First, I am glad that he has continued his dialog with Philip Payne. It seems to me he argues with him over small points. I went to those points in Payne's book and didn't get the same feel as you get from his video. I didn't disagree with Winger on most of his points in relation to these small points. There are so many arguments that have been made by so many people on both sides -- some are stronger than others.
The other source he engages significantly in this video is Two View on Women in Ministry in the Zondervan Counterpoints series. It features Tom Schreiner and Craig Blomberg on the complementarian side and Linda Bellvue and Craig Keener (Asbury professor) on the egalitarian side.
You may be surprised to know that I agree with a great deal of what Winger says about the details of Genesis 2. In fact, he reminded me of some of the same reactions I had to various ideas in seminary. At Asbury, Don Joy was particularly fond of the suggestion that the initial 'adam of Genesis 2 might have been androgynous -- both male and female. I thought this was funny then. Joy had asked the Bible faculty at Asbury about the concept before he published his book Bonding. They told him they didn't see it, but he published it anyway.
I would say, though, that I don't think it's as outrageous as it might seem. I just don't think it's the right interpretation.
2. I do want to get to some key points of disagreement, though, before getting into minutia. Fairly early on in the video, he says that both complementarians and egalitarians both agree on the centrality of Genesis 2 for the debate. Let me say as an odd duck that I have never really felt this way. In my booklet, Why Wesleyans Favor Women in Ministry (2004), I didn't mention Genesis at all. I do mention it in my more recent, A Biblical Argument for Women in Ministry and Leadership because it is part of the debate, but it has never been the central part of the debate for me.
Why? Two reasons.
The first is something that I discussed in one of two posts I made in preparation for this one. We are in a phase of biblical studies and biblical theology that is characterized by what I have called "flatness." For most, it is a "pre-modern" or "pre-reflective" perspective. That is to say, it is based on a deficient understanding of how to read the books of the Bible in context.
I may actually be more annoyed at the prevalence of these "narrative" readings among post-liberals for whom it is a postmodern reading. These narrative readers deliberately minimize contextual readings in favor of reading the Bible as a single story. I am perfectly fine with this as long as you acknowledge that you are reading the Bible out of context to do so.
The pre-modern reads the Bible as one book from God to us without awareness of context. But the post-liberal to a large extent ignores historical difference. For some, it's a matter of principle even. In my Who Decides What the Bible Means? I set out as legitimate 1) original meaning interpretations, 2) orthodox-consensus readings of Scripture, 3) church-community readings of Scripture, and 4) individual spiritual readings of Scripture -- the key being that the Holy Spirit is directing these readings.
3. But if we construct a biblical theology, it is clear that a Christian reading of Scripture must privilege New Testament conclusions on Old Testament issues over the original meaning of the Old Testament. [At this point, a number of evangelical Old Testament scholars break out in hives.]
For example, there is nothing in Leviticus to suggest that animal sacrifices (or the temple) will ever stop being offered. In this regard, Hebrews provides the authoritative perspective on those sacrifices. They were illustrations of the one effective sacrifice of Christ. Similarly, circumcision is the assumption of the Old Testament. But Paul tells the Galatians they will have fallen from grace if they get circumcised.
Finally, as I show in the previous post I mentioned, the New Testament has distinct interpretations of Old Testament passages that go well beyond what those passages meant originally. For example, we would not get the impression that Lot was greatly distressed about the sins of Sodom from Genesis, but 2 Peter 2:7-8 portray him as a righteous man vexed by the sins of the city. We can take 2 Peter to be making an inspired point through Lot without thereby changing our inductive interpretation of Genesis 19.
What are you getting at Ken? What I am getting at is that I am most concerned with what the New Testament has to say about men and women more than with what Genesis 2 by itself says. This is not because Genesis 2 isn't significant. It is because Christian theology prioritizes New Testament revelation as more complete and more precise.
(Mind you -- I know I am creating challenges for myself hereby. Winger already mentions in this video that 1 Timothy 2:13 uses the order of Adam and Eve's creation to support 2:12. I will defer that discussion for later.)
Let me illustrate this principle of NT privilege. Colossians 2:16 tells the Gentile Colossians to stand their ground about anyone who condemns them because they do not keep the Jewish Sabbath. Romans 14:5 similarly tells the Romans to decide as a matter of their own conscience whether they will consider one day above another -- a clear allusion to the Jewish Sabbath. In short, Paul did not consider the Jewish Sabbath to be binding on Gentile believers. For him, it was a matter of personal conviction for them.
Now this is a straightforward observation, in my opinion. But it causes all matter of hives for the Flatlanders. "But, but, but." One person said to me once, "But the Sabbath goes back to creation!" (Gen. 2:3). "I know," I responded. "Isn't it crazy? Paul doesn't care."
4. So what does Genesis 2 say? Here let me invoke two posts I did recently in my Science and Scripture series, one of which mentioned different approaches to Genesis 2-3 in that regard and the second of which did some preparatory work on questions of genre. I'll leave the New Testament use of Genesis 2-3 for later in Winger's series.
First, Genesis 2-3 in context was an expression of the messed up state of the world. That is its point. I argued in the second post just mentioned that a comparison of Genesis 1-2 suggests that these are not to be taken as rigid history but as more "archetypal" -- expressing fundamental things. The reason is because Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 present a different order of creation. This doesn't mean one is wrong. It means that we are wrong to expect them to be literal presentations. They are doing something more profound. They aren't exactly poetry, but what they are doing is as "poetic" as it is literal, in my opinion.
The later of the two creation presentations, Genesis 1, puts male and female together as co-regents of the earth with no fall mentioned.
The second presentation in Genesis 2-3 culminates in three expressions of the state of the world. Men work hard to get the soil to yield its fruit. Both men and women will die even though God had intended for them to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever. Women will have painful childbearing and they will find themselves dominated by their husbands. And of course there are consequences for snakes too.
This is the point of Genesis 2-3. These chapters express the fallen situation of humanity. They are "etiological." They answer the questions, "Why do men have to work so hard on the land?" "Why do women have such painful childbirth?" "Why are women dominated by men?" (And why don't people and snakes get along?) [1]
In the process, the point of Genesis 2 is to picture the world before it was this way. As I have argued, it is probably not a video tape. If it were meant as a videotape, it would contradict the order of Genesis 1. Rather, it expresses that 1) men did not have to work hard before the Fall, 2) women did not have a painful life before the Fall, with their husbands dominating them and, of much less importance, 3) snakes and humans weren't on such bad terms before the Fall.
For this reason, if there is hierarchy in Genesis 2, it is not the point. Indeed, the point is the harmony of Adam and Eve before the Fall, their peaceful cooperation. Their co-regency. The point of the way it is presented is the oneness and unity of Adam and Eve before the Fall -- the one fleshness of them and the distinction of them from the animals -- not Adam's authority over Eve. That almost goes against the point.
Shocker -- I am willing to say that there could be a light assumption of Adam's primacy in the way Creation 2 is presented. What I am saying is that, not only is that not the point. I am saying that to emphasize it is to miss the point of the story, which is the harmony of the two prior to their act of disobedience.
In such a thoroughly patriarchal world, how might you present a pre-Fall situation that did not have man and woman at each other's throats? That is what Genesis 2 is about. It is the structure of the ancient world without the conflict, struggle, and bitterness. It is God meeting them in their assumptions and moving them from there. It gave an idyllic picture that was the opposite of dominance.
But God wants to do more!
5. So the street warfare that Winger engages in is all fine and good. I agree with him on almost every minute point of interpretation. But, at the risk of playing into his hands, I believe that this is a spiritual struggle. There are women who know they are called. There are men who know women are called. Some of the interpretations of some can be a little "creative," shall we say. (And Winger fully acknowledges that there are some crazy complementarian interpretations out there too.)
But is because they see the trajectory of Scripture. They see the whole council of God. One of the problems with fundamentalism, in my opinion, is that it gets so involved with the verse-by-verse street warfare that it misses the Spirit of Scripture. It misses the big point because it is arguing about some detail of the letter.
This is not putting experience above the Bible. Interpreting and applying the Bible is a complicated thing -- look at how many thousands of interpretations and applications there are out there. A little guidance from the Holy Spirit seems in order. Indeed, Bible technicians, "letteralists," can be dangerous. One of them may have shot several people in Minnesota this past weekend.
[1] I have no problem seeing the snake as Satan, but this was not part of the original meaning of Genesis 3. Not only is Satan not mentioned, but the understanding of Satan does not seem to have come into play until after this time -- later in the post-exilic period. It is not until the first century BC that any surviving Jewish writing equates the snake with Satan.
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