Source: Michael S. Heiser, Reversing Hermon: Enoch, The Watchers & The Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 123–136.
This podcast explores a difficult passage in 1 Corinthians where Paul discusses head coverings for women, particularly the phrase "because of the angels." After examining and critiquing three common interpretations that see "angels" as human messengers, guardians of creation order, or beings ensuring church purity, the author presents a more compelling alternative rooted in ancient beliefs. This view posits that Paul's concern about head coverings is connected to the sin of the Watchers, fallen angels from Genesis 6 who violated cosmic order by engaging with human women, and that a woman's hair was considered part of her genitalia in ancient medical thought, making covering it a matter of sexual modesty and a sign of being "taken" to prevent further angelic transgression.
The Enigmatic Nature of the Passage: The sources highlight 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 as one of the most puzzling sections in Paul's letters, particularly focusing on his discussion of women and public worship. A central point of difficulty and scholarly debate is the statement in verse 10 that women should have their heads covered "because of the angels." This phrase has been the subject of numerous interpretations throughout the history of biblical scholarship.
Flawed Traditional Interpretations of "Because of the Angels": The sources outline three primary scholarly proposals for what Paul meant by "because of the angels" and detail why these views are considered problematic.
◦The first view suggests the angels are human messengers or envoys from other churches who might be offended by uncovered women. The source argues against this, noting that Paul doesn't use angelos elsewhere for human messengers in this transparent way and that the proposed parallel in 1 Corinthians 14:23 refers to "outsiders" or "unbelievers," not official envoys.
◦The second view proposes the angels are supernatural beings guarding the created order, who would be offended by the transgression of gender roles implied by uncovered heads. This is deemed weak due to internal inconsistency (connecting cosmic order to hairstyles) and a lack of historical support for angels having this specific role in early or rabbinic Jewish tradition.
◦The third view posits that the angels are supernatural beings present in the church to ensure purity and proper worship order. While considered more promising, this view lacks direct historical evidence about the specific issue Paul was addressing in Corinth. Comparisons to Dead Sea Scroll texts, which mention angelic presence related to the Qumran community's ritual purity, face difficulties because those texts don't envisage women as full participants in worship, making it hard to see how they directly inform Paul's instructions about women's head coverings. The suggestion that unveiled women might be seen as a "bodily defect" by angels, drawing from Qumran concerns about physical purity, is also criticized for presupposing that Paul would exclude people based on physical defects and for relying on analogy without explaining the head covering itself.
The Sin of the Watchers Alternative Interpretation: A fourth alternative, considered more persuasive despite being previously dismissed by some scholars, links Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 to the sin of the Watchers described in 1 Enoch, which is rooted in Genesis 6:1–4. This view suggests that Paul's concern about order in worship and creation order was informed by the violation of cosmic order that occurred when these fallen angels were attracted to and sexually violated human women. This perspective connects head coverings to maintaining cosmic boundaries, distinguishing between distinct orders of creation (humans and angels), and protecting women from potential supernatural violation, echoing the precedent of angelic violation in the past.
Analysis of Vocabulary and Ancient Physiological Views: A crucial element in understanding the passage involves a detailed examination of the Greek word peribolaion, translated as "covering" in verse 15b ("her hair is given to her for a covering"). Drawing on the work of scholar Troy Martin, the sources explain a controversial but potentially powerful interpretation based on the broader semantic range of peribolaion in Greco-Roman texts, particularly medical ones. Martin argues that when contrasted with hair, peribolaion can refer to a body part, specifically a testicle, as seen in a text by Euripides. This leads to an exploration of ancient Hippocratic medical conceptions.
Hair as Female Genitalia and the Principle of Modesty in Worship: Building on the analysis of peribolaion and ancient medical views, the sources explain the Hippocratic belief that hair grows from reproductive fluid/semen and is connected to the body's reproductive channels. According to these views, women's hair, especially on the head, was seen as attracting and retaining semen, playing a role in conception and fertility. This made a woman's hair, in this ancient understanding, functionally analogous to male testicles and part of the female genitalia. Based on this physiological conception, Paul's argument from nature (1 Cor 11:13–15) is reinterpreted: he is contrasting a woman's long hair (her 'glory' because it enhances her ability to conceive) with a man's testicles. Therefore, requiring women to cover their hair in public worship becomes an argument for sexual modesty in God's service, similar to the requirement for priests in the Old Testament to cover their genitalia when serving at the altar (referenced euphemistically as "feet" or "flesh").
Synthesizing the Watchers, Modesty, and Angelic Concern: The sources synthesize the findings, arguing that Paul's concern was indeed with proper order in worship, but this was linked to a deeper concern about cosmic boundaries and sexual propriety. The sexual nature of a woman's hair, understood as female genitalia according to ancient physiology, made covering it a matter of modesty in worship, aligning with Jewish tradition forbidding the display of genitalia in God's service. This is then directly connected back to the phrase "because of the angels." Paul was concerned that if women did not signal their sexual fidelity and "ownership" by covering their hair, they might be at risk of sexual violation by angels, echoing the sin of the Watchers in Genesis 6:1–4. The head covering served as a symbol of authority (presumably the husband's or her own), a sign of being sexually "taken," intended to prevent a repeat of that cosmic violation. The sources conclude by noting that while the principle of modesty in worship might be widely accepted, the specific ancient physiological rationale for covering hair is no longer valid today, leading many Christian communities to abandon the practice.