And in the spirit of giving our best effort, I went to my storage unit and dug out my BDAG and reread the entry on
keiro. :-) I went through the tedium of reading the foreword and introduction to make sure I understood how they present the data for each word. It was enlightening.
It helped me understand what I had only felt vaguely about the entry on
keiro--that it was not as detailed as it should be to eliminate ambiguity. One of the things Danker emphasizes about this work is that they made an effort to not just give one or two-word glosses in English of the Greek words but to give extended definitions of a word to help readers understand its full meaning. The extended definitions appear in bold non-italic type.
But, unfortunately, they didn't do that for every word. When they felt a mere word in English "is sufficient to convey the meaning" of the Greek word, this one word is given in bold italic type "without extended definition" (Foreword, viii). It would have been quite helpful for our debate if they had given a fuller explanation of the meaning. You will note, that only one word appears in the entry for keiro in bold italics, and that word is "
shear."
What this means is that BDAG says that this one word sufficiently conveys the meaning of
keiro. That is,
keiro = shear. So for all voices--active, middle, or passive--BDAG gives the basic meaning of this verb as "shear." They felt this was sufficient. I really don't. In my mind, when I hear or read "shear" I think "remove hair." This is the first definition given in the dictionaries I checked, but that is not the only meaning listed, though I cannot remember ever hearing someone use the word in the sense of "trim," but, nevertheless, some may use it that way.
Now up to this point we have been arguing over certain words that appear in non-bold italics
cut one's hair or
have one's hair cut in this entry. We have described these as what the word "means in the middle voice." To be as precise as possible, according to the foreword, this isn't the definition of the verb but "suggested translation equivalents." The definition of the verb is the one-word "shear." BDAG does not give any suggested translations when this word is used of sheep, for obvious reasons. We all know what shearing sheep involves. But it does give this suggested definition for the examples involving human hair. Now I can understand why those who understand this verb the way you do might immediately think that this would support your cause. But I don't think it does.
After this suggested translation is listed, BDAG lists an example of where this definition would fit. The example is in Xenophon's work
Hellenica, 1, 7, 8: "After this the Apaturia was celebrated, at which fathers and kinsmen meet together. Accordingly Theramenes and his supporters arranged at this festival with a large number of people, who were clad in mourning garments
and had their hair close shaven, to attend the meeting of the Assembly, pretending that they were kinsmen of those who had perished, and they bribed Callixeinus to accuse the generals in the Senate."
So BDAG suggests this as an example that means "to cut one's hair." But here it's actually removing the hair, not trimming it.
BDAG then gives the example of Paul in
Acts 18:18 noting that it specifically has "ten kephalen" ("the/his head") and offers the suggested translation as "
have one's hair cut" (as the result of a vow)." But here Paul cut's his hair off, as was the custom after completing a vow. He doesn't just trim it.
Then it gives two examples that are preceded by the abbreviation "Abs.," which means "absolute." In other words, the verb appears by itself without qualification or more specificity; it doesn't have, say, "his head" as in
Acts 18:18.
The first example is from a work on the fall of Troy by Quintus Smyrnaeus, book 3, lines 686 and 688. Achilles has fallen in battle and his men and concubine are mourning him. "
All their hair the Myrmidons
shore, and shrouded with the same the body of their king. Briseis laid her own
shorn tresses on the corpse, her gift, her last, unto her lord.” So here, Achilles' men cut their hair off and cover his body with it; then Briseis cuts her hair off and places it on his body. This reminds me of the example that Adam Clarke gives from Euripides' play
Orestes where Helen is criticized for just cutting the ends off of her hair so that her hair would still be beautiful and her appearance would not be altered rather than doing what was customary, cutting it off, as we see Briseis doing here. So we have another example--here both men and a woman--cutting off their hair, but BDAG suggests the translation "cut one's hair."
And finally, BDAG lists
1 Cor 11.6ab.
So, for the verb
Keiro, BDAG gives the one-word equivalent "definition" "
shear." It notes that this verb is used of sheep and human hair and gives four examples of this verb being used for the cutting of human hair, both male and female. It gives the suggested definition for these as "
cut one's hair or
have one's hair cut." In three of them, they are cutting off their hair not trimming it. The remaining one from
1 Cor 11.6 is in the same context as the verb for "shaving." I have noted before that
Micah 1.16 (LXX) has these two verbs together as well, both commands for Israel, depicted as a woman, to do to her hair in light of their coming exile.
I don't expect this to change anybody's mind, but I find this evidence compelling that Paul does not mean just "to trim" in
1 Cor 11.6. I think this can be maintained just from BDAG itself, but I find it all the more compelling in light of the other evidence I have presented from the Greek OT and other Koine literature.
This evidence from BDAG helps us to see why other lexicons, such as Abbott-Smith's (NT) and LSJ (Classical and Koine), give the meaning as "cut off one's hair" in addition to "shear."
But why does BDAG give the suggested translation as "to cut one's hair" when three of the four clearly mean "cut off"? Perhaps as Esaias, I believe, has suggested, when non-Apostolics, who would know nothing of the debate over the doctrine of uncut hair, hear of someone cutting their hair in a context of mourning or shame, they understand it to mean "to cut one's hair substantially" not just "to trim."
Linear Mode
