Looking Back to the Law

In speaking to people about gender I frequently encounter the idea that there has been a progression in the Bible in understanding women and men. It certainly is true that some things change in the Bible. There is a progression of covenants. Historical contingencies change what God requires. That this might be the case with gender seems to be a particularly attractive notion to people who wish to minimize gender distinction: “In the old days, people were more sexist. But, as time went on, and especially nowadays, we understand gender so much better, or, we have entered an era of expanding love. So, we need recognize that progression as God’s unfolding enlightenment of His people and so…(fill in the blank)—”…we should have women in positions of ecclesial power,” or “…we should have no distinction in marriage,” etc. Recently Richard Hays argued similarly about homosexuality on his way out of life.

I am inclined to point out, in such exchanges, that the Bible itself contradicts the idea of a progression among God’s people in understanding gender. It does this by consistently affirming the principles of equality and asymmetry intertextually (that is, self-referentially).

These days I am apt to make the point that the Biblical religion resisted having female priests for over a thousand years even as all the cultures around them–and I do mean all–embraced the practice. Why would that be?, I query. But my argument goes back to my book enGendered (p78), how the Biblical authors always look backward to justify their statements of gender asymmetry:

Just as equality continues between covenants, so does asymmetry. In fact, most instances of New Testament instruction on gender distinction look back to the Hebrew Scriptures for justification. First Peter 3:1–7 looks back to Genesis 18, calling for direct imitation of, not improvement upon, the women of old (v. 5). First Corinthians 14:33–36 looks back to “the law,” most likely Numbers 30:1–16.12 The quintessential New Testament marriage teaching, Ephesians 5:22–33, the mystery of husband and wife illustrating Christ and the church, looks all the way back to Genesis 2 in its explication of marriage asymmetry (Eph. 5:31). Mark 10:2–12 (and Matt. 19:3–9) look back even further to Genesis 1.

So while particular laws and practices might no longer apply today, we see no progression when it comes to gender principles. Instead, there is an intertextuality that implies enduring truths.

As I note there, in discussing men and women in worship Paul says, curiously, that these Corinthian wives “should be in submission, as the Law also says” (1Co 14:34). But what law is he thinking of? Or what part of the law says that? I wrote in the text that this might refer to the law of vow-making in Numbers 30.  This is where an Israelite husband can cancel a wife’s or daughter’s rash vow that impinges on the family.

But I now believe it more likely that Paul is thinking about the law of the jealous husband in Numbers 5. I also discuss this ingenious law in enGendered, which prevented an aggrieved husband from taking matters into his own hands and humiliated a false accuser if an accused wife turned out to be innocent. Three times, Numbers 5:19, 20, and 29, that law makes a statement of a wife being “under your husband’s authority.”  This could very well have been what Paul was thinking of in advising about the church worship service. He was reflecting on wives and husbands interacting with leadership in the covenant community as he “looked back to the law.”

This looking back to the Law reinforces that need for these enduring gender truths in our lives. They must be getting at something we need to do well, to be well. They are continually there, needing our heeding. We buck them to our own demise.