There is an excellent article on the matter of polygamy here by Bishop Glenn Davies from Sydney - Is Polygamy a Sin? He makes this comment:
While it is true that legislation existed under Mosaic Law to regulate polygam(Exodus 21:10-11), such legislation did not thereby legitimise polygamy. Rather it is akin to the sufferance exercised by God, a divine permission, which best explains the accounts of polygamy in the Old Testament.Serena's question however related rather to the felt imbalance: on the one hand, men were allowed this polygamous lifestyle; on the other, those accused of adultery were usually wives rather than husbands. I think the right responses is to say that, as Davies suggests, polygamy is conceded rather than endorsed; that it is a sign of wealth and power rather than a social norm, or seen as a sexual liberterianism of a kind; and that as such it still involved vows and contractual agreements that needed to be honoured...anything else?
To take it further: is the OT unacceptably patriachal? Does the whole approach to polygamy/adultery indicate that the status given to women was somehow offensive to our contemporary sensibilities? Is violence against women not condemned as it should be? Here are a few points in reply:
1. Women share co-humanity with men. Genesis 1 and 2, quite remarkably for their times, assert the full participation of women in the image of God and the flesh of Adam. She is not a lesser being, or a being of a different nature. She stands side by side with Adam.
2. Women are given a voice. One complaint from feminist interpreters is that women are largely silent in the Bible's narrative. But this would be to neglect the Songs of Miriam, Deborah and Hannah in which they are certainly given a voice. The Song of Songs seems to be largely narrated by a female voice - and gives startling (if we are expecting to see patriarchalism everywhere) expression to female sexual desire. God frequently uses women rather than men to show his subversion of men's determination to sort it out for themselves.
3. If women are significant in terms of their roles as wives, mothers, daughters and so on, it is worth saying that the individualism we now value so highly was not a part of the cultural context of the Bible. It is true of men as well that they were fathers, brothers and sons as much as individuals. Sins against individuals had ramifications for their families.
4. The law actually seeks to protect women as vulnerable to abuse by men. It also takes the actions of women just as seriously as men in that they are held responsible for their sin as well.
5. In Leviticus it is true that menstruation leads to a state of ritual uncleanness which needs purification. But it is also true that any male emission leads to the same uncleanness. Note that this does not mean 'sinfulness', by the way. It is a symbolic reminder of the human inability to remain holy.
It helps to remember that, in the OT, there are laws and customs given that are particular to the time and place: not everything should be held as a universal affirmation that this is the right course of action for all times and places. Remember that the OT points ahead to something greater - the need for something more definitive and lasting if the promises of God are to be fulfilled.
15 comments:
Last night's digression was very interesting, and I've continued to think about these things since. On the journey home Phil and I talked about women's significance as individuals, the Bible's elevation of the status of women, the ritual uncleanness caused by menstruation. There are loads of issues here so thankyou for a good post addressing many distinct points.
I have so many questions on these issues that I don't think I can possibly address them all here (phew!). Over the summer I read "God's Design for Women", hoping that it would deal with some of these matters, but it dealt only with what you've classified as point number 1, and concentrated on what women's ministry in the church is. I've yet to find an accessible book that does discuss these things.
I don't have a problem with your statements, except that I find number 5 quite difficult, probably because I don't quite understand the law and its purpose properly. Your comment the other week about uncleanness showing the tendency of the body towards death and decay, illustrating the tendency of human beings towards sinfulness was very helpful. But I do find it troublesome that for a quarter of their adult lives, women were unclean and therefore not allowed to worship. Also, why is there a distinction made between having a male child and having a female child in Lev 12v5?
And my larger question is: If the Bible is affirming of women, why do we need to work so hard to understand that it is? I think that the answer has something to do with a massive cultural gap?
It's still pretty hard to read the bible as a woman and not feel oppressed at certain points. The Bible feels as if it is centred around men.
The Davies article on polygamy isn't bad, is it.
