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I. IntroductionPerhaps it will be best to begin with a bit of personal background. I was raised bymy grandparents from the age of seven. My lifelong ecclesiastical affiliation, nurturedthroughout that time, and before, has been with non-institutional Churches of Christ.Every Sunday, without fail, my grandmother has worn a head covering (usually a hat)during worship, and has steadfastly refused to cut her hair out of a conviction that her long hair is her “glory.” Other women that I knew as a child adhered to one or the other  – or both – of these practices out of similar convictions. Those convictions are basedupon a particular reading of 1 Corinthians 11, a reading that asks, and seeks an answer to,the question: are women commanded by this passage to wear a head covering or not? For my own part, I grew up seeing the practice of wearing a head covering as normal, evennormative (certainly not odd or antiquated), but as a male I never felt compelled to studythrough the issue for myself.The understanding described above, however, has never been unique to non-institutional Churches of Christ. Among certain Protestant groups, most notablyAmish/Mennonite communities and Pentecostals, the question has been asked andanswered in the affirmative. Indeed, for much of Christian history, the wearing of a headcovering was assumed for women much more broadly: Roman Catholics, for example,only declared the head covering optional in the years after Vatican II. The issue is stillraised anew on occasion. Consider a recent
World Magazine
article, in which AndréeSeu writes,
 
“I’m having a revival. It’s been going on about three years, though it took a while to notice, just as you don’t realize a radiator has warmed your room till it’s been happening a while. My personal great awakeninginvolves ‘a more determined quest for Him who is the sole object of it all.’This means trying ‘to discern what is pleasing to the Lord’ (Ephesians5:10), even when it’s baffling. It means launching out and putting asymbol of ‘glory’ on my head at church because I think 1 Corinthians 11tells me to, even if I may turn out in the end to be wrong.”
1
Quoting Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Seu frames the question of whether or not to wear a headcovering for her Protestant Evangelical readers in terms of discipleship and of a desire tofollow the commands of God absolutely. In so doing, she attempts to break through themotif of ‘confusion’ that dominates Evangelical writing on this passage, i.e. that the passage is unclear, confusing or “troublesome.”
2
Questions of clarity aside, Seu is a lonevoice asking what some would now see as the wrong question regarding 1 Corinthians11. The second half of the twentieth century has witnessed a marked shift in theinterpretation of this passage, as opportunities for women in Western society have rapidlyexpanded both inside and outside of the Church. Interpreters now ask: what does this passage say about the position of women in the Church? In light of this, there tends to bea focus on the implications of women praying and prophesying (1 Corinthians 11.5) andthe apparently egalitarian impulse behind 11.11-12.
3
Any discussion of the propriety of wearing a head covering is mostly set aside as irrelevant or as tending toward theenforcement of “rigid dress codes.”
4
 
1
Andrée Seu, “A symbol of glory,”
World Magazine
, June 2, 2007,http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13011(accessed July 26, 2007).
2
For examples, see Linda Mercadante,
 From Hierarchy to Equality: A Comparison of Past and Present  Interpretations of 1 Cor 11:2-16 in Relation to the Changing Status of Women in Society
, (Vancouver, BC:G-M-H Books, 1978), 11-13; Gordon D. Fee,
The First Epistle to the Corinthians
, The New InternationalCommentary on the New Testament, ed. F.F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 492.“Troublesome”: Craig S. Keener,
 Paul, Women and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Lettersof Paul 
, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1992), 20.
3
Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptural references are to 1 Corinthians.
4
Keener,
 Paul, Women and Wives
, 46.
2
 
This paper will present an exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11.2-16, in which certain problems of dress and personal appearance in the worship assemblies of the Corinthianchurch are addressed. While paying attention to the more modern question of women’sroles – a good and necessary question – it will also be attentive to the older question of the head covering. Through close attention to the Corinthian context of the passage, andto the still-raging philological and theological debates surrounding it, I hope to present acoherent interpretation of this passage that will address both of those questions.
5
 II. ExegesisCritical interpretations of this passage are as numerous as the number of scholarswho have chosen to write on it. Given the sheer number of possible interpretations for each
verse
and the lack of agreement on even a handful of consensus interpretations, itseems best to proceed verse by verse, pointing out the major arguments in each and presenting my own conclusions at the end.
v.2
– The beginning and ending points of this pericope are clear: it begins with atransitional verse (11.2) and ends at 11.16 as Paul shifts to another topic. In the contextof the letter as a whole, the passage opens a new section: chapters 8-10 have dealt withthe controversy over consumption of meat sacrificed to idols, now Paul turns to a varietyof questions related to worship.
6
The shift can seem a bit abrupt: there is no indication, aswith other sections, of the source of Paul’s information. Factors such as this led a groupof scholars in the 1970s to argue that the entire passage was an example of post-Pauline
5
Linda Mercadante (
 Hierarchy
, 13) notes: “…scholarly study and exegesis do not always guaranteeuniformity of answers, for even this work is influenced by and in part predicated upon one’s presuppositions and one’s hermeneutical determinations, and unfortunately oftentimes falls short of anopen-hearted waiting upon God.”
6
In light of its placement in the letter, I believe that the proper context of Paul’s comments is in the publicgathered worship of the Corinthian church, not in private prayer meetings or the like. For a helpfuldiscussion of the setting, cf. Carroll D. Osburn, “1 Cor. 11:2-16 – Public or Private?” In
 Essays on Womenin Earliest Christianity
, Vol. 2, ed. Carroll D. Osburn (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1995), 307-317.
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