William Webb 3: Persuasive Criteria

My review continues of William Webb's Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis.

Previous chapters:
Chapter 1: The Christian and Culture
Chapter 2: A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic

Now Chapter 3: Persuasive Criteria
In this chapter Webb sets down five of his 18 criteria for determining the extent to which biblical instruction on slaves, women, and homosexual acts relate to today. This chapter gives the five that he considers most persuasive.

Criterion 1: Preliminary Movement
The basic concept of this criterion is the direction in which biblical instruction is moving relative to the culture of its day. Another question that this criterion does not in itself answer is whether that movement is "preliminary" or "absolute."

The concept here is that sometimes Scripture differs from its surrounding culture in a way that reaches a final destination, what I would call the kingdom ideal. This is like scoring the touchdown on this issue. At other times, I think Webb rightly observes, Scripture demonstrates a movement toward the kingdom that is not fully reached. This is like moving the scrimmage line toward the goal.

Slavery
He mentions 8 ways in which the practice of slavery in Scripture reflects movement in relation to the culture of its day:

• generous number of days off work
• elevated status in worship setting
• release of Hebrew slaves after six years
• provisions given to slaves upon release
• limitations on physical beatings/freedom for damaged slaves
• admonitions toward genuine care
• condemnation of trading stolen slaves/people
• refuge and safety for runaway slaves

So Scripture does not fully move to the absolute destination where "in Christ there is neither slave nor free" (Gal 3:28), but it is moving in that direction.

Women
He mentions nine ways in which Scripture shows preliminary movement in relation to the status and empowerment of women:

• improved rights for female slaves and concubines
• no bodily punishment of a wife
• women's gain of (limited) inheritance rights
• the right of women to initiate divorce
• greater rights in divorce cases
• fairer treatment of women suspected of adultery
• elevation of female sexuality
• improved rape laws
• softening the husband side of the household codes

Several of these are of particular interest to me. I smiled at "the right of women to initiate divorce." I don't think his argument is quite right here but I agree with where he is headed so I won't say more. I have long taught that Paul's concern for the woman's sexuality in 1 Corinthians 7 would have been striking in that day.

Similarly, I have long argued his position on the household codes. I regularly read from Aristotle's Politics when we get to Colossians and Ephesians in a New Testament Survey class. There is nothing distinctively Christian about what Paul says to wives in these codes. It is rather what he says to the men that is striking.

Homosexuality
I note throughout the anachronism of his references to "homosexuality" and "homosexuals." This is a modern paradigm. There was no concept of sexual-ity or sexual orientation in the ancient world. The Bible refers to acts of men having sex with men and once to women having sex with women. It speaks of passion toward the same sex. It has no category for a person with a homosexual orientation.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is not about homosex-uals. It is a story about attempted same-sex rape.

We can thus recalibrate and note his three movements of the Bible in relation to culture on the question of homosexual acts:

• challenging the portrait of ancient gods (the Bible does not depict God having homosexual sex)
• removing homosexual practices of the temple cult
• legislating against homosexual practices within community life

The last one has the most force since the first two would also apply to heterosexual sex. Homosexual acts were practiced to varying degrees among the nations around Israel. Leviticus makes a broad-sweeping ban of such practices in Israel.

Criterion 2: Seed Ideas
This criterion looks at statements in Scripture that seem to point the way in a redemptive direction even though that path is not fully developed within the pages of Scripture. Perhaps the most obvious verse of this kind is Galatians 3:28--"In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is not male and female." Patriarchalists note that Paul is primarily speaking of salvation here rather than social equality.

What Webb argues is that it is clear from other criteria that these liberations sow the seeds of a social direction. Because the Jew-Gentile distinction was crucial to the spread of the gospel in the first century, it is in this area that Paul most fully works out the implications. Once other criteria are brought into play it seems clear that the trajectory is a kingdom without hierarchy in relation to slaves or women either.

He also points out that the principle does not obviously apply to "gay and straight." As I argued above, it is doubtful that Paul would even recognize these categories. The issue seems one of homosexual activity not personal identity. Even in 1 Corinthians 6:9 he formulates the prohibition in terms of individuals in the active homosexual role and those in the passive homosexual role.

