Introduction
The
previous post suggested a list of thirteen criteria to consider when discussing
the interpretation of Biblical texts and weighing whether they should be
accepted as transculturally normative or culturally relative. This concern arises for orthodox Christians,
who take the Bible as God’s Word and seek to live under its authority. Yet Scripture was given within cultural
contexts and must be interpreted within cultural contexts, and these simple
facts raise the present issue for interpreters of Scripture.
The
present post offers some discussion for each of the thirteen criteria around
the issues of slavery, women, and homosexuality. There are still interpreters today who try to
brush aside Scripture on the issue of homosexuality simply because of what
Scripture says—or what they think it says—about slavery and women. This all seems very logical to someone who
reads Scripture with the lens of ‘liberation’ or the lens of ‘love’, but the
logic does fall apart rather quickly.
My
hope is that the following discussion of the proposed criteria—meant as
discussion points to add depth to the conversation as well as guidelines for
interpretation—will be helpful to many.
Discussion of the
Criteria
1.
Criterion of Exegesis. A clear understanding of what the text was saying to the original
audience may well indicate whether it is culturally relative or transculturally
normative. Ask questions such as: Who is saying What to Whom?
Why? When? Where?
How? What was the broader context? What was the specific context? Etc.
*Slavery: The Old Testament bears witness to Israel’s
practice of slavery as with its surrounding nations. One must ask, therefore, ‘in what ways was
Israelite slavery different or the same?’
(And it was different in important ways.) Regarding the New Testament period, many
slaves in Roman times were enemy captives (political or governance issues bear
on the discussion); there were Roman laws governing the freeing of slaves; freedmen
often continued in employment with the former household (economic concerns must
be considered). Yet, according to the
New Testament, Christians radically reshaped the relationships of masters and
slaves, encouraged obtaining freedom if possible, and condemned the slave
trade.
*Women: In all cultures of Biblical times, women were
generally considered subordinate to their husbands’ authority; modesty for
married women included covering the head and being quiet in public gatherings;
women were very rarely educated and therefore almost never authors or teachers. In New Testament times, the Emperor Augustus
tried to stop a new cultural practice of women dropping conventional
restrictions and becoming sexually promiscuous. Contextual issues abound for careful exegesis of texts regarding women. For some interpreters, the use of the creation narrative in 1 Tim. 2.9-15 means a closed case: the text is transcultural. Yet there are good exegetical arguments to consider against this (the issues are complex, and my view is, in part, that Paul is using a chiastic argument such that not teaching is paired with the example of being deceived, whereas not domineering over a man is paired with the example of being created after the man--not teaching is not a part of the creation but the fall narrative).
*Homosexuality: Various forms of homosexual practice were
known in Greek and Roman antiquity, including pederasty (an adult male with a
teenager/young man), living together/marital relationship, bisexuality,
lesbianism, transsexuality/gender dysphoria, cross-dressing, priests of the
goddess Cybele emasculating themselves and becoming women, homosexuals living
openly or ‘in the closet,’ etc. Also, there
was considerable discussion about whether homosexual orientation was natural or
a result of nurture. [Not knowing these
things has led to misinterpretations of Biblical texts in order to revise the
Church’s 2,000 years of teaching on the subject.]
2. Criterion of Contextual Dissimilarity
and Traditional Consistency. A Biblical norm that is
dissimilar to its cultural context and consistent with its own tradition will
more likely be transcultural than a norm that complies with the culture of the
day.
*Slavery: In a world where every culture practiced
slavery and where it was an integral part of the political and economic
realities, Christian households also continued the practice. The challenge was to reform the practice.
*Women: In a world where women were uneducated and
where modesty included quietness in public, Christian teachers nevertheless
included women in the teaching they gave, allowed women to explain the Gospel
to others, allowed women to prophesy, and probably had women serve as deaconesses. Brief directives regarding women teaching and
speaking pretty much follow the cultural context.
*Homosexuality: All Jewish literature from the time of Moses
to the time of the Talmud (5th/6th c. AD) that mentions
homosexuality condemns it, whereas there was considerable discussion about,
say, divorce and remarriage. Naturally,
then, we find Jesus interacting with questions about the latter but not the former. The situation changes as the Christian
mission encounters cultures that did practice homosexuality. In a Greek and Roman world that saw every
sort of homosexual practice, that did not associate sexuality with religion
(except the gods’ dislike of incest—despite their own behaviours!), and that permitted
most forms of any sexual indulgence, including homosexuality (except that
free-born Roman youth were not to submit themselves to homosexual acts of
others), Christians held firm with their Biblical tradition in opposing
homosexual practice.
