The view that a “head covering” refers to a woman’s long hair is a very popular belief held by many Christians today. We decided to embark on a search to find out where this view originated and how recent it really is.

A. Philip Brown II (PhD, Bob Jones University) is one of the more prominent and articulate defenders of the “long hair” view. He says:

On the whole, modern interpreters deviated little from identifying the covering Paul requires as a veil or material headdress until the mid-twentieth century. Although the view that the covering Paul required or forbade was itself long hair had been held popularly by various groups throughout the 20th century, Abel Isaakson was the first to offer the scholarly community an extended argument for this position in print. ¹⁾ A. Philip Brown II – A Survey of the History of the Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 (Aldersgate Forum, 2011) Page 12 [Read here]

So Dr. Brown identifies the starting point of this view (which he holds himself) as the 20th century. He indicates that Abel Isaakson writing in 1965 was the first to make a scholarly defense of this doctrine. However, he footnotes that in 1947, the Roman Catholic priest Stefan Lösch “made a similar argument…however, it received little attention.” ²⁾ A. Philip Brown II – A Survey of the History of the Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 (Aldersgate Forum, 2011) Page 12, footnote #49 Read more