1 CORINTHIANS 11:7 AND GLORY (REPUTATIONS)
Several verses in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 have been misunderstood and misapplied in ways that have greatly disadvantaged women. Misinterpretations of verse 7 are among the most grievous.
1 Corinthians 11:7 says,
“A man should not cover his head, being the image and glory of God. But woman is the glory of man.”
Here’s how not to interpret this verse.
. . . man was first originally and immediately the image and glory of God, the woman only secondarily and mediately through man. The man is more perfectly and conspicuously the image and glory of God, on account of his more extensive dominion and authority. John Gill (1700s)
Unfortunately, this kind of interpretation was common in older commentaries where the word “image” was understood in terms of authority. (I quote from some of these older commentaries here.)
Despite the statements in Genesis 1:26-28 that both male and female humanity was created in the image (LXX: eikōn) and likeness of God, and that men and women share the responsibility for taking care of the animals, and by extension their habitats, many older commentaries on 1 Corinthians 11:7 gloss over the Genesis verses and do not mention the authority women have as God’s image-bearers.
There is no indication in Genesis 1 that women have a lower status, less authority, or less responsibility than men in being stewards of the earth. Moreover, Paul uses the words “image” (eikōn) and “glory” (doxa) several times in various passages that apply equally to all believers.
Here are two examples.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image (eikōn) of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified (doxaō)” (Rom. 8:28-30; cf. Phil. 3:20-21).
“… put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge, in accordance with the image (eikōn) of the One who created him, in which there is no Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:10-11; cf. Gal. 3:28).
Furthermore, Paul writes about “image” and “glory” in other parts of his letters to the Corinthians, not just in 1 Corinthians 11:7, and he doesn’t exclude women.
And just as we have borne the image (eikōn) of the man of dust [Adam], we will also bear the image (eikōn) of the man of heaven [Jesus] (1 Cor. 15:49).
We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory (doxa) of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image (eikōn) from glory (doxa) to glory (doxa) (2 Cor. 3:18, italics added).
Paul expected all followers of Christ to be conformed to the image of Jesus who is himself the image of God. And he wanted all Christians to bring glory to God. There are more than a few verses in his letters where Paul says these things (e.g., 2 Cor. 4:14; Col. 1:15; cf. Heb. 1:3).
1 Corinthians 11:7 cannot mean that only men, and not women, are the image and glory of God in the usual theological sense. So what does this verse mean?
Doxa (“Glory, Repute”) in Verses 7 and 15
The Greek word doxa is used in verse 7. Doxa is often translated as “glory” in the New Testament but can also have the sense of “reputation.” I suggest verse 7 means that the conduct of a man praying or prophesying with his hair in a certain state would affect the reputation and honour of God (God’s doxa). And Paul here reminds the men that they are the image of God to reinforce this particular point.
On the other hand, the conduct of a woman praying or prophesying with her hair in a certain state would affect the reputation and honour of her husband or father (the man’s doxa). That’s how society worked back then. Paul does not bring up the fact that woman is also made in the image of God because it doesn’t add anything to the point he is making in verse 7.
That the behaviour of a woman affects the reputation and honour of her husband or father holds true in many honour-shame cultures, including the culture of Ancient Corinth.
David deSilva has observed that 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 “reflects the view that female honour is embedded in male honour …”[1] In honour-shame societies, it can be difficult for a woman to attain honour for herself. Rather, women protect the reputation and honour of the men in their family by being discreet and socially respectable. In such societies, women who display aberrant behaviour bring dishonour on the whole family, but especially on the men, and particularly on the senior male.
Women’s behaviour is addressed more than men’s behaviour in Paul’s letters, not because Paul was a misogynist, but because the cultural setting of the churches he wrote to was steeped in honour-shame. Paul did not want the fledgling churches to suffer in an environment that could be suspicious and hostile towards new religious movements, especially religious movements that seemed to flaunt societal conventions.[2]
1 Corinthians 11:4-7 Corresponds with 11:13-15
1 Corinthians 11:4-7 is about what is on top of men’s and women’s heads while they pray and prophesy aloud in church gatherings, and this is connected negatively to disgrace (aischros) and positively to doxa. Something about their heads was affecting reputations.
