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(13) Then the apostle declares: "It is proper that a woman pray unto God uncovered." This is Paul's simple statement of fact, and not a question. Greek does not alter the order of the words of a sentence to distinguish a question from a simple statement, as we do in English. We only need to alter the punctuation (of uninspired and recent invention), to change from one to the other, since there is no interrogative word in the sentence.
(14) "Nor[31] doth even the nature itself [of hair] teach you," etc. Our idiomatic English would say, to express the same idea, "There is nothing in the nature of hair itself to teach you,"--a simple statement that appeals to everybody's common sense, while, as a question, this is an absurdity. The entire Chinese nation of men disproves the statement of theologians that Nature gives women long hair and men short hair. No artist would dare paint a portrait of Jesus Christ with short hair. Is His hair "a shame" to Him?
250. But why does Paul discuss hair here? Because he has just said it was a fitting thing for a woman to uncover the head in prayer, and Jewish women would find it most difficult to overcome a false sense of shame in doing so, or in seeing other women do so, since uncovering the hair in public amounted to proof of adultery in Jewish estimation (par. 243).
(16) Then comes Paul's concluding statement, that if anyone is going to contend for either sex veiling for worship, or women for modesty, "We have no such custom"--veiling,--though we may have to make allowance for it, out of regard for the welfare of women, to save them from "disgrace.” John Stuart Mill has wisely remarked: "To pretend that Christianity was intended to stereotype existing forms of government and society, and protect them against change, is to reduce it to the level of Islamism or of Brahmism.”
==Footnotes==
[1] A British Biblical scholar has pronounced my rendering of the Greek word oude by "nor even" in this affirmative sense, "a somewhat peculiar presentation of the case, " but "not impossible." Let Greek scholars turn to 1 Cor. 5:1; 1 Cor. 14:21; 2 Cor. 3:10; (A.V.); Gal. 2:3; 6:13; Heb. 8:4; 9:18, and judge if the peculiarity is not Paul's, rather than mine.
==See Also==
