1 Cor 11

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What is this deal with long hair and whatnot? What is Paul trying to say?

Jesus had long hair, per say?
 
Unfinished said:
What is this deal with long hair and whatnot? What is Paul trying to say?

Jesus had long hair, per say?
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Paul reinforces contemporary cultural standards: women having uncovered hair is bad; women having short hair is bad; men having long hair is bad.

The guy was a conservative.
 
It is never acceptable in any interpretation of any passage of Scripture to attribute the meaning of the text to mere cultural or historical circumstance. For then the passage would be meaningless or at least trivial today and Scripture cannot be broken, nor can it lose its force.

Nor is it acceptable to attribute Paul’s wisdom under the inspiration of God to merely his own personal foibles. For all Scripture is inspired of God.

The passage on hair length teaches us that external indications and symbols of fundamental differences between men and women – in their roles and in their place in the Church, the family, and society, and in their gifts from God – are a part of God’s plan. Just as in worship their are external symbols, which would be meaningless without grace and our cooperation with grace, so also are there to be external symbols in dress and grooming (e.g. dresses, long hair, and veils for women) to indicate the interior state.

Ron
 
Ron_Conte said:
It is never acceptable in any interpretation of any passage of Scripture to attribute the meaning of the text to mere cultural or historical circumstance. For then the passage would be meaningless or at least trivial today and Scripture cannot be broken, nor can it lose its force.

Nor is it acceptable to attribute Paul’s wisdom under the inspiration of God to merely his own personal foibles. For all Scripture is inspired of God.
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I am going to presume that you mean “it is never acceptable to devout Catholics”. For any literature student, consideration of the cultural, historical, and personal influences upon a text is a necessity.

I would also have to ask, if Scripture can never lose its force, whether you believe that all of the laws in the Torah have not lost theirs.
 
Mystophilus said:
I am going to presume that you mean “it is never acceptable to devout Catholics”. For any literature student, consideration of the cultural, historical, and personal influences upon a text is a necessity.
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Not only literature students take these factors into account, but so do the Church’s Bible scholars. They simply do not read into it any ill will or prejudice on Paul’s part, which is a modern reading of the passage that is just as out of place as relying solely on the culture of the day for interpretation.
I would also have to ask, if Scripture can never lose its force, whether you believe that all of the laws in the Torah have not lost theirs.
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Most of the OT laws dealt with purity of foods and objects and persons to make them acceptable vessels for God. But since Christ has fulfilled all those laws by making us pure through the washing of his blood, they are no longer in force. The Ten Commandments, which are not ritual laws, still are, of course.
 
Slightly off topic, but not quite. Can anyone tell me why they think Jesus had long hair? Especially since scissors and shears have been around since 1500BC and were invented by the Egyptians. The “modern” style of scissors with the pivot point in the middle were invented by the Romans around 100AD. Scissors and shears are not new. So where do people get the idea that Jesus had long hair? And then why do you think that Paul didn’t mean what he wrote?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scissors
 
gelsbern said:
Slightly off topic, but not quite. Can anyone tell me why they think Jesus had long hair? Especially since scissors and shears have been around since 1500BC and were invented by the Egyptians. The “modern” style of scissors with the pivot point in the middle were invented by the Romans around 100AD. Scissors and shears are not new. So where do people get the idea that Jesus had long hair? And then why do you think that Paul didn’t mean what he wrote?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scissors
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There was a custom of men growing their hair long as a sign of their total commitment to God, as Samson did and others. So, it has been assumed that Jesus would have done the same, although the NT is silent about the length of his hair.

Paul was speaking in general terms that people of the day understood. He certainly knew about men growing their hair long as a commitment to God, but he wasn’t addressing the exceptions to the rule, but the rule itself. And as you have probably heard many times: “Exceptions prove the rule.”
 
The OT prescriptions have two levels of meaning, literal and spiritual.

The literal meaning has been fulfilled by the NT prescriptions which supercede them; they are still in force in their fulfilled form (e.g. the Sacraments).

The spiritual meaning is still in force per se.

Ron
 
Della said:
Not only literature students take these factors into account, but so do the Church’s Bible scholars. They simply do not read into it any ill will or prejudice on Paul’s part, which is a modern reading of the passage that is just as out of place as relying solely on the culture of the day for interpretation.
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I do not read any ill will into it, either. I confess that I was somewhat short in my response, having reacted somewhat unhappily to being told that my reading was “not acceptable”.

Paul’s writings do demonstrate a very consistent social and moral conservatism, and so I stand by the comment that he was a conservative. That is not necessarily a bad thing: part of the value of cultural conservatism was that it allowed early Christianity to spread quickly throughout the Empire, as it was not a radical system which attempted to change everything about the way that people lived.

I remain unconvinced that there is any spiritual significance to length of one’s hair, or that a God who would say the things in my sig-line would demand regimental hair cuts for believers.
Most of the OT laws dealt with purity of foods and objects and persons to make them acceptable vessels for God. But since Christ has fulfilled all those laws by making us pure through the washing of his blood, they are no longer in force. The Ten Commandments, which are not ritual laws, still are, of course.
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I realise that that is the usual response, but I was trying to induce Ron to question his own representation of the nature of Scripture.
 
Paul’s words in Scripture are the words of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they cannot be reduced to mere cultural or personal opinion.

When Paul asserts that women should have long hair, he is using an external symbol to indicate an important spiritual truth: that men and women are intended by God to have different roles, and that differences in dress and grooming are indications that one accepts that heavenly plan.

Ron
 
Ron_Conte said:
Paul’s words in Scripture are the words of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they cannot be reduced to mere cultural or personal opinion.

When Paul asserts that women should have long hair, he is using an external symbol to indicate an important spiritual truth: that men and women are intended by God to have different roles, and that differences in dress and grooming are indications that one accepts that heavenly plan.

Ron
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And for the same reasons we should also not dismiss that women should cover their heads for worship.
 
I agree. Paul’s statements on veils are the same kind of external sign indicating a spiritual truth: different roles for men and women in God’s plan.

Ron
 
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