English

Greek

11:1 Μιμηταί μου γίνεσθε, καθὼς κἀγὼ Χριστοῦ.

2 Ἐπαινῶ δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοίⁱ ὅτι πάντα μου μέμνησθε, καὶ καθὼς παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, τὰς παραδόσεις^j κατέχετε. 3 Θέλω δὲ ὑμᾶς εἰδέναι ὅτι παντὸς ἀνδρὸς ἡ κεφαλὴ ὁ Χριστός ἐστιν, κεφαλὴ δὲ γυναικὸς ὁ ἀνήρ, κεφαλὴ δὲ^k Χριστοῦ ὁ Θεός.
4 Πᾶς ἀνὴρ προσευχόμενος ἢ προφητεύων κατὰ κεφαλῆς ἔχων καταισχύνει τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ.^l5 Πᾶσα δὲ γυνὴ προσευχομένη ἢ προφητεύουσα ἀκατακαλύπτῳ τῇ κεφαλῇ καταισχύνει^m τὴν κεφαλὴν ἑαυτῆςⁿ—ἓν γάρ ἐστιν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ τῇ ἐξυρημένῃ.^o6 Εἰ γὰρ οὐ κατακαλύπτεται γυνή, καὶ κειράσθω. Εἰ δὲ αἰσχρὸν γυναικὶ τὸ κείρεσθαι^p ἢ ξυρᾶσθαι, κατακαλυπτέσθω. 7 Ἀνὴρ μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ὀφείλει κατακαλύπτεσθαι τὴν κεφαλήν, εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων·^q γυνὴ δὲ δόξα ἀνδρός ἐστιν.
8 Οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀνὴρ ἐκ γυναικός, ἀλλὰ γυνὴ ἐξ ἀνδρός·
9 καὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἐκτίσθη^r ἀνὴρ διὰ τὴν γυναῖκα, ἀλλὰ γυνὴ διὰ τὸν ἄνδρα
10 —διὰ τοῦτο ὀφείλει ἡ γυνὴ ἐξουσίαν ἔχειν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς, διὰ τοὺς ἀγγέλους—
11 πλήν, οὔτε ἀνὴρ χωρὶς γυναικὸς οὔτε γυνὴ χωρὶς ἀνδρός,^s ἐν Κυρίῳ.
12 Ὥσπερ γὰρ ἡ γυνὴ ἐκ τοῦ ἀνδρός, οὕτως καὶ ὁ ἀνὴρ διὰ τῆς γυναικός· τὰ δὲ πάντα ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ.
13 Ἐν ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς κρίνατε· πρέπον ἐστὶν γυναῖκα ἀκατακάλυπτον τῷ Θεῷ προσεύχεσθαι; 14 Ἢ^t οὐδὲ αὐτὴ ἡ φύσις^u διδάσκει ὑμᾶς ὅτι ἀνὴρ μὲν ἐὰν κομᾷ, ἀτιμία αὐτῷ ἐστιν; 15 Γυνὴ δὲ ἐὰν κομᾷ, δόξα αὐτῇ ἐστιν, ὅτι ἡ κόμη ἀντὶ περιβολαίου δέδοται.^v
16 Εἰ δέ τις δοκεῖ φιλόνεικος^w εἶναι, ἡμεῖς τοιαύτην συνήθειαν οὐκ ἔχομεν, οὐδὲ αἱ ἐκκλησίαι τοῦ Θεοῦ.

Textual Notes

ⁱ "Brothers" (ἀδελφοί) is found in 97% of Greek manuscripts (HF, RP, OC, TR, CP). A small number of early manuscripts (3%, including 𝕻46, ℵ, A, B, C) omit the word.

^j Most manuscripts read παραδόσεις ("traditions"). About 9% of manuscripts spell the word παραδώσεις instead. This is simply a spelling variation and does not affect the meaning.

^k 97% of manuscripts read δέ ("but"), while about 3% of early manuscripts (ℵ, A, B) read τοῦ ("of"), resulting in a slightly different wording.

^l Most manuscripts read "his head" (τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ). A few manuscripts instead read "himself" (ἑαυτοῦ). The meaning is essentially unchanged.

