Originally published 26 September 2009. Updated 12 January 2024.

The purpose of this page is to explain my position on this issue for the sake of anyone who reads this site and happens to be curious, and as a tool for those in the midst of studying the issue. It is not to provide an excuse for a woman who does not want to do what she believes God is telling her to do. If you are convicted to wear a headcovering separate from your hair, by all means do so.

My Dilemma

A year or so ago, the subject of headcoverings was brought to my attention. I had, admittedly, never really understood the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 which is the basis for this practice, so I figured I’d better study it. If I go without a (separate, physical) covering, I wanted it to be because I had studied and concluded that the Scriptures didn’t require it, not because I chose to ignore portions of Scripture.

Since the Bible must be interpreted in light of itself, I immediately saw two challenges with interpreting the passage as referring to a physical headcovering aside from the hair. The first is that in the New Testament, God does not lay down a bunch of new “rules.”   He replaces, changes, or expands some (as in the Sermon on the Mount), but nowhere else in the New Testament do we read of God instituting new requirements except for those sacraments which are directly related to Christ’s sacrifice.

The bigger issue is clarity. If we read this passage and arrive at the conclusion that it requires us to veil our heads, that conclusion raises a number of questions. When should I cover? What kind of veiling should I use? How much is it supposed to cover? What kind of fabric does it need to be? At what age do “girls” become “women” and need to cover their heads? If you determine that you need to wear a covering at all times, what about when you’re in the shower? While getting dressed? During lovemaking? We end up with more questions than answers.  This confusion doesn’t fit in with the instructions God gives elsewhere.

When God told Noah to build the Ark, He gave him building plans. When God told the Israelites to build the temple, He also gave them building plans, as well as instructions for the furniture, placement, etc. including all materials. He gave them patterns for the priests’ garments, all the way down to the tassels on their robes and which stones belonged on the ephod and in what positions. He gave them the recipe for the anointing oil.

When he instructed them to make sacrifices, He told them what to sacrifice, how old it should be, what condition it should be in, who was to bring it and when, and exactly what they were to do with it. When He instructed them to celebrate feasts, God also instructed them in how to celebrate them – who was to celebrate, where they were to celebrate, what they were to eat or not eat, etc. If God were instituting a new command in 1 Corinthians 11 for us to to wear veilings on our heads, the evidence suggests we would also see clear instructions for how to carry that out — what the veiling was to look like, when it was to be worn, etc.

So this would seem to put that interpretation at odds with God’s known character and the trajectory of Scripture.

What about Hair as the Covering?

It did not make sense to read the passage with the interpretation of the hair as the covering, either. It is just possible to read verse 6 as telling us that if (since) it is shameful for a woman to be without her hair, she should not shave her head or cut her hair. The problem with this reading is that the instruction is so painfully obvious. If Paul had written the passage with this intent, he would have to have assumed that his readers already accepted the point he was trying to make. If that were the case, there would not have been any sense in his writing it.

Given that these immediate difficulties (and other subtler ones that eventually arose) caused the supposedly-obvious meaning to seem less obvious, I dove in. I read articles online, I read books, I listened to tapes, and of course studied the Scripture itself..and as a result of that study I’ve come to the conclusion that the topic of this passage is not physical headcoverings, but authority.

The What: The Passage is About Authority

Let’s start with the conclusion, and then I’ll get into the nitty-gritty. I believe (together with my husband) that the command of this passage is perpetual, but not physical. The command, or instruction, is that women be under authority, and physical headcoverings are the cultural phenomenon Paul was pointing to as an illustration. In other words, the passage is using a cultural application of a natural principle to illustrate a timeless point (that women are to be under authority).

In other, other words: “You intuitively know that it’s shameful for a woman to have her head bare physically. How much more, then, should she be covered spiritually?” So he tells us that we ought to have authority on our heads.

This not only makes sense of the immediate context, but also the broader context, which is all about order in the church.

