William Webb 4: Moderately Persuasive Criteria

I continue my review 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
Chapter 3: Persuasive Criteria

Now on to Chapter 4: Moderately Persuasive Criteria
Webb finds these criteria helpful in the discussion, but not as definitive as those in the previous chapter.

Criterion 6: Patterns of the Original Creation
The basic question of this criterion and the next two relates to whether the way God originally created humanity was an absolute ideal. Were there cultural dimensions even to the original creation? Will the new creation go even further than the original creation?

Generally, Webb starts with what he considers "neutral" examples. Here I note as before that today's common sense may need to be defended in the next generation. I remember I felt similarly in 2001. It seemed obvious to me that everyone would agree slavery should have been abolished. But people be crazy.

His thesis in these first two criteria is that "one cannot automatically assign a transcultural status to all that is found within the garden" (124). Here is a list of various items relating to the garden:

• Divorce -- Jesus appeals to the Genesis creation text to argue against divorce.
• Polygamy -- Here I am not sure I agree with him. I am doubtful that Genesis saw polygamy as a contradiction of the "one flesh" passage in Genesis 2:24. In the Ancient Near East, a man could become one flesh with many wives. This is thus a culturally unreflective reading on Webb's part, IMO.
• Singleness -- Webb rightly notes that we might prohibit singleness if the original creation was absolute.
• Farming as an occupation -- clearly not all men are farmers, although this seems a near assumption of the biblical text
• Ground transportation -- we don't insist on walking today, although this was possibly an assumption of the original creation
• Procreation command -- although some do, we do not consider procreation a command today
• Vegetarian diet -- The diet seems to shift after the Flood, but should we go back to being vegetarians as in the Garden?
• Sabbath -- Christians have certainly modified sabbath observance. We observe Sunday rather than Saturday. I would add that the New Testament explicitly does not consider the Jewish Sabbath binding for Gentile Christians, even though it is modeled in creation (Rom 14:5; Col. 2:16).
•  Length of a work week -- We get Saturday and Sunday.

Women
He then looks at the somewhat mixed nature of the original creation in relation to women:

• God's image - Both male and female are created in it.
• Ruling together - Both man and woman are to rule
• Helpmate - He thinks the evidence is indeterminate. 72% of the instances of this word are a superior like God helping and inferior (e.g., Ps. 54:4). But in 10% of the uses the helper is inferior.
• Adam's rib - He finds any rhetoric here unhelpful. It can be argued both ways.
• Man naming the woman - already discussed

I want to separate off the last three. Webb suggests there may be some patriarchy in the creation account. He will especially address this question under the next criterion, so see below.

• man leaves and cleaves - We don't apply this literally today, so it's hypocritical to make a big deal out of taking it literally. 
• God addresses man first - "quiet whisper of patriarchy"?
• Creation order: God makes the man first - 1 Timothy 2:13 seems to use this logic. See below.

Homosexuality
Webb argues that "the author of Genesis understood the creation story as a statement about normative sexual patterns being heterosexual" (133). On the other hand, he also notes that the creation story does not mention contrary situations. For example, it does not say anything about singleness. It must thus be acknowledged that homosexual relationships are not addressed one way or another. However, Webb argues that abstinence from sex limits while homosexual sex would broaden. He thus argues that abstinence from marriage is a different kind of situation than a different kind of marriage.

To put it another way, "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve," is only a partial argument, not an absolute argument. The Garden no doubt presents the norm, but it does not actually argue against other variations like singleness. God made Adam and Eve to have children is not an argument that it is wrong not to have children. Description is not prescription.

Criterion 7: Basis in the Original Creation: Primogeniture
This criterion focuses in on the created order. We already mentioned that 1 Timothy 2:13 seems to argue in this way "Adam was formed first, then Eve." I've heard David Ward poke at this logic a little, since trees and animals were made before Adam. Must we thus submit to the will of goats?

Here is where Webb raises an important question: "Eden's quiet echoes of patriarchy might be a way of describing the past through present categories" (143). "Given the agrarian base to primogeniture logic, the patriarchy of the garden may reflect God's anticipation of the social context into which Adam and Eve were about to venture" (144). Here we remember that Genesis was written in the Ancient Near East. It is not simply a dictation in heavenly categories. The story of the time before the fall is told in a document written after the fall.

Webb points out the inconsistencies of someone who would argue that these features of the original creation are transcultural.

• Scripture often overturns primogeniture.
• Christians no longer apply primogeniture today.
• Primogeniture was linked to ancient culture, which was agrarian based with short life expectancy and great potential for feuding and fighting over land. 

