In this 3rd part of the series, we telescope to the wider scriptures and see how they compliment, not contradict their wider contexts. Specifically, that the scriptures help qualify and refine the patriarchy of their world into a truly sanctified patriarchy, not reject it.
But first, a word on egalitarian exegesis. I wish to tackle this now because how the debate is framed here is key to one's conclusions.
So often the debate is framed as complementarians/traditionalists having the burden of proof; we have to prove the gender hierarchy, we have to prove God-ordained gender roles. Egalitarians love the argument from silence; it's their best evidence.
A textbook example of this comes from Andrew Bartlett's "Men and Women in Christ". CBMW recently published their own pretty decent critique of the book, so go check that out [I].
Bartlett assumes the default of egalitarianism in scripture, that without direct "laws" to the contrary, Old Testament morality is generally consistent with egalitarianism:
There is no Old Testament law which says that a wife must obey her husband. Nor does the Old Testament establish such a law through its narratives. In the story related in 1 Samuel 25 Nabal refuses David's request for provisions. Nabal's wife, Abigail, flouts the foolish and dangerous position adopted by her husband and provides abundant supplies. The text presents this as a positive action.
We can search the whole of the Old Testament for a text which says that men ought to exercise authority over their wives, but we will not find it, because it is not there. The absence of any such text is consistent with our understanding that Genesis does not teach a creation principle of unilateral male authority in marriage. [II]To the layman who reads the holy scriptures with 21st century legalist eyes, this argument is decisive. But when you consider the evidence I presented in the previous part for the assumed reality of male authority in the scriptures, we can see just how unnecessary, misleading, and dishonest this claim is. It becomes more obvious when you consider the norm of patriarchy in the world around Israel too (more on that soon).
Additionally, Bartlett's argument relies on a rigid, systematic, exhaustive view of law, which is his area of expertise. This, however, is not how Israelite law functioned, nor even the laws of their neighbours. Ancient Near-Eastern (henceforth ANE) law-codes were by no means comprehensive, and nor were they systematic or concerned with abstractions. Rather, they were lists of "case-laws", so to speak, providing examples of responses to various situations, from which rulers, judges, and the people would discern the general spirit of order and justice [III]. Israel's Law likewise operated this way, and thus didn't provide direct answers to every major question of communal life, since it didn't need to. "Law" was moreso the ruling spirit than a set of precepts (although these did exist, chiefly for ceremonies). People would live their lives, maintain order, and execute justice according to that spirit.
From this we can see that Bartlett's appeal to the lack of a "law" is both irrelevant and misleading when speaking of OT law and narrative, and he would know this if he studied the function of Ancient Near-Eastern law as much as he did ways to obscure a one sentence verse over 3 whole chapters of his book [IV].
But more still, should we at all expect any explicit statement for patriarchal norms in the Bible? What if it was just so normal in Israel's time that there was no need to mention it? That's what I aim to prove; the normative patriarchy of Israel, the Church, and the holy scriptures.
I - The Paradigm of Patriarchy
ANE civilizations universally assumed a patriarchal order without question. A paper by I. Mendelsohn's describing the particulars of ANE families gives a useful summary of ANE patriarchy:
The Near Eastern family of historical times is patriarchal in character and organization. Like the king who rules over his realm so does the pater familias dominate his household. He is, as the West Semites called him, the baal ("owner") of his wives and children. In its infancy the state fought an unceasing battle to restrict the absolute authority of the father who, within his own domain, had the physical power and the legal right to treat his wives and children as he pleased and even to dispose of them as he saw fit. The outcome of this struggle depended, as is the case in every combat, on the respective strength of the parties involved: in a strong state (as was the case in Babylonia during the periods of the Third Dynasty of Ur and the Hammurabi dynasty), the father's power was kept within limits; in a weak state (as was the case in Assyria, Syria and Palestine during the second millennium B.C.), the father's power was almost unlimited. [V]He then provides examples from ancient law codes about the powers of husbands over wives and the regulation of such powers, especially the so-called Code of Hammurabi [VI].
Quite clear, if jarring even to pro-patriarchy types like myself, since the powers of fathers in some ancient societies clearly went beyond what God ordained. Thankfully, He set Israel apart in this regard. Victor H. Matthews gives a fine summary of the Israelite household order, particularly the assumption of patriarchy:
The household unit, or bet 'ab, was led by a dominant male, given the title of "father" (Matthews and Benjamin 1993, 7). It consisted of four or five generations, including the mother and children as well as the extended family of elderly parents and other related dependents who could not maintain an independent household of their own. ...