^m Most manuscripts read καταισχύνει ("dishonors"). About 13% read καταισχύνη, and about 2% read κατέσχυνη. These are minor spelling differences of the same verb.

ⁿ 75% of manuscripts read ἑαυτῆς ("her own"), while 25% (including 𝕻46, ℵ, A, C) read αὐτῆς ("her"). The overall meaning is the same.

^o Most manuscripts read ἐξυρημένῃ ("having been shaved"), while a few use the alternate spelling ξυρημένῃ.

^p 64% of manuscripts (including ℵ, A, B, C) read κείρασθαι, while 32% read κείρεσθαι. About 3% have another spelling, and roughly 1% contain other rare readings. All refer to cutting or shaving the hair.

^q 97% of manuscripts read ὑπάρχων ("being"), while about 3% (A, B) add the article ἡ ("the"), a minor grammatical variation.

^r Most manuscripts read ἐκτίσθη ("was created"). A few spell it ἐκκτίσθη. The meaning is identical.

^s 95% of manuscripts preserve the familiar word order: "neither man apart from woman nor woman apart from man." About 5% of early manuscripts (𝕻46, ℵ, A, B, C) rearrange the word order without changing the meaning.

^t 96% of manuscripts include ἤ ("or"), while about 4% of early manuscripts omit it. The omission has little effect on the sentence.

^u 96% of manuscripts read "nature itself" (αὐτὴ ἡ φύσις). About 4% rearrange the word order, while 𝕻46 reads "its nature." None of these variants significantly affect the meaning.

^v 73% of manuscripts read simply δέδοται ("has been given"). About 17% add "to her," making the implied recipient explicit. Around 5% reverse the word order, 3% have a spelling variation, and about 2% contain other minor readings.

^w Most manuscripts read φιλόνεικος ("contentious"), while about 16% read the alternate spelling φιλόνικος. Both forms have the same meaning.

Non Greek Removed

2 Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. 3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.
- 1. Every man who has something on hanging down from his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. 5. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. 6. For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head. 7. For a man ~~ought~~ is morally obligated not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.
  - 1. For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man;.
    - 1. for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake..
      - Therefore the woman ~~ought~~ is morally obligated to have ~~a symbol of~~ authority on her head, because of the angels.
    - 11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.
  - 1. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.
- 1. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God ~~with her head~~ uncovered? 14. Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, 15. but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her ~~for~~ instead of a cloth covering.
1. But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.

The Greek word “κατὰ” (kata)

We’l look at verse 4 first.

1 Corinthians 11 (NASB)

Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head.

The words highlighted in red are how the NASB and many other translations translate the Greek word “κατὰ” (kata) here. It’s an extremely flexible word with a broader range of meanings than almost every other Greek word. However, the primary sense is “down from”, which you can see in the lexicon quote below.

2596 katá (a preposition, governing two grammatical cases) – properly, “down from, i.e. from a higher to a lower plane, with special reference to the terminus (end-point)” (J. Thayer).

And from Thayer’s Greek lexicon:

1. properly,

a. down from, down: κατά τοῦ κρημνοῦ, Matthew 8:32; Mark 5:13; Luke 8:33; κατεχην κατά τῆς κεφαλῆς (so that it flowed down from his head (cf. Winer‘s Grammar, 381 (357) note); but it is more correct here to omit κατά with L T Tr WH; see καταχέω), Mark 14:3; hence κατά κεφαλῆς (a veil hanging down from his entry) ἔχων, 1 Corinthians 11:4 (A. V. having his head covered) cf. καταπέτασμα (or rather κάλυμμα (which see), but see ἔχω, I. 1 b.).

Notice, the lexicon specifically mentions 1 Cor 11:4 as a place where “down from” is the right understanding.

Now, the translated “something on” in the NASB is a rather loose translation. Not a bad one per se, but very loose, probably because of the difficulty of translating this passage. Like we saw, it literally means “down from”. Here’s the same verse in another translation that’s a little bit more literal/accurate. Please note: this translation italicizes words that were added by translators for clarity.

1 Corinthians 11 (BOS Bible)

Every man who is praying or prophesying while having something hanging down from his head dishonors his head.