Somewhat in common with my remarks on the Violence/teaching-children thread: you ask "is the OT unacceptably patriarchal" as if it were obvious what it is to ascribe a view to the OT as a whole, and as if acceptability were a straightforward idea in this context. Surely neither is true. Acceptable by what standard? Are we grading on a curve (some of the comments suggest that we are), or considering surface statements as normative without much discussion (some comments imply this too)? We can't have it both ways ... unless we are willing to start making some distinctions, and refining some questions rather than just addressing them on their face.
If the discussion begins with a remark, "Hey, the OT is patriarchal", why does the reply not begin with "Sure, a lot of it is --- what were you expecting, liberal individualism in a nomadic society in the second millenium BC?" Drawing attention to anachronism in this way will of course draw out the question of how something so old can be "relevant" (shudder) to modern people. (I repeat: shudder.) But that question can't be avoided, so why not just face it?
I understand that the high value for Scripture in our tradition (a good thing), and the insistence on recognising the OT as, you know, an integral part of the Bible (also a good thing) have made us uncomfortable with older/other ways of distancing ourselves from certain material in the OT. But babies are getting thrown out with the bathwater here. At the risk of being provocative: if our Biblical Theology leaves us oscillating between special pleading on the one hand, and semi-defence of ritual violence on the other, what is the use of it?
Wow, two really probing posts: thanks as always Bruce and Becca. I am thinking about writing something a bit more substantial on this topic, suffice for now to say that Bruce's interpretational questions are really useful. Part of the problem is that we expect the Bible to be making universally true claims at every point, whereas sometimes it is just making particularly true ones. Rather than expressing doubts about Bib T at this points, I think I am rather encouraged that it is imperative to use a Biblical Theology to avoid arbirtrariness with the OT, a besetting sin of Christian theologians since the year 200 or so.
Becca said: 'If the Bible is affirming of women, why do we need to work so hard to understand that it is? I think that the answer has something to do with a massive cultural gap?'
There is heaps to say about the idea of the 'cultural gap'; but I think the question changes if we say start with the fact that the GOSPEL is affirming of women. That is our starting assumption. And it helps us ask the right questions of the right part of text in context.
hmm, more later I think.
becca wrote:
But I do find it troublesome that for a quarter of their adult lives, women were unclean and therefore not allowed to worship. Also, why is there a distinction made between having a male child and having a female child in Lev 12v5?
In the text in question no reason is given why there is a distinction between the male and female child in terms of the recovery period for the mother. However, one answer is that the boy will have to be circumcised on the 8th day and so the time for his and her apartness frome the community is halved. But more is on view: it seems as if the woman, having produced a girl with the same reproductive capacities as herself needs to do double time here to protect this capacity in some way (at least symbolically).
oh, and becca: how often do you think men would be unclean and unable to worship?!!
I'm almost at my limits of unembarrassability here! :-)
Your point is taken, and I'd like to comment that there's loads of interesting stuff around these issues. Are there any (non-theologian friendly) books or essays that discuss the OT and women, and/or OT law?
The Bible is rather earthy, isn't it?!
I found Elaine Storkey's 'Created or Constructed?' very interesting - though she makes quite a pro-feminist case with which I did not entirely agree I have to say. I am not sure of books that specifically address the OT law and women quite in the way we are asking.
I realise that your testimony that It's still pretty hard to read the bible as a woman and not feel oppressed at certain points. The Bible feels as if it is centred around men.
hasn't really been asnwered here... I guess I can't contradict your feelings as feelings, but I would like to know more.
I shall try to answer without being either thoroughly un-holy, or dishonest!
The Bible feels that it is centred around men, yes. That's not to deny that it is equally important for women. Does that make any sense at all? It is written almost exclusively by men (songs of Miriam, Hebrews being possible exceptions), and largely about men (I've been thinking about the OT more I guess. I'm sure you would point out that sometimes stories are about men, but they are really about human nature, and I certainly think that that's true in much of Genesis, for example). The pure weight of it feels male. I would make the same generalisation about a novel or film that were similarly weighted. Our culture certainly makes that distinction too - action movies or cop movies preferred by boys, romances by girls, etc. etc.
