"The Bible says.." "Yeah, but the Bible also says..."
While reading in the book of Exodus the other day I was struck by this particular law:
10 “If a man who has married a slave wife takes another wife for himself, he must not
neglect the rights of the first wife to food, clothing, and sexual intimacy. 11 If he fails in
any of these three obligations, she may leave as a free woman without making any
payment (Exodus 21:10-11 NLT).
I’m guessing you’ve never heard a sermon preached on this.
The reason this text caught my attention is that I think it perfectly captures the shallowness and inadequacy of two of the most common ways people approach the Bible.
Let’s call the first error the “conservative error.” In my book I say the conservative error is the assumption that you have to believe everything the Bible describes and obey everything it prescribes. The conservative error is to think that everything the Bible says is perfectly true and valid for all people at all times, as if you can just lift it off the page and “do what it says.”
But a text like this clearly invalidates that approach. For starters, we don’t condone men “taking” wives at all, certainly not more than one, and even more certainly not one from his group of slaves!
Now, the more thoughtful conservative reader will no doubt concede that things were different in their culture, so a text like this doesn’t apply today the way it did back then. I agree, and that’s exactly the point. That rule doesn’t stop being true just because you’re reading a different verse. Everything written in the Bible reflects assumptions, convictions, beliefs, and perspectives that were common to those people in that culture at that time. You don’t ever just lift a text off the page and “do what it says.”
Even with something as seemingly transferable as “Thouh shall not murder.” The people of Israel were instructed not to murder but apparently that only referred to their own people. They were routinely invited to murder other people groups! When reading the Bible, you always have to take into consideration (to the extent that it is knowable) the cultural context the passage reflects and then make translations into your own context that honor the “spirit” of what the original passage was trying to accomplish in the past even if the “letter” of your translation is different.
Which brings me to what I’ll call the “liberal error” when reading the Bible.
If the conservative error is to treat the Bible like the letter of its various descriptions and prescriptions should shape all human society everywhere for all time, the liberal error is to look at those same historically bound descriptions and prescriptions, name their incongruence with contemporary culture, and on that basis conclude the Bible is irrelevant, antiquated, or oppressive.
In this case, that the Bible permitted men to take multiple wives, including slaves, but only required men to provide those wives with minimums like food, clothing, and sexual intimacy could easily be viewed by the liberal reader as paternalistic, sexist, even misogynistic and the entire Bible could be invalidated on that basis.
To prove that everything the Bible says is authoritative, the conservative reader says, “The Bible says.” To prove that nothing the Bible says is authoritative, the liberal reader retorts, “Yeah, but the Bible also says.”
The liberal reader needs to do the same work as the conservative reader: consider how this text may have functioned in its original cultural context.
In classical rabbinic tradition, these principles were expanded to be applied to all Jewish women, slave or free. Food referred to all financial sustenance. Clothing included housing and even basic household items. And sexual intimacy included emotional closeness and a strict consent clause.
What on the surface may sound to the liberal reader like paternalism actually reflects a deep concern for the rights and dignity of women in marriage. In fact, if a woman believed her husband was failing in any/all of these areas, a rabbinical court existed to enforce the rules.
When you lift a text like this off the page and think you can just apply it in your own context you end up with the absurdity of conservatism or the shallowness of liberalism. But if you approach scripture the way Jesus did, with a knowledge of God’s loving character and the conviction that all biblical texts are to be used/applied in a way that helps us honor one another, even texts like this that can feel at best culturally foreign or at worst offensive have a depth and beauty that can lead people to authentically God-honoring ways of living together.
10 “If a man who has married a slave wife takes another wife for himself, he must not
neglect the rights of the first wife to food, clothing, and sexual intimacy. 11 If he fails in
any of these three obligations, she may leave as a free woman without making any
payment (Exodus 21:10-11 NLT).
I’m guessing you’ve never heard a sermon preached on this.
The reason this text caught my attention is that I think it perfectly captures the shallowness and inadequacy of two of the most common ways people approach the Bible.
Let’s call the first error the “conservative error.” In my book I say the conservative error is the assumption that you have to believe everything the Bible describes and obey everything it prescribes. The conservative error is to think that everything the Bible says is perfectly true and valid for all people at all times, as if you can just lift it off the page and “do what it says.”
But a text like this clearly invalidates that approach. For starters, we don’t condone men “taking” wives at all, certainly not more than one, and even more certainly not one from his group of slaves!
Now, the more thoughtful conservative reader will no doubt concede that things were different in their culture, so a text like this doesn’t apply today the way it did back then. I agree, and that’s exactly the point. That rule doesn’t stop being true just because you’re reading a different verse. Everything written in the Bible reflects assumptions, convictions, beliefs, and perspectives that were common to those people in that culture at that time. You don’t ever just lift a text off the page and “do what it says.”
Even with something as seemingly transferable as “Thouh shall not murder.” The people of Israel were instructed not to murder but apparently that only referred to their own people. They were routinely invited to murder other people groups! When reading the Bible, you always have to take into consideration (to the extent that it is knowable) the cultural context the passage reflects and then make translations into your own context that honor the “spirit” of what the original passage was trying to accomplish in the past even if the “letter” of your translation is different.
Which brings me to what I’ll call the “liberal error” when reading the Bible.
If the conservative error is to treat the Bible like the letter of its various descriptions and prescriptions should shape all human society everywhere for all time, the liberal error is to look at those same historically bound descriptions and prescriptions, name their incongruence with contemporary culture, and on that basis conclude the Bible is irrelevant, antiquated, or oppressive.
In this case, that the Bible permitted men to take multiple wives, including slaves, but only required men to provide those wives with minimums like food, clothing, and sexual intimacy could easily be viewed by the liberal reader as paternalistic, sexist, even misogynistic and the entire Bible could be invalidated on that basis.
To prove that everything the Bible says is authoritative, the conservative reader says, “The Bible says.” To prove that nothing the Bible says is authoritative, the liberal reader retorts, “Yeah, but the Bible also says.”
The liberal reader needs to do the same work as the conservative reader: consider how this text may have functioned in its original cultural context.
In classical rabbinic tradition, these principles were expanded to be applied to all Jewish women, slave or free. Food referred to all financial sustenance. Clothing included housing and even basic household items. And sexual intimacy included emotional closeness and a strict consent clause.
What on the surface may sound to the liberal reader like paternalism actually reflects a deep concern for the rights and dignity of women in marriage. In fact, if a woman believed her husband was failing in any/all of these areas, a rabbinical court existed to enforce the rules.
When you lift a text like this off the page and think you can just apply it in your own context you end up with the absurdity of conservatism or the shallowness of liberalism. But if you approach scripture the way Jesus did, with a knowledge of God’s loving character and the conviction that all biblical texts are to be used/applied in a way that helps us honor one another, even texts like this that can feel at best culturally foreign or at worst offensive have a depth and beauty that can lead people to authentically God-honoring ways of living together.
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