Today’s post is a bit of a strange one. It addresses one of the most misunderstood passages in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 11:2–16), and as you’ll see the terrain gets kind of, well, gross. But because I’ve been seeing a lot of questions and chatter about head coverings on social media, I thought it would be good to revive this piece, a form of which originally appeared in Fathom magazine. Enjoy!
“But you don’t understand,” the man on the other end of the line sobbed, “I breed dogs. It’s what I do for a living. All of my money is from the sale of dogs—and I’ve been breaking the Lord’s commandment every week when I tithe to my church.”
Whether it was the luck of the draw or a divine appointment, I was the one who answered the phone that morning, and it was one of the strangest calls I’d ever received in my years working for that ministry. The man (whose name I cannot recall) was a new believer, and he was in tears because his daily through-the-Bible reading plan had brought him to Deuteronomy 23:18 in the King James Version, which says, “Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God” (emphasis added).
Had the man on the phone done a little digging with another translation, a decent study Bible, or a commentary, he might have discovered that the reference to a “dog” in that verse is really about male shrine prostitutes. Dog is a euphemism, and in this passage God is forbidding His people from participating in the ritual sex acts of their pagan neighbors. Dog breeding, on the other hand, remains a legitimate enterprise.
Something Lost in Translation
When I think about that phone call now, it brings a smile to my face, and not just because there’s something comical about the misunderstanding. I smile because I could hear the relief in the man’s voice as I read him the same verse from the NIV and explained that a bit of cultural background had been lost in translation.
There’s something dangerous about the idea that the truth of God’s Word could get lost in translation. If such a thing is possible, it might imply that God’s Word is somehow inadequate, less than it should be. Though I plot my spiritual journey through a number of different church traditions, each one would hold the Bible up high as the Word of God, breathed out by Him and “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16)—and, I believe, rightly so. But if there are passages that are persistently difficult to crack, could it mean those passages are less “useful”?
Not if the problem lies with us instead of the Bible.
So, what if rather than resisting new but more cohesive ways of reading familiar passages, we found the process of discovery exhilarating? After all, the disciples on the Emmaus road had their hearts set ablaze when they were shown how the Law and the Prophets speak of Jesus (Luke 24:32). Paul had to rethink many Old Testament passages when he met the risen Christ, and his improved understanding helped form much of the New Testament. In the past millennium, the seeds of the Protestant Reformation were sown when Martin Luther uncovered the true meaning of Romans 1:17 after it had been lost.
In my work as a writer with a heart for biblical literacy, I have the rare privilege of spending much of my working life studying the Bible and then writing about it. Not too long ago, I stumbled upon a new way of approaching 1 Corinthians 11, Paul’s infamous (and divisive) passage about head coverings. This novel interpretation is not the sort of thing someone would glean from the English text, no matter how many hours were spent staring at it. In truth, it’s not even something most Bible scholars would pick up on reading it in the original Greek. But the more time I spent with it, the more I found myself nodding in agreement as the puzzle pieces came together. I have to warn you, though—it’s going to sound weird and maybe even a little gross at first.
Of Hercules and Head Coverings
In 1 Corinthians 11:2–16, Paul instructs women to keep their heads covered while praying or prophesying (v. 5). Otherwise, it’d be the same as if they shaved their heads (v. 6). In fact, he says a woman’s long hair is her “glory” (v. 15), though she ought to keep it covered up with a “symbol of authority . . . because of the angels” (v. 10). And in case some of the Corinthians weren’t convinced by his straightforward shaved-head-glory-angels argument, Paul appeals to nature for the use of head coverings (vv. 14–15), because of course when one looks at the trees and the birds and the stars in the sky, it’s impossible not to come to the conclusion that a woman should cover her head in church.
Is it any wonder Bible readers and Bible scholars alike have stumbled through this passage trying to pick up what Paul is laying down?