I don't think I have too much of a problem with this.
My other point was that reading the Bible sometimes feels oppressive, as a woman (I don't say that the Bible *is* oppressive). Perhaps this results from the way feminism has informed how we read literature.
I feel worried every time I read some parts of the OT: Lot offering his daughters to the men of Sodom, the story of Dinah, Judges 19, Tamar. Why is rape the subject of so many biblical narratives? No doubt the OT expressly condemns rape (though of course the penalty for a rape was paid to the husband, wasn't it, not because it harmed the woman but because it threatened the legitimacy of his offspring?), but it is sickening to read, and the reaction to violence against women is rather different to our reaction. And then of course, I could list the number of women in the OT who were prostitutes, deceivers, and seducers. You could then list the number of OT men who are violent, wicked and weak. But then I would wonder if a higher proportion of all of the women in the bible are, to put it bluntly, bad. I suspect so. And why is it that so many women conform to the famous Freudian dichotomy of virgin/mother/whore, with the exceptions being so clearly exceptional?
Then I would argue to myself that all of humanity is shown to be sinful in the OT, but by this point the damage to my reading is done! What I mean by that is, we have to work so very hard to address perceived problems in the text. It's not a matter of simply understanding the context for me - getting it straight once and for all, and then having my reading of the OT become unproblematic, it's a case of every time I read one of these stories having to put work into reconciling both them and myself to some acceptable explanation.
I can accept all of the points that you make in your blog post, though I do have a problem with point 2 - you say that God sometimes uses women to subvert men's determination - but this is still male centred, because the point of this is to illustrate something about men, not something about women. These women are exceptions to the rule.
I think that what I'm driving at is that it actually takes an act of will (of faith?) for me to say that I accept the Bible's presentation of the nature and role of women, whilst not fully understanding it and not always being able to reconcile it with modern culture. I find this exceptionally difficult. I was brought up in an evangelical, bible-based, gospel-preaching church where women would not be allowed to pray in the service, or to read the passage of the Bible. Appropriate forms of service would be making tea. My pastor's wife told me that it was pointless for women to go to university as they should stop work when they get married and university would therefore be a waste of time and resources. I then went off to university and studied Eng Lit, with a healthy dose of feminist theory thrown in there at intervals (though it wasn't dominant, by any means). I'm just very confused, and think that every Christian woman out there should be as well!
Very sorry for the length of this reply, and I'm sorry that I can't express these points better at the moment.
Thanks Becca. I want to make three points in response, but the background to the discussion must always be the fact that we read this through a NT lens. We might decide that the OT is patriarchal in a way which is transformed or overturned in the NT.
1 - I don't meself get the impression that women are more or less evil than men in the OT. It is true that many of the female characters are introduced because of their role as sexual partners and mothers: but then, the chief subject of the Bible is the creation by God of a great dynasty. Men AND women are doing heaps of begetting! It is a theme, inescapably so. Certainly, it is the case in Ezekiel and Hosea for example the idea of the whore is used to represent the faithlessness of God. But there are many exceptions actually: Miriam being one.
2- in defence of my point 2, or rather in further explanation of it: the point of God's 'use' of women, along with the second born and the disabled and the foreigners, is not to as a lesson to men but rather to say something about God's ways with the whole human race. These women might be exceptional... but there are LOTS of em. Richard BAuckham's book 'Gospel Women' is good on this.
3. I think the Bible asks us to have faith about its presentation of reality on many fronts, starting with the resurrection of a man from the dead! So, you attitude to this issue is not inappropriate I think. It makes me cross to hear of the way in which people have been rather lazy with the Bible in the way that you describe.
Michael these answers seem very weak to me --- Becca of course you'll make your own judgement --- in the following way: I think you're trying to defend points that can't be fully defended, because the criticisms do have force; and you're trying to defend points that don't need to be defended, not being essential.
