Michael Heiser and Troy Martin on 1 Corinthians 11
On the YouTube channel ‘As The Chaos Dies’, November 2, 2024, Dr Michael Heiser presented an interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:13-15 which can only be described as unbiblical, and perverted. The video was taken from the Naked Bible Podcast 086 posted in May 2018. The 2024 video has a warning regarding the content and, as I will have to unfortunately quote some of that content, I offer the following warning.
This video/article contains adult themes which are not appropriate for children. Please use discretion. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecSFpcdMja8
There are those who claim that Heiser never taught anything new. Heiser would disagree. At minute 2:53 he states.
‘What I’m going to say in this episode about the head covering, no one, unless you’ve read again the article I’m going to reference, or have heard me talk about this, you have never heard this before. Just trust me. You’ve never heard this before. This is going to sound like crazy town. This is going to sound totally bizarre…but at the end you are going to say that makes total sense of the passage’.
No, I am going to say, that is an absolute perversion of the passage. The ideas expressed in the video are not originally Heiser’s, however he agrees with what you are going to hear/read and teaches it regarding 1 Corinthians 11:13-15.
The original idea comes from an article by Troy W. Martin entitled ‘Paul’s argument from nature for the veil in 1st Corinthians 11:13-15: A Testicle instead of a head covering.” Heiser states that this is not from ‘billy bob’s website, but the Journal of Biblical Literature, one of the Premier Journals in Biblical Studies’. After hearing this video, I’ll take Billy Bob any day. He then mentions Mark Goodacre’s refutation of the article and Martin’s comeback and thinks that Martin wins the debate. The article claims that the word peribolaion, translated as veil or covering, actually means ‘testicle’, however, this word actually means to wrap around, a cloak, mantle or veil and is used many times in Greek literature to refer to clothing. Martin and Heiser claim that Paul believed that a women’s hair was part of her genitalia, and given to her as a testicle rather than the traditional interpretation of a cloth covering or veil.
Martin quotes Euripides, who wrote Greek plays, as proof that περιβολαίου (peribolaion) means testicle rather than just a covering. Euripides is quoting Hercules. Now, notice please I said Hercules and not Heracles. Hercules is the Roman form of the Greek Heracles which is important. Martin interprets Hercules as follows.
After I received [my] bags of flesh, which are the outward signs of puberty, [I received] labors about which I [shall] undertake to say what is necessary.
Martin himself translated Euripides usage of peribolaion as ‘bags of flesh’ meaning testicles, a translation which is based only on his own perverted imagination.
One would that Martin, being a so-called biblical scholar, would have backed up his erroneous translation with examples of Greek or Roman authors using perilolaion as a body part, but no, not a single one. Certainly Martin could have and possibly found hundreds of examples of this word being used to describe clothing in various forms as it was a very common word, but having found none which agree with his own translation, he simply fabricated his own evidence. He then argues that Hercules is not just speaking of his scrotum, but that his testicles were larger at puberty and this is the ‘outward signs of puberty’.
Instead of embracing this interpretation, Heiser should have asked Martin if he received his testicles at puberty, just a hair covering of his testicles at puberty, or better still, a toga virilis at puberty. Testicles are not ‘the outward sign of puberty’, but rather pubic hair, and, in the case of Romans, specific clothing is that sign. Goodacre correctly identifies that Euripides is speaking, not of a ‘body part’ as Martin claims, but of clothing. I would add, that the name Hercules is a dead give away to any real scholar. According to Martin’s original article, Euripides used the name Hercules and not Heracles, a point I consider extremely important, but one that others who have critiqued Martin seem to have missed.
If Euripides had used the name Heracles, we would know he was speaking of a Greek, but Hercules is a Roman name. One of the most important ceremonies in a Roman boy’s life was when he was allowed to wear the toga virilis (white toga) for the first time at puberty, and Greek boys did not wear the toga, but Heiser consistently uses Hercules. Therefore, the correct translation would be, ‘after I received the toga virilis, which is the outward sign of puberty, etc’. Goodacre quotes reliable translators of the passage, none of whom agree with Martin or Heiser.