Criterion 3: Breakouts
It seems to me that this section largely presented individuals who did not fit the cultural norms of the ancient context despite the Bible often conforming to those norms. Some of Webb's examples are easy for us because our culture has already "broken free" of those cultural norms and those issues are not debated in the church. For example:

• Left handed people are not devious.
• Long hair is usually not an issue for guys any more.
• Firstborn children don't always get more of the inheritance.
• We are affirming of there not being slavery.

I do think he glosses over some of these too quickly. My father was conscious of hair length on men his whole life, and my mother would comment on my hair if I visited her right now. Webb finds exceptions to these rules in Scripture and dubs them "breakouts," pointing to the fact that they were merely cultural not absolute.

I agree with his conclusion that they were culture-bound, but I'm not sure his argument would be felt sufficient by someone who disagreed. My criteria has much more to do with the "Love God, love neighbor" criterion. There is nothing intrinsic about hair length that seems to violate the love of God or the love of neighbor in absolute terms.

Meanwhile, it is simply false to say that all left-handed people cannot be trusted. In fact, that common cultural view is based on ignorance. Behaving differently toward left-handed people than right-handed people violates the core principle that God does not show favoritism and loves all people equally, including his enemies.

Meat offered to idols
I find his argument here muddy. The fact of the matter is, there was disagreement in the early church on how to handle this issue. We can discern three different positions. First, James and the Jerusalem church took an "avoid at all costs" position. If in doubt, don't eat. Paul took a medial position: "Don't ask where it came from." Eat according to your conscience. If you don't know, feel free to eat. Then there was the Corinthian position--"You have knowledge, eat it anywhere."

Because Paul's writings have pride of place in the canon--and because his position embodies the full inclusion of the Gentiles--it seems to be the position that wins in the canon. Is that a breakout? Sure. I suppose it is.

Women
In this section Webb points to a number of women leaders of both political and spiritual kinds in Scripture. There is Deborah, Huldah, Priscilla, Junia. He argues that these are "breakouts" that point the way rather than mere exceptions to the rule.

On the one hand, these examples do clearly demonstrate that male leadership is not an absolute. That means that no one can claim biblically that a woman can never lead. God does call women to lead, clearly. Deborah is the supreme political and military leader of Israel--so a woman could be president of a Christian nation. Huldah is sought for a spiritual decision by the high priest and the king. So a woman can be a general superindentent or bishop.

What the Day of Pentecost does is make this normative. Now sons and daughters will prophecy (Acts 2:17). Everyone has equal access to the Spirit now. And while women may have been generally uneducated in biblical times, that is simply not the case. Any claim that women are somehow inherently worse leaders or thinkers than men is simply an ignorant claim in itself, suggesting the person who says such things lacks the wisdom to lead themselves.

He also mentions the equal consideration of women in sexual rights (1 Cor. 7:3-5) ultimately undermines any principle other than mutual submission. Although Paul only speaks of it in the sexual arena, Webb argues that this cultural breakout points toward its extension into to all areas of the marital relationship.

Homosexuality
Webb indicates that there are no breakout instances in relation to homosexuality in Scripture. He rightly concludes that there is nothing about the Jonathan/David or Ruth/Naomi stories that indicates a homosexual relationship. Here is an instance where our culture may make it difficult for us to see that men and women can have strong and affectionate relationships that are not sexual. Indeed, a professor I knew in England argued that our fear of appearing gay has at times made it difficult for men to have the kinds of non-sexual intimate relationships that they used to have.

Criterion 4: Purpose/Intent Statements
The idea of this criterion is that when Scripture links instruction to a purpose that doing that instruction would not accomplish today, then that instruction was cultural and should not be practiced. I generally agree, although I don't think it is always obvious what the actual function was. But as I have said before, "Doing what they did isn't doing what they did if it does not have the same significance it had in the ancient world."

