SUMMARY
Perhaps reacting against a sexualizing of female prophets who prophesied in Christian worship with unveiled heads and hair, PaulThe Apostle Paul, originally known as Saul of Tarsus, was the author of several New Testament letters and the founder of many Christian communities. argues for women to prophecyProphecy is the gift, inspired by God, of speaking and interpreting the divine will. Prophets such as Amos, Isaiah, and Ezekiel spoke words of judgment and comfort to the people of Israel on behalf of God. with their heads covered.
ANALYSIS
Paul agrees that speaking words on behalf of God (that is, prophecy) has a place in Christian worship, and that women are not excluded by virtue of their sex from such speaking. However, he objects to prophecy from women whose heads are unveiled. In order to argue for veiled heads on the females who are prophesying, Paul makes observations based in his understanding of theology, culture, scripture, and nature.
From theology, he argues that veils on women somehow honor the hierarchy of God, Christ, man, woman. This is perhaps the argument he is himself least comfortable with: in 1 Corinthians 11:11-12, Paul limits the importance of the hierarchy he spelled out earlier, saying, “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God.” The qualification combines a detail from the story of creationCreation, in biblical terms, is the universe as we know or perceive it. Genesis says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the book of Revelation (which speaks of end times) the author declares that God created all things and... (see Genesis 2:21-22) with the observation from nature that male children are born of women.
Paul also argues for veils from cultural traditions concerning appropriate hair lengths. Part of this argument, he puts in terms of what “nature itself” teaches (1 Corinthians 11:14). As long hair is an appropriate covering for a woman’s head and a shaved head is “disgraceful” (1 Corinthians 11:6), so also the veil is an honorable thing and not wearing it is disgraceful.
All of these arguments sound forced and culture-bound to modern ears. What was going on in Corinth that inspired these words from Paul? Scholars conjecture that Christian female prophets may have resembled pagan templeThe Jerusalem temple, unlike the tabernacle, was a permanent structure, although (like the tabernacle) it was a place of worship and religious activity. On one occasion Jesus felt such activity was unacceptable and, as reported in all four Gospels, drove from the temple those engaged... prostitutes with their hair uncovered or loose. Perhaps Paul’s position is a response to the tendency of the Corinthians to confuse the freedom of the gospel with moral license.
