 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, go to nakedbiblepodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heizer's approach to the Bible, click on newstarthere at nakedbiblepodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 86, the head covering of 1 Corinthians 11, verse 13 through 15. I'm your layman, Trey Strickland, and he's the scholar, Dr. Michael Heizer. Hi, Mike. How you doing? Very good. Just did some recent travel and sort of glad to be back home and kind of get back into the normal routine. Sleeping in your own bed? Yeah, that kind of thing. Have my pug on my lap again and let him help me. Well, that's good. How was the photo real quick? How was that? Teaching the class? Oh, it was fun. It was a nice, small class, had sort of a seminar feel to it. So the first part of the trip was Sarasota. So we had a number of hearty souls come out for that and listened to unseen realm content. That went well. And then drove over to Fort Lauderdale for three, basically all day, like eight-hour days, weren't quite eight hours, but to teach, not necessarily through the book because I assume people had read the book, but they got to hear things that would go into book two, which includes material that I haven't even brought up in unseen realm, but also sort of things that we could drill down on in more detail. So. And how was the response with the students? Oh, very good. Very good. They really enjoyed it. Any pushback? No. I mean, there were good questions, but there was nobody that sort of ran to the dean's office and asked why I was there. You didn't get picketed, you didn't get protested, and there's no. No pickets, no protests, no one built a place to burn me at the stake outside or anything like that. So, you know, I've got something else funny, Mike, is that when you're away, I was doing some research on the podcast to see how we were doing and just, and as of last week, congratulations, Mike. We are number 10 in Romania is an iTunes and the Christian chart, we are number 10 and it doesn't in there in Finland in the Christian podcast segment of iTunes. We are number 14. True that, you know, how about that? How about that? How about that? So, so if I would officially like to think a Romanian in Finland or what do they finish? What's the proper? I think I think finishes is the way you would refer to that. Yeah. Yeah. People for listening. If I knew the Finnish thank you word, maybe can you just say, I guess we can say Shalom or what's thank you? What's a good? I don't know. I'm not familiar with finish. So. Yeah. But give him a Hebrew. Thank you, Mike. Well, Shalom is pretty versatile. Ancient. Thank you, boy. Yes. The most ancient. Thank you. But you can think boy, you know, I don't, I don't know if there is. I don't know if there is anything other than like Shalom is just peace and that shows up everywhere. So in other words, you you part as friends or whatever, whatever transaction or arrangement you were discussing ended on good terms. So. Okay. Well, Shalom, Romania and Finland. How's that? I mean, that works pretty much everywhere. Wow. Well, that's, that's big news there, Trey. Yeah. I don't get this podcast started, right? Yeah. Thanks for that in-depth research. Yes. Yes, sir. Well, I'm excited about this topic. This is our first of six topic episodes and I'm really interested in this one about the head covering and the long hair on the male and the females and. Oh, yeah. Everybody had that where I've sort of dropped hints as to what's going on here. Every time I do that, people want, you know, to hear the full story. So we're finally doing an episode on it. And trust me, if there's an episode of the Naked Bible podcast, you will not forget it's going to be this one. Well, that's good. Because I let my hair grow out. I have long hair now, so I need to know by the end of this podcast if I need to get a haircut or not. So that's, that's the goal. Yeah. I'll sort of let you judge. Okay. I need to know if I need a haircut or not by the end of the show. Yeah. Well, I'll try to remember to ask you what you think by the end. Okay. Sounds good. I'm going to start in ESV here again. I'm going to read basically the whole chapter, chapter 11. I will not the whole chapter, the first 16 verses, the whole segment is probably a better way to say it as it pertains to the head covering issue. So here we are in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he has the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For a man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord, a woman is not independent of man, nor man of woman. For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman, and all things are from God. Judge for yourselves. And here's the main part of our episode here, verse 13 through 15. Judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is a disgrace for him? But if a woman has long hair, it is her glory. For her hair is given to her for a covering. Again, that's a key statement. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God. So there are a couple of key things here just to sort of plant in our minds. Paul is making an argument from nature, again, as he understands nature. And again, this is an issue of either disgrace or not. And again, to repeat Paul's question, verse 13, judge for yourselves. Is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? And again, this whole thing about this being an argument from nature, he's going to answer that question and he's going to be thinking about, quote unquote, nature. And he talks about a woman having long hair, it's her glory. And then he says, for her hair is given to her for a covering. So the hair is supposed to be this covering. Whatever this covering is that he's talking about. And the word for covering in this passage is the Greek word paraballion. And we're going to be hearing that a couple of times as we proceed. Now what I'm going to do here, I can just preface it by saying this. What I'm going to say in this episode about the head covering. No one, unless you've read, again, the article I'm going to reference or have heard me talk about this, you have never heard this before. Just trust me, you've never heard this before. This is going to sound like crazy town. This is going to sound totally bizarre. But I'm going to make you a promise. At the end of this episode, you're going to think back on this episode. At all