So the holy kiss would not produce today the same result it did then. It would be offensive and troubling in our context. So a handshake will suffice today. Or in the days of COVID-19, jazz hands. "If we obey the text, we may violate the purpose of making people within the Christian community feel a warm welcome and a special bond" (105).

Webb argues that the submission of slaves to masters or wives to husbands similarly does not accomplish its original function of Christian witness and evangelism. Rather, a strong subordination of wife to husband would turn off a lot of people in the United States today. It would not accomplish one of its original functions, which was evangelistic. "Only deference and respect in a mutual-submission framework allows for the evangelistic or winsome gospel purpose statements to be realized in our social context" (108).

With regard to homosexuality, Webb argues that, by contrast, the purpose of the instructions against homosexual practice remains the same as it was originally. For example, the purpose of this instruction had nothing to do with evangelistic witness, in contrast to the submission of wives to husbands and slaves to masters. "The prohibitions against homosexuality are related to purposes such as the appropriateness of sexual intercourse within the male-female physical relationship... sexual intercourse was intended for a male-female relationship."

I might note here that the Bible isn't actually very clear about the reasons why homosexual sex is thoroughly prohibited. It is an abomination in Leviticus 18 and 20. Along with various practices of incest and bestiality, it seems to be something that the Canaanites did. My guess is that it might have been difficult for an ancient Israelite or Christian to explain why homosexual sex was wrong.

Criterion 5: Basis in Fall or Curse
My sense is that he has put this criterion in for those who would actually argue against egalitarianism. He has another criterion in the next chapter called, "basis in original creation." However, this section foreshadows the important point of the next chapter that I have said often--if we can enact the redemption of Christ on a societal level now, why would we artificially wait for the kingdom? If we can do away with slavery now, why wouldn't we? If we can restore the balance of full equality within marriage now, why wouldn't we?

But this section asks, are there omni-cultural (he says transcultural) factors that are a consequence of the fall? Yes, there are:

• childbirth pain
• weeds
• death

Still, it would be perverse to prohibit the advance of medicine because death is human punishment. We would not prohibit modern farming equipment or weed-killing chemicals because farming is supposed to be hard. It would be devilish to prohibit a woman from having an epidural because of the fall.

So, as Webb says, "It is not part of Christian mission to perpetuate the curse; it is our mission to fight the curse" (111). He rightly ends the section by saying this is not an argument for nudity. Clothing is actually a fight against the curse.

Prescriptive or Descriptive?
Here we get to an issue I have mentioned when I have taught from Genesis. We should view the consequences of the fall as more descriptive than prescriptive. Since salvation and redemption are the ultimate goals of God in Scripture, it is clear that God's own ultimate goal is to undo the Fall. Therefore it works against God's purposes to view the consequences of the Fall as prescriptive. The curse "should not carry any imperative implications" (112).

A couple other horses are head off at the path. One is that the order in which Adam and Eve sinned plays no role in Scripture. The fact that Eve ate first never is even pointed out in the Bible as a thing.

The nature of Eve's sin in 1 Timothy 2:14 seems to be that she was more easily deceived than Adam. This has been the most typical interpretation of the verse throughout church history (his Appendix B). But women are not intrinsically more deceivable than men (Appendix C). We thus find ourselves explaining this aspect of 1 Timothy 2 as either 1) a matter of the situation at Ephesus or 2) an aspect of the culture of the day (that women were less educated). Either way, the deceivability of women is not an omni-cultural data point.

Origins of Hierarchy
Another question is whether hierarchy was a consequence of the fall or baked into the creation. Webb states, "There are no clear or explicit statements formulating a hierarchical relationship between man and woman until after the Fall" (115). He argues for a post-Fall introduction of hierarchy based on the following factors:

• There are explicit statements of hierarchy between humanity and animals pre-Fall, but only after the Fall for men and women.
• The way the man names the woman is different from how he names the animals--she is like me. [As a side-note, it is often noted that "helper" does not imply hierarchy, since God is our helper in the psalms.]
• Finally, blessing and cursing formulas often involve a change in status, so it would be natural if the curse of Eve involved a reduction of status.

Long chapter with a lot of content!