Here’s the footnote for that verse:

“hanging down from” is the Greek word “κατὰ” (kata), often translated “on” here. It primarily means “down” or “down from”, but it has many uses and one of the largest semantic ranges of any Greek word. Here it’s used in the sense of “hanging down from”, of which there are two main interpretations. (1) Paul is referring to head coverings. In Rabbinic custom, men wore a prayer shawl called a “Tallit”, which they would drape over their heads while they prayed out of reverence for God, to indicate they weren’t worthy to look on His face. This shawl would thus “hang down” from their heads. (2) The second view says Paul is referring to hair which is long enough to “hang down”. This makes much more sense contextually because verses 2-16 have a chiastic structure, and verse 4’s counterpart in verse 14 is clearly referencing long hair on men.

This is our first clue about the verse. Notice that it’s possible – even likely given the chiastic structure – that Paul wasn’t talking about wearing a hat or veil in this verse. Notice too that the footnote correctly points out that the chiastic pair of verse 4 is verse 14. So we’ll look at verse 14

1 Corinthians 11 (NASB)

14 Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him,

Remember how we said that a chiasm can be used to lend clarity by looking at the counterpart of the unclear verse? This is a great example. It doesn’t mean “absolutely for sure” that verse 4 is talking about hair that’s long enough to “hang down” from the head. However, it does give a strong indication that Paul was talking about long hair. It’s not perfectly certain, but it’s a strong indication.

The Greek word “περιβόλαιον” (peribolaion)

It’s a truism that something is always lost in translation. This isn’t always the fault of the translators though, and is often simply because languages are different. Very rarely will a word in one language have a perfect counterpart in another (it happens, but not usually). Such is the case with this next verse we will look at.

1 Corinthians 11

15 but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her long hair is given to her for a covering.

The word in red is the Greek word “περιβόλαιον” (peribolaion). It means:

Definition: that which is thrown around, a covering
Usage: a wrapper, mantle, veil, cloak, covering.

Peribolaion (“covering” in verse 15) is the noun form of the Greek word “περιβάλλω” (periballó), which is a verb that means to “clothe yourself” (or myself, himself, themselves, etc.).

This is important!

In verse 15, Paul wasn’t talking about any just kind of covering; he was specifically talking about a cloth/fabric covering.

However, different words are everywhere else in this passage.

“Covering” elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 11

There are a few other words used for “covering” in this passage. Fortunately, they all belong to the same “word family”. That is, they all have the same basic meaning and thus can be treated as a unit.

There’s the adjective form “ἀκατακάλυπτος” (akatakaluptos), correctly translated “uncovered” and used in verses 5 and 13.
There’s the verb form “κατακαλύπτω” (katakaluptó) translated “cover” and used in verses 6 and 7.

The words are almost the same and come from the same root. “Katakaluptó” comes from “κατὰ” (kata) and “καλύπτω” (kaluptó). We’ve already looked at kata but didn’t mention it can function as an intensifying prefix (one of its many functions). More on that in a moment.

The Greek word kaluptó simply means to “cover” or to “conceal”. For example, it’s used in Luke:

Luke 8 (NASB)

16 “Now no one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed; but he puts it on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see the light.

That’s kaluptó.

Now, the Greek word kata can be used as a prefix to intensify something. For example, kaluptó means “to cover”, kata-kaluptó means to “fully cover”.

In the adjective form used in this verse, a negative prefix is added (like adding the letter “a” to the word “moral” to get the word “amoral”, which means “not moral”) So in the adjective form, it’s a-kata-kaluptó, which means “fully uncovered”, in the sense of not being covered at all.

(Note: some lexicons will say katakaluptó means to “wear a veil”. However, that’s not the primary meaning and is pulled from assumed context. A good lexicon will correctly say it means “to cover”, and then mention a veil as one possible type of covering.)

Notice that “peribolaion” (clothe myself) which is used in verse 15 is a different word – and from a different word family – than “katakaluptó” and “akatakaluptos”

There’s the adjective form “ἀκατακάλυπτος” (akatakaluptos), correctly translated “uncovered” and used in verses 5 and 13.
There’s the verb form “κατακαλύπτω” (katakaluptó) translated “cover” and used in verses 6 and 7.