Critique of Jaubert and Ramsey on 1 Corinthians 11:10
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2004.
Jaubert's judgment is inadequate. He claims that the Greek expression echein exousian always has the active sense 'possess a power', and never a passive sense 'undergo a domination'.1 But this oversimplifies the issue. It is frequently so in the New Testament that someone genuinely possesses authority and exercises it, while at the same time that authority has been granted to him or her by someone else. It is so even with our Lord himself (see Matthew 9:6, 8; Luke 20:2; John 5:27; 17:2).
So how should verse 10 be translated? There are two possibilities:
'. . . authority over her head'. This would mean 'authority to do what she likes with her own physical head', in particular, whether to cover it, or not to cover it. But it cannot mean that. The whole drift of the paragraph is to establish the fact that neither the man nor the woman is free to do what he or she likes in this matter. Each must submit to the Lord's direction.
'. . . authority on her head'. William Ramsay did laugh at the idea that the head covering is a sign of the man's authority over the woman. He held that it is the woman's own authority that is in question. That said, however, he held that in an oriental society it was the woman's veil that protected and secured the woman's authority and dignity. If she did away with her veil, she thereby lost all her authority and dignity with the public.
The implication of Ramsay's theory for the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:10, if it is correct, would be: 'a woman ought to have on her head the thing that protects her authority, namely a veil'.
Note, therefore, that Ramsay's theory demands that the word 'authority' here is being used as a metonym—the use of the name of an attribute of a thing, for the thing itself; for example, 'the Crown' for 'Queen'. 'Authority' is a metonym for the veil that protects that authority. Ramsay's comment can be found in his The Cities of St. Paul, London, 1907, page 202ff.2 Those who favour Ramsay's proposed interpretation cannot, therefore, object to other interpretations on the ground that they involve taking 'authority' as a metonym, as some modern—as well as older—translations do. For example:
| NIV: | a sign of authority |
| ESV: | a symbol of authority |
| HCSB: | a symbol of authority |
| RV: | a sign of authority |
This use of metonyms is quite natural even in modern English. For example, a man appears at my front door saying he has come to examine the electrical system in my house. If I ask him for his authority, he may well point to an official identity badge that he is wearing round his neck. The badge round his neck is his authority.
The question arises whether the 'authority' on her head represents her own intrinsic authority as a woman, or the authority given her by God, or Christ, or the Church, or her husband.
The answer to this question is given by the flow of thought and explanation given in verses 7–9, and summed up by the introductory phrase in verse 10: 'For this cause the woman has a duty to have a symbol of authority on her head'. She could scarcely be said to have a duty to possess her own intrinsic authority. Her place in nature and in the church is given to her by God.
Warmly yours in Christ,
2 The quotes by Jaubert and Ramsey are from Bibliotheca Sacra, April/June 1988, presumably from H. Wayne House's 'A biblical view of women in the ministry'. The series continues through all four volumes that year.
1 Available at: https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ramsay/cities-of-st-paul_ramsay.pdf