I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair

I’m going to comment on TFan’s response:

http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/2012/04/is-long-hair-shameful.html

To avoid repeating pedantic qualifications, in this post “long hair” is shorthand for long hair on men.

Before delving into the details in my response to TFan, I think we need to step back and reconstruct the argument. He has cited 1 Cor 11:14 to disprove the authenticity of the Shroud.

(Keep in mind that I have no opinion about the authenticity of the Shroud.)

So let’s unpack the argument. What assumptions might be feeding into the argument:

i) Either Paul takes the position that long hair (on men) is (a) inherently shame or else (b) culturally shameful.

ii) Assuming (ex hypothesi) that long hair is inherently shameful, TFan can extrapolate from 1 Cor 11:14 to Jesus. If it’s inherently shameful, then 1 Cor 11:14 is a special case of a universal principle.

iii) Even in that case, it wouldn’t be sufficient to disprove the Shroud. After all, crucifixion was shameful. Yet Jesus voluntarily underwent crucifixion. Indeed, the shamefulness of crucifixion was an essential ingredient of the atonement.

iv) If, however, long hair is only culturally shameful, then TFan can’t automatically extrapolate from 1 Cor 11:14 to the case of Jesus. For what’s shameful in one culture or subculture, place or time, may be culturally acceptable in another.

If the shamefulness of long hair is culturally-conditioned, then it’s culturally-variable. Even if long hair is shameful for Gentile Christians in Roman Corinth, this doesn’t entail or even presume that long hair is shameful for a Palestinian Jew.

Dress codes have many variations. What’s shameful for a noblewoman isn’t necessarily shameful for a slave girl. What’s shameful for an aristocrat isn’t necessarily shameful for peasant, fisherman, or carpenter. What’s shameful to wear at a wedding isn’t necessarily shameful to wear in a fishing boat. And hairdos are part of the dress code.

Steve asserts "i) It’s ironic that TFan contradicts Calvin's interpretation of 1 Cor 11:14:” but then Steve provides a selection from Calvin that in no way contradicts my position that Paul taught that nature itself teaches that it is a shame to a man to have long hair.

But that’s ambivalent. For Calvin goes on to define “nature” as “custom.” And he also points out that the shamefulness of long hair is not a cultural universal.

If TFan agrees, then he can’t simply extrapolate from 1 Cor 11:14 to the case of Jesus.

Steven next argues, with support from a recent commentary, that "On that interpretation, Paul is simply referring to the social customs or social mores of that time and place, not what's intrinsically right or wrong. A matter of social decorum."  Again, even if this is fully correct, it merely limits Paul's claim to the 1st century era, which is the same era when Christ walked the earth, died, was buried, and rose again.

That grossly oversimplifies the issue. If the shamefulness of long hair is culturebound, then that has many variables. TFan acts as though that makes it universally shameful throughout the 1C Roman Empire. But that’s clearly overstated.

It’s not just a matter of time, but place, ethnicity, nationality, social class, &c.

Indeed, ancient descriptions of the Jews describe them as having short hairstyles:

For in his enumeration of all those nations, he last of all inserts ours among the rest, when he says, "At the last there passed over a people, wonderful to be beheld; for they spake the Phoenician tongue with their mouths; they dwelt in the Solymean mountains, near a broad lake: their heads were sooty; they had round rasures on them; their heads and faces were like nasty horse-heads also, that had been hardened in the smoke.

 (Josephus, Against Apion, Book I, Section 22)

This same account quoted as a description of the Jews in Eusebius' Gospel Preparations, Book 9, Chapter 9:

"Next passed a nation wondrous to behold,

Whose lips pronounced the strange Phoenician tongue;

Upon the hills of Solyma they dwelt

By the broad inland sea. Rough and unkempt

Their close-cropped hair, and on their heads they wore

The smoke-dried skin flayed from a horse's face."

i) I find that odd. TFan begins by quoting Josephus, yet Josephus is talking about a people-group who speak Phoenician. But surely that’s not a reference to Jews. Historically, the Phoenicians were pagan enemies of the Jews who introduced idolatry into Israel.

He then quotes Eusebius. So Josephus didn’t say Jewish men had short hair. Rather, that’s Eusebius’s interpretation. And, for reasons I just gave, that seems to be an obvious misinterpretation.

ii) If we want a more direct and reliable source of information about ancient Jewish hairstyles, there’s the famous case of Absalom.

Moreover, one way that the Romans distinguished themselves from the barbarians (the Greeks were not viewed as barbarians, I should point out) was by having closely cut hair:

In general, Greeks and Romans considered long hair to be typical of barbarians; thus, the new Gallic provinces subdued by Julius Caesar came to be called Gallia comata. Romans, on the other hand, were supposed to cut their hair short.