Furthermore, Goodacre points out correctly that Paul uses a singular form of the word in 1 Corinthians 11 which, according to Martin, would mean Paul thought a women’s hair was a singular testicle. As Goodacre points out, if Paul wanted to convey the word ‘testicle’ he would have used ‘Orchis’ (ὄρχις) which is the proper noun for testicle. Heiser was right when he said this video would sound ‘totally bizarre’, indeed I would call it perverted rubbish.
There are many sound articles refuting Martin’s articles on line. Most list dozens of examples of peribolaion used by Greco-roman sources as a covering of clothing, yet none could find a single incident of such writing to refer to this word as a testicle or other body part. Martin created his own translation which is utterly baseless and as far from scholarly research as one can get, indeed I would call this behavior fraudulent. A transcript of Heiser’s podcast is found here. https://www.nakedbiblepodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Transcript-86-Head-Covering-1Corinthians11.pdf
From minute 13 Heiser then quotes Martin’s article giving a detailed description of Hippocrates ideas that would basically turn any decent Christian’s stomach, raving on about semen, genitalia, pubic hair, etc. In brief, that a woman’s hair is hollow for sucking up sperm to her head and is part of her genitalia. I am not going to go into the details and I suggest that if you decide to watch this video, you prepare to feel nauseous.
Martin claims that:
This ancient physiological conception of hair, indicates that Paul’s argument from nature in 1st Corinthians 11:13-15 contrasts long hair in women with testicles in men. Paul states that appropriate to her nature a woman is not given an external testicle, not given a peribolaion (1st Corinthians 11:15), rather, she has her hair’. ‘Paul states that her long hair is her glory because it allows her to draw in semen, since a woman’s hair is part of the female genitalia, testis. Since female hair was thought to be part of the female genitalia, Paul asks the Corinthians to judge for themselves if it is proper for a woman to display her genitalia, her hair, when praying to God?’
According to Heiser at 26:40 Paul is saying to the Corinthians, ‘if you can’t see that it is improper for a woman to display her hair, her genitalia when praying, then you’ve got a problem’. He goes on to state:
According to Paul’s argument, women may pray or prophecy in public worship alongside men but only when both are decently attired. Everyone would agree with Paul’s conclusion that it is inappropriate to display your genitalia in public worship. When Paul gives this command he’s basing it on this bizarre science’, unquote. He claims that this is also why Paul said it is a shame for a man to have long hair because it prevents the semen from flowing down to his testicles.
Heiser then promotes his books and basically states ‘this is a perfect example that we cannot possibly understand the passage unless we have the 1st century person living in our head’. I don’t know what Heiser had living in his head, but it certainly was not what the Apostle Paul had living in his. Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and it is obvious to me, that Heiser’s teaching is not something the Holy Spirit would have anything to do with. The arrogance of these two so-called scholars in claiming that Paul believed this rubbish is off the charts.
Heiser admits that Hypocrites understanding is primitive and false, however, he insists that Paul believed it, and, by implication, the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle to write false ideas as Scripture. But consider the following absurdities of Martin and Heiser’s teaching.
1. It is not okay for a Christian woman to display her genitalia while praying or prophesying, however, displaying her genitalia in public is fine.
2. When Jesus allowed the sinful woman to dry his feet with her hair, she was rubbing her genitalia all over His feet.
These implications are absolutely disgusting to those who cherish the purity and truth of inspired Scripture, but neither Martin nor Heiser seem at all interested in the implications of their teachings or how they undermine the purity of inspired Scripture. Do Martin or Heiser even believe that the New Testament is inspired by God? Here is an arrogant academic, who uses fraudulent claims, Troy Martin, who fabricates a perversion by creating a completely false interpretation of a Greek poet, a fabrication which is easily refuted, and Michael Heiser not only accepts this position, but promotes it. On what grounds? Because this fool published it in an academic article?
Heiser arrogantly contrasts a fictitious non-academic he calls ‘Billy Bob’, because if Billy Bob taught this filth everyone would know it is false, but because he and Martin are so educated, we should all bow down and accept it as true.