In the end he suggests that the best way to appropriate 1 Timothy 2 today is something like, "Choose teachers/leaders who are worthy of high honor in the congregation" (145).

Criterion 8: Basis in the New Creation
This criterion is similar to when I talk about the kingdom trajectory and it also relates to his previous criterion of "breakout verses." For example, Galatians 3:28 points to the new creation. See the previous post.

I might add some features he does not mention and might not agree with. The wording of Galatians 3:28 is curious: "In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is not 'male and female.'" I think it is quite possible that this verse alludes back to Genesis 1:27, where God creates them "male and female." Poetically, something even of the creation order is undone in Christ.

In short, I agree with him that the consummation of the creation goes one step further than the creation itself. This is solid Christian doctrine I learned once upon a time from Chris Bounds. Indeed, it is not clear that our glorified bodies will be sexual at all. In the kingdom, there is no marriage (Mark 12:25). We are like the angels.

"Original-creation patterns are far more likely to have culture-locked components with them" (148). They "simply do not have the same potential for reflecting transcultural features as do new-creation patterns."

Criterion 9: Competing Options in the Original Culture
His concept here is that if the Bible picks an option among many different cultural options, then that choice is more likely transcultural. On the other hand, if there was only one basic option at the time, then that instruction is quite possibly cultural.

• Slavery versus abolition - Abolition wasn't really an ancient option. "The lack of alternatives increases the likelihood that biblical interaction with slavery addressed this limited (culture-bound) horizon."
• Geocentric cosmology - the cosmology of the Bible assumed the earth was the center of the universe. There just wasn't another option.
• Monarchy - Democracy wasn't really an option in biblical times. The monarchic assumptions of the Bible are therefore likely to be cultural rather than timeless.

With regard to women, pretty much all the cultures of the ancient world were patriarchal. Even today, matriarchy is not really a thing when you dig deep. [Interestingly, I remember David Wright telling me this several years ago.] Accordingly, the role of women displayed in the Bible may very well be cultural since there weren't really any other options at the time.

The situation with homosexual practice is different. Homosexual practice was a known quantity in the ancient world. He does raise the question of whether "covenant" homosexual relationships were present in the ancient world, like gay marriage today. He says the ancient evidence is not agreed on, but he thinks it was an option (not marriage, but committed relationships).

So here and elsewhere he eliminates casual homosexual relationships from moral behavior because the Bible chooses against that option in its cultural world. He is not entirely certain whether married homosexual relationships are a phenomenon different enough from the options of the ancient world that they would not be covered under the biblical mandates. But he certainly leans in the direction that they would be covered.

Criterion 10: Opposition to the Original Culture
This criterion is closely related to the previous one. The previous one simply asked whether other options existed. This one asks whether the Bible actually argues against those other options. In that sense we have already started talking about this one.

Here are some extensions from his discussion of the previous criterion:

• Slavery: Although the Bible assumes slavery, it does challenge aspects of its cultural practice (see criterion 1, preliminary movement).
• Cosmology: Although the Bible assumes a geocentric cosmology, it argues against the worship of heavenly luminaries.
• Worshiping other gods: While the sanctuaries of Israel resembled those of other gods, while Israel offered sacrifices like other religions offered sacrifices, Israel was only to worship Yahweh. I would add that the Israelites probably believed those other deities were real entities (Paul calls them demons), but God did not allow their worship.
• Bestiality and transvestite activities - I have found the revival of Deuteronomy 22:5 interesting in recent days in relation to transvestitism. When I was a boy, this verse was used to argue that women should only wear dresses, not pants or slacks. I spent a couple years tortured over whether I should date a girl who wore pants. So let's just say I'm not too keen about the sudden "clarity" this verse has all of a sudden again. I don't understand transvestitism. I find it highly unusual, shall we say. But I get really annoyed by Boomers who would have mocked their parents for using this verse against pants now suddenly touting this verse loudly and widely as a proof text.
• Non-retaliation/love of enemies - This is the big one. Love of enemies makes no sense whatsoever from a worldly perspective. This is the distinctive biblical ethic above all.

Webb quotes Grant Osborne to sum up this criterion (from The Hermeneutical Spiral): "Teaching that transcends the cultural biases of the author and his readers will be normative" (161). Here is how Webb adds: "The countercultural side to the criterion is almost always accurate in detecting something of transcultural value, whereas the converse expression simply increases the probability of something being cultural" (162). In other words, if the Bible argues against something in the culture, that is likely transcultural. However, if the Bible doesn't argue against something in the culture, that doesn't mean that cultural feature is transcultural.