From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms (ed. Thomas F.X. Noble), "Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity," by Walter Pohl, p. 117.

But after the introduction of barbers into Italy about B.C. 300 it became the practice to wear their hair short.

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Sir William Smith, under coma p. 330.

But how is that directly applicable to a working-class Palestinian Jew?

i) Clearly Jews didn’t adopt the Roman hairstyle. For instance, Jews were bearded whereas Romans shaved their facial hair.

ii) Keep in mind, too, that a social function of different hairstyles is to distinguish one social class or people-group from another. It can even be a form of social protest. A refusal to assimilate.

The social decorum issue alluded to by Steve's source is one of looking like a homosexual. 

While there are statues from Corinth with males wearing long hair, Gill points out that these are usually male deities. It should also be noted that the only others depicted wearing long curly hair were from the Facade of the Captives in the forum in Roman Corinth. To portray these men wearing their hair thus was the way the Roman conquerors indicated that all the men in the facade were 'weak', i.e., captives of the mighty Roman army. It implies that they were 'soft' or 'effeminate'.

After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change, by Bruce W. Winter, p. 132.

In other words, long hair suggested passive homosexuality in the cultural milieu. That was a shameful thing as taught by "nature itself," whether Paul is equating traditional custom with "nature" here is not really the issue.

A problem with TFan’s appeal to Winter is that, in the paragraph just above the section TFan quoted, Winter also says:

In the early second century AD, the philosopher Epictetus asked a young student of rhetoric from Corinth, who was a Roman citizen, about his sexual identity, given that he removed his bodily hair with pinch plasters and looked like “a smooth man,” i.e., a homosexual (kinaidos). Bodily hair was an indicator of the male gender, Epictetus argues, and “nature” (phusis) had bestowed it, differentiating between the sexes. Its removal denied nature and gave a customary signal of homosexuality, ibid, 132.

i) But by that standard, the hairier you are, the manlier you are. Beaded Jews are more masculine than clean-shaven Romans. So the Roman hairstyle would be less manly. Therefore, why would Paul expect Jews to adopt the Roman custom?

ii) Likewise, is there evidence that long hair on Jewish men was considered a “customary signal of homosexuality”? Was Samson a Nancy boy?

Steve is working from the assumption that short hair was only a Roman custom.  The evidence from Josephus suggests it was also a pre-Roman Jewish custom.  Moreover, the customs of Corinth were Roman-influenced, no doubt, but the people of Corinth were Greeks.

i) I’ve already discussed the alleged evidence from Josephus, which isn’t really from Josephus, but a gloss by Eusebius.

ii) In addition, this is another point at which TFan is in tension with Winter. He quoted Winter to help make his case about the homosexual connotations of long hair. He then tries to extend this beyond Roman customs. However, Winter consistently emphasizes the Roman context:

This happened in the case of a freeborn Roman youth…the philosopher Epictetus asked a young student of rhetoric from Corinth, who was a Roman citizen…from the Façade of the Captives in the forum in Roman Corinth. To portray these men wearing their hair thus was a the way Roman conquers indicated that all the men in the façade were “weak,” i.e., captives of the mighty Roman Empire…It would not have been accepted by Roman men as a portrayal of manhood…Something that none wished to do because of the social stigma attached to parading as passive homosexual Romans, ibid. 132-33.

…Sporos, a young Roman freedman, after the death of Poppaea…Lucius Silanus, a young Roman citizen of noble birth (133n55).

iii) Furthermore, Winter also mentions that:

According to Dio Chrysostom, philosophers traditionally wore long hair… (133).

So it seems to depend on one’s nationality and social class.

It's not totally surprising the Paul might think that Roman customs represented the outworking of natural law.

Did Paul think the Roman custom of beardless men represented the outworking of natural law?

After all, Paul was a Roman citizen.

By birth, not by choice.

Paul does not treat Rome as the enemy, the oppressor, or inherently as idolatrous.

It would be impolitic of Paul to explicitly say what he thought of Roman social mores in his letters, but he doesn’t leave in doubt what he thinks of pagan morality in general (Rom 1:18-31; Eph 2:2-4; 4:17-19; Titus 3:3).

Instead, short hair is sexual identifier - something highly consistent with God's law, which requires sexual distinction in appearance.

Hairstyles function as a customary sexual identifier. But even in our own culture, no one confuses longhaired Hells Angels, bounty-hunters, Indian braves, UFC champions, or Alaskan crab fishermen with girlyman.

So, it is fully consistent that Paul would admonish the Corinthians not to have men with women's hair length.

i) That’s a red herring. The question at issue is not whether Paul takes that position in reference to Corinthian Christians, but whether that’s a question of inherent propriety or a merely adaptive concession to the culturebound sensibilities of that particular time and place.

