problems are solved if we adopt the interpretation that women were not keeping their hair “done up” properly. Then this verse would convey the sense, “If a woman will not do her hair properly, she might as well cut it off. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or shaven as men are, she should do her hair in a womanly fashion.” Verse 15 might then be translated, “For long hair is given her so that she may wind it around her head.”16 THIS PASSAGE IS probably the most complex, controversial, and
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