Heiser and Martin are typical of academics who imply that the Bible must conform to non-biblical material, rather than that material submitting to Scripture. Sadly, gullible people hang on every word they say and consider them above criticism because they have a PHD in 2nd temple Judaism or some such thing. Some of us, after encountering this attitude whilst working and studying with spiritually dead academics, and being told we should never use terms such as ‘born again’, walked away from an invitation to earn a PHD in the most prestigious theological universities, and went to the mission field.
This is why I decided to write a Systematic Theology textbook with an emphasis on practical Christian ministry. Having the opportunity to study theology in-depth is a privilege, but if that training has any emphasis other than promoting a deeper love and devotion for Jesus Christ and the deepest respect for holy Scripture, it has absolutely no eternal purpose.
If you have questions about Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11, there are many good commentaries available and online studies. So, find one which, unlike Heiser and Martin, begins at verse 2 in order to establish the context, rather than verse 13. Find one which includes Paul’s teachings regarding prayer and modesty in 1 Timothy 2, cross-referencing Scripture rather than introducing some pagan rubbish. Find one which explains that when Paul speaks of ‘nature’, phusis in Greek, he is writing of the natural order of characteristics inherent in creation, and not women’s genitalia, and one that recognizes the cultural norms of the time.
Yes, Paul recognizes that in his culture a woman’s hair was considered to enhance her femininity, even her sexuality, that prostitutes, of whom there were a great number in Corinth wore their hair with braided gold and silver, and that slaves hair was shorn. His teaching was to honor both Christ and their head, their husband, modestly and to wear a symbol of submission so that those who heard them would know they were acting in accord with Biblical principles established by the Lord.
Heiser then talks about verse 10 ‘because of the angels’ relating this to the Nephilim of Genesis 6, when angels took human woman, and states that Paul was concerned because ‘he didn’t want this to happen again’.
Fundamentally, then, according to Heiser, Christ did not disarm the principalities and powers through His death and resurrection. Heiser’s assumption comes from his thesis that it was not fallen angels who sinned, therefore, the holy angels of God who minister to Christians and are witnesses within our services, may be tempted to take human form and produce giants again on the earth. I find this argument rather pathetic. Are these angels only tempted by a Christian woman’s hair? Do they never have the opportunity to witness the blatant sexuality of the way women dress in our age or see the Corinthian prostitutes who walked the streets of the city? Genesis 6 makes no mention of a woman’s hair, only that the ‘daughters of men were beautiful’.
Heiser then criticizes evangelicals for stripping the supernatural out of the Bible after stripping the inspiration of the Holy Spirit out of Paul’s writings and inserting perverted pagan rubbish.
Finally, I offer this warning to those who have turned Heiser into a celebrity and hang on every word he says. In the early church the heresy of Gnosticism was the greatest threat to sound Christian doctrine. Gnostics leaders claimed to have a deeper knowledge of spiritual matters, were obsessed with angels, claimed to have secret knowledge, drew upon non-biblical texts, and created ideas contrary to Scripture. Sound familiar. Heiser may not hold to Gnostic beliefs, but he uses the same principle of claiming deeper spiritual insights in lieu of his education, seems to be obsessed with angels and demons, draws on non-biblical material, and produces podcasts with titles such as ‘The Secrets of Eden’, ‘The secret book of Enoch’, ‘Hidden Wisdom Unearthed’, etc.
Use some discernment and don’t be so easily impressed. If any theologians work is not thoroughly Christ-centered and encourages you to a deeper love for Christ, it has little or no eternal value and misses the entire purpose for which we were created, to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls and minds, and live for Christ. Some people will insist that Michael Heiser helped their understanding of some topic in some way, and I have no doubt that may be true, but we do not evaluate a theologian’s work on how many he helped against how many he led astray. Heiser’s acceptance and promotion of Martin’s perverse interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11 should warn every discerning Christian to carefully examine everything else he taught.
Keep your eyes on Christ, be guided by the Holy Spirit, and don’t allow yourself to be led astray by new ideas claiming to be secret wisdom or some such thing.
Steve Copland