[B-Greek] Heads in 1 Corinthians 11

Mark Lightman lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 17 17:17:35 EST 2009


--- On Tue, 11/17/09, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:



On Nov 17, 2009, at 2:02 PM, Matthew Malcolm wrote:
> 1 Corinthians 11:4: Every man who prays or prophesies KATA KEPHALH ECHWN...
> 
> I recognise that there are loads of questions about this passage, but I'm just wondering about one in particular: Would it be feasible (aside from contextual considerations) to understand this as "against having a head"?  - The meaning of the sentence would thus be along the lines of "Every man who prays or prophecies as though having no head [i.e. Christ]..."
> 
> I realise that it's common to understand the phrase as referring to a "covering coming down from the head" - and I'm quite open to such a reading.  I'm simply wondering whether this other reading is even possible or whether it can be ruled out on the grounds of grammar or language usage.

<Text: 1Cor. 11:4 πᾶς ἀνὴρ προσευχόμενος ἢ προφητεύων κατὰ κεφαλῆς ἔχων καταισχύνει τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ. 
[1Cor. 11:4 PAS ANHR PROSEUCOMENOS H PROFHTEUWN KATA KEFALHS ECWN KATAISCUNEI THN KEFALHN AUTOU.]

The phrase is KATA KEFALHS ECWN; there's no way in the world that it could mean "against having a head." KEFALHS construes with the preposition KATA; KATA KEFALHS means "down from the head." The prepositional phrase KATA KEFALHS functions adverbially with the participle ECWN which will mean in this context, "wearing" or "carrying." Frankly I find it difficult to see how anyone insructed in basic Koine Greek could construe these words as meaning "against having a head.">
 
Hi, Matthew,
 
In other words, for the phrase to mean "against having a head" it would
have to be KATA KEFALHN ECONTOS, but I doubt even this is intelligible
Greek.  What would one write if one meant this?  PROSEUCOMENOS
CWRIS KEFALHS, or maybe ENANTION KAFALHi.  
 
But your post does raise the question whether you can have a participle
say in the nomnative, modfied by a preposition plus another particle in
an oblique case, which still modifies the subject of the first participle.
I would say no.
 
Mark L
FWSFOROS  



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