A Paraphrase

The best way I know of to demonstrate how I “read” this passage is to paraphrase it for you. This is not intended to be “The Gospel According to Rachel.” Paraphrases are not Scripture. I’m just hoping that this will clearly communicate what I see so that you can go back and read the passage in the Scripture and understand what I’m saying.

My Paraphrase – 1 Corinthians 11:2-10a

But I want you to know that God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of every man, and man is the head of woman. Every man who prays or prophesies while his authority is abdicated, dishonors his spiritual head (that is, Christ). But every woman who prays or prophesies while out from under the appropriate male authority (her father or husband), dishonors her spiritual head (that is, her father or husband), for that is one and the same as if her physical head were shaved. For if a woman is not spiritually covered, let her also be (physically) shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved [and the implication here is that it is], let her remain under her spiritual covering.

For a man should not be under a woman’s authority, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man is not from woman, but woman is from man. Nor was man created for woman, but woman for the man. For this reason the woman ought to have authority on her head. [Here it adds, “because of the angels.”  I don’t know for certain what Paul meant by that, but my suspicion is that it’s a reference to the rebellious angels — those who chose to remove themselves from under the proper authority.  Of course that didn’t work out too well for them.]

That’s the general flow of the passage, as I see it, but I still haven’t really explained why I understand it to read this way, so let’s dive deeper.

The Why: There’s No Symbol Here

There’s obviously a mix of physical and spiritual here; we all agree that sometimes the “head” in this passage is a physical head and sometimes it’s a spiritual head. No one is arguing that verse 3 is talking about the thing that has hair on it or that verse 5 is about shaving husbands. So, then, the question is at what point the distinction is made. Which instances of “head” are being used in which way?

I believe a huge key to this passage is verse 10. Most translations render this as “For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head.” This would seem to make it obvious that there is, indeed, the need for a veiling. You will note, however, if you have a Bible that differentiates (by italics or brackets) additions, that “a symbol of” was added by translators. I don’t know why they felt the need to add this unless it was simply a matter of interpretation, and I don’t believe it belongs. If we read that “a woman ought to have authority on her head,” I believe the meaning of the earlier verses becomes clear.

We start with “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God,” read some instructions about…whatever it is Paul is teaching us…and flow straight back into the conclusion of the matter: “For this reason the woman ought to have authority on her head…” These phrases form natural bookends to a single, coherent idea.

More importantly for our purposes in getting it right, the added words actively change the meaning of the passage. The entire object of this key sentence changes. We’re accustomed to reading that a woman ought to have a symbol on her head, where “of authority” is merely a supporting detail, when, in fact the text tells us that a women ought to have authority on her head.

This Instruction Makes Sense

With this shift, the instruction immediately becomes, rather than a striking aberration in the New Testament, completely consistent and coherent with the rest of the the New Testament. The core message is the same one echoed in Ephesians 5…and 1 Timothy 2…and Colossians 3…and 1 Peter 3.

Moreover, it makes sense as being both necessary, and integrated with the surrounding context.  Is it not common in our churches to see men praying covered, and even more common to see women praying uncovered? (Who is spiritually leading in their homes?) This discussion of order makes perfect sense in light of the next three-and-a-half chapters. They all discuss order. At the end of chapter 14, Paul even comes back to the subject of women and submission when he says we are not to speak in the church, but to learn from our husbands at home.

Questions and Objections

“But you skipped the last few verses!” I deferred the last few verses. I wanted to start with the main point, and work outward. There are a number of additional questions and objections with regard to this passage, and there’s not necessarily a neat, linear way to handle them, so let’s just take them one by one — starting with those last few verses that I didn’t quote before. (We’ll come back to the angels.)

Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord. For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God.

Judge among yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering. But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God. (vv. 11-16)

Verses 11 and 12 are providing the necessary counterbalance to the passage overall (that even though man is the head of woman, they’re interdependent); it doesn’t directly bear on the command of the passage, so we’re not going to deal with it here. In particular, I want to take a closer look at verses 14 and 15.

