1 Corinthians 11:6

For if a woman is not veiled, let her also be shorn: but if it is a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be veiled.

Here again the sense of this place is destroyed by the traditional rendition "veiled." No artificial covering of any kind has thus far been mentioned by Paul in this chapter, nor will there be any reference to any kind of garment or artificial covering until 1 Corinthians 11:15, below, where it is categorically stated that her hair is given her "instead of" any other covering. Paul is only repeating here the obvious truth that for a woman to adopt the Aphrodite hair style was the same thing as being shaven. The shaving of any woman's head was considered either a sign of deep mourning, or a fitting punishment for adultery; and the overwhelming inference here is not that the Corinthian women had thrown off the oriental style "veil" that obscured almost all of the female person, there being no evidence at all that first-century Christian women ever wore such a thing, but that they had adopted the chic hair-styles of the women of Aphrodite. Can it be believed that Paul was here pleading for the Corinthian women to put on "veils" in the style of present-day Moslems, when he was about to say in 1 Corinthians 11:15, below, that their hair had been given them "instead of" such a covering? It is the flagrant mistranslation of this passage which has obscured the truth and confused millions of students of it.