Historical Evidence vs. Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood

Reading Deborah in Wilda Gafney's Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel

Stack of books next to my computer writing in the library this morning…including the featured book today—my kindle version of Wilda Gafney’s Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel.

Every now and then I pick up John Piper and Wayne Grudem’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. I am (mostly) motivated by incredulity—did it really argue what I remember it arguing? Did it really argue that Deborah wasn’t exercising ‘real’ authority as a judge because she sat under a tree? After I discover I remembered correctly (yes, Tom Schreiner’s essay did argue that Deborah’s seat of authority—i.e. the tree—was a private space so she wasn’t exercising public authority like men), my response is (mostly) the same: incredulity.

How in the world did this book hijack the white evangelical world? Why does it still exert so much influence over how churches allocate leadership roles? Why do we so uncritically believe how it portrays women?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. What I do know is that academic scholarship, especially outside of conservative white evangelical circles, weakens the claims made by Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (RBMW). (BTW I’m being nice here.)

Just in case you don’t know, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism was first published by Crossway press in 1991. Edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem, it is a collection of essays defending complementarianism (God ordained male headship over female submission). Contributors include some of the most prominent members of The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood as well as prominent complementarians—such as Piper, Grudem, Thomas Schreiner, D.A. Carson, Vern Sheridan Poythress, and Elisabeth Elliott. It is also endorsed by leading complementarians—Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Matt Chandler, Mark Dever—and it contains the Danvers Statement, the foundational declaration of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Almost three years ago Aimee Byrd spoke out against RBMW in Recovering From Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (you all should read it). The cost for her was high. But she was exactly right. RBMW wields too much influence in the white evangelical world to not be critically examined—especially since, when it is critically examined, it does not hold up well.

Just for the sake of space, let’s turn this into an occasional series. I’ll take on different parts of RBMW—comparing it with historical evidence. I may even talk some of my graduate students into helping me.

Let’s start with Deborah