William J. Webb, professor on New Testament at Heritage Seminary in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in Slaves, Women & Homosexuals divides his book into three parts. These three parts include “eighteen criteria for helping us determine what components within the biblical text have ongoing applicational significance and what components are limited in their application to the original audience only.”[1] Webb states his purpose when he identifies his method as ‘redemptive-movement hermeneutic’ which captures the most crucial component of the application process as it relates to cultural analysis, namely, the need to engage the redemptive spirit of the text in a way that moves the contemporary appropriation of the text beyond its original-application framing.”[2]
Webb’s hermeneutic starts with X (the original culture of ANE (Anient Near Eastern text or Graco-Roman) and then moves to Y (the Bible) and then to our culture “where it happens to reflect a better social ethic” which is closer to Z (the ultimate ethic). Webb introduces the three areas of his concern (slaves, women, and homosexuals).
Analysis of the Text
Webb’s hermeneutic starts with X (the original culture of Ancient Near Eastern texts or Graco Roman texts. Webb gives these examples that are helpful to understanding the OT and NT. For example, Webb refers to harsh treatment of slave texts such as Ex. 21:20-21 where the slave owner could beat the slave within an inch of his life. If he beats the slave and he dies, there is a penalty. But when compared to the Ancient Near Eastern texts which permitted slave owners to beat to death with no penalty there is movement in the right direction.[3] My question is what if we did not have the ANE or what about the students of Scripture who do not have access to ANE. Are these left unable to read and understand the Bible? Is the doctrine of perspicuity true or not?
Al Wolters (emeritus professor of religion at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario) makes this point as well.
Webb’s view depends on historical information that the biblical exegete, let alone the ordinary Bible reader, many not have. Before the nineteenth century our knowledge of ancient Near Eastern culture was extremely limited. The languages and culture of the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Canaanites were largely lost until that century, and Persia was imperfectly known, mainly from Herodotus’s Histories....It certainly does not square well with the Reformers’ notion of the perspicuitas of Scripture.”[4] (305-306).
Webb’s hermeneutic moves from X (the original culture of ANE or GR) and then moves to Y (the Bible). Webb states clearly that the Y is not an adequate ethic: “as with slavery, the patriarchy found within the Bible does not offer us an ultimate social ethic.”[5] Webb contends that in Criterion 2: Seed Ideas “a component of a text may be cultural if ‘seed ideas’ are present within the rest of Scripture to suggest and encourage further movement on a particular subject.” One of his examples is Galatians 3:28 which states “There is neither.... male nor female...in Christ Jesus.” Webb declares that because Galatians 3:28 is set in within the broader corpus of Pauline theology, there is no question that the ‘in Christ’ formula had social implication.”[6] The problem with the redemptive movement is that Paul in a later passage restricts women’s role in 1 Timothy 2:11-3:2. The trajectory and redemptive movement is in the wrong direction for Webb’s view.
Webb’s hermeneutic next moves from X (the original culture of ANE or GR) and then from Y (the Bible) and finally to our culture “where it happens to reflect a better social ethic.” Webb states clearly that the Y is not an adequate ethic: “as with slavery, the patriarchy found within the Bible does not offer us an ultimate social ethic.”[7]
Webb’s final hermeneutic move is from Y (the Bible) and then to our culture “where it happens to reflect a better social ethic” which is closer to Z (the ultimate ethic). Webb draws a contrast between a redemptive-spirit approach and a static approach. The static approach would allow application of the slave/master text to apply to the modern employee/employer workplace but a redemptive-spirit would not. Webb emphasizes the importance of culture to how the student of Scripture continues to apply the text of Scripture. Webb states that “with every change in our culture we have to reevaluate our interpretation of Scripture to determine what our perspective should be.”[8] This is a hermeneutical problem. Changing culture can affect our application but not our interpretation of Scripture.
Conclusion
The eighteen cultural/transcultural criteria of which the first sixteen criterion are intrascriptural i.e., based on Scripture and the last two are extrascripture i.e., based on evidence outside of Scripture will exclude most lay people from understanding the Bible. These are complicated steps even for Bible college graduates to walk through, read, and understand God’s Word. This is similar to the problem students of the God’s would have in accessing to ANE or GR texts in order to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). What Webb sees as Redemption Movement, I see in many cases as progressive revelation which begins with the Old Testament and not with ANE texts and progresses to an abolitionist ethnic in the New Testament which Paul strongly suggests to Philemon to release Onesimus (which Webb only mentions once in his book).
Webb writes “regarding the impact of Paul’s letter to Philemon on slavery, F. F. Bruce writes, ‘What this letter does is to bring us into an atmosphere in which the institution of slavery could only wilt and die. Similarly, patriarchalist such as Craig Blomberg comments on 1 Corinthians 7:21 that ‘Paul sowed the seeds for a revolutionary alternative in Christ which in time could only but threaten social institutions of oppression [such as slavery].” Webb follows up with this statement: “For Paul to press for social implications in the slave and the female categories might have been detrimental.”[9] In other words, in disagreement with these conservative evangelicals, Webb does not believe the New Testament provides an adequate ethic for believers today.
[1] William J. Webb. Slaves, Women, & Homosexuals (Downers Grove: IVP Academic) 2001, 17.
[2] Ibid., 30.
[3] Ibid., 221-223.
[4] Al Wolters. “A Reflection by Al Wolters” in Four Views on Moving Beyond the Bible to Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan) 2009, 305-306.
[5] William J. Webb. Slaves, Women, & Homosexual, 48.
[6] Ibid., 84.
[7] Ibid., 48.
[8] Ibid., 23.
[9] Ibid., 84-86.