IVP - Addenda & Errata - Required Hermeneutical Reading!

I haven't read Grudem's book, but one difficulty with Webb's approach is that it makes arriving at the truth dependent on the work of experts to interpret and improve upon the moral understandings of the biblical writers. So one way that it does require the work of experts is more than just in its interpretation. If the best moral thinkers of our time have moved beyond the biblical writers' assumptions, Webb thinks, then we ought to go with their judgments rather than the apostles'. This is a role for the experts of the day that I'd expect the apostles would be horrified at.

Now maybe that's not Grudem's argument, but I think someone can say something in the ballpark of what your describe him as saying and mean something like this, and that argument is to my mind much better than the one you present Grudem as taking.

I agree that Mark Noll's work is a must read, but I'm afraid you've misread Noll in your application of his work to the egalitarian debate.

You list two positions:
1) "those who took their biblical instruction in this matter “right off the pages” (“the letter”) of Scripture were arguing for slavery."

2) "Those who employed a more sophisticated hermeneutic (“the spirit”), which also included a full consideration of the Roman background of slavery, were arguing for abolition."

But Noll actually includes three positions. It seems that you have conflated two of them in your "spirit" category.

In my reading of Noll, I don't recall the "spirit" position taking "a full consideration of the Roman background of slavery." Rather, those in the "spirit" position argued on the basis of "general humanitarian principles."

This is the theological crisis as Noll sees it: "The stronger their arguments based on general humanitarian principles became, the weaker the Bible looked in any traditional sense. By contrast, rebuttal of such arguments from biblical principle increasingly came to look like a defense of Scripture itself" (45).

Noll notes there was a third, largely ignored position. This was the position adopted by the African Americans themselves along with some white folk. Rather than arguing from the spirit of Scripture these people took the letter of Scripture "*very* seriously" (63). "Arguments from broad biblical principle were not, however, as frequent as interpretations pointed specifically to concrete features of the American slavery system" (66). In other words, the system of slavery as practiced in the Antebellum South was different from slavery as regulated in Scripture. Those who espoused position three concluded, therefore, the practice of slavery in the South was unbiblical.

Grudem's hermeneutic would fall into position #3 rather than in position #1 as is evidenced by his response to the slavery question: http://www.cbmw.org/Online-Books/Fifty-Crucial-Questions/Fifty-Crucial-Questions#16

I should further note that though all the background information that we currently have about ANE and Greco-Roman slavery was not available to these 19th century interpreters, they were still able to reach the correct conclusion by comparing Scripture to their situation. This is not to denigrate the value of background information. But our embrace of the usefulness of background information must not undercut our commitment to the clarity of Scripture.

In my view, what's often overlooked in these issues is the nature of progressive revelation. The bald truth is that God, in fact, is rather limited by His choice to use human instruments. Let me explain, before you write this off as heresy...

H.L. Mencken once wrote, "I read the Bible last night. I didn't like it. God came off as some kind of middle eastern oriental despot."

Certainly there are portions of the Scriptures for which this seems a "not altogether unfair" assessment.

A book with a several thousand year history is going to fairly bristle with seemingly "anachronistic views" of things, as we evaluate them in the light of current culture.

But that critique fails to take note of the fact that the text was revolutionary in its time, in revealing a God of grace that defied all cultural aspirations and imagination. Or that today's "advances" are, in many cases, the fruit of applying those very changes of insight.

Which confronts us with the miracle that only God-inspired thoughts in the text could have changed the brutish world-views against which their human authors struggled in their day --and that these very same texts still manage to confront us today, despite centuries of exposure to and engagement with its truths.

In other words, God's "limit" is in revealing Himself to people with limited imaginations... He blows all our categories and exceeds our expectations the more we get to know Him. But He does so in a way that expands, without invalidating, His prior revelation.

Looking backwards over the centuries, it may seem God gets "smaller" in His moral perfection. Despite, however, the seeming transformation of God's nature in Scripture, its not God Who's developing over time, but our ability to apprehend and believe by faith in what has been, to this point, too wonderful to believe.

The incarnate revelation of Christ spawned a revolutionary change of paradigm in our apprehension of God's purposes and nature.

And as with all paradigm shifts, the struggle to understand and reach forward beyond the vague aspirations which preceded the change suddenly become clarified and evident, if not urgent. Finally, the past comes into clearer view.

When slavery was outlawed in Rome, it was politically legislated because of the culturally emergent question, "how can a person, made in the image of God, possess another as property, who is also made in the image of God?"

Among the culturally emerging questions with Biblical equality are, "What were God's original intentions as regards the exercise of spiritual gifting in men and women? Is gender a legitimate "a priori" category to use when delineating or denying women roles in the godly use of gifts within the church of God's redeemed? Would Jesus ever call a woman to preach to and teach adult men? If not, why not? Didn't He do exactly that in commissioning the women who were the first witnesses of the resurrection, to go and tell the disciples (presumably, including the men) that He was ascending to the Father (a teaching-- John 20: 17-18), and also to leave Jerusalem and go look for Him in Galilee (a prophetic command--Matt. 28:10)?"

The struggle continues... is egalitarianism perhaps a path back to Biblical literalism? Somebody please go and warn Dr. Grudem of the dangers of not doing close exigesis, and instead relying on subtle argumentation.