arrived here. Yes, Paul is talking about something that covers or hides. We could have done without all the previous windup, even the speculation that a shawl is what Paul had in mind. It could be part of the garment and not necessarily a shawl or separate piece of cloth at all. It MIGHT have been a shawl but if it was then you need evidence to support your suggestion which has not yet been given (and isn't going to be given either).

Verse 15 seems to create a difficulty if Paul is speaking of a head covering. Verse 15 says that her “long hair is given to her for a covering.” But if her hair is given to her for a covering, then a woman would not need to wear another covering over her hair. However, it is improbable that the only covering that Paul requires is a woman’s hair, for we have already seen that the words for covering that Paul uses in verses 4-6 and verse 13 point to a veil or a shawl. Indeed, if all Paul has been requiring is long hair, then his explanation of the situation in verses 4-6 is awkward and even misleading.

Can't argue with this conclusion although it isn't clear how it rests on the previous evidence given.

Verse 15 can be explained in such a way that Paul is not rejecting his earlier call for a shawl. The word for (anti) in verse 15 probably indicates not substitution but equivalence.7

Yes, but again nothing has been said to justify this claim that Paul was talking specifically about a "shawl." Also, the meaning of "anti" as "not substitution but equivalence" usually gets more discussion in studies of this passage, which it needs if you are serious about answering the people who claim the covering is hair. But of course I agree this is how the verse should be read even if evidence is lacking for it.

In other words, Paul is not saying that a woman has been given long hair instead of a covering. Rather, he is saying that a woman has been given long hair as a covering. His point seems to be that a woman’s long hair is an indication that she needs to wear a covering.8

I agree, but again, unfortunately the supporting remarks don't really support it.

To sum up: the custom recommended here is a head covering of some kind, probably a shawl. The importance of identifying this custom can be exaggerated, unless one believes that the custom of the day should be applied to our culture. The major point of the text is clear: women are to adorn themselves in a certain way. The precise kind of head covering Paul had in mind is no longer clear. What is more important, and we turn to this next, is: Why does Paul want the women to adorn themselves in a certain way?

Yes, of course Paul is recommending a head covering of some kind. I'm so glad Dr. Schreiner finally arrived at this conclusion (although, again, it is hard to see how he got here).
But although he sees that Paul really is talking about a head covering he takes it away in the next breath: "The importance of identifying this custom can be exaggerated..."
"...unless one believes that the custom of the day should be applied to our culture."

Oh dear.

He's got it right that Paul is definitely recommending "a head covering of some kind" and a shawl would probably qualify though he's pulled that out of a hat along with so much else he's said. But then without giving any reason why we shouldn't obey Paul's apostolically authoritative command he simply blandly affirms that we don't believe it applies to us any more as if that constitutes an argument against it. Throughout the chapter he's CALLED this covering a CUSTOM and an ADORNMENT, without any warrant from the text itself, but now his own mischoice of terms permits him to dismiss Paul's requirement as MERELY a custom and an adornment. I saw this coming, did you?

Just to repeat:

There is no evidence whatever that Paul had any particular custom in mind that existed in his time.

The fact is that there WAS no universal custom of the time he COULD have been affirming as they all differed from each other and what he is recommending does not reflect any of them fully.
Paul's arguments are not from custom at all, but from universals, the Creation order, the hierarchy of headship established by God, "nature."

It would be just plain out of character for Paul to be affirming a mere cultural standard, unless one happened to exist that perfectly reflected God's standard. It's always God's standard that concerns Paul.
And since it is God's standards to which Paul appeals, rather than any mere human custom, there is no excuse for us in our time not to obey his directive.
Again, Paul is not talking about ADORNMENT either, same as he is not talking about CUSTOM.

But we're not through with this article yet.

TO BE CONTINUED.