the crazy stuff you've heard, and you're going to think this thought, what does that make sense? That makes total sense out of the passage as crazy and bizarre as this material was. If this is what was floating around in their head, and Paul's head when he wrote this and when Corinthians heard it, when people read it, of this time period. If this is what's going on in people's minds, that makes perfect sense. And not only that, but the line about all of this being tied to something, some problem with the angels, because of the angels, Paul is writing this as well. It's going to make perfect sense. So hold on to your hats as it were. I'm just prefacing it, telling you you're not going to forget this one. And it's going to sound completely bizarre, but it's going to have a high degree of explanatory power for this passage. Now, what we're going to talk about really extends from a series of articles. Actually, it was an exchange of articles between two scholars starting in 2004 and ending in 2013. That ought to give you another indication of how long it takes journals to process materials. So it's over the course of nine years, believe it or not. But I'm going to focus on the original article that started the whole thing off. And the article's title is this. And this will tell you right away, again, you're in for a good ride here. Troy Martin, Troy W. Martin, the article is entitled Paul's argument from nature for the veil, again, the covering in 1 Corinthians 11, 13 to 15, subtitle, A Testicle Instead of a Head Covering. Again, this is not from Billy Bob's website. If your name's Billy Bob, I apologize for that reference. But you get the point. This is not from Christian Middle Earth, the wild world of the Internet. This is from the Journal of Biblical Literature, which is one of the premier journals in biblical studies in a 2004 episode. Now, this article got a response some seven years later from Mark Goodacre. Goodacre wasn't buying the argument. His article was entitled, Does Parabolion Mean Testicle in 1 Corinthians 11, 15? And then Martin responded to Goodacre's protestations with a third article, Parabolion as Testicle in 1 Corinthians 11, 15, a response to Mark Goodacre. And I'll be transparent here. I think Martin, especially in the last article when he addresses Goodacre's concerns and criticisms, I think Martin eats Goodacre's lunch. I think he builds a powerful argument from primary sources for his view. And we're going to focus for our talk here on the first article. And that first article we're going to make that available on the podcast website so you can get the argument, you can get the primary sources. But to set it all up, here's what Martin explains his approach in his first footnote in the article. Here's what he writes. He says, this article interprets Paul's argument from nature in 1 Corinthians 11, 13 to 15 against the background of ancient physiology. The Greek and Roman medical texts provide useful information for interpreting not only Paul's letters, but also other New Testament texts, unquote. So what he's going to do is he's going to dive into Greek and Roman medical texts, mostly Greek material, people like Hippocrates. Again, we're familiar with Hippocrates, the Hippocratic Oath. Well, the Greeks and the Romans wrote mounds of medical literature that give us a pretty detailed picture of what they thought about human physiology in the first century and earlier. And that is what Martin's article is going to focus on. And I think you're going to find it fascinating. The content of the episode, as I've telegraphed before on the website, is going to be very sexual in nature. But hey, you know, that's anatomy, that's physiology. And this is where Martin is going to argue that this is where this language comes from. This stuff about head covering, parabolic on, and long hair versus short hair, all this kind of stuff. You know, women's hair length, men's hair length, all of this, believe it or not, is tied to ancient Greco-Roman medical, quote, scientific thinking of the day. And again, we're not going to think this way at all, again, because we know more in terms of science. And what you're going to hear is not scientific at all in terms of what we now know. But back in the day, back when Paul was writing, back in the first century, this was the cutting edge science. And Martin's argument is that Paul knows this. He's familiar with this material. He's familiar with this worldview. And so when Paul writes 1 Corinthians 11, this is what he's thinking with his terminology and his recommendations, so on and so forth. And it has a lot to do, again, with human sexuality. So the key verse, but if woman has long hair, it is her glory. I mean, there's that part of a question. For her hair is given to her auntie, given to her instead of or for a covering, parableiu. So what I want to do is jump into Martin's article and I'm going to read you excerpts. And I'm going to start here, again, the first couple of pages of the article and then I'm going to read you some long excerpts that he has from Greco-Roman medical literature. And you're going to see pretty quickly how that relates to what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11. So Martin says, while many features of this argument in 1 Corinthians 11, two through 16 require explanation, the argument from nature in verses 13 to 15 is particularly problematic. The rationale for the natural shame of a man with long hair is obscure, especially problematic is the statement that a woman's long hair is given to her instead of a covering in verse 15. As traditionally understood, this statement about a woman's hair is giving, her long hair is given to her as a head covering, as a parableion. Martin says, as traditionally understood, this statement nullifies the previous argument that a woman should wear a covering since her long hair apparently serves that purpose. A satisfactory explanation of this argument from nature should resolve the apparent contradiction and enable this argument to support Paul's contention that women should wear the veil, okay, have a veil in public worship, unquote. Now, I'm going to go into, this is going to be page 77 of the article, what I just read to you is leading up to this. So I want to give you, once you look up the article, you can sort of land where I'm landing here because I'm going to read through a series of sections of the