Did women in biblical times wear veils?

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Wives-Wi.../dp/0802849717

Take a look Sister, it was part of the culture in the Roman Empire.

In Jesus name

Brother Benincasa

www.OnTimeJournal.com

Thank you, Brother Benincasa. The Table of Contents looked very interesting. I'd love to read this book! I'll order it today!!!

[edjen01]

i wasn't there...so i don't know how they dressed or what they did with their hair.

i guess my question is...that since we don't dress, speak, act, eat, travel, have church, preach, or live like them....then why in sam-hill would we want to do our hair like them? If its ok to change everything else...then why not dress & hair? just seems logical.

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by edjen01

i wasn't there...so i don't know how they dressed or what they did with their hair.

i guess my question is...that since we don't dress, speak, act, eat, travel, have church, preach, or live like them....then why in sam-hill would we want to do our hair like them? If its ok to change everything else...then why not dress & hair? just seems logical.

Listen, if you took the time to research history you would find that somewhere in history you dress like some group did. You may think what you are doing is of your own innovated design, but it was already done.

Long uncut hair on a woman, is not a style it is what happens when you stop cutting it. Ask any Rastafarian (who is a real Rasta) who is wearing dreads.

No razor or comb, man or woman.

In Jesus name

Brother Benincasa

www.OnTimeJournal.com

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

Thank you, Brother Benincasa. The Table of Contents looked very interesting. I'd love to read this book! I'll order it today!!!

You are most welcome my Sister, keep in mind to eat the fish but spit out the bones.

In Jesus name

Brother Benincasa

www.OnTimeJournal.com

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

You are most welcome my Sister, keep in mind to eat the fish but spit out the bones.

In Jesus name

Brother Benincasa

www.OnTimeJournal.com

Sure!

[edjen01]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Listen, if you took the time to research history you would find that somewhere in history you dress like some group did. You may think what you are doing is of your own innovated design, but it was already done.

Long uncut hair on a woman, is not a style it is what happens when you stop cutting it. Ask any Rastafarian (who is a real Rasta) who is wearing dreads.

No razor or comb, man or woman.

In Jesus name

Brother Benincasa

www.OnTimeJournal.com

ok....i do know history....but I didn't think this dicsussion was about historical fashion...but rather if people(believers) should obey...or at least try...to dress/make their hair like those in St.Paul's day.

my point was...that since we do not live like they did back then...then why should we pick one element of their fashion/dress and mimic that? how people comb/cover/wear their hair is fashion.

and not to be nit-picky...but we do wear new things that no one else in recorded history has worn...simply because some of the fabrics/materials are man-made and created/invented in the last 500 years.

why would I ask a Rastafarian for hair style tips?

[Sister Alvear]

It is impossible for any of us to dress and live like in the days of Paul....robes and sandels....the men would not be welcome at most conferences in the US...what we fail to understand many times is culture...

[edjen01]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

It is impossible for any of us to dress and live like in the days of Paul....robes and sandels....the men would not be welcome at most conferences in the US...what we fail to understand many times is culture...

i agree Sister Alvear.

why then do some feel a need to conform to the cultural standards regarding the "hair" part of fashion? to the extent that some will even state that it is a "salvation"...heaven/hell issue.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Justin

I've been talking with my Pastor about uncut/cut/magic hair for a few months, and he recently gave me an article supporting uncut and magic hair. And in it, the writer states that:

"Women generally did not wear veils. In fact, it was normally prostitutes (i.e. Tamar) who wore veils in the Old Testament. The present eastern practice of women wearing veils comes from the Muslims, not from the early Christians or Jews."

I always though that if a women did not wear a veil (especially in the OT) they were considered immodest.

Any thoughts?

Veils were a common custom in both Middle eastern/semetic cultures and greek.