Take Lot offering his daughters. In the world implied by the passage it's fairly clear that the laws of hospitality are seen by at least some of its inhabitants to trump the duty of father to daughter. (There is a very close analogue of this story in Judges 19, where this point is even more explicit. The parallel is worth discussing in its own right, but would be distracting at this point.)
Is this something we'd want to defend? I take it that the answer is "of course not". Is it intelligible as an ethic that someone might have held in such a society: sadly, I think, yes. But is it advocated in the OT? This is harder. Even for Israel, the patriarchal narratives are almost prehistory: origin stories, in a semi-mythical past that's alive in memory in one sense but well outside their grasp. And you could compare Judges to the Old West for Americans: heroic, but dodgy, and not to be replicated in the present. (I'm thinking in particular of the famous refrain, "In those days Israel had no king, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.")
Polygamy in the OT is a related example: it's a book-of-Genesis thing for the most part. (It's called "the patriarchal period" with good reason.) Yes, David has many wives, but he's a king, and this is what kings did: I don't see any implication that this is what people-in-general did. It's certainly there as part-of-how-the-world-works in the narratives, but it'd be a stretch to say that it's approved of, even on the surface. I've elsewhere characterised the OT as having "one eyebrow firmly raised" on this topic; Solomon's many wives are even more openly queried. But there are other things worth criticising that you just won't see criticised. The books of the Bible have other fish to fry, and one reads them for that purpose. To take a quite unrelated example: I read Jonah to consider God's attitude to "sinful humanity" and the role of the church. I do not read it to learn about history.
Is the OT oppressive of women? I think one needs to reply "What is the OT, that it should oppress anybody?". There is no argument that will make all passages acceptable on their face to someone with a heightened concern for women's position in society, and the treatment of women generally. Fine: lots of texts worth reading would likewise fall into that category. I think the real question is how we are using the OT ourselves, or teaching our congregations to read it. To me, the force of feminist criticism comes from Christian rhetoric that seems to allow no space between the Bible and God, or between some surface statement --- be it in the OT or wherever --- and what we are being asked to think or do now. A lot of our rhetoric is like this: and if it's taken at face value, then there is simply no defence against the sort of criticism that Becca is advancing.
I certainly don't think this is God's fault; and I don't think the OT is the sort of thing to which one can ascribe fault in this way. I think it's our fault.
Since I am largely concurring with your post Bruce I think you may have exaggerated the extent to which I 'defended' the OT qua the OT! It is embarassing to see a kind of apologetic that smooths out or explains away all the rough edges of the OT as if ancient Israel were a modern version of Sweden or some such, but without the blondes!
However, I don't want to concede ground that needn't be conceded, or exaggerate the partriachalism of the OT world either. There ARE prominent biblical women who are interesting and noble characters in their own terms and not justs because they fulfill certain required roles; the Bible DOES actually affirm the full humanity of women; it does narrate a family story and so women as reproducers (and men) feature in that capacity, as they would in a similar story today (and we don't need to feel this pigeon holes them into this role; and so on.
I do not personally share our culture's obsession with blondes, so the omission is all the same to me. (Redheads would be a different story.)
Michael it's fair enough: since my complaint is about our collective rhetoric, it behoves me to be more careful about my own. So let me gloss my previous remarks.
My complaint is not against the three numbered points you made (or the five in the original post). My complaint is that these points are what you are "leading" with. In fairness, you wrote that the background to the discussion must always be the fact that we read this through a NT lens but why isn't this the foreground? Why isn't this the main point? Why isn't this what you spend your time on? I sympathise with your reluctance to concede ground that needn't be conceded, but I submit that this is a detail: something to be dealt with if time remains for luxuries.
The main game is this: one should not pick up the OT, read something at random, and go out and do (or more likely think) likewise, without further discussion. Ben M had one of his mates being provocative the other week by claiming to be a Marcionite, to (successfully) piss off the likes of us: but our tradition is so damned scared of discarding the OT that we're nervous of bracketing even genocide [reference earlier discussion]. It's not that there is no point to be made, it's that we've lost all proportion in our assessment of the relative weight of different issues.