article within which Martin is going to quote, again from classical Greco-Roman texts, but just follow along as I read. And again, it's going to sound bizarre, but it's going to make a lot of sense when we're at the end here. And the lights will probably go on for you even before we get to the ending summary. So Martin writes, beginning here at the top of page 77, since parableion is contrasted with hair, which is part of the body, the physiological semantic domain of parableion in 1 Corinthians 1115 becomes particularly relevant. Euripides, again a Greek writer, uses parableion in reference to a body part. He casts Hercules as complaining. Here's what Hercules says, quote, after I received my bags of flesh, which are the outward signs of puberty, I received labors about which I shall undertake to say what is necessary. End of Hercules quote, his complaint, Martin continues, a dynamic translation of the first clause would be, after I received my testicles, and the word there testicles is parableion, the plural form of parableion. After I received my testicles, which are the outward signs of puberty, and so on and so forth. So that's what Hercules is talking about is testicles, the outward signs of puberty. So Martin says, in this text from Euripides, the term parableion refers to a testicle. And he has a footnote in his third article, he gives you a lot more texts, primary texts for how this word's used. He continues, Achilles Taceus plays on this meaning of parableion in his erotic description of a garden, in which Clitophon seeks an amorous encounter with Lou Kippe. Achilles Taceus describes the entwining of the flowers embracing of the leaves and the intercourse of the fruits, so on and so forth. He portrays this erotic garden by illusions to male and female sexual organs. The term paraplochi alludes to the female hair, the term parablei to the testicles in males. Just another casual aside that Martin gives us. Now he writes here, continuing this is toward the bottom of page 77, he says, ancient medical conceptions confirm this association. Again, parableion is the lemma as far as a meaning of testicle. And again, this is the word used in 1 Corinthians 11, 15 for the covering. So he writes, ancient medical conceptions confirm this association. Hippocratic authors hold, not catch this, they hold they argue that hair is hollow and grows primarily from either male or female reproductive fluid or semen flowing into it and congealing. That's a quote from Hippocrates. Since hollow body parts create a vacuum and attract fluid, hair attracts semen. Appropriately, the term commae refers not only to hair in Greek, but also to the arms or suckers of the cuttlefish. So his point is that hair, these little extensions that we again know as hair were again viewed as things that were sort of active in living and they attracted fluid. Martin continues, hair grows most prolifically from the head because the brain is the place where the semen is produced or at least stored. Another quote from Hippocrates. Martin continues, hair grows only on the head of pre-pubescent humans because semen is stored in the brain and the channels of the body have not yet become large enough for reproductive fluid to travel throughout the body. Again, that's another quote from Hippocrates. Martin, back to Martin. At puberty, secondary hair growth in the pubic area marks the movement of reproductive fluid from the brain to the rest of the body. That's our fourth quote from Hippocrates. Martin again, women have less body hair not only because they have less semen but also because their colder bodies do not froth the semen throughout their bodies but reduce semen evaporation at the ends of their hair. That's our fifth quote from Hippocrates. So Martin continues, according to these medical authors, men have more hair because they have more semen and their hotter bodies froth this semen more readily throughout their whole bodies. Again, another quote from Hippocrates. That's our sixth one. The nature and the Greek word there is fousis. Again, this is a word that occurs in the New Testament in this passage that we're talking about and others. Martin says, the nature, fousis of men is to release or eject the semen. During intercourse, semen has to fill all the hollow hairs of the female body on its way from the male brain to the genital area. Again, through the man and then of course be ejected into the women where it's absorbed again by the hair. Thus, therefore, men have hair growth on their face, chest, and stomach. A man with hair on his back reverses the usual position of intercourse. Again, this is again from Hippocrates and Aristotle. A man with long hair retains much or all of his semen. Now catch that, because this is gonna harken back to the whole mention of long hair. Martin says, a man with long hair retains much or all of his semen and his long hollow hair draws the semen toward his head area, but away from his genital area where it belongs, where it should be ejected. Because that's what men are supposed to do. And that's how we have babies. Therefore, Martin continuing says, 1 Corinthians 1114 correctly states that it is a shame for a man to have long hair since the male nature, fousis, is to eject rather than to retain semen. In contrast, the nature, fousis, of women is to draw up the semen and congeal it into a fetus. That's another quote from Hippocrates. Well, no, this name, Hippocrates, this is the father of medicine. This is why doctors take the Hippocratic oath. This is what Hippocrates believed. All this stuff, Martin back to him again. He says, a woman's body, again, quoting Hippocrates is simply one huge gland. And the function of glands is to absorb. So again, I know this sounds, again, like crazy talk and it is from a modern scientific perspective. It's just sort of absurd and ridiculous. But this is what they're believing about what goes on inside both the male and the female body and it's connected with hair. Another paragraph. Now, Hippocrates again also writes that glands and hair fulfill similar bodily functions. Just as glands absorb the excess bodily fluid that flows to them, so also hair collects the excess froth fluid that rises to the surface. What glands do within the body, catch this, what glands do within the body, hair does on the surface of the body as one large gland designed to absorb male reproductive fluid a woman's body is assisted