"Kephale̅" As Fountainhead In 1 Corinthians 11:3 -- By: Haley Gabrielle

Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 32:3 (Summer 2018)
Article: "Kephale̅" As Fountainhead In 1 Corinthians 11:3
Author: Haley Gabrielle


Kephale̅ As Fountainhead In 1 Corinthians 11:3

Haley Gabrielle

Haley Gabrielle holds an MA in Religion from Yale Divinity School, concentrating in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Haley is a non-denominational Christian, and she will be starting a PhD program in New Testament at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in the fall of 2018. This article was among the winners of the student paper competition at CBE International’s 2017 conference in Orlando, Florida.

From the 1950s to the present, there have been three major scholarly positions on the metaphorical meaning of Paul’s use of kephalē (“head”): “leader,” “source,” and “preeminence.” Over the years, scholarly consensus has shifted from the traditional meaning “leader,”1 to “source” in the 1980s and 1990s,2 and most recently to “preeminence” around the turn of the century.3 This article analyzes major studies by prominent representatives of each view, namely, Wayne Grudem, Stephen Bedale, and Richard Cervin. The argumentation in these publications is considered in order to come to a conclusion on the most common meaning of kephalē, and then the most appropriate meaning in the specific context of 1 Cor 11:3 is evaluated. It is then concluded that of these proposed meanings, “source” is both the most common and the most appropriate to this passage. Finally, the English translation “fountainhead” is affirmed as the most suitable term for communicating the meaning “source” in 1 Cor 11:3.

Summaries Of Representative Articles

Wayne Grudem

Wayne Grudem has been a vocal proponent of the traditional meaning “leader” as it has come under fire in recent decades. In 1985, he published a word study on kephalē. Using Thesaurus Linguae Graecae,4 a new resource at the time, Grudem combs through 2,336 occurrences of kephalē, 302 of which are metaphorical uses.5 According to his analysis, of these 302 metaphorical occurrences, 39.4% of the uses are synecdoche (a literary device in which a part stands for the whole), 22.9% refer to an “extremity, end, top; ‘starting point’ in series or row,” and 16.2% refer to a “person of superior authority or rank, or ‘ruler,’ ‘ruling part,’” with the other categories of usage under 10% each.6 Of particular note for Grudem is that “source, origin” comes i...

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