Corinth Women

1 Pages 350 Words

Background Paper

The topic for this paper is the covering of the women’s heads in Corinth. The commentary points out that Middle Eastern women had to cover their hair because it was an object of lust in antiquity. It was perceived that if a woman allowed her hair to be seen uncovered it would cause men to lust after her, causing them to sin. This practice was not held though by everyone especially since Corinth had become a Greek and Roman city. Many of the wealthier women chose to leave their hair uncovered to show off their fashionable and attractive hair styles. Keener points out that this section is intended to settle this culture clash of what he calls upper class fashion against lower class concern that decency is being violated. Lastly Keener states that these verses are a section of arguments aimed at convincing the Corinthian women to cover their heads in worship. Something else of interest from this is that Keener points out that Paul’s churches allow much more freedom than the Jewish synagogues did in allowing women’s ministry.
To the people of the Corinthian Church this would settle a problem that appeared to be causing some issues among the people of this church. He makes it quite clear that women are to have their heads covered. He says to not have it covered would be like a woman having a shaved head. He goes so far even to say that any woman who doesn’t have her head covered should have her hair cut off.
To us as people today this doesn’t have any real meaning. Today people do not fear that men will look at a woman’s hair and begin to lust after her. Today the concern is more toward the clothes that women should wear at least at church if not in all occasions. Today the fad is for women to wear very revealing outfits in almost all the time. If Paul were writing today this would be focus of this section in his letter....