by long hollow hair that increases the suction power of her hollow uterus. Now that's a quote from Aristotle. Remember Aristotle? Again, he wasn't a moron. Okay, this is Aristotle. Again, to us, it sounds totally absurd and scientifically it is, but this is what they're thinking back in the first century and of course, earlier. So, back to Martin. Consequently, another author, Pseudo facilities appropriately states, long hair is not fit for males, but for voluptuous women. End quote. Again, he says it again because of this belief about the function of hair when it comes to reproduction. Now Martin, and this is gonna be toward the bottom of page 79, Martin writes, this conception of hair is part of the, as part of the female genitalia. Explains the favorite Hippocratic test for sterility in women. So Hippocrates had a way to test if women were sterile, you know, if they couldn't have babies. Again, the suspicion is that there's something wrong with the woman. So Hippocrates had a test for telling if the reason a woman patient came to him, if the reason that she couldn't have kids is if she was sterile or not. So here's his test. A doctor places a scented suppository in a woman's uterus and then examines her mouth the next day to see if he can smell the scent of the suppository. If he smells the scent, he diagnoses her as fertile. If he does not smell the scent, he concludes she is sterile because the channels connecting her uterus to her head are blocked. The suction power of her hair cannot draw up the semen through the appropriate channels inside her body. The male seed is therefore discharged rather than retained and the woman cannot conceive. Now again, this is absurd when it comes to real science, but this is what they're thinking. This is, again, the medical knowledge of the day. Now I'm gonna skip over to page 81 and we read this again, Martin writing, this conception of hair probably explains the frequent depilation of women's pubic hair, you know, plucking it out or removing women's pubic hair. This is something they did in antiquity. He writes, although sometimes this was inflicted on male adulterers, depilation of the pubes is common among Greco-Roman women and enhances their attractiveness to males. Plucking, singeing and applying caustic resins are the means of removing the hair, but singeing is the most effective in enhancing fertility. In Aristophanes, this one character, Praxagra, praises the lamp for singeing the flowering hair. There are vases that depict women engaged in singeing their pubic hair to, again, become more appealing. And this was a common practice, but again, this notion, again, it's primitive science, it's really non-science in many cases by our day. Again, it conceptually, pardon the pun, connects the hair with, again, sexuality and reproductive capacity, fecundity would be the good word for that. So, Martin writes here, in contrast to plucking the hair, singeing seals the opening in the hair and more effectively removes the suction power of the pubes. Thus, depilation of the pubes and especially depilation by singeing enhances female fertility by removing the pubic counterforce to the upward draw of the hair on the head and post-menopausal women cease or should cease depilating the pubes. Again, this is, again, from another Greek text. Now, finally, Martin writes, this conception of hair explains why pre-pubescent girls were not required to wear the veil, they were not required to wear the head covering, whereas adult women were. Before puberty, a girl's hair is not a functioning genital and does not differ from a boy's hair. After puberty, however, this situation changes. Again, according to the medical science of the day, Tertullian, very famous church father, draws an analogy between pre-pubescent children and Adam and Eve who were naked before they became aware of genital differentiation. Afterwards, though, Tertullian notes, quote, they each marked the intelligence of their own sex by a covering, he's referring to Adam and Eve here, unquote. Noting the growth of the pubes to cover the female pudendum, Tertullian exhorts, quote, let her whose lower parts are not bare have her upper likewise covered, unquote. Martin says, Tertullian's analogy and exhortation presume that hair becomes a functioning part of a young woman's genitalia at puberty similar, I catch this, similar to the way testicles begin functioning at puberty as part of the male genitalia in facilitating the dissemination of semen. Pre-pubescent girls therefore need not cover their hair, but pubescent young women should. And Tertullian recommends that the extent of the veil be, quote, co-extensive with the space covered by the hair, you know, the woman's hair on her head when unbound. Now, the masculine functional counterpart to long feminine hair, therefore, is the testicle. Aristotle calls the male testicles weights that keep the seminal channels taught. And that's a reference there to his medical knowledge. Their function, Martin continues, is to facilitate the drawing of semen downward so it can be ejected. Without them, the seminal channels draw up inside the body and the male becomes unable to dispense semen into the female. The female is not given such weights, in other words, female doesn't have testicles, but instead develops a hollow uterus and appropriate vessels to draw the semen upward. Therefore, thus, testicles do not develop at puberty for females as they do for males. Instead, long feminine hair assists the uterus in drawing semen upward and inward. Now, I have one more. Well, let me do two more sections here, again, because I think you're getting the point by this time, but I want to add two more things. Martin writes, this ancient physiological conception of hair indicates that Paul's argument from nature in 1 Corinthians 11, 13 to 15, contrasts long hair in women with testicles in men. Paul states that appropriate to her nature, a woman is not given an external testicles, not given a parabalaion, 1 Corinthians 11, 15, but rather she has her hair. This is why Paul says that the hair, a woman's hair is the parabalaion, is the covering. So Martin says Paul states that long, hollow hair on a woman's head is her glory, because it enhances her female fuses, her female nature, which is to draw in and retain semen. Since female hair is part of the female genitalia, catch this, since female hair was thought to be part of the