It’s a strange passage, so it’s not surprising that its interpretation is a bit strange as well. It all begins with Hercules. Don’t think Kevin Sorbo in leather pants fighting alongside Xena, Warrior Princess. Think ancient literature, specifically Euripides’ tragedy Heracles from the fifth century B.C. In that work, Hercules complains about his pesky “bags of flesh,” his testicles. What exactly is going on in Euripides’ play isn’t important for our purposes, but what is important is that the word for “bags of flesh” is the same word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 11:15, normally translated “covering.” Paul writes, “For her hair is given to her for a covering [a testicle].” (I warned you this is weird, gross territory.)
Hercules isn’t the only one throwing the word around. Hippocrates (the namesake of the Hippocratic Oath) and his followers use it—and this is where the connection to a woman’s hair comes from. Ancient medical practitioners held a pre-scientific worldview of the human body. Their texts present a conception of anatomy and physiology based on what could be observed without microscopes or laboratories. In their minds, hair had something to do with sex and reproduction, because at puberty hair starts growing in places where it didn’t before. They knew that semen was essential to conception. Therefore, it followed that semen must be produced in a person’s head, since there’s so much hair emanating from a person’s scalp.
The ancients deduced that individual hairs were hollow tubes where congealed semen could collect. The purpose of a man’s testicles—his “bags of flesh”—were to act as weights to draw the semen in his head downward for intercourse. A woman’s hair served the same function but in reverse. Since semen could flow into the tubes of her hair, a woman’s long hair served to draw the man’s semen up into her body, into her womb, during sex.
With this in mind, Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 11 begins to make sense. Weird, gross, but logical, sense. A woman’s long hair is her “glory” because her locks allow her to be fertile and bear children. Her head should be covered in public worship because her hair is essentially a sexual organ, and to leave it exposed would be immodest and indecent. By the same token, nature dictates that a man’s hair should be short, so his testicles don’t have to compete for semen distribution, thus making him more fertile.
Perhaps Paul mentions the “angels” in his rationale out of respect for any angels who might be observing Christian worship in Corinth, a la Hebrews 13:2. Another option is that the Greek word for “angels” is better translated “messengers” and simply refers to human visitors. A third way to understand Paul is to connect his warning with Genesis 6:1–4, in which heavenly beings lusted after human women and broke the boundaries between the supernatural and earthly realms in order to procreate. If this is the case, the issue has potentially cosmic consequences.
The High Status of Covering Up
So what does all this mean for us today? While Paul’s understanding of human anatomy was informed by pre-scientific guesses rather than hard facts, the principle is the same: women ought to dress modestly in public worship settings. Hair is obviously not a sexual organ, but all the same, 1 Corinthians 11 contains good advice we can all follow: women (and men alike) should keep their genitals covered up in church.
There’s something else going on here too. When believers come together, the place they gather becomes sacred space, a temple for God’s presence. It’s why Paul refers to believers corporately as the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16–17). In Christ, every man and woman is a royal priest (1 Peter 2:9). In this New Testament passage about head coverings is an echo of a more ancient command, one God gave to the priests, the sons of Aaron, in Exodus: “Make for them linen undergarments to cover their naked bodies; they must cover from the waist to the thighs” (28:42).
These women in Corinth were not second-class citizens of God’s kingdom; they were priests of God Most High, praying and prophesying in His presence (1 Corinthians 11:5). In telling them to keep their heads covered, the apostle Paul was reminding them of their high status as priests, inviting them to see themselves as God sees them. I imagine that every time they heard someone read about the priesthood from the Torah, they found something deeper and richer in the text because of Christ—and I imagine they sat up a bit taller and straightened their veils.
For a scholarly exploration of everything testicular taking place in Corinth, see Troy W. Martin, “Paul’s Argument from Nature for the Veil in 1 Corinthians 11:13–15: A Testicle Instead of a Head Covering,” Journal of Biblical Literature 123/1 (Spring 2004): 75–84.
P. S. Right now, my book The Ascent: A Devotional Adventure through the Book of Psalms is on sale for the lowest price I’ve seen yet: just $10.23 with free Prime shipping. Check it out.
Pages of Joy // John Greco 
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