Here, again, translation has not necessarily served us as well as it could have. At first blush, these verses seem to be parallel to the earlier instructions and, thus, strengthen the argument for a physical interpretation. Many people hinge their belief in a “hair is the covering” intepretation heavily on this passage. But this pair of verses is much weirder than it first appears.

First of all, the wording used here is both parallel and strikingly un-parallel. The parallels are obvious. We’re talking about men, women, hair, coverings, glory, and shame. But where the passage has, up to this point, used the same words over and over, almost every key word in this section is different. Paul is now talking about tresses and hair rather than heads, use a different word for shame, a different word for covering, and even a different word for “for” (i.e. “because”)!  (“Has long hair” = “wears tresses.”)

To be perfectly honest, I’m not certain what to make of this. Along with the phrase about the angels, it’s rather obscure. There’s strikingly similar language in a single Old Testament passage in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament), but that passage is equally puzzling. Delving into that in detail is probably beyond the scope of this post — and I don’t want to confuse anyone who’s new to Bible study. Maybe I’ll write about it elsewhere.

For our purposes here, suffice it to say that this line doesn’t repeat the earlier portion of the passage as it immediately seems to, and that I’m not at all convinced there isn’t something more going on here that we’re lacking some historical-cultural background to recognize. But I also doubt it meaningfully changes the instruction to “have authority on [our heads].”

What Does Nature Teach Us?

The more pressing question of these two verses is “what does nature teach us?” Paul’s appeal here is that “nature itself teach[es]” us that if a man wears tresses it’s shameful, but if a woman wears tresses it’s a glory to her. So in what way does nature teach us this? This obviously isn’t direct — it’s not as if women’s hair grows and men’s doesn’t. There’s something that’s “by implication” here.

This is where I think the appeal is to something that was, indeed, cultural, as representative of the more fundamental, lasting, creational idea. John Piper has suggested it would be similar to our saying, “doesn’t nature itself teach you that men don’t wear dresses?” I think he has the right idea, and I would have used the same example. Dresses, per se, are not forbidden by creation; men wear/have worn kilts and robes down through history. But the particular cultural implementation that is dresses displays the creational concept of female. All of these factors have to be able to work in tandem in a right interpretation of the passage.

“Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man wears a dress it’s a shame to him?” Why, yes. Yes it does. Not, however, because men are naturally provided with pants instead. Men in Paul’s day didn’t wear pants; they wore robes (as did women). So, then, nature is not telling us anything directly about dresses; it’s telling us something in principle that’s expressed through the cultural norms of clothing.

Why, Then, Did Women Wear Physical Headcoverings for Most of History?

Many people make something of a reverse-cultural argument. Either they say that the women in that day were already wearing headcoverings, so a spiritual understanding of this passage would have seemed foreign to them. And/or they say that this practice entered into the Church culture and women have practiced it throughout all of history to this point, so how could it be wrong?

The first objection is the easy one. First of all, there’s some debate about how normative coverings were at that time, with a lot of different “takes” offered up. However, even if we could solidly prove that, yes, all of them wore headcoverings at the time, that would undermine the argument made. Why would you need to be told to do what you’re already doing? We’re back to the kind of logic of the “hair” argument — if it’s shameful to be bald, don’t be bald. Um, okay, Paul. It’s a similar idea here. “Since you know to wear a covering like you usually do anyway, wear a covering.” Even if they needed to be encouraged to “do the right thing,” if they already knew and understood it, he wouldn’t have needed to take such a circuitous route to get there. This entire passage is Paul explaining to the Corinthians something they weren’t understanding properly. Whatever was already obvious to them doesn’t fit that context.

The second objection is trickier. Someone asked me once, “why, then, were they still wearing headcoverings 100 years later?” The short answer is, “I don’t know.” But I’m inclined to think “culture and tradition.” We’re quick to remind others that we’re products of our culture and we shouldn’t interpret the Bible through our cultural lens — but often quick to forget that the Early Church Fathers were also products of their times. They had their own culture lens. For all that they have to offer us, it’s unavoidably true that many of them were not biblical when it comes to the matter of women. One of the earliest known commentators on this passage is Tertullian, and he had some pretty appallingly contra-biblical things to say about women — even in the very piece of writing where he was writing about this verse.