Tribal affiliation (matteh or shebet) was based on ties to a founding ancestor and an association with a particular geographic region (Gen. 49:1-28; Josh. 13-19). While of some political significance, especially after the monarchy was established, the ties to a particular tribe generally were secondary to the needs and personal associations with the smaller kinship units (Block 2003, 35-36). ...
In all matters that involve the honor or interests of the family, it was the father's responsibility to represent the household. That would include when he and the other elders (heads of household) met to deal with a community issue (e.g., the "rebellious son" [Deut. 21:18-21]) or to hear a legal case dealing with the terms of a marriage contract (Deut. 22:13-19; Ruth 4:1-6). Within the household itself, he served as the arbiter of all the household's dealings and had the right to administer summary justice (Gen. 38:24-26). [VII]
The role of the founding patriarch in tribes is especially critical in reading the Hebrew scriptures, and this will be expanded on in the next section.
To sum up this first part, patriarchy was quite literally the air the Ancient Near-East breathed. Why would you need to command people to breathe? They just do it. This is why, contrary to modern wisdom, it is egalitarians who have the burden of proof, not complementarians or patriarchalists. Egalitarians have to tell us why this normative practice in Israel and the world around it is now wrong and should be worked against. Otherwise, it is only Biblical that we live as a patriarchy. And I will now demonstrate this normative, timeless approval of patriarchy in the scriptures themselves.
II - HuMankind
וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ, בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ: זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, בָּרָא אֹתָם
Then God made man ("HaAdam") in his own image; in the image of God he created him. Male and female, he created them. [VIII]The "human" race takes the name of Adam; he is the Patriarch, the representative of all. And for this reason, Paul says that through Adam, sin entered the world (Rom. 5:12), even though Eve technically sinned first. Not through Eve, nor both Adam and Eve, but through Adam alone came sin. He bore the responsibility as the chief representative of mankind, its first priest, and in both allowing and committing sin he doomed us all.
Another passage of interest here is Genesis 9:6, where God established murder as a capital sin. It reads:
וְאַךְ אֶת-דִּמְכֶם לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם אֶדְרֹשׁ, מִיַּד כָּל-חַיָּה אֶדְרְשֶׁנּוּ; וּמִיַּד הָאָדָם, מִיַּד אִישׁ אָחִיו--אֶדְרֹשׁ, אֶת-נֶפֶשׁ הָאָדָם
שֹׁפֵךְ דַּם הָאָדָם, בָּאָדָם דָּמוֹ יִשָּׁפֵךְ: כִּי בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים, עָשָׂה אֶת-הָאָדָם
And even your blood for your lives I will require, from the hand of every living thing I will require it. And from the hand of man, from the hand of a man's brother, I will require the life of man.
He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For in His image did God make man.Now, this is the time of Noah, no doubt long after Adam had died. And yet, the human race bears his name. That the sin here is the shedding of the blood of haAdam - the Adam-ite, the man - is an explicit definition of the human race as descendants of Adam.
So, we find in Genesis itself that the very concept of "humanity" is gendered; it is the race of Adam, mankind. God did not form an amorphous blob and then make male and female through a grand mitosis. He made Adam first, and then Eve. The former was God's primary intention for creation, and the latter a suitable partner (Gen. 2:18).
Think back to the ANE context, particularly of founding ancestors and father-rule in the household. When we assume what the ancients assumed with respect to founding patriarchs and father rule, Adam's inherent authority over Eve and the first humans becomes crystal clear. No "law" is necessary to establish this, nor an explicit statement in Genesis.
Other than Adam and mankind, the other best example of patriarchal foundations is in Israel itself. The nation was founded by the man named "Israel", previously Jacob, and his 12 sons. We all know this, we all read the story, and watched it in TBN cartoons. But when you account for how this was a fundamental element of patriarchy in the ancient world, it becomes clear that patriarchy itself is being assumed as good and normative. The whole narrative assumes that Jacob/Israel and the fathers who come from him will lead the whole nation according to God's will, and that their descendants will be defined under the banner of their names. Israel and his sons are the authoritative heads, not them and their wives together. Gender equality is never even hinted at as part of God's plan.
III - New Covenant Patriarchy
The patriarchy of Graeco-Roman society was still very real, but later on less absolute than Israelite/Ancient Near-Eastern patriarchy with respect to wives. For example, the early form of Roman marriage called cum manu (with hand) saw the wife given over to the absolute legal authority of her husband. This, however, became exceedingly rare in the late Republic and early Empire, with women mostly remaining under their own fathers' potestas, or legal household authority [IX] in a "free" marriage called sine manu (without hand). She would then become an independent entity when her father died, but still needed a male guardian (tutor) to approve most legal and business acts [X]. Regardless, a woman's husband still held exclusive authority over his children through being the Pater Familias (father of the household), and women were all but banned from political activity and office, her primary role instead being the management of the household, as in ancient Israel. The Roman household of the late Republic and Imperial period was less starkly hierarchical between men and women compared to traditional Greek and Judean households. Regardless, as evidenced by the writings of many authors (especially Greek and Judean) on ideal family function [XI] and the rights and role of a husband in wider public activity vs women's expectations in household management, the husband was the household head and the woman was seen as under his authority (sometimes just socially, others both socially and legally).
