A few might find the introduction to Thiseltons's 9 page treatment of 1Cor 11:4 to be of some interest. As his work covers nine pages this would be pushing the boundaries of fair copying so this will need to suffice.
The First Epistle to the Corinthians: Thiselton pg. 823
Archaeological evidence from Rome itself to the Roman East is unambiguous, Oster urges, in depicting the "liturgical head covering" of men when they pray or use prophetic speech: "the practice of men covering their heads in the context of prayer and prophecy was a common pattern of Roman piety and widespread during the late Republic and early Empire. Since Corinth was a Roman colony, there should be little doubt that this aspect of Roman religious practice deserves greater attention by commentators than it was received."108
Horsley (1998) is one of the most recent writers to argue that Romans and Jews prayed with heads . . . covered, in contrast to the Greek practice of praying bareheaded.109 Yet Oster also insists that it is a third standard "error"to impose "later Jewish practices onto the Corinthian situation."110 Bruce, Barrett, Kiimmel, and Oepke, among others, all appeal to Jewish traditions.111 We also know from archaeological evidence that there was a Jewish synagogue at Corinth.112 Nevertheless, Oster argues that neither the OT, nor the LXX, nor Qumran, nor the Gospels, nor Philo, nor Josephus, nor even the Mishnoh offers any evidence for this. Hypotheses that men wore the traditional Jewish tallith oryarmulke "distort the historical use of the prayer shawl by Jewish men."113 The context of wrapping oneself in a cloak "while absolving his vows ... is not the specific activity that Paul addresses," even if the Tosefta mentions such a practice.114
Footnotes
108. Ibid., 69. For evidence cf., e.g., B. S. Ridgway, “Sculpture from Corinth,” Hesperia 50 (1981): 432-33; and F. R Johnson, Corinth, IX: Sculpture 1896-1923 (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931), 70-72; E. Alfoldi-Rosenbaum, Roman and Early Byzantine Portrait Sculpture in Asia Minor (London: Oxford University Press, 1966). See further Oster, “When Men Wore Veils to Worship: The Historical Context of 1 Cor 11:4,” 481-505, and the statue of Augustus in the Julian Basilica in James Wiseman, Corinth and Rome (1979), 1, Plate 8.
109. Horsley, 1 Cor, 154.
110. Oster, “When Men Wore Veils to Worship,” NTS 34 (1988): 487.
111. Barrett, First Epistle, 249-50; Bruce, 1 and 2 Cor, 104; A. Oepke, “koAutttio” TDNT,
3:563.
112. For archaeological evidence of the inscription concerning the synagogue, see the reproduction in Wiseman, Corinth and Rome, Plate 5, no. 8.
113. Oster, “When Men Wore Veils to Worship,” 487.
114. Ibid., 488.
The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, Anthony C. Thiselton (2000)
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
