Head Coverings: The Interpolation View

Announcing the seventh in this Veracity summer blog post series….

Should 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 even be in our Bible? Are these verses in some sense completely foreign to the mind of Paul? This idea may sound really strange, but this proposition has actually been entertained by some competent scholars.

This hypothesis, the “Interpolation” view,  is fairly straightforward, even though the evidence for it is widely disputed. An “interpolation” is a fancy academic word to say that something was added into the text that really did not belong there in the first place. Most people, if they have ever heard of the concept of “interpolation,” recognize it as a mathematical term, but few know that there is a literary concept of “interpolation” as well. Essentially, the idea is that you have an original letter or document, where additional material was added either intentionally or unintentionally by a later copyist of that letter or document.

There are a couple of famous examples of interpolation that at least a few Christians know about, but I will mention only one here. In just about any modern Bible translation today, there will be a marginal note after Mark 16:8. The English Standard Version (ESV) inserts the following:

[Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16:9–20.]

What in the world is THAT all about?

Everything about head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11 (well, maybe not “everything,” but we try to hit the highlights here at Veracity)

A Famous Example of “Interpolation” in the New Testament

There is a problem with how the Gospel of Mark ends. In our oldest manuscripts, the Gospel of Mark ends at verse 16:8. The women who had gone out to visit Jesus tomb on Easter morning are shocked to discover that the tomb is empty, so they ran off afraid and did not tell anyone what happened. That’s it. No actual appearance of the risen Jesus. Just an empty tomb and terrified women. For a lot of people even today, that abrupt ending to the grand story about Jesus just does not feel right. I mean, is there not more to the story that has been left off?

However, there are more recents manuscripts of Mark that include either one of two possible additional endings of Mark: the so-called Shorter Ending of Mark, and the Longer Ending of Mark. Most Bibles today include the Longer Ending of Mark after the marginal note. Some variations of this additional passage do have appearances of the risen Jesus. This is also the passage that talks about snake handling.

Most scholars believe that either the Shorter or Longer Ending of Mark was added later, by some scribe, in the New Testament copying process down through the centuries. Perhaps some scribe added such an ending into the text, and later copyists unintentionally kept the new ending in there, thinking it to be original. This would make either additional ending an “interpolation.”

Therefore, the case for interpolation of something like the last few verses of Mark is very strong because of the actual, physical evidence we possess from ancient copies of the New Testament. Even for those few scholars who still believe that a longer ending to Mark was original, it is not easy to figure out which ending is correct: the Shorter or the Longer ending, or some combination of both?!! Other examples of interpolation in the history of Bible-copying-down through the centuries do exist. However, such incidents are relatively rare overall throughout the Bible, or they are just short verses or small phrases that have effectively no impact in how any doctrine in the New Testament is to be understood.¹

Interpolation in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16?

Then there is our passage that we have been considering all summer: Very few people know about the interpolation hypothesis regarding 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, but we will discuss it here. There are a couple of variations of the interpolation hypothesis. But the main problems that give rise to the hypothesis include these:²

First, some say that 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 sticks out like a sore thumb. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul discusses the problem of idolatry and eating food with idols, while bringing up the topic of the Lord’s Supper. Then in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, Paul picks up the conversation about the Lord’s Supper again. So why does Paul stick this weird passage about head coverings right smack dab in the middle of this lengthy section about the Lord’s Supper?

Second, some say that the logic of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is hopelessly impenetrable. In some places, Paul talks about the relationship between man and woman in the church. In other places, he talks about head coverings. In another place, he talks about the length of hair for men and women. For some readers, this combination of different chunks of verses is a complete mess, and there is no way to reconcile the discrepancies either internally to the whole passage, or externally to the rest of what Paul is teaching elsewhere.

For example, Paul makes a big deal about men not wearing a head covering in a church meeting in verse 4, knowing full well that the Jewish male priests would actually wear head coverings in their worship gatherings. That just seems like a contradiction, and therefore completely inappropriate for Paul. (We will come back and visit this issue in more detail in the last blog post in this series).

The last problem, and the most controversial proposition, is that 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 simply does not sound like anything else we read in Paul. While definitely a minority view, there are some egalitarian scholars who embrace the Interpolation hypothesis because they think that Paul is essentially an egalitarian when it comes to the relationship between men and women, and yet 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 sounds hopelessly patriarchal and anti-woman. Therefore, this reasoning concludes that Paul did not write 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 and was therefore added in later by another scribe, some years down the road of the copying process.

Another Spin on the Interpolation Hypothesis

However, there is another variation or spin on 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 that handles the Interpolation idea in a rather unique fashion. I will not even name the source for this idea because I actually know who the source is indirectly, and I want to spare that scholar and other friends of this scholar of any possible notoriety.

In this particular variation or spin of the Interpolation view, the idea is that Paul really has written 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 into his letter. Strictly speaking then, this perspective does not consider the passage to be an interpolation. But functionally speaking, it ends up working out that way. The argument suggests that Paul is effectively dismissive of the whole passage with practically no comment about it.

In other words, Paul goes into this whole thing about what some people in Corinth believe about God’s order of God-Christ-Man-Woman, and then this bit about head coverings, and near the end some rambling about the length of hair. Ya-da-ya-da-ya-da. The surprise comes then in the last verse.

The punchline has to do with how to interpret the final verse in this passage, verse 16. In the ESV we read:

If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.

Or the Christian Standard Bible (CSB) says:

If anyone wants to argue about this, we have no other custom, nor do the churches of God.

