I don’t know how many of you read endnotes, but in the last post, I buried a comment in note #2 that says: “if Lucy Peppiatt’s view is correct (which I’ll unpack in a later post), then the case is closed and all the thorny exegetical issues dissolve.” If you’re familiar with Lucy’s view, you know what I mean. You may not agree with her view, but it’s hard not to agree with the fact that if she’s right, then there’s no more need to iron out Paul’s seemingly convolutely and inconsistent logic in this passage.
In her book Women and Worship at Corinth, Lucy argues that Paul is extensively interacting with a Corinthian viewpoint throughout 1 Cor 11:2-16. Most of the stuff that you can’t believe came from Paul (e.g. 11:7-9), didn’t actually come from Paul. It came from the Corinthians. And Paul seeks to correct their aberrant perspective in this passage.
It’s well known that Paul often quotes from various “slogans” from the Corinthians in this letter, only to address (or refute) their viewpoint. A quick well-known example comes in 1 Cor 6:12, where the text reads (in the NIV):
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. You say, “Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” But body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord. (1 Cor 6:12-13)
Paul here is interacting with certain slogans from the Corinthians—“I have the right to do anything” and “Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” To be clear, the quotations marks and the phrase “you say” (2x) are added to text; they’re not in the original. Modern translators place these phrases in the mouth of the Corinthians (not Paul), and I don’t think they’re monkeying around with the text. Most scholars, in fact, agree that there are several places in 1 Corinthians where Paul first quotes certain sayings from the Corinthians and then refutes them (see 1 Cor 7:1; 8:1, 4; 10:23; 15:12).
Lucy Peppiatt’s Reading of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16
Enter Lucy Peppiatt. She applies this same methodology—Paul first quoting Corinthian slogans and then interacting with them—to 1 Cor 11:2-16.[mfn]Alan Padgett proposed a similar reading back in the early 80’s (see his “Paul on Women in the Church,” 69-86).[/mfn] Here is how she reconstructs the text:
Paul: I praise you for remembering me in everting and for holding to the traditions/teachings, just as I passed them on to you. But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, but the head of Christ is God. (1 Cor 11:2-3)
Lucy suggests that “Paul has indeed taught them that Christ is the kephalē of man and that man is the kephalē of woman, and that they themselves also teach this, but that Paul has intended this to be understood in a particular way that the Corinthians have lost sight of.”[mfn]Women and Worship, 86.[/mfn] Paul then adds the phrase at the end “but the head of Christ is God” in order to “address a christological and anthropological heresy that had arisen in the Corinthian church.”[mfn]Ibid., 94.[/mfn] She suggests that Paul’s teaching that man is the head of woman “has been corrupted by the Corinthians, perhaps especially in a way that has allowed a group of spiritually gifted men to overidentify with the glorious Christ, leading them to become domineering and divisive, and to implement practices aimed at controlling and/or silencing the women.”[mfn]Ibid., 94.[/mfn] So Paul introduces the language of head here in a way that was familiar to them, but then gives it a twist at the end—“but God is the head of Christ.”
Paul then moves to quote a Corinthian slogan:
Corinthians: Every man who prays or prophecies with his had covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophecies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as thought her head were shaved (1 Cor 11:4-5)
Paul: So if a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head! (1 Cor 11:6)
Paul, here is “mimicking the Corinthian threat in order to expose the underlying absurdity, and possibly even the aggression of their argument.”[mfn]Ibid., 94.[/mfn] Shaving a woman’s head in that culture (and in many cultures today) would be absolutely devastating. It’s what people did to adulterers, so the woman would walk around with the life-shattering stigma of having had an affair. Paul, then, exposes the abusive implications of their logic in order to refute their perspective. He then continues to quote from the Corinthians.
Corinthians: A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of god; but he woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head. (11:7-10)
Scholars who believe these words are from Paul have to rescue him from saying that women are ontologically inferior to men. Even complementarians wince at the language here, for it seems to suggest that women are not created in God’s image, and that their purpose of creation is to bring glory to and serve men (v. 9). Not only does this go against a plain reading of Gen 1:27 and other passages, it appears to contradict what Paul says just a couple verses later in 11:11-12 (cf. 1 Cor 7:4). Add to this the strange statement about the angels, which is not only odd, but the logical connection between vs. 10 and vv. 7-9 and 11-12 appears convoluted.
