That is, other than what is called the “redemptive movement” reading? William Webb, in his book, Corporal Punishment in the Bible: A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic for Troubling Texts, examines what might be called the traditional view of spanking among evangelical Christians. He calls it the “two smacks max” or “two spanks max” method. In this he
Feb 7, 2022·edited Feb 7, 2022Liked by Scot McKnight
EDIT: added "roles" after gender.
I love Webb’s work. Some critics say that Webb’s hermeneutic points to a future that isn’t necessary defined by scriptures, but is how we might imagine a good future to be like (on any given issue). The Bible, therefore, isn’t the (dangerous words here) finished revelation in all matters?
Charles Kraft spoke of scripture as a handbook or case studies of theology, where there were principles and values embedded in the narratives to help us theologize within our own context what God’s will looks like. He would be in this sense “with” Webb. As I work with cross-cultural workers, the cultural distance of scripture is readily apparent. The systems, values, and ways of life the ANE or Greco-Roman cultures is so distant from us, how can we 1-1 adopt marital/gender roles arrangements (Eph 5:25ff) or church organizational structures? No, like Paul (I would argue), we have to rethink our cultural context through the sieve of the biblical narrative to work out, what the Lord’s will is.
Anyway, I’m with Webb. Though, in the 5 views book one of the authors asks, why not then adopt a Missional hermeneutic (was it Gorman? I can’t remember).
Thanks for posting this. Its a really important hermeneutical conversation to have.
There is surely some level of “redemptive” progress regarding slavery in the scriptures, but the topic probably deserves more space than is given here. Because, I don’t think the redemptive arc found in the NT is as steep as people want to believe.
I find it unhelpful to reference “no slave nor free” because the context isn’t physical freedom. This passage and train of thought tends to be most comfortable for Whites, non-BIPOC, and non-ADOS folx because it’s easy to point to as a definitive statement about equality without admitting Paul makes no appeal to actual physical equality/freedom for the slaves in question (and then the “they aren’t the same kinds of slaves” people perk their ears and argue their point).
Others cite Paul’s words to Philemon to accept Onesimus as a clear admonition of slavery, but he volunteers to pay for Onesimus, nor does Paul direct Philemon to free his other slaves or end the practice of slave-owning. He goes out of his way to point out he’s not commanding freedom (“although in Christ I could be bold…”).
It is troubling that God’s best ideas about how to treat each other are always only a bit better than what the rest of the world was already doing (or in the case of Hammurabi, had been doing for hundreds of years). It is troubling that God always seems to be bound by the times He is speaking into.
And it is troubling that we in the Christian faith allow incremental movement in the scriptures keep us from making larger leaps.
I’m reminded that it was not many years between Paul delivering the Jerusalem Council’s letter to Antioch and when he wrote Romans effectively discarding most of the Council’s directions. It is what I would consider a legitimate redemptive leap. If only he’d have been so brave with the matter of slavery.
This is such a helpful conversation. Thanks for bringing attention to it, and to Webb’s work on this specific issue – a relevant example for sure. Ministering in the American South, where “The Bible says it, I believe it” is the predominant hermeneutic (and ethic), I have found two other concepts super helpful – “the interpretive journey” (Duvall and Hays) and “seed text” (Richards). Being able to walk step-by-step from the original audience’s world to our own by identifying the theological principle (timeless truth) in the text helps ordinary church folks get over their fear of the “slippery slope”… and being able to nail down a “seed text” that concretely communicates that “spirit of the biblical texts” helps, too. I hope that is not over-simplifying. I just don’t understand the push-back against the trajectory hermeneutic. Like you said, Is there any other way we read the Bible? Thank you for posting this!
It seems to me that any reading of the biblical material has to engage in a kind of cultural synthesis. What does the text mean in it’s context? What does it mean in ours? Anything less than that just isn’t doing hermeneutics, but treating the Bible as a museum piece.
Webb’s model seems to be a bit linear, which I think over simplifies a bit, if I’m understanding him. Are our only options or lenses redemptive or regressive? Relative to what? (If our “redemptive” lens brings the text closer to western, educated, individualistic, and democratic sensibilities, is this an end point?
I wonder what shifts if our assumption is that the Bible is a book about God and relationship between God and humanity (in all its complexity and glory), more than it is, primarily, a book about ethics. If we come to the Bible asking, “should we spank our kids,” we’ll find a different answer than if we come asking, “what sort of God do we find here…”. The second question might be terrifying, forcing us to rethink our desire for relationship with the God we find , but I suspect, the reward is greater than the risk if we’re able to work through the dissonance.
How do you work through parts of scripture that puzzle, offend, frustrate, and repel you?
I see your point about Webb's model being linear but his own readings of various texts (he has several books using this method) reveals a culturally sensitive and complex set of factors involved.
I appreciate Webb's analysis. He, like everyone who senses the redemptive movement of Scripture, is viewing things through the lens of 2000 years of Christianity since Christ's resurrection. <i>Of course</i> there is redemptive movement, seen that way, with the Christian ethos of the last two millennia.
But, he's not the first. Irenaeus was already there in the late 100s. The tradition of Judaism, which passed into Christianity, was to not read the holy texts literalistically. For Christians, typology and allegory played a major part. We inheritors of Enlightenment rationalism, buttressed by the attitudes that followed wide use of the printing press, think reading allegorically will always take us down the wrong path. However, using the interpretive grid of the early Church actually supports the redemptive reading, and is not "squishy"; the eastern Fathers saw things pretty clearly <i>without</i> reading literalistically. Their understanding of "literal" included what we call context and genre, and was also not where they put the greatest weight. But their interpretation is remarkably consistent among them all over time.
I see so much tension among Christians when struggling with interpreting the Bible, especially among those who sincerely love Jesus. Part of it has to do with the majority of (particularly Evangelical) Christians having the attitude that interpreting the Bible has to do with whatever the words mean "to me"; we don't understand that proper interpretation has to be taught. Indeed, we bristle at that undemocratic idea. The wheel is constantly reinvented, and we still fear that we don't understand the Bible the way God wants us to, or even in such a way that it becomes clear on simply a narrative level.
EDIT: added "roles" after gender.
I love Webb’s work. Some critics say that Webb’s hermeneutic points to a future that isn’t necessary defined by scriptures, but is how we might imagine a good future to be like (on any given issue). The Bible, therefore, isn’t the (dangerous words here) finished revelation in all matters?
Charles Kraft spoke of scripture as a handbook or case studies of theology, where there were principles and values embedded in the narratives to help us theologize within our own context what God’s will looks like. He would be in this sense “with” Webb. As I work with cross-cultural workers, the cultural distance of scripture is readily apparent. The systems, values, and ways of life the ANE or Greco-Roman cultures is so distant from us, how can we 1-1 adopt marital/gender roles arrangements (Eph 5:25ff) or church organizational structures? No, like Paul (I would argue), we have to rethink our cultural context through the sieve of the biblical narrative to work out, what the Lord’s will is.
Anyway, I’m with Webb. Though, in the 5 views book one of the authors asks, why not then adopt a Missional hermeneutic (was it Gorman? I can’t remember).
Thanks for posting this. Its a really important hermeneutical conversation to have.
Webb has gone on record more than once to show this goal is found in the Bible itself.
A couple things…
There is surely some level of “redemptive” progress regarding slavery in the scriptures, but the topic probably deserves more space than is given here. Because, I don’t think the redemptive arc found in the NT is as steep as people want to believe.
I find it unhelpful to reference “no slave nor free” because the context isn’t physical freedom. This passage and train of thought tends to be most comfortable for Whites, non-BIPOC, and non-ADOS folx because it’s easy to point to as a definitive statement about equality without admitting Paul makes no appeal to actual physical equality/freedom for the slaves in question (and then the “they aren’t the same kinds of slaves” people perk their ears and argue their point).
Others cite Paul’s words to Philemon to accept Onesimus as a clear admonition of slavery, but he volunteers to pay for Onesimus, nor does Paul direct Philemon to free his other slaves or end the practice of slave-owning. He goes out of his way to point out he’s not commanding freedom (“although in Christ I could be bold…”).
It is troubling that God’s best ideas about how to treat each other are always only a bit better than what the rest of the world was already doing (or in the case of Hammurabi, had been doing for hundreds of years). It is troubling that God always seems to be bound by the times He is speaking into.
And it is troubling that we in the Christian faith allow incremental movement in the scriptures keep us from making larger leaps.
I’m reminded that it was not many years between Paul delivering the Jerusalem Council’s letter to Antioch and when he wrote Romans effectively discarding most of the Council’s directions. It is what I would consider a legitimate redemptive leap. If only he’d have been so brave with the matter of slavery.
Gregg
This is such a helpful conversation. Thanks for bringing attention to it, and to Webb’s work on this specific issue – a relevant example for sure. Ministering in the American South, where “The Bible says it, I believe it” is the predominant hermeneutic (and ethic), I have found two other concepts super helpful – “the interpretive journey” (Duvall and Hays) and “seed text” (Richards). Being able to walk step-by-step from the original audience’s world to our own by identifying the theological principle (timeless truth) in the text helps ordinary church folks get over their fear of the “slippery slope”… and being able to nail down a “seed text” that concretely communicates that “spirit of the biblical texts” helps, too. I hope that is not over-simplifying. I just don’t understand the push-back against the trajectory hermeneutic. Like you said, Is there any other way we read the Bible? Thank you for posting this!
It seems to me that any reading of the biblical material has to engage in a kind of cultural synthesis. What does the text mean in it’s context? What does it mean in ours? Anything less than that just isn’t doing hermeneutics, but treating the Bible as a museum piece.
Webb’s model seems to be a bit linear, which I think over simplifies a bit, if I’m understanding him. Are our only options or lenses redemptive or regressive? Relative to what? (If our “redemptive” lens brings the text closer to western, educated, individualistic, and democratic sensibilities, is this an end point?
I wonder what shifts if our assumption is that the Bible is a book about God and relationship between God and humanity (in all its complexity and glory), more than it is, primarily, a book about ethics. If we come to the Bible asking, “should we spank our kids,” we’ll find a different answer than if we come asking, “what sort of God do we find here…”. The second question might be terrifying, forcing us to rethink our desire for relationship with the God we find , but I suspect, the reward is greater than the risk if we’re able to work through the dissonance.
How do you work through parts of scripture that puzzle, offend, frustrate, and repel you?
I see your point about Webb's model being linear but his own readings of various texts (he has several books using this method) reveals a culturally sensitive and complex set of factors involved.
That makes sense. How does he account for the complexity in his interpretative framework? What's your favorite of his books?
Favorite: the war one is really important but that book on corporate punishment was the last significant reworking of his method.
Great... thanks.
I appreciate Webb's analysis. He, like everyone who senses the redemptive movement of Scripture, is viewing things through the lens of 2000 years of Christianity since Christ's resurrection. <i>Of course</i> there is redemptive movement, seen that way, with the Christian ethos of the last two millennia.
But, he's not the first. Irenaeus was already there in the late 100s. The tradition of Judaism, which passed into Christianity, was to not read the holy texts literalistically. For Christians, typology and allegory played a major part. We inheritors of Enlightenment rationalism, buttressed by the attitudes that followed wide use of the printing press, think reading allegorically will always take us down the wrong path. However, using the interpretive grid of the early Church actually supports the redemptive reading, and is not "squishy"; the eastern Fathers saw things pretty clearly <i>without</i> reading literalistically. Their understanding of "literal" included what we call context and genre, and was also not where they put the greatest weight. But their interpretation is remarkably consistent among them all over time.
I see so much tension among Christians when struggling with interpreting the Bible, especially among those who sincerely love Jesus. Part of it has to do with the majority of (particularly Evangelical) Christians having the attitude that interpreting the Bible has to do with whatever the words mean "to me"; we don't understand that proper interpretation has to be taught. Indeed, we bristle at that undemocratic idea. The wheel is constantly reinvented, and we still fear that we don't understand the Bible the way God wants us to, or even in such a way that it becomes clear on simply a narrative level.
Dana
The is wonderfully helpful, thank you! I have Webb’s earlier book on my shelf but have yet to read it, and this motivates me all the more so.