I know you're on board with many of the points I made earlier, but it's not enough for it just to be you; and it's not enough for us to acknowledge these issues under duress. I hear a great deal about "we teach the Bible" and "(this-or-that-adiaphoric-issue) is a matter of obedience", whereas it seems to me that God is able to raise up from these stones people who teach the Bible. We have (potential) congregations full of people who (à la Bultmann) use electric lights, get jumpy about ethnic massacre, and believe in educating their womenfolk. (An earlier missionary generation would have considered this a great achievement!) A byproduct of this is that these people --- who am I kidding: me included --- have concerns which will not go away, but which are marginal to a traditional evangelical understanding. Why aren't we just rolling with it, rather than acknowledgement of their concerns having to be dragged out of us under torment?
Thanks Michael and Bruce for your comments. I'm aware that I'm out of my depth in theological discussion, so thanks for your patience.
The Bible should be read through the lens of the New Testament.
Yes - this is something that I'm cognizant of, and I try to do it. Perhaps I'm not quite as skilled at separating universal truth from culturally/historically specific incident as I'd like to be.
I think I follow your argument, and I've learned what adiaphorism is, so many thanks. I realize that most of my concerns have answers, explanations, or at least some discussion around them. That's nice to know (I will probably pick up the Storkey book, thanks Michael).
I'd like to add in the perspective of a non-theologian to concur with a point that Bruce has made. I do have some fairly fuzzy concerns about secondary issues like these, and it irritates me when they are glossed over in church. I've heard loads of sermons about 'the role of women', though none have addressed most of the points discussed here. The arguments that have been presented to me in sermons have not set my mind at rest, and these issues continue to vex me.
An unwillingness on the part of Biblical teachers to engage with difficult issues, or to provide fora in which Christians can engage with them if they choose to do so, leads me either to low-level doubt or to stop wondering and instead to simply accept. (I acknowledge that I personally need to be more proactive in seeking answers to the questions that I have).
Teaching that glosses smoothly over tricky issues can do as much harm as good, can't it? I heard a sermon on Col 3 within the past couple of years that was emphatic in not presenting the chapter as advocating mutual submission, yet suggested that men and women are of equal importance and it argued that the submission of wife to husband is 'the voluntary submission of one equal being to another'. But it did not address the binary distinction between male-free-adult and female-enslaved-child that is created in the chapter. And I don't believe that statement about submission can be supported by the passage - it suggests quite the opposite of a voluntary submission - instead it suggests an enforced submission created by nature or by society. A child is of equal worth to an adult, but a child is lacking in understanding, strength, agency. A slave is of equal worth to a master, but a slave is lacking in self-determination, rights, and status. What, concomitantly, does a wife lack? And a child will grow to be an adult, and a slave may gain manumission, but a wife will always be subject to a man.
To ask these kinds of questions is difficult, because in circles of strong, Christian women (outside of a theology dept), to ask them is to proclaims oneself as struggling and not very holy - as some kind of troublemaker. I'd never bring them up in a church or small group context because either me or the issue would be quickly dismissed.
I think that I understand my salvation, and I place my trust in Christ, but I have yet to be *convinced* that God sees me in the same way that he sees a man. I'm not quite sure that I'm worth as much.
Dear Becca,
Thanks so much for your honest and thoughtful comments here. May I say, that if you find that when asking these questions among 'strong Christian women' you find you or your concerns dismissed or denigrated, I would urge you to broaden your circles of fellowship. My friends and I wrestle with these questions very openly (and if you are ever in Melbourne, you'd be welcome to join us!)
I am genuinely sorry that our church culture is so imperfect in this way and has this result for you. I wouldn't think you would be the only one who has significant questions on this front. The trouble is, hearing the questions properly takes as much skill as answering them. The politically charged nature of the issues doesn't help for a real discussion of them on the ground.
I meant to mention some other books to chase up: Ann Brown's 'Apology to Women' was written in the 80s, but is a fine piece of work, a bit more conservative than Storkey perhaps but not concerned to grind an axe either way.
There's more to say obviously, but
perhaps in a different context.
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