In this still patriarchal world, the holy scriptures affirm the general attitude of wifely submission and male authority in life, with the primary given reasoning being obedience to God. The chief text on the Christian household order comes from Paul's letter to Ephesus, 5:21 - 6:9, in which he generally affirms the household order as it was in the world around him, but with foundations rooted in the marriage of Christ and his Church.
Numerous debates on the Ephesians passage rage on today; what does κεφαλή (kephale) really mean? What does submission mean? Is it just wifely submission or 'mutual submission'? Important as these discussions may be, I believe it comes from a falsely assumed default. That is, the passage is treated as this blank slate that both sides have an equal burden to prove means what they say it means. But if you accept the ancient and good default of patriarchy within the scriptures and the world around them, then the debate is a non-starter. This passage is a sober, Christ-centered reassertion of the household hierarchy. No good reason exists to interpret it otherwise.
I will comment on a fairly common objection, one I find important to address because it comes from a false view of how Christians ought to view the works of unbelievers, particularly ancient pagans. Understanding the place of pagan thought in light of the scriptures is very important in fully grasping God's truth, chiefly through natural law [XII], which is extremely relevant for this topic (so much so I'm debating whether to make a whole essay dedicated to it). In refuting this claim, I'll kill two birds with one stone.
Some assert that Paul is merely echoing the cultural ideals of Graeco-Roman society. Others will be more specific and claim he is paralleling the assertions of pagan thinkers like Aristotle, who wrote his own "household code" in a structure identical to Paul's; men and women, parents and children, masters and slaves. Therefore, Paul was merely reaffirming cultural norms in Christian imagery, in order to ensure that the Church keeps good appearances with the wider world. But in spite of this, there was/is an egalitarian trajectory in the passage (e.g. that husbands ought to love their wives, masters ought to treat their slaves well) and in the rest of the scriptures; it just needed time to be fully fleshed out.
This argument is typically asserted through a hermeneutic (method of interpretation) called the "Redemptive" or "Redemptive-Movement" hermeneutic. It basically asserts the claim above; Paul did indeed call for wifely submission, but the scriptures point to a trajectory where that would be replaced by full equality. Not all who use the Redemptive Hermeneutic make the argument-ad-ripping off Aristotle, and this hermeneutic is effectively DOA when prior assumptions on Biblical equality are refuted (as my series has done), so I'll simply address the pagan = bad argument. For those interested, a good explanation and critique of the Redemptive Hermeneutic can be found in "Women, Slaves, and the Gender Debate" by Benjamin Reaoch [XIII]
IV - Pagan man bad
First and foremost, the problem with asserting a parallel between Paul and pagans, and that Paul's command was therefore temporal, assumes without argument that the pagan is actually wrong. Truth is truth and falsehood is falsehood irrespective of who says it. For example, when Aristotle says that a man rules over his children like a king and over his wife like a republic [Bk. I, sec. 1259a], is he wrong? Or when he says the male is better fit to rule than the female [1259b], is he wrong? You can screech "sexist white men" all you want, but that doesn't challenge their claims one iota. And dare I say it, the scriptures back them up. Denying these
What makes this claim even more unlikely is what it tells us about Paul's integrity. We are expected to believe that the same Apostle who said "I am not ashamed of the Gospel", who preached one God and Lord, plus the non-existence of all others (which more than ticked off the wider world - just ask Julian the Apostate), who was whipped repeatedly for his alleged blasphemy by the Jewish elite, and who was finally martyred for the faith, was suddenly too beta to defy current gender norms. Suffice to say, this is ridiculously unlikely.
And Paul also tells us when what he says is either his opinion (e.g. in 1 Corinthians 7) or is based on respecting other norms (e.g. Romans 14 and meat eating). Romans 14 is actually a perfect example here because he first establishes the absolute truth, that all food is permissible to eat. Then and only then does he add the caveat of respecting others who choose to abstain from meat. Nothing even close to this happens in Ephesians 5, and features like clear analogy to Christ and the Church make universal application a certainty.