Gen 24:62 Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb.
Gen 24:63 And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming.
Gen 24:64 And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she dismounted from the camel
Gen 24:65 and said to the servant, "Who is that man, walking in the field to meet us?" The servant said, "It is my master." So she took her veil and covered herself.
Gen 24:66 And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.
Gen 24:67 Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.

Son 4:1 Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead.

Son 4:3 Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil.

Isa 47:1 Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no more be called tender and delicate.
Isa 47:2 Take the millstones and grind flour, put off your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers.

ISBE
The use of the face veil as a regular article of dress was unknown to the Hebrew women, and if “veil” is to be understood in Son_4:1, etc., it was worn as an ornament only. The modern oriental custom of veiling is due to Mohammedan influence and has not been universally adopted by Jewesses in the Orient. In New Testament times, however, among both Greeks and Romans, reputable women wore a veil in public (Plutarch Quaest. Rom. xiv) and to appear without it was an act of bravado (or worse); Tarsus, Paul's home city, was especially noted for strictness in this regard (Dio of Prusa, Tarsica prior, section symbol 48). Hence, Paul's indignant directions in 1Co_11:2-16, which have their basis in the social proprieties of the time. The bearing of these directions, however, on the compulsory use of the hat by modern women in public worship would appear to be very remote.

Note the distinction between a FACE veil and a head covering

[comeasyouare]

Originally Posted by Justin

I've been talking with my Pastor about uncut/cut/magic hair for a few months, and he recently gave me an article supporting uncut and magic hair. And in it, the writer states that:

"Women generally did not wear veils. In fact, it was normally prostitutes (i.e. Tamar) who wore veils in the Old Testament. The present eastern practice of women wearing veils comes from the Muslims, not from the early Christians or Jews."

I always though that if a women did not wear a veil (especially in the OT) they were considered immodest.

Any thoughts?

The Jews had a rather stringent custom of women "covering their heads" in public. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica the general custom for women was to "appear in public, and in the presence of strange men, with covered HAIR." According to the Talmud a man could divorce his wife for "going into public with uncovered HEAD." (Ketubah 7.6) Uncovering the HAIR in public amounted to proof of adultery in Jewish estimation. This is from the ORAL LAW OF THE JEWS, that is, what the daughters of Israel follow though it be not written. In that section of the Talmud called "Sotah," which treats of unchaste women, under the sub-head, Of the duty of Repudiation of a Wife for adultery, we learn that this duty rested upon a Jew whose wife was seen abroad with her HAIR not covered." From Sketches of Jewish Social Life, by Alfred Edersheim, p142: "...it was most strictly enjoined upon women to have their HEAD and HAIR carefully covered. ...the propriety of a woman having her head "covered" could not be called in question. ..it was the custom in the case of a woman accused of adultery to have her hair "shorn" or "shaven," at the same time using this formula: "Because thou hast departed from the manner of the daughters of Israel, who go with their HEAD covered;...therefore that has befallen thee which thou hast chosen." An unveiled Jewish wife might then be tried for adultery; and when so tried, be "shorn" or "shaven."

Catharine Clark Kroeger, PH.D., Instructor of Biblical and Classical Greek, University of Minnesota, and expert on ancient women, writes in The Apostle Paul and the Greco-Roman Cults of Women, "...head-covering was expedient for Jewish women, among whom properly bound HAIR and veiling was obligatory unless they wished a divorce. Speaking to a man without a head-covering was a sure sign of a woman's promiscuity, and to participate in a service unveiled would be a flagrant defiance of her husband, hardly conducive of positive family relations.

Upper-class Roman women might go uncovered, but the lower-class women in the provinces usually wore a veil. The women of Paul's home town Tarsus were routinely veiled...Since the congregation at Corinth met next door to the synagogue and was composed of both Jewish and Gentile women, universal veiling of women would certainly cause the least offense."

The HAIR was covered when the head was katakalupto. Part of the purpose in covering the HEAD was to cover the HAIR. Attached is a pix that illustrates the meaning of katakalupto, or "having the head covered", which meant "veil."