Criterion 11: Biblical Treatment of Closely-Related Issues
If we see that the kingdom moves beyond the Bible on an issue closely related to another, then it is at least possible that the kingdom would move beyond the Bible on that issue too.

Slavery as a closely related issue where we have a sense that we need to move beyond the Bible:

• viewing slaves as property
• releasing Hebrew slaves after 7 years (although not foreign slaves)
• using slaves for reproductive purposes (like Hagar)
• different penalties for rape of slave women and free women
• physical beating of a slave
• value of slave's life versus a free life

So on the question of women, Christians have also already moved beyond the Bible in many respects:

• Women are no longer viewed as property, as they are in much of the Old Testament.
• Wives are no longer transferred from father to husband.
• Women can now inherit property.
• We now would argue for consistent virginity for both men and women, while the Bible is largely only concerned about the women's virginity going into a marriage.
• Adultery legislation was much stronger in the Bible toward the woman than the man.
• Divorce legislation in Scripture was much more strongly directed against the woman.
• Other issues where the kingdom seems to move beyond things said somewhere in the Bible: polygamy, concubines, levirate marriage.

However, he argues that homosexual sex is in a different category than, for example, the fact that we do not enforce legislation on having sex during menstruation or the abandonment of polygamy or concubinage. [Interestingly--and uncomfortably--he is not sure that the Bible implies a prohibition of anal sex within a heterosexual marriage]

Here are some of the arguments for homosexual sex being in a different category. 1) The prohibition of homosexual sex is not tied to ceremonial impurity, 2) The New Testament retains the Old Testament prohibition of homosexual sex. 3) There is no intrinsic or logical connection between the rules on sex during menstruation and homosexual sex.

The second argument is the one that I have found most persuasive. Unlike other laws that the New Testament explicitly does not continue from the Old Testament, the prohibition on homosexual sex is explicitly retained.

I might add that the distinction between ceremonial law and moral law is really anachronistic. It is an overlay that makes sense to us but wouldn't have made any sense to, say, the apostle Paul. The Bible does not divide up the Old Testament Law in this way. What we have is 1) laws that related to Israel as a people distinct from their surrounding peoples, 2) laws of Israel that overlap with the laws of the Ancient Near East, and 3) laws that transcended Israel's Ancient Near Eastern context into the New Testament and beyond.

Criterion 12: Severity of the Penal Code
The criterion here looks at how severely various actions were punished in the Old Testament as an indicator. "The less severe the penalty for a particular action, the more likely it is of having culturally bound components" (172).

So some actions had the death penalty. Some might result in expulsion from Israel. Others involved punitive consequences that were less severe. Finally, some resulted in being impure for a time. Webb argues that we have a sliding scale here, with the final category being the least transcultural.

He notes that homosexual activity held a result of a death penalty. On the other hand, the law tells of no punishments for the insubordination of a wife or slave.

He anticipates a later criterion here as well--pragmatic considerations. For example, it is simply impractical to give young children the same vote in the family as a parent. They simply are not mentally equipped to make many important decisions. It is thus appropriate to retain the hierarchy of parents to children even though it no longer makes sense to retain the hierarchy of husband over wife.

I might add that there is some debate about how active ancient near eastern penal codes were. One line of thinking sees them more as "position papers" than actual practices. For example, how often in ancient Israel was a disobedient son actually stoned to death?

Criterion 13: Tension with General Principles
The final criterion of this chapter deals with a situation where a specific statement of Scripture seems to be in tension with an overarching principle. "Specific statements within Scripture are more likely to be culturally confined in some aspect than general statements" (179).

I have expressed a similar idea. Individual verses are most likely to be ambiguous and situational/time-conditioned. Therefore, it is important to focus more on the overall themes of Scripture than on individual verses. We should be cautious about how we apply any idea that is only expressed once in Scripture

He mentions gleaning laws as an example, leaving the edges of a field for the poor to eat from. Compassion toward the poor is timeless, but this particular way of showing compassion is not likely binding on modern farmers. Doing what they did doesn't do what it did.

In general, the principle of loving one's neighbor is the macro-ethic that should guide our approach to human relationships. We of course need to be careful not to have a myopic sense of love. Sometimes, "love must be tough." Love does not contradict discipline or the protection of one group by acting restrictively toward another.

However, we would be enacting kingdom values the most in culture if we could make the structures of society be equally "loving" toward all its members.