So, no, pagan man not necessarily bad; the scriptures say otherwise. Pagans may be correct at times, because the law is innate even to unbelievers (Romans 2:14 - 15). And Paul himself would, if only briefly, use the words of pagans to bolster his points (e.g. his Acts 17 sermon, against Cretans in Titus 1). Obviously, God's revelation is the chief standard by which all claims must be tested. But these claims, even by unbelievers, can in fact be tested and validated. In this case, I greatly agree and occasionally disagree with Aristotle, and even think some of his observations can bring definition to established Christian truths on the topic.
V - Conclusion
God willing, we need not even consider these disastrous implications. Rather than explain away countless passages as egalitarians have to, they can be honestly read together without games of exegetical twister, and the result is a coherent doctrine of Biblical Patriarchy.
Thank you for reading, and I pray you have been blessed by my explanation of the scriptures and history. This will be the final part of this series, and I plan to work it into a book project. For now though, I'll be focusing more on posts dedicated to individual topics, such as my more 'recent' one on Genesis 3:16. This series was for establishing the way to interpret the scriptures as a whole. I hope you found it persuasive.
~ Paul
~~~
I - CBMW review of Bartlett's book:
https://cbmw.org/2020/06/10/fresh-light-or-less-light-a-review-of-men-and-women-in-christ/
https://cbmw.org/2020/06/10/fresh-light-or-less-light-a-review-of-men-and-women-in-christ/
II - Andrew Bartlett, Men and Women in Christ - Fresh Light from the Biblical Texts. Kindle edition, SPCK, 2019. Chapter 5, "Creation and Life: Genesis 1 - 3 and Beyond", Subsection "Marriage in the Old Testament".
III - See Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (2nd Edition) by John H. Walton, specifically chapter 13, "Encountering the Present: Guidelines for Life - Law and Wisdom".
Be wary of how he words his argument; he almost implies that ancient law, including Biblical law, had no legal power beyond mere suggestions. He doesn't say this, and that becomes clearer as one reads on (particularly pp. 274 - 276). He rather says that law-codes (what he calls "treatises") gave the ideal of what justice looks like, from which rulers and judges could gain insight for their own decisions. I think he goes too far in saying that the individual stipulations of the 'treatises' themselves had no prescriptive power, but that doesn't matter for this post's argument.
Be wary of how he words his argument; he almost implies that ancient law, including Biblical law, had no legal power beyond mere suggestions. He doesn't say this, and that becomes clearer as one reads on (particularly pp. 274 - 276). He rather says that law-codes (what he calls "treatises") gave the ideal of what justice looks like, from which rulers and judges could gain insight for their own decisions. I think he goes too far in saying that the individual stipulations of the 'treatises' themselves had no prescriptive power, but that doesn't matter for this post's argument.
IV - Bartlett spends a whole 3 chapters on 1 Timothy 2:12 to disprove the traditional interpretation of the passage. It's as desperate as it sounds, and a major motivator to write my own review.
V - I. Mendelsohn, The Family in the Ancient Near East. The Biblical Archaeologist; May 1948, Vol. 11, Issue 2. Pp. 24 - 40. Pg. 40.
VI - The full code (in English) can be browsed here:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp
VII - Jonathan S. Greer, John W. Hilber, John H. Walton, Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament - Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts. Baker Academic, 2018. Essay 52, Victor H. Matthews, "Family, Children, and Inheritance in the Biblical World", pg. 405.
VIII - Some have taken the jump from singular ("him") to plural ("them") to mean that only Adam himself was made in the image of God, not Eve, and thus men, not women, exclusively bear the image. [wrong, singular and plural are often conflated in Hebrew when speaking of collectives, e.g. exodus 3/4. Thus "him" also refers to "them".]
IX - Jane F. Gardner & Thomas Wiedemann, The Roman Household - A Sourcebook. Routledge, 1991 (digital edition by Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001). Page 6.
X - Bruce W. Frier & Thomas A.J. McGinn, A Casebook on Roman Family Law. Oxford University Press, 2004. Chapter V, "Tutelage and the Status of Women and Children", Part B, "The Status of Women".
XI - e.g. Aristotle's household code in Book I of Politics; Plutarch in Moralia, 142e; Philo in Hypothetica: Apology for the Jews, 7.3 (a fragment preserved by Eusebius); Josephus in Against Apion, Book II, Section 25.
XII - Natural Law - the idea that what is right and just (and sometimes, what is wrong) can be deduced from the facts of nature.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/natural-law
https://www.britannica.com/topic/natural-law
XIII - Benjamin Reaoch, Women, Slaves, and the Gender Debate - A Complementarian Response to the Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic. P&R Publishing Company, 2012.
The book is short and an easy read, so I recommend it to anyone with interest in the topic.
The book is short and an easy read, so I recommend it to anyone with interest in the topic.
XIV - See in particular section IV.
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