Lucy, however, suggests that these words are from the Corinthians, not Paul. They are rooting their subordinationist view of women through a botched interpretation of Gen 1-2 and connected it to some strange angelology. Paul’s response is to remind them that “in the Lord” there is equality between men and women.
Paul: Nevertheless, [the point is] in the Lord, woman is not independent of/separated from man, nor is man independent of/separated from woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. Judge for yourselves: Is it fitting for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her in the place of a head covering. If anyone wants to be dangerously divisive about this, we have no such custom—nor do the churches of God.’ (11:11-16)
Most scholars recognize that vv. 11-12 seems to contradict, or at least correct, vv. 7-10, and there are many suggestions that try to iron out the tension. Lucy’s reading irons it out in the blink of an eye. Paul is correcting vv. 7-10, because these statements are not from Paul.
The last line in 11:16 is important. The NIV translates it as “we have no other custom—nor do the churches of God,” which, in the traditional reading has Paul saying that in every other church, women are covering their heads while men are not. But the Greek word toiauten means “such” not “other.” Paul literally says: we don’t have “such” a custom (e.g. women covering their heads and men not covering their heads in worship) anywhere else.[mfn]Cf. Fee: “This ‘other’ has unfortunately been carried over into the current NIV from the original translation. The Greek is τοιαύτην, which means ‘such a kind’; there is no evidence that it ever means ‘other’, which is in fact somewhat misleading. Paul meant simply, ‘we have no such practice’, and the reader is left guessing a bit as to what his ‘such’ refers to” (1 Corinthians, on v. 16).[/mfn] “In other words, if Paul really is ruling against rather than for head coverings, he is adamant that the Corinthian church is the only church adopting this nonsensical and oppressive practice, and is reminding them…that if they wish to be argumentative about it, then they will find they are on their own.”[mfn]Ibid., 107.[/mfn]
Analysis
I find Lucy’s reading to be provocative and worthy to be wrestled with. To my mind, the strength of her interpretation is in its explanatory power. If her reconstruction is correct (and there can be some variations of it),[mfn]Proponents of a more traditional view (i.e. that the whole passage is from Paul) will still talk about certain aspects of this passage as representing the language of the Corinthians. For instance, Fee says that “There can be little question that exousia was one of the Corinthians’ own words (see on 6:12 and 8:9)” (see Fee, 1 Corinthians, on v. 10). So Paul is in a way correcting their understanding of authority here.[/mfn] then virtually all of the obscure phrases, unclear logic, and seemingly heretical statements melt away. If we simply assume her reconstruction, the entire passage flows smoothly like warm butter on toast.
For those who think she’s just making stuff up with claims that can’t be substantiated, remember—we do have several places where Paul does quote Corinthian slogans back at them and then interacts with them without telling us he’s doing so in the text. Sometimes Paul does tell us he’s doing this, like in 1 Cor 7:1, when he says: “Now for the matters you wrote about” and then quotes from this “matter” in the next line: “‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman’.” Again, there are no quotation marks in the original, but Paul does reference something the Corinthians wrote about, in their (now lost) letter they sent to Paul. But there are other places, like in 1 Cor 6:12, where there is no indication that Paul is quoting from them. Modern interpreters just assume he is, based largely on the apparent logical contradiction if we take it all as coming from Paul.
I do have at least two main problems with accepting Lucy’s reading. First, all the other slogans Paul quotes in Corinthians are short. We don’t have any examples of Paul interacting with large chunks of Corinthian thought in such an extended back and forth like we do in Lucy’s proposed reading of 1 Cor 11.[mfn]Lucy responds to this in her book, but I forget where.[/mfn] Second, there’s nothing in the actual text of 1 Cor 11 that signals that Paul is quoting extensively from the Corinthians. It would be nice if there was some kind of literary device or signal that Paul is doing what Lucy suggests he’s doing.
As much as I think Lucy’s reading smooths out so many difficulties, I’m going to set it aside and see if I can work through some of these difficulties as if the entire passage is from Paul. I recently asked Andrew Bartlett what he thought about Lucy’s interpretation. He said something like, I hope she’s right, but I can make sense of the passage without relying on her interpretation. My sentiment is similar—except I’m only in the process of trying to make sense of the passage.
I really appreciate Lucy’s thesis and the humility in which she proposes it. But I’d rather not rely on her interpretation until I’ve taken a stab at trying to make sense of the passage as if it were all from Paul.
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