female genitalia. Paul asked the Corinthians to judge for themselves whether it is proper for a woman to display her genitalia, her hair, when praying to God. And of course the answer would be, of course not. This would be lewd. This is why Paul says of course you should have your hair, which is your, is the quote, genitalia, part of the genitalia of women. Of course you would cover that, you would cover your hair in church or when praying to God. I mean, how lewd could you possibly be thinking? So again, it's very natural for Paul to tell the Corinthians, hey look, if you can't figure this out, if you can't judge for yourselves whether this is proper or not for a woman to leave her hair, her head uncovered. In other words, to display her genitalia when praying, well then you got a problem. Okay, this should be obvious. Martin writes, informed by the Jewish tradition which strictly forbids display of genitalia when engaged in God's service. Remember back in our series of Leviticus, we had an episode where it talked about the priest had to wear under garments when they ascended the altar again because you could see underneath their robe. This, you didn't display genitalia when you were doing godly things, priestly things is a better way to say it. And again, for the New Testament, every priest is a believer or every believer is a priest. So again, in Paul's thinking, we're all engaged in God's service and when we're praying to God, of course we would seek to be modest, of course. So back to Martin, he says, informed by the Jewish tradition which strictly forbids display of genitalia when engaged in God's service, Paul's argument from nature cogently supports a woman's head covering when praying or prophesying. Again, he talks about Isaiah six where two of the feet are covered with the seraphim. And again, in a lot of cases, feet, the word feet are euphemistically referring to genitals in the Hebrew Bible. We've talked about this before. So again, he just draws up some parallel passages here. The one about approaching the altar and the priest having to wear under garments is Exodus 20 verse 26. But again, you get the idea. So what Paul, again, is commanding here just is sort of obvious again to them. One last paragraph. Informed by this tradition, Paul appropriately instructs women in the service of God to cover their hair since it is part of the female genitalia. According to Paul's argument, women may pray or prophesy in public worship along with men, but only when both are decently attired. Even though no contemporary person would agree with the physiological conceptions informing Paul's argument from nature for the veiling of women. Everyone would agree with his conclusion prohibiting the display of genitalia in public worship. Since the physiological conceptions of the body have changed, however, no physiological reason remains for continuing the practice of covering women's heads in public worship. And many Christian communities have reasonably abandoned this practice. So he brings it up to today. Now again, I'm hoping that was easy enough to follow, but you see how they're thinking. And since a woman's hair was part of her genitalia, this is the rationale for what Paul says in this chapter about, hey, women weren't given a pair of, women weren't given a covering like a man, their hair, her hair is her covering. And of course, this is part of her femininity. It's part of her sexuality. It's part of her genitalia. It's part of how we get babies. It's part of fecundity. Of course you would cover this, but we don't look at these things like this now. Our science is a lot better, let's be honest, a lot more accurate. So we've lost this conception. And so Martin and I would agree, would say that physiologically there's no reason to look at 1 Corinthians 11 and follow this physiological argument and say women should have their heads covered. Now you could come up with some other reason, maybe in a particular culture, it's a symbolic way of demonstrating modesty, whatever. Well, that's a little more legit, but when Paul initially gives this command, he's basing it on this sort of bizarre science. And it's also why he says that it's a shame for a man to have the long hair, because the long hair in a man's case prevents the semen from flowing downward to be ejected because that's what men are supposed to do. That's how we have children, okay? So that's counter to nature. It's counter to a male's nature. Again, it's very clear. I know it just sounds crazy because scientifically it is crazy. But again, if this is what is floating around in their head, if this is their conception of how all this works and what hair, long hair, male or woman, what it means, what Paul says here makes perfect sense. It's very consistent with, again, the Greco-Roman science of his day. So there's no mystery here if you have the first century person living in your head, which is, again, is always my contention with so much of what I do with unseen realm and whatnot. This is the kind of topic that I'll cover in a follow-up book because it's just a great example of how you really can't possibly understand the passage unless you have the first century person living in your head. Now, let's go to the, because of the angels line. Now, when I first read this article, what got me first, of course, was the title. The word testicle in a journal title and Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, I thought, what in the world is this guy talking about? When I read the article, it's like, holy cow, this just makes so much sense. It has high explanatory power for what's going on here. And I, of course, noticed that he didn't say anything in the article about, hey, what I'm gonna be talking to you here is important because of the angels. So what I did was I sent Troy Martin an email and I said, hey, I read your article, really enjoyed it, thought it was great, but I have a question. Do you think that this worldview, that you explained so well, again, using primary sources in your article, do you think that this worldview is the backdrop for when Paul says that this is important because of the angels? That what he's thinking back to is Genesis six. Is the Genesis six, one through four offense, the sons of God, the daughters of men? Is he thinking of the Enochian watchers worldview that there was a strong stream of in the Second Temple period? Is this what Paul's