3.45 Women's head cover in the Bible

Women’s head cover in the Bible

The Quran does not have any clear direct command from God for women to cover their hair. The Quranic content regarding women's dress can be seen at: Women’s dress code in the Quran

Those who insist on such innovation rely on sources other than the Quran and they also manipulate a number of Quranic words to impose their non Quranic rules. An example of such manipulation can be seen at: Manipulation of 24:31

The purpose of this paper is to investigate women’s head cover in the Old and New Testament. The reason is that if this ruling was indeed from God we would expect to find it given in these previous scripture as well.

The Old Testament

Although there is reference made in Genesis 24:65, Numbers 5:18 and Isaiah 47:2 to women’s head cover, yet there is no positive command for women to cover their heads anywhere in the Old Testament.

New Testament

Women’s head cover is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11, but it is only mentioned with reference to women during prayer:

“And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head. It is just as though her head were shaved.”(1 Corinthians 11:5)

As a result, all verses which follow 11:5 must be read in the correct context they were written.

But more important, we know that Jesus was a prophet who received a scripture from God (The Injeel). Paul, who wrote Corinthians, did not receive a scripture from God. Therefore none of the writings of Paul can be regarded as scripture, they are merely his own views.

Through studying the Bible it becomes apparent that there is a marked discrepancy between the divine message delivered by Jesus and a number of corrupt innovations brought about by Paul. It is not without justification that Paul was called by Heinz Zehrnt the “corrupter of the gospel of Jesus” (The Jesus Report, Johannes Lehman, p. 126), while Werde calls him “the second founder of Christianity” (Ibid. p.127).

Even in the Bible, we read the following accusation against Paul:

“This man is trying to persuade people to worship God in a way that is against the law.”(The Acts 18:13)

This serious accusation cannot be ignored, bearing in mind how Jesus confirmed that he was not sent to change the law (of Moses):

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Mathew 5:17-18)

Jesus lived all his life as a Jew, he often preached in synagogues, and early Christians were all using the synagogues. There is no evidence whatsoever in the Bible to indicate that Jesus thought of himself as the founder of a new religion.

The disciples preaching after Jesus’ death still maintained the Jewish law. We read for example that Simon Peter while preaching after Jesus’ death still called himself a Jew who followed the Jewish religion:

“I need not tell you that a Jew is forbidden by his religion to associate with one of another race.”(The Acts 10:28)

To conclude, here are the main points:

1- There is no clear command in the Old Testament for women to cover their heads.

2- The reference made in the New Testament about women’s head cover is related only to times of praying.

3- The same reference was introduced by Paul and never taught by Jesus. Jesus was a receiver of a scripture from God, Paul was not.

4- Jesus lived all his life as a Jew and confirmed that he was not sent to abolish the law given to Moses, but Paul changed many laws according to his own whims.

For more details on the innovations of Paul please go to the following page (Jesus or the Church), then scroll down to the section titled “Paul, the ‘corrupter of Christianity”.