Cheryl

Lawrence,

Apparently you didn’t read my article very carefully because you didn’t answer the fact that the meaning of a word is evident in its context. The context of 1 Cor. 11 is source or origin (beginning) and there is nothing in the context of “authority over someone else”. If you can find that in the context, then please show it to me.

You also do not mention that BDAG shows that “kephale” also can mean beginning. Source is a synonym of beginning and fits the context well.

I have read the early church father that was quoted by Dr. Kroeger and I do not see that she misinterpreted what he said. Can you please show the misinterpretation?

Dr. Joe E. Trull, editor of Christian Ethics Today, quotes Chrysostom:

“If you think ‘head’ means ‘chief’ or ‘boss’, you skew the godhead!”

Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria commenting on 1 Cor. 11:3 defines the head metaphor as source:

“Thus we say that the kephaleo of every man is Christ, because he was excellently made through him. And the kephaleo of woman is man, because she was taken from his flesh. Likewise the kephaleo of Christ is God, because he is from him according to nature.”

Liddell & Scott’s leixon (which is also a very good one) lists kephale as:

11. 1 of things, extremity
    a. In botany
    b. In anatomy
    c. Generally, top, brim of vessel … capital of a column
    d. In plural, source of a river, Herodotus 4.91 (but singular, mouth); generally, source, origin, orphic fragments 21a; starting point (examples: the head of time; the head of a month).

Liddell & Scott do not include the meaning of “kephale” as a final authority or superior rank at all.

In the Hebrew, the word “rosh” (head) is used about 180 times with the meaning of chief or leader, however when the Hebrew was translated into the Greek in the Septuagint, the Greek term “archon” was the one that was chosen to mean leader, chief or authority and “kephale” was rarely used in this way. The main Greek word used to mean authority or ruler was “archon” which has a clear meaning of leader, ruler or commander. Out of the 180 times the Hebrew word for head means ruler or authority, only 8 times is the Greek word “kephale” used as a translation of “rosh” although both mean head and “kephale” would have been the simplest translation. This also shows that the main meaning of “kephale” is not ruler or authority. Since the translators rarely used “kephale” to carry the meaning of authority, this shows that the Greek term for “head” did not carry with it the same meaning of “head” in the Hebrew.

The key to understand Paul, is for us to see what Paul meant in the context because that is the deciding factor. Where does Paul reference a man’s authority over the woman or God’s authority over Christ in 1 Cor. 11? It isn’t in the passage so we can’t get the context of ruler or authority over from the context. However what is indeed in the passage is that the man is the source or beginning of the woman and God is the source or beginning of everything (including Christ). Certainly the term “beginning” or “source” is appropriate as Paul’s meaning from the context and the meaning of “authority” and “ruler of” are not supported by the context.