The Greek word toioutos can mean “such” or “other,” found in the ESV and the CSB, respectively. It is worth quoting from a passage in Kevin DeYoung’s book Men and Women in the Church, to give you first the traditional perspective on how to read verse 16, starting by thinking how to best translate and interpret this Greek word toioutos (p. 58):

If it is “such,” as the ESV renders it, we should understand Paul to be saying, “We have no such practice of being contentious,” not “We have no such practice of wearing head coverings.” If the word means “other” [as in the CSB], we should understand Paul to be saying, “We have no other practice in all the churches than what I laid out,” not “We have no other practice of contentiousness, so do whatever you like.” Verse 16 underscores the point that Paul’s instructions do not come from personal preference but from what is good practice for the people of God everywhere.

This unique spin on the Interpolation view has Paul saying the exact OPPOSITE thing that Kevin DeYoung says Paul IS saying, either:

“We have no such practice of wearing head coverings.”

OR

“We have no other practice of contentiousness, so do whatever you like.”

End of discussion. Next topic please.³

The interpretive issue boils down to what exactly Paul is saying is a custom or practice. Is it the head coverings practice itself, or is the whole discussion about head coverings an act of contentiousness which Paul wants the Corinthians to avoid? In other words, this unique spin view suggests that verses 2 through 15 represent some crazy, complex idea that the Corinthians have that Paul heard about, but that Paul simply responds by saying “Do not get caught up with such foolishness about head coverings,” or “Who really cares what you wear on your head? Stop wasting time with such nonsense, and move on to something else!”

Or to put it another way, Paul is giving the reader of the letter a very lengthy quote of a Corinthian saying, which he quickly dismisses, and then simply walks away… or even runs away from any more discussion about the issue to move on toward a different topic.

Paul would have been better served if he had never brought up the issue to begin with; that is, Paul deliberately interpolated something into his own letter for basically no other purpose than to ridicule it with no explanation whatsoever. This is not even a refutation, unlike what was described in the previous post about the Quotation/Refutation view. It is simply a hand waving away of a fairly lengthy set of verses that was just written.

If this is what Paul is really doing here, it is just about as bizarre a thing to do as it is to bring up the whole topic to begin with. It makes Paul seem like a completely incoherent thinker, bringing up what Paul considers to be a ridiculous topic in the mind of the Corinthians, only to abruptly dismiss it.

The two main problems with the Interpolation view are:

1. The evidence to support the Interpolation viewpoint is very, very weak. Essentially, every New Testament copy that contains the relevant portion of 1 Corinthians includes these verses, We have not a single copy of 1 Corinthians which lacks 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 throughout the entire history of the preservation of the New Testament manuscripts.⁴
2. It basically assumes the idea that Paul’s thought is essentially unknowable, or so hopelessly confusing that we might as well skip this part of the Bible and forget about it.

Pushing Back on the Interpolation View

I need to come clean right now on this one, before going any further…..

Of all of the views discussed in this blog series, the Interpolation view is probably THE worst, from my perspective, particularly the odd spin variation of the Interpolation view just described. The general sense I get from this viewpoint is that the easiest way to avoid a tough passage of the Bible is simply to pretend that it does not even exist in our Bible, even if you have next to no evidence to support that assertion. Once you start going down a road like that, you will eventually end up with a Bible that has few pages in it because you keep tossing out things you simply do not like. This may sound harsh, but I find it difficult that any thoughtful believing Christian would seriously consider this view, or any variation of it, though apparently some do their hardest to try.

I can not imagine how any scholar can believe that the Interpolation view, or any similar position, could ever be construed as evangelical by any measure. I would never have brought up this viewpoint, had it not been the fact that I have actually heard a credentialed scholar make this kind of case in a church setting. Seriously.

Christians who try to follow this way of thinking may find some short term comfort for their position, but ultimately, such a disrespectful view of the Bible will have disastrous consequences for the future of the church. Adopt this view only at one’s spiritual peril.

There is not much more to be said about the Interpolation view. Next time we will arrive at perhaps the weirdest explanation of this weird passage, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, but if you carefully think about, you might find yourself amazed at its explanatory power. But be aware, you should make sure that you put the kids to bed BEFORE you sit down and read it.

It is PG-13 for sure.

Stick around for that… You will NOT want to miss it!!

Note:

^{1.See Veracity blog post about the ending of Mark, which includes a helpful video by Mike Winger to discusses the issue in detail. ↩}

^{2. A more academic approach to the interpolation view, more sophisticated than what I state here in this blog post, which ultimately finds the view lacking in substance, is Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s The Non-Pauline Character of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16?.   Murphy-O’Connor comments on the interpolation view like this: “Anyone who has struggled with the problems of this passage is at once inclined to welcome such radical surgery, but closer examination reveals that the arguments used to justify it are highly questionable on both factual and methodological grounds.” ↩}

^{3. Lucy Peppiatt, an  egalitarian, notes that for Paul, to refuse his teaching on head coverings / hairstyles is an “egregious” matter and not a minor one (Peppiatt, Women and Worship at Corinth, p. 61, but also p. 16, 82). See also Fee, NICNT I Corinthians (1987), p. 530, and Bartlett, Men and Women in Christ, p. 189, 484. The problem with all of these readings that it is not entirely clear as to what Paul is so adamant about. However, this spin on the  Interpolation view, in contrast, maintains that Paul is contradicting what he just said in verses 2-15. This is confusing at best. ↩}

^{4. As even Craig Keener, a prominent egalitarian scholar, puts it, “the textual basis for removing this passage is impossibly weak.” See Paul, Women and Wives. A similar argument about a different portion of 1 Thessalonians being an non-Pauline interpolation is discussed in a previous Veracity blog post. As with the Quotation/Refutation view, overuse of something like the Interpolation view takes a legitimate hermeneutical method and tries to make it apply in situations which have little warrant for it, like discovering how great a hammer and nail works and then trying to hammer everything in, when what is really required is a screwdriver and a screw.  ↩}