In 1 Corinthians 11:13-15, which are the corresponding verses in the second half of the chiasm, similar language is used about heads, hair, dishonour (atima), and glory (doxa). Paul contrasts respectable hair lengths on men and women. Moreover, he says that a woman’s long hair is her covering and is her “glory,” her doxa.
Judge for 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 disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory (doxa)? For her hair is given to her as a covering (1 Cor. 11:13-15).
A difficulty with understanding verses 4-6 and 13-15 is that, while certain words (the adjective akatakalyptos used in verses 5 and 13 and the verb katakalyptō used in verses 6–7) usually meant “uncovered” and “covered,” these same words have sometimes referred to having hair unbound and bound. Jay E. Smith writes that “there is some evidence from the LXX [the Septuagint] that the ‘uncover-cover’ language of Paul refers respectively to letting the hair hang down and to putting it up.”[3]
I want to focus more, however, on the word doxa. Two of the most influential dictionaries of New Testament Greek, Bauer and Danker’s Lexicon and the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, state that doxa refers to “reputation” or “repute” in 1 Corinthians 11:15.[4] I propose that doxa has the sense of “reputation” or “repute” in verse 7 also, as well as verse 15.
Paul was concerned that socially unacceptable hairstyles on ministering women would reflect badly on a man in her birth or church family, and that this would affect the man’s doxa or reputation in broader Corinthian society. And Paul was concerned that socially unacceptable hairstyles on ministering men would reflect badly on God. If God’s doxa, or reputation, in broader society was damaged, it could negatively affect the church and her mission.
Considering Paul’s language, including doxa and other Greek words in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, Ruth Tucker and Walter Liefeld comment about the appearance and behaviour of women.
The language is too loaded with significant terms of conventional morality to ignore the world in which the first-century churches existed. Paul knew that the appearance and behavior of women in the church would be a symbol to the watching world.[5]
1 CORINTHIANS 11:8-9 AND GENESIS 2
Paul continues his discussion on hair and draws on the story in Genesis 2. The ideas of origins and firstness, alluded to in verse 3 with the word “head,” are echoed in verses 8 and 9.
Here’s how I understand 1 Corinthians 11:8-9.
“For man [Adam] did not come from woman, but woman [Eve] came from man. Neither was man [Adam] created for the sake of woman, but woman [Eve] for the sake of man.”
These verses, like previous verses, have been interpreted poorly and used to say things that Paul could not have meant. I’ve heard people say this passage teaches that women were made solely to serve men. They hold to this belief even though Jesus taught about sacrificial service and demonstrated this to his followers (cf. Mark 10:45). They hold to this belief even though Paul told husbands to act with loving care and consideration towards their wives (Eph. 5:25, 28-29; cf. Eph. 5:1-2).
Ancient society often regarded “firstness” with prestige and honour, and Paul used Genesis 2 in 1 Corinthians 11:8-9 to convey the idea that the ministering women needed to abide by some patriarchal social conventions and be mindful of not shaming the men in their lives. Paul did not want the Christian men to lose honour in broader Corinthian society. This could jeopardise the witness of the gospel.
But we need to keep reading. In a few passages in his letters, it sounds like Paul is setting up an argument to support typical patriarchal ideas, but he then goes on to undermine a patriarchal interpretation. In the 1 Corinthians 11 chiasm, the corresponding verses to 8-9 are verses 11-12, and they are good news!
After laying down his arguments for women not shaming men by culturally inappropriate hairstyles, and these arguments culminate in verse 10, Paul switches to another mode. He no longer addresses the issue of reputations in broader society, but relationships within the Christian community, the church.
Here’s how I understand Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:11-12.
“Nevertheless (or, except that), in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman [Eve] came from man [Adam], so also man [Cain (Gen. 4:1 NIV) and every man since] is born of woman [their mother]. But everything comes from God.”
