Saturday, July 25, 2009

Scripture, hermeneutics and women

I have just finished reading Professor James D. G. Dunn's The Living Word (2nd ed 2008). He is a New Testament scholar and Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham. As I read it I realized how uninformed and simplistic my reading of scripture has been through the years. His book has provoked some questions regarding the RPCNA's view of scripture and its teaching on women. I am simply going to put the questions as they come to mind.

1) How does the RPCNA deal with the fact that the New Testament is both a collection of historical documents from the 1st century and scripture? In other words, how does the "historical conditionedness" of the NT inform exegesis of scripture? Dunn notes that the New Testament writings are "occasional writings," that is, writings addressed to a particular situation. So, for example, I Corinthians was focused on problems at the church in Corinth.

It seems that the RPCNA accepts the "historical conditionedness" of texts dealing with slavery, but not with verses dealing with women's roles in the churches and families. It is interesting how frequently verses about women are then followed by verses about slaves obeying their masters. The assumption is that the verses about slaves were for that time and place, a time and place that accepted slavery as a given. As a child I did hear a rather bizarre sermon preached by a RP pastor about how the slave-related verses applied to employer-employee relationships. I guess the pastor was no supporter of unions! What hermeneutical principle allowed a leap from the 1st century to 20th century workplace relations I'll never know.

2) Why are the verses about women keeping silent in the churches, exercising no authority over men still applicable and head coverings are not? I suspect that there will be some mention of the creation order but then the question is which creation account, the one in Gen. 1 or Gen. 2-3?

Dunn writes, "A properly historical exegesis will ever recall how limited a particular author's horizon must have been and seek to respecct that limitation when enquiring [sic] what the author intended to say and what his first readers heard him say."

3) Acts 8:27 mentions an Ethiopian man. Here is a hypothetical. What if I Cor. 14:34, I Tim. 2:11-12 contained the word, "Ethiopian," rather than woman/women? So the verses would read, "Ethiopians should be silent in the churches.For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law says." Or "Let an Ethiopian learn in silence with full submission. I permit no Ethiopian to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For others were formed first, then the Ethiopian." Would the response be, 'well, that is what the Bible says" ? In other words, does the entire doctrine about women rest on a creation account which may be metaphorical?

4) Jesus and Paul and their attitude to the Old Testament--Dunn points out that the New Testament "relativizes" the Old Testament. For example, Jesus sets aside the 'eye for an eye' and laws about unclean foods. Paul sets aside food laws, sabbath law, circumcision. Dunn writes, "For there is actually no clear word in the New Testament that validates the abandonment of the sabbath law or the transformation of it into a Sunday celebration." In Rom. 14, Paul speaks of some Christians who regard all days alike. Dunn poses the question that the same dynamic is at work--that when some New Testament regulations become restrictive of God's grace they are no longer applicable, e.g., verses dealing with slavery and, as he writes, "the scriptural subordination of women."

5) In the end, probably one of the major issues, if not the major issue, is the view of Scripture. Dunn i s a believer; however he also recognizes the limitations of a 1st century text. He sees three basic issues with inerrancy which really is at the heart of the issue about women, in my mind.

a) Inerrancy ends up a sort of Pharisaic legalism. "It is possible, is it not, as Paul warned us (Rom. 7:6; 2 Cor. 3: 6, 14-17) to be so concerned for the letter of scripture that we actually miss what the Spirit seeks to say to us through it; to stifle the life of the Spirit by concentrating on the incidental forms through which he speaks?"

b) Inerrantists may engaging in biblolatry. "By asserting of the Bible an indefectible authority, they are attributing to it an authority proper only to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we say the biblical authors wrote without error, we attribute to their writing what we otherwise recognize to be true only of Christ. We do for the Bible what Roman Catholic dogma has done for Mary the mother of Jesus; and if the charge of Mariolatry is appropriate against Catholic dogma, then the charge of bibliolatry is no less appropriate against the inerrancy dogma."

c) Inerrancy is "pastorally disastrous." Dunn writes, "Integral to the inerrancy position is the all-or-nothing argument, the slippery slope mentality, the repeated reasoning that if we cannot trust the Bible in all, we cannot trust it at all. That may be an argument which appeals to the over-simplifications of spiritual infancy; but it is hardly an appropriate expression of the spiritual maturity defined by Paul as the enabling to discern the things that really matter, to approve the essential (Phil. 1:10)."

Some thoughts on a Saturday evening.

No comments:

Post a Comment