Participles in 1Cor 11,4

Forum rules
Please quote the Greek text you are discussing directly in your post if it is reasonably short - do not ask people to look it up. This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.
Peter Streitenberger
Posts: 224
Joined: June 3rd, 2011, 10:45 am

Re: Participles in 1Cor 11,4

Post by Peter Streitenberger »

I respect your view, Carl. In case you're still intersting a quote: "καὶ γὰρ καὶ ὁ κομῶν κατὰ κεφαλῆς ἔχει τὴν κόμην δηλαδή" (because It's even obivious that the one with long hair has his long hair down his head" (Catena). A tradditional Kippa is something on the head, not something coming down from the head (KATA), I'd say.

For me the whole passage in 1Cor doesn't make sense when the problem the forbidden hat/veil for a man and the missing of this feature at a woman is. There is no continuation of that theme and Paul is just discussing matters of long or short hair or that the head (not the hair) is covered or not. The correspondence or connection between hair and veil would not plausible. An the solution of not being covered (let's say by long hair) is not a veil but the long hair - in case of women. Then there is no second discursive unit: so far Paul made it clear that a man doens't have to have a hat and a woman should weare a veil (supposed), now I (Paul) speak on the long and short hair. I can't see a switch between two topics and the thoughts are throughgoing. When the missing veil is the problem, why sates Paul that the woman has this covering in form of her long hair? That means why doesn't he demand a veil? The same solution for ending her uncoveredness. So I think the problem is the short hair of women and the long hair of man.
We could come to an end, by saying :" We agree to disagree".
Yours
Peter
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3351
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Participles in 1Cor 11,4

Post by Stephen Carlson »

When I looked into this passage last year, I found a bewilderment of assorted interpretations. It does not help matters that there is a lot of word play going on. Generally, most attempts to make sense of the passage do so by reconstructing a historical occasion and reading the vague and indefinite statements in light of the supposed situation. I think that both Peter's and Carl's interpretations have been attested in antiquity, which is more than can be said than about other ideas.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: Participles in 1Cor 11,4

Post by cwconrad »

Peter, if you want me to be explicit about it, "We agree to disagree on this matter." I had honestly thought that was obvious. Certainly we have an ἀπορία here, and can go no further along this route.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Post Reply

Return to “New Testament”