Is it really that farfetched to think that they brought their own biases to the text, and the Church unwittingly passed those down for centuries?  Especially after the Catholic church took hold and declared that they needed to interpret the Bible for people? Then the translators of the King James Bible added those words to verse 10, and those additions — in spirit, if not in actuality — have been passed down ever since.

Can I prove that’s what happened?  No. But can you prove it can’t? It’s a plausible historical explanation that’s consistent with the known evidence and compatible with an exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11 that I believe to be more faithful to the text and its context.

But What About Continuity with the Old Testament?

Other frequent objections revolve around continuity with the Old Testament. I’ve heard people point out that when the Old Testament saints covered themselves, that was physical, with the implication being that this should, then, be, too. I’ve heard it pointed out that the priests covered themselves at the temple.

Once again, I find that most of these objections actually work against the physical-coverings view rather than for it. The observation that those who covered themselves in the Old Testament were doing so physically is apt. However, nothing in this passage actually tells a woman to cover herself. That is, the Old Testament references are to individuals doing an action, whereas nothing in this passage are that active.

Interestingly, though, many, if not most, of these Old Testament passages are about men covering their heads to worship! Including the priests. The priests were actually commanded to wear holy turbans or hats when they performed their duties. If this passage, here in the epistle to the Corinthians, is telling us that it’s inherently shameful for men to wear something on their heads during worship, but inherently shameful for women not to, what are we to make of these men of old? Were they all wicked? Was God commanding the priests to sin on an everyday basis? This simply doesn’t add up.

If that were the message of 1 Corinthians 11, this would be not merely a change, but a radical one that would raise some serious eyebrows and require a lot more explanation. Certainly not something Paul would say is obvious to everyone from Creation forward.

What About the Angels?

Just so you don’t think I’ve forgotten, let’s talk about the angels. What does “because of the angels” mean? The short answer is, “I don’t know.” The almost-as-short answer is, “Nobody really knows.” I mean, obviously God knows. But commentators — both ancient and modern — largely seem to find this phrase baffling and all of their suggestions are speculative. There are several theories that have been put forth. They range from totally reasonable to downright bizarre.

I lean toward thinking it’s a reference to the fact that even angels rebelled — and it didn’t go so well for them — so remember to keep the proper order God ordained from Creation. I wouldn’t be dogmatic at this point. Like the bit about “wearing tresses” in verses 14 and 15, I doubt it meaningfully changes the instruction of the passage, so I relegate it to the second-tier category of “weird things in 1 Corinthians 11.”

In Summary

To sum up, I (we) believe that the physical covering of hair — which the readers were already familiar with and found tangible — was being used to illustrate and point to the necessity of spiritual covering.

A woman praying or prophesying without authority on her head would be a woman who is not in submission to her husband — an issue that is thoroughly consistent with the rest of Scripture.

Paul to the Ephesians: “Wives, submit to your husbands.”
Paul to the Colossians: “Wives, submit to your husbands.”
Peter to the churches: “Wives, be submissive to your own husbands.” (This passage is stunningly parallel to the passage in Timothy.)
Paul to Timothy: “Wives, learn in submission…I don’t allow a wife to teach or have authority over a husband…like Eve did with Adam in the Garden.” (all paraphrased for summary)

And Paul to the Corinthians: Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, a wife ought to have authority on her head.

 

This is how I understand these verses (and my husband and I are in agreement on this). I realize some of you will disagree with me and that’s fine. Please study the Scriptures for yourself and act according to your own conscience and your husband’s leading.

 

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For an explanation of the perspective that hair is the woman’s covering, see Mom of 9’s article.

For an explanation of the perspective that the woman’s covering is a separate, physical veiling, see Renee Ellison’s article.