For those who are in the Lord, there is mutual interdependence, not a one-sided, gender-based honour that has been part of many societies.[6] Male honour or male prestige has no place in relationships within the body of Christ.
In verses 11-12, Paul partially dismantles his previous argument that was made for the sake of outsiders and emphasises that for those who are in the Lord, it doesn’t matter who came from who, it doesn’t matter who came first, because ultimately everything comes from God.
Paul brings his argument back to God three times in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16: at the end of verse 3, at the end of verse 12, and at the very end of the passage, in verse 16, where he mentions “the churches of God.”[7] The reputation (doxa) that ultimately matters is God’s, and it is God who deserves glory because he is our ultimate source.
In part 4, the final part of this series, I look at 1 Corinthians 11:10, the crux of the passage.
Footnotes
[1] David deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (InterVarsity Press, 2000), 34.
[2] I list some verses in 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy and Titus where Paul asks for a degree of social conformity for the sake of the gospel in a footnote here: https://margmowczko.com/1-corinthians-112-16-meaning/
[3] Jay E. Smith, “1 Corinthians,” Darrell L. Bock (ed), The Bible Knowledge Word Study: Acts-Ephesians (Cook Communication Ministries, 2006), 280.
I discuss these words more here: “Uncover-Cover” Words in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16.
[4] Definition 3 of doxa in BDAG’s lexicon includes the word “reputation” and similar concepts/ words, and it interprets 1 Corinthians 11:15 (“it is her glory”) as “she enjoys a favorable reputation.” However, BDAG understand doxa in 1 Corinthians 11:7 as “reflection” rather than “reputation.”
Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition, (BDAG) revised and edited by F.W Danker, s.v. δοξα, (University of Chicago Press, 2000), 256-258.
The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) similarly notes that doxa in 1 Corinthians 11:15 has the sense of “repute” but in 1 Corinthians 11:7 has “the meaning ‘reflection’ or ‘image.’”
See Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (abridged), trans. Geoffrey W Bromiley, s.v. dokeō, doxa, … (Eerdmans, 1985), 178-181, 178. [Kittel 2:232-237].
[5] Ruth A. Tucker and Walter Liefeld, Daughters of the Church (Zondervan: 1987), 78.
[6] For us who are “in the Lord,” or “in Christ,” there is neither male and female, as Paul says in Galatians 3:28. When we are in Christ, we have a new identity and gender distinctions lose their social significance within the body of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:16-17, Paul wrote that we are not to regard each other primarily “according to the flesh” because we are now “in Christ” and part of the New Creation. I discuss this further, here.
[7] The Greek word for “God” is in a rhetorically emphatic position at the very end of verse 3 (where it says “the head of Christ is God”), and at the end of verse 12 (where it says “everything comes from God”), and at the very end of the section in verse 16 (where it says “the churches of God”).
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Photo of ruins of ancient Corinth, photo by Davide Mauro (CC BY-SA 4.0) Source: Wikimedia.
An Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, line by line:
Respectable Reputations Outside the Church, Mutual Relationships Within the Church
Part 1: Introduction, “Head” and “Firstness” (1 Cor. 11:2-3)
Part 2: Head Coverings or Hairstyles? Respectability and Sexual Renunciation (1 Cor. 11:4-6)
Part 4: (pending)
Explore more
1 Corinthians 11:2-16, in a Nutshell
Man and woman as the image and glory of God (1 Cor. 11:7)
What scholars say about 1 Corinthians 11:7
“Uncover-Cover” Words in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16
Judith Gundry on the Two Social Contexts of 1 Cor. 11:2–16
Woman Created for Man (1 Cor. 11:9), in a Nutshell
The Significance of the Created Order, in a Nutshell
Adam was created first and this means …
Is a gender hierarchy implicit in the creation narrative of Genesis 2:4–25?
Do women have a special obligation to be helpers?
Being an ezer is not a gender role
Galatians 3:28: Our Identity in Christ and in the Church