If the Long Hair is a covering

[HeavenlyOne]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

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I just had an interesting thought too...why should we assume Paul was completely bald? Im sure he cut it short, but I don't see why it necessarily means bald ie noting but skin.

Thanks for the verses and commentary. Very interesting and something I will be looking further into. But I'm still trying to find out why there seems to be a black or white area only. Either they cut it all off or they didn't cut at all.

I also don't see how this ties into 1 Cor. 11, if it even does, but it's interesting all the same. Because if it did tie in, then there are no gray areas. This would mean (to me) that women shouldn't cut their hair at all, and men, unless they had a vow, would have to have their heads shorn or shaven all the time. Yet I don't find in my readings thus far that Jewish men wore their hair that way in Biblical times. It seems that their culture had a definition for what was long hair on a man.

Too much thinking for my brain at the moment.

As for the post above, I don't assume Paul was bald, as scripture never says that. He had his head shorn after the vow, but that doesn't mean his head was shaved bald. I've heard people claim it was, as you also have heard.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by HeavenlyOne

Thanks for the verses and commentary. Very interesting and something I will be looking further into. But I'm still trying to find out why there seems to be a black or white area only. Either they cut it all off or they didn't cut at all.

I also don't see how this ties into 1 Cor. 11, if it even does, but it's interesting all the same. Because if it did tie in, then there are no gray areas. This would mean (to me) that women shouldn't cut their hair at all, and men, unless they had a vow, would have to have their heads shorn or shaven all the time. Yet I don't find in my readings thus far that Jewish men wore their hair that way in Biblical times. It seems that their culture had a definition for what was long hair on a man.

Too much thinking for my brain at the moment.

As for the post above, I don't assume Paul was bald, as scripture never says that. He had his head shorn after the vow, but that doesn't mean his head was shaved bald. I've heard people claim it was, as you also have heard.

It doesn't tie in. As I said before I was doing a word comparison for razer and cutting hair.

[comeasyouare]

I'm somewhat technologically challenged. I wish I knew how to simply respond to one or two sentences. Duh... I show my age.

A major problem develops when people try to apply MODERN meanings to ancient terms. Just because we have English equivalents for ancient Greek words, it does not mean the original meaning is in our historical era and culture. The meaning is BACK THEN..

Xurao, which means "to shave," is used in close connection with keiro in 1 Cor. 11:6. It is closely related etymologically, e.g., to xuo ("to scrape, scratch"), xuron ("razor"), and xuraphion ("surgical knife"). The two words were in some ways synonymns but with intrinsic differences. Although keiro basically implied a close cropping, it was still a cutting rather than a shaving. This is seen in an aphorism attributed to the Emperor Tiberius which is quoted in the *History of Rome* by Dio Cassius: "I want my sheep shorn [a form of keiro], not shaven [a compound of xurao]." This info was passed on to me by a very nice young man, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota and Baylor University, who had studied Koine and worked with NT material.

Xurao and keiro were sometimes used interchangeably. The ancient playwright, Euripides, illustrates the synonymous usage of the two terms. Visit www.studyholiness.com for an article illustrating the contextual meaning of xurao and keiro.