3. Criterion
of Available Alternatives. Where no choice really exists for
actions or perspectives in a culture or context, the point may be situational
and not transcultural.
*Slavery: The release of slaves could be difficult,
unlawful, and unhelpful for the slaves. In some cities, as many as 1/3 of the
population might be slaves. The
alternative more easily open to the first Christians was to reform the
relationship within the slave system, as they did.
*Women: Very few women were educated, and they could
well be susceptible to false teaching and the propagation of heresy if allowed
to teach. There also seems to be some
concern in the early Church about gender confusion and promiscuity (1 Cor.
11.2-16; 1 and 2 Timothy).
*Homosexuality: People did have a choice about their sexual
activity. Sex was associated with the ‘one
flesh’ act of marriage between a male and a female, and therefore all other
sexual activity was declared sinful.
Beyond a focus simply on sexual acts, the early Church believed that
passions of the flesh also could be transformed through the power of the cross
of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit: people could not claim that they were
simply a certain way either by nature or nurture and simply had to be true to
who they were (e.g., ‘soft men’ were transformed, and persons thinking
lesbianism and homosexuality were normal for them were able to be transformed
by the renewing of their minds).
4. Criterion
of Repeatability. If something can be or was repeated in the same
way under different circumstances, its authority may well be transcultural.
*Slavery: While slavery is found in both the Old and New
Testaments, there is a considerable amount of change, as noted above, effected
in New Testament writings that do not allow interpreters simply to say that the
practice is transculturally normative.
*Women: If the focus is on gender distinctions, the
Bible is consistently clear that there are distinctions. Yet the expression of those distinctions may
be culturally relative: a woman having long hair or an unmarried woman having
no head covering may mean different things in different cultures. In many cultures, teaching is not considered
a criterion that distinguishes genders (although, in the West, affirmative
action has, at times, made this a gender issue). If the focus is on whether women should be allowed
to teach, one needs to reckon with the fact that most societies today now have
women educated just as the men (unlike in the 1st century).
*Homosexuality: Homosexuality was condemned in the Old
Testament over against Canaanite, Hittite, Egyptian, and Babylonian cultures
and in the New Testament over against Greek and Roman cultures. It was condemned over hundreds of years by
God’s people, as it was by the Church as Christianity spread from culture to
culture for two thousand years.
5. Criterion of Multiple Attestation
(‘Cloud of Witnesses’). The case for transcultural
normativity is stronger the more we can demonstrate that there are
multiple witnesses or proofs (different authors, different time periods, different
types of literature [see next criterion]).
*Slavery: References to slavery by different authors, in
different time periods, and in different types of literature naturally raises
the question whether it is transcultural.
Yet other criteria push against this, and the New Testament’s strong
qualifications of slavery raise serious challenges for treating this as
transcultural. Moreover, there are
significant differences to note between slavery in either the Old Testament or
New Testament and what most people today have in mind about slavery: one has to
ask to what extent the same thing is in mind even if the label is the same.
*Women: Biblical material, while patriarchal, also
gives us an interesting variety of perspectives on the role and status of
women. If a woman is told to be silent
and not teach in one text, we nevertheless find a woman (Priscilla) who knew
the author (Paul) well and who engaged in teaching. Whatever one makes of the evidence in the
end, there is not a unified testimony from multiple witnesses on the role and
status of women—except that there are clear gender distinctions that the church
affirms as part of the way God made the world.
*Homosexuality: Different authors (‘Moses’—Genesis, Leviticus;
‘Joshua’; Paul; Jude) state outright that homosexual acts are sinful. The Scriptures are consistent on this. The consistent witness remains through
hundreds of years.
6. Criterion of Different Genre: The authority of a text is
related to the genre, type of literature (e.g., narrative, laws, poetry,
proverbs, history, prophecy, visions, apocalypses, letters, parables,
etc.). A point made in different genre may also be transculturally
normative, and some genre are more likely transcultural than others (e.g., a
narrative may simply describe a situation, whereas a law is meant to fit
different contexts).
*Slavery: While statements about slavery are made in
different genre, the texts are assuming rather than advocating or affirming
slavery. A cursory reading of Scripture—one
lacking serious interpretation—may lead one to affirm slavery, as people have
at various times. (This has been a
serious error.)
*Women: What is said about the role and status of
women is not wide enough in the Biblical literature to be relevant to this
criterion. They key statements that
people discuss are in Biblical letters.
*Homosexuality: The point that homosexuality is a sin is made
in narrative, legal, and epistolary texts (in sin lists and in discussion).