For instance, Paul often counsels the Christian minority to accommodate cultural sensibilities as long as no theological principle is at stake.

Steve's argument conflates the issue of absolute moral impropriety and shamefulness.  For example, Adam and Eve were naked in the garden and were not ashamed.

That’s equivocal. Feeling shame is hardly equivalent to what’s objectively shameful. Some wrongdoers are shameless while other people suffer from excessive scrupulosity.

None of this suggests that nakedness is or should be normal behavior.

Well, I don’t know how far he wants to take that. Nudity between husband and wife both is and ought to be normal behavior.

Seems to me that nudity between siblings of the same gender is licit. Seems to me that nudity in the men’s locker-room or women’s locker-room is licit. It would be easy to come up with other examples.

Likewise, nothing suggests that a perpetual Nazirite vow is or should be normal behavior.

Two problems:

i) The Nazirite vow is clearly a much closer parallel to the issue at hand than public nudity. The debate is over the licitness of long hair. Well, here’s a Biblical provision that’s on that very topic. 

Why does TFan reach for a comparison that’s far less analogous when something far more analogous is readily available? Because it’s somewhat easier for him to argue about nudity than the Nazirite vow.

ii) In addition, his argument fails on its own terms. He says I “conflate the issue of absolute moral impropriety and shamefulness.” But the Nazarite vow doesn’t qualify on either count. The Nazirite vow isn’t shameful and it isn’t absolutely morally improper.

To the contrary, it symbolized spiritual purity and consecration to God. The fact that TFan has to resort to special pleading (sorry, but that’s the only way to characterize his argument at this point) betrays the weakness of his case.

Actually, Acts 18:18 does not say that Paul had a Nazirite vow, just that Paul had a vow.

i) That’s evasive. It doesn’t merely say he took a vow. Rather, he took a vow in which he let his hair grow longer than usual for Paul.

ii) Since Paul was a Jew, and there was an OT vow specific to letting your hair grow longer, that’s the default frame of reference.

iii) Anyway, it doesn’t even matter if he took a Nazirite vow.  The point is that he took a vow not to cut his hair. Why would he let his own hair grow long, but castigate the Corinthians if long hair was inherently shameful? Isn’t this a clear case in which Paul himself treats hair-length as a matter of socially variable etiquette?

Moreover, it does not say that Paul let his hair grow excessively long, but rather that he shaved his head.  

And how does TFan determine if the hair on the man in the Shroud is “excessively long”?

One might conclude that Paul's hair had become long by reason of the vow, but the text does not actually say that.

This is more special pleading. Cutting his hair is specifically connected with the termination of the vow. Hence, the vow involves not cutting his hair. TFan is splitting hairs over hair.

Moreover, the length of hair after taking a vow does show a measure of shame on the person who is slow in performing his vow.  In other words, if one vows to do ‘X’ and promises not to shave his head until it is performed, then one's hair length begins to be a testimony against one.

i) Another equivocation: it’s not what you vowed that’s shameful, but failure to keep your vow that’s “shameful.”

ii) In addition, this carries over the word “shame” to vows, which is not the original context in which Paul spoke of “shameful” behavior. So that creates a specious analogy.

We likewise have no reason to suppose that Jesus was under any particular vow that would have dictated that he wear his hair long in view of non-performance of the vow to date.

Another red herring. The question at issue is not whether long hair is prescribed, but proscribed. The Nazirite vow demonstrates the moral permissibility of long hair. I’m using the Nazarite vow to establish a principle. The Nazirite vow is evidentiary.

As such, TFan can’t argue, as a matter of principle, that it would be shameful for Jesus to have long hair. He can’t validly infer that 1 Cor 11:14 disproves the Shroud, for unless long hair is inherently wrong, extrapolating from 11:14 to other situations is not a logically necessary inference. Indeed, it doesn’t even carry presumptive value if you rip it out of the historical setting.

TFan is a highly intelligent man. I shouldn’t have to explain this to him.

But actually, it seems that the only problems arose from Steve interpreting Paul's rule regarding hair as an absolute moral imperative, as opposed to what Paul actually said, which was that long hair on men is shameful, according to nature itself.

i) To the contrary, I don’t interpret Paul’s statement as an absolute moral prohibition. If it were, there’d be no further room for debate.

ii) If TF construes Paul’s statement as culturally-relative rather than transculturally binding, then he can’t simply extrapolate from Paul’s statement to the Shroud.

I’m puzzled by why TFan is so invested in this issue. He acts as though, if the Shroud were proven true, he’d lose his faith.