thinking of in Jewish terms and Old Testament terms? Which is why he'd sort of throw this in. And Martin wrote me back and said, absolutely. He said it's certainly what he was thinking about. And he told me a little bit about, I didn't include in the article for this, that or the other reason, and he was giving a paper at SBL and so on and so forth. So again, if this is really what is going on in Paul's head, and I think, again, it makes complete sense, then the issue with the commands within a church context are about modesty because this is associated with your genitalia. But the other material about the man as the head of the woman and you got to cover the head and you have to have this symbol of authority on you and all this other stuff because of the angels, what it really means is that women needed to be very careful to be modest, to show modesty again with respect to their hair because in the back of Paul's mind, he's concerned that what happened in Genesis six might happen again. For Paul, that is a possibility. We do not want another problem like this because in Second Temple Jewish thinking, and we might in the future at some point want to say more about the Second Temple Jewish tradition about the proliferation of evil. Why is the world as wicked as it is? If you asked a Second Temple Jew that, and frankly, if you asked Irenaeus that and a few other early church fathers, they would not say because of the fall in Genesis three. They would say because of the watchers. Now, in biblical theology, there are three events that explain why the world is as bad as it is. But in typical evangelical churches, in typical evangelical teaching or Christian teaching, you only get one. Here are the three, three fundamental events. You have what happened in Genesis three in the garden. That was the initiation of divine and human rebellion. So the fall is an important thing. The second event, though, is what explains why evil just multiplied and proliferated throughout the earth. And that is the sin of Genesis six one through four, the sin of the angels. The angels that sinned is how Peter refers to it and other texts refer to it. Again, the sons of God, the watchers. That was a huge deal in Second Temple Judaism. It's not in typical Christian teaching today because we have stripped the supernatural out of the passage and we have consigned it to the shelf where it can be forgotten. The third critical event that explains why the world is as bad as it is for a biblical person, person living in the biblical period, was the Tower of Babylon incident, Genesis 11 or Deuteronomy 32, 8, 9, when the nations were disinherited, put under the authority of other lesser gods, Elohim, sons of God, and then they wind up rebelling and seducing God's own people to idolatry. So why is the world the bad place that it is? Because humanity and divine beings decided to rebel back in Genesis three. Genesis six just multiplied the evil because you had more multiple sons of God, multiple divine beings transgressing heaven and earth and corrupting people. And then third, because the earth, the nations of the earth except for God's people, God's place, God's piece of turf, the cosmic geography concept, because all of that is under dominion of hostile, wicked gods, powers of darkness. That is why the world is the way it is. But we don't get that in church. We don't get that really anywhere except for what I'm trying to do here and what the sources that I refer listeners and readers to, it's all out there in the scholarly literature. This is a no-brainer in terms of the scholarly literature. It just never filters down to the pew but that scholarship never makes its way into inside the walls of a church. So this is what we have. And when Paul, again, in 1 Corinthians 11, it's very evident that Paul has Genesis six, the inocic idea floating around inside of his head. And because of what he believes about what the hair of a woman, what all that means, his advice to her is, okay, when we do spiritual service, we of course want to be modest, but then we also have a problem here with again making sure that we're in the right relationship, not only to husbands and wives and all this stuff, but we need to show it. We need to have this symbol of modesty and submission and authority, whatever you want to call it. We need to not be lewd for another reason and that is because of the angels. We know that bad things happen like this in the past. And so for Paul, he was concerned. He was concerned. And so he judges it necessary to take care of this issue. Again, the issue of sexuality, but oddly enough for us, bizarrely enough for us, it is connected in his mind to this whole hair slash head covering issue. Now I'm gonna post a second article that Troy Martin recommended to me in addition to his own work, dealing with the because of the angels phrase. And that article was written by Lauren Stuckenbroek. Many of you will recognize that name because he is probably the leading scholar on the, on Enochian stuff today. And I've referenced his work a number of times, but he actually has an article that's difficult to find on this particular issue. And again, Martin said, basically, he didn't tell me enough. He disagreed with everything in it or not. And of course there might be something that would be disconnect with what I'm saying and what something I might say in unseen realm. But that's not the point. The point is, is that they see a clear connection between the Enochian problem in Genesis six and the head covering passage here in First Corinthians 11. Mike, there are so many jokes in Troy Martin's article title. That's a rock star article. That's awesome. It is, it is a rock star article. It, it, it's just, it's one of those articles. And, you know, I didn't even list this as a topic for the pot. We should do this as a topic for the podcast. But a couple of years ago at SBL, when I heard, I went to hear, oh, I'm trying to remember his first name. The last name's Stuart, Tyler Stuart. When I went to hear his article, and let me just, let me just get the, the specific title of the article up and people who are listening to this again, they're going to think, well, boy, that's, you know, maybe we shouldn't even, you know, read that article over the podcast. This is a Christian podcast here. We need to rename the unseen realm to like angels, testicles, something. I don't know. We need to, we need to change that. Yeah, let, let's, let's not go there, you know. But yeah, Tyler Stuart's paper catches the title here. And I know I've put this on the blog before, but the title of his paper was Fallen Angels, Bastard Spirits and the Birth of God's Son. Some title is an Enochic etiology of evil. Etiology just means origin. An Enochic etiology of evil in Galatians 319 through 411. And this is the article where Stuart, again, there's this phrase in Galatians that says the law was added, quote, because of transgressions. Well, Stuart asked the very obvious question, just whose transgressions are we talking about here? Because we reflexively assume it refers to the Israelites or maybe even us. You know, people reading Galatians 3 and Stuart's like, well, look, what if he's talking about the sin of the watchers? How does that re-inform not only our reading of Galatians 3 and 4, but also how does it answer some very well-known problems that scholars have had in these two chapters? When I went to hear that article at SBL, there was another one of these Rockstar articles, in this case, a paper that, I don't know what you're gonna say. And that's what I'm thinking at the beginning, but the title is so intriguing, I just have to come. And then when I heard it, it's like, man, that was, that is just awesome. It's just, and he goes through a whole stream of Second Temple Jewish tradition that would have read Paul. Again, and of course, he's suggesting that Paul was thinking this, that would have read what Paul says in Galatians 3 and 4 through an entirely different backstory that really makes good sense of a number of odd things in these chapters. So maybe we'll do that at some point for a topic too, go through that article, but you're right. I mean, Martin's article is just one of those kinds of things where you read it, and it's like, why did it take so long to figure this out? And the answer is, well, people just haven't sort of thought. And Martin, I think, in his article, he alludes to something in his background, or I think maybe this is his area of focus, Greek medical texts, or something in dissertation or whatever, but that's why he came across it. He comes across the term, he knows where it's used, and it's like, hey, I wonder if this isn't what Paul is thinking, and then he dives into it, and it's like, boy, it just makes a lot of sense. And how was his article received? Well, I mean, I've heard other people interact with it positively, obviously, Goodacre, and Goodacre's a good guy. He's not hard-nosed about it. He just, he tries to argue that, I think it was a little too bizarre for Mark. I mean, if you read his article, he tries to steer the discussion in a different direction. And I don't know, I've never asked Mark, and probably be a good question to ask him, but I don't know how open he is to, I don't know if that's the right word, because I can't really speak for Troy Martin either, but I don't know how open, or maybe even aware, he is of the whole Inaquian tradition. If he is aware of it, maybe he just doesn't wanna go there in 1st Corinthians 11, I don't know. So I don't wanna speak for Mark Goodacre, but he tries to steer it to an alternative meaning. Then Martin replied to Goodacre's article, and I think just ate his lunch. I mean, there's just so much data that could be brought to bear defending this reading, and that's essentially what he does in the third article. It's just primary source after primary source after primary source. So he's really operating from a wellspring of data because this was one of his focuses in his doctoral training. Has Troy Martin released or published any other articles in the similar vein? Not that I know of. I mean, he gave me a copy of another SBL paper that he did related to the broader chapter, 1st Corinthians 11, it includes a lot of this stuff, but when you're ready for journals, you typically have a word count you have to observe. So that's the only other thing I've seen, but I think, again, this one's sort of the one that kind of started the whole thing off. So that's why I wanted, for the sake of this episode, to focus on this one, because I think he really summarizes it concisely, again, pretty well, but if you want more data, you can certainly find it in his other, at least his one other article. And there's lots of good stuff in the footnotes of the article, for instance, one of it states that the cutting the vein behind each ear renders a man impotent, and all kinds of stuff like that. That's a great example, how it's connected, what's on the top of your head, on your head, with your genitals. Again, we would never think these thoughts, and we wouldn't even think anybody else could have ever thought them, because it's so far removed from the, again, dare I say real science, but for where they were at in the first century, and again, a little earlier, I mean, this is cutting edge science for their day. And Paul, again, is very literate. We know Paul was a scholar, he's trained in all sorts of texts and all that. I mean, and plus, this is the kind of thing because it's so close to home. Why can't I have babies? How does this work? Why can't my wife get pregnant? I mean, people are going to hear about this from the medical doctors of their day, because they are reading Hippocrates and Aristotle and some of these other authors. So this is the kind of knowledge that would have been widely circulated, whether a person was literate and well read, or any of that, they will have heard this and understand what Paul was writing here in 1 Corinthians 11. Can you imagine Paul and them seeing people in the punk rock era with the multi-colors and the Mohawks? Yeah, yeah, what would they have thought of that? Yeah, like you said, there's a lot of fodder here for modern comedy and irony, but probably let somebody else in some other podcast do that. All right, well, I think Mike, the verdict is I'm not gonna get my hair cut because I don't want any more kids. So I think that's the verdict. We'll let you handle that. Okay, all right, Michael, we're gonna switch gears and next week we've got a great show. It's gonna be a good Valentine's show since next week is Valentine's weekend. The next topic is perfect for it, right? Yeah, you're right, sort of, I guess. Oh, my. You just had to connect it with that, right? Right, we'll go ahead and tell them what it is. Well, next time, the next topic, again, we had this list of topics I gave a little while back. Next week we're going to discuss how exorcism is part of the Messianic profile. So, you know, Trey, I don't know what... Valentine's exorcism, I mean, perfect. Perfect, hand in hand, right? What could be better? Right, exactly, absolutely. Well, I'm looking forward to that one. I'm excited about all these episodes with these single topics. And this one was a good one. This was a really fun one. Yeah, it was. And for those who are listening to this and didn't hear the earlier one, the exorcism is the Messianic profile. Again, just what that means is that why is it, you know, that when Jesus shows up, everybody, you know, people recognizing him as a messiah, he goes out and he casts out demons. And people look at this and it's like, well, yeah, you know, of course, he's the messiah. Look at what he's doing. And of course, being connected with the inauguration of the kingdom of God, this, it makes the power over demons and exorcism very normative. But if you look back in the Old Testament, you'll never find exorcism as part of the Messianic profile because their demon possession is totally unmentioned in the Old Testament. But there are little things that we'll talk about next time in the text that people in the Second Temple, the inter-testamental period seized on and the way they were understood, the way certain phrases and words were understood in the Old Testament, it led people to expect that the messiah would indeed have this kind of capability. All right, well, good deal, Mike. Is there anything you want to mention about McLaugh or any updates? Yeah, I mean, I should say a few things briefly. The, you know, we've had, you know, some updates on the blog, but again, for those who haven't seen that, I now have, and the way I put it on the blog was you're probably surprised that I even have a YouTube channel. I do have a YouTube channel, but I have almost 600 videos up in the thing and they're all private because that's how I administer videos through MEMRA for the ancient language classes. But I went ahead and created three other channels, one for each blog, Naked Bible Material, Paleo Babel Material, UFO Religions Material. And so those are now populated with some videos and eventually the Missouri videos will become part of that. So we're beginning to, you know, post some things up there. We're still working on website design, searching, branding changes that are going to include McLaugh, you know, the nonprofit. If you're not familiar with that term, again, since we don't have the page up yet, go back and look at my December 22nd post and you'll find out what McLaugh is, what the concept is. But we have a fully approved nonprofit now. By the way, I should mention also in connection with video, you may have seen videos that I made on Facebook and also again on my main YouTube account. I had a little series that I made top 10 list of myths about Bible study. That was to market my 62nd Scholar books. If you haven't seen those, you can search for them on YouTube. They're all two or three minutes, that sort of thing. And a few other things marketing unseen realm. But I posted those because I want people to know that, hey, this YouTube studio that I now have in my garage, I'm actually using it. So we're gonna be doing longer things, more content-oriented things in the future, but it's up and running. I have also, again, to make some decisions about writing projects. One of the things that I'm considering, and again, I'm hoping folks will chime in here, is small, what I think of and what others might think of as small group curriculum stuff. And that is repurposing material on the blog that's already on the blog and turning that into 50 or 60 page books that I would really use, I would only sell in Kindle format because they're so short. But I want small group or independent Bible study curriculum stuff. Again, for people in church, I want to make it more content-driven and frankly to have an edge. And so, here's where you can chime in. As far as a series title, this is my working title and it could change, but my series title for Mike's small group Bible curriculum would be Sunday School Shouldn't Be Forever. And the subtitle would be serious Bible study for individuals in small groups. And I'll just give you a few examples of what I'm talking about as far as repurposing the blog content here. I'll just give you one or two. One volume, again, this would be 50 or 60 pages you can use for a small group would be the truth about interpreting Bible prophecy. Everybody cheats, okay. So just a series that would be drawn from, again, why an obsession with prophecy is a waste of time. Just why people land where they do and the ambiguity sort of built into prophecy. Another one would be baptism. Everyone disagrees because denominations like it that way. So again, you can tell by the titles has a little bit of an edge to it, but you get into, again, my thoughts on what baptism means and how it should work. That I think, again, just some things if you've read the blog, if you've read the series on baptism, you know that I argue that there's some obvious things that are missed and I don't really know why but they really matter when it comes to talking about baptism. But again, you just get the idea that I wanna start producing things that people can use in digital format like Kindle and that they can take it conveniently to a Bible study or use something other than, again, honestly, the fluff that passes for small group Bible study. The podcast being used in small groups or is being used, people have told me that. So I thought, why not repurpose some of the blog content in a more coherent, again, this would be substantial rewriting in some cases to make it coherent and readable and then deliver it in a very easy digital format so that more people can get into it. So those are the things that I'm working on. Just stay tuned to the blog, follow the blog, follow me on Twitter to get other updates about things that are starting to take shape, take form. All good stuff. Is there anything else? Nope, I think that's it. Okay, Mike, well, we enjoyed it and just wanna thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. God bless. Thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit www.nakedbibleblog.com To learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs, go to www.ermsh.com.