7. Criterion of Uses of Scripture: There are different levels
of appeal to Scripture. The more levels of appeal that are evident in
Scripture, the more likely the matter should be taken as transculturally
normative. (I would suggest four levels: specifying use (norms, rules),
warranting (virtues, values, principles), witnessing (stories, examples,
characters), and worldview (basic understanding of God, humanity, and the
world).)
*Slavery: At the specifying
level, norms regulate slavery but do not insist on
it. At the warranting level,
slavery is not treated as a virtue, principle, or value except insofar as it is
a metaphor for Christian service. Nor is
it seen as a value for Christian community, although slaves are seen as equally
valuable within the Church as everyone else.
At the witnessing level, Paul gives an example of the treatment
of slaves in Philemon. At the worldview
level, there is no creational view on slavery (as in the Babylonian
creation myth); rather, human beings are said to have been created in the image
of God.
*Women: At the specifying
level, women are specifically told to be ‘quiet’—likely
meaning not to be ‘disruptive’ in the meeting or to society. They are told not to lord it over a man and
not to teach, with the disastrous example of Eve in view. Yet, at the warranting level, they are
valued as equal members with men in the community, and husbands are to love
their wives sacrificially. At the
witnessing level, there are stories of female heroes of the
faith. The husband/wife and male/female
relationship is governed by an understanding of creation, while cultural
distinctions may come into play as these understandings are practiced. At the worldview level, both males and
females are created in the image of God.
*Homosexuality: At the specifying
level, clear
texts state outright that homosexual practice is a serious sin. At the warranting level, homosexual
acts are considered ‘against nature’—not someone’s orientation but the way God
made the world. One’s orientation is,
fundamentally, sinful, and most humans struggle with sinful sexual orientations
of one sort or another that attest to the power of sin that Christ alone
overcomes. Much of the attempt to revise
Christian teaching on homosexuality has stemmed from arguments at the
warranting level. One argument sees ‘liberation’
as a Biblical warrant to be used to challenge various social matters. Apart from being reductionistic, there are
many problems with so simplistic an approach to interpreting Scripture and
doing Christian theology and ethics.
Most notably here, such a reading requires reading against the
Scriptures and the Church’s teaching. Another
argument at this level attempts to redefine the matter around the value of ‘love’:
relationships that are loving should be affirmed. Again, this reads against Scripture. Both of these values could be used to affirm
incestuous marriage. Vague values, like ‘liberation’
or ‘love,’ are always given clarity from sources other than the values
themselves. At the witnessing level,
the stories of Sodom and Gibeah attest to God’s view of homosexual sin (and
Jude 7 clarifies any confusion among interpreters as to whether the sin of
Sodom was sexual). At the worldview
level, the story of creation establishes that sex is to be within marriage
between a man and a woman.
8. Criterion of Theological and Ethical Coherence. An
argument is more likely transcultural if it coheres with other theological
and ethical ideas and practices and can be shown to cohere with both theology
and ethics.
*Slavery: Slavery actually coheres with no theological
or ethical system—it is not ‘needed’ but is actually made irrelevant to the
Christian life. It is describes Israel’s
life in Egypt and captivity in Babylon, and it describes a person’s control by
sin versus obedience to God. Its only value
for theology and ethics is as a metaphor.
*Women: The distinction of genders, the affirmation of
marriage, and the equal participation of men and women ‘in Christ’ means that
there is a Biblical view of women that is important to understand. Yet this can play out differently in
different cultural contexts.
*Homosexuality: The Biblical view on homosexuality fits into a
more comprehensive view of sexuality. It
is one example of a sin against nature (cf. bestiality). God created male and female—two genders—as part
of his plan for his creation to be fruitful and multiply. As idolatry is a turning away from the
creator, so homosexuality is a turning away from the way the Creator made the
world.
9. Criterion of Rhetorical Exigence or Contingency. A
response to a specific situation might be a culturally relative or
situational response.
*Slavery:
This
criterion is not particularly useful in this case.
*Women:
When
Paul addresses women’s silence in Corinth, he is addressing a host of other
issues that divide this particular church.
When he address the issue of women’s silence, not teaching, and not
domineering over men, he is addressing a situation of false teaching in Ephesus
(1 and 2 Timothy) that is complicated: women are being told not to marry, and
they have proven to be susceptible to the false teachers. The rhetorical exigence in these churches
weighs into our interpretation of the texts.
*Homosexuality:
Despite
attempts to find some contingency in texts speaking against homosexuality,
those advocating this do not agree among themselves (offering conflicting suggestions
of temple prostitution, pederasty, unloving and impermanent relations, and so
forth). Yet these are contemporary
attempts to overturn the consistent view held by God’s people in Biblical times
and the Church’s 2,000 year history. The
texts are quite clear that homosexual practice is a sin. Paul is not trying to address a situation
peculiar to this or that church but correct a cultural practice that opposes
God’s purposes for sex.
10.
Criterion of the Author's Emphasis. The more the point is
emphasised by argument, authority, and emotion, the more likely the
conviction is crucial and therefore transcultural.
*Slavery: There is no Biblical advocacy for slavery. There are texts pressing in the opposite
direction (note the emotion in Paul’s appeal for a runaway slave in Philemon).
*Women: Why is Paul emphatic in 1 Timothy 2 about
women not domineering over a man, not teaching, and being ‘silent’ (not
troublesome) in the church? He is
dealing with a heresy affecting women and attacking marriage.
*Homosexuality: Genesis (Sodom) and Joshua (Gibeah—also involving
rape and murder) see homosexual practice as worthy of God’s destruction. Jude appeals to the story of Genesis to warn
of deserved punishment. The Mosaic Law
declares homosexual practice as worthy of the death sentence. Paul declares that those who continue to
practice this will be excluded from the Kingdom of God.
11.
Criterion of Church History. The Bible is
foundational for the Church and the supreme authority for Christian faith and
practice. The history of the Church’s interpretation of Scripture should
be studied to see how the Church has understood the text in different ages and
cultures as a way to check present understandings and to hear the Biblical text
clearly.
*Slavery: The history of the Church offers a rich
variety of views on this issue, addressing different aspects of it. There are terribly bad examples of Christian
practice and interpretation of Scripture, and there are inspiring examples of
how various forms were opposed. There
are also lessons to be learned about the Church itself on this issue: where the
Church as an institution compromised on Christian values and practices so as to
relate to the State and its economic structures. Significantly, the insistence in the 19th
century that slavery is ‘Biblical’ is an example of cultural interpretation:
reading the text in order to affirm the present practices of a culture.
*Women: There are diverse witnesses in Church history
regarding women, wives, and their roles in the Church. Again, the history of the Church gives both
good and bad examples. Confusing the
discussion today is the fact that reconsideration of the role and status of
women has largely been associated with a variety of other social changes in
Western society.
*Homosexuality: The Christian Church has maintained a
consistent witness throughout its history that homosexual practice is a
sin. Only in the past few decades have
some mainline, liberal denominations in the West begun to question this witness. All of them have been declining in numbers
since the 1960s and maintain other views that the Church has rejected through
the millennia—such as their denial of Scripture as God’s authoritative word in
matters of faith and practice.
12.
Criterion of Meaning, Implications, Significance, and Applications. The
greater the interpreter can establish a relationship between the meaning of
Scriptural texts, their theological and ethical implications, and the
significance they bear on a given situation, the greater one can argue that the
application has transculturally normative authority.
*Slavery: Biblical texts that explore the meaning of
slavery further primarily do so in terms of its implication for Christian
ministry. While the social evils of
slavery are opposed, the devotion and service of a slave becomes an example of
the work of Christ and the character of a minister (over against, e.g.,
discussing ministry in terms of ‘leadership’ or ‘servant leadership’).
*Women: Paul’s discussion of women in the church, as
noted, is part of a concern for implications in the church—its unity and
heterodoxy—and part of a concern for gender distinctions (there is still a role
for marriage and bearing children even if the Kingdom of God has come!).
*Homosexuality: What Scripture says about homosexuality has
theological and ethical implications regarding creation, marriage, sexuality,
and gender.
13.
Criterion of Central and Peripheral. What
is arguably central in Scripture is likely transculturally authoritative.
What we think might be peripheral may or may not be.
*Slavery:
Scripture
has no interest in advocating slavery.
Whether one is a slave or not has no bearing on eternal salvation. While accommodated, it was not essential for Israel or the Church; rather, in both cases, certain evils of the system were argued against (Israel is to remember they were once slaves in Egypt, and masters are to remember that they have a master; slaves are to render service to God).
*Women:
As
with slavery, whether one is a male or female has no bearing on being in
Christ. However, gender distinctions, sexuality,
and marriage are serious issues in the Church.
The issue of women teaching in the Church is not handled as a matter of
sin in itself but, in this particular case (1 Tim. 2), as a problem that could
feed false teaching in the church (as noted, above). It is not so much a matter of Christian
ethics as Christian polity.
*Homosexuality:
Unlike
slavery or the role and status of women, homosexuality is a matter of Christian
ethics; it is a matter sin. Homosexual
practice is specifically listed as a sin that will keep one from the kingdom of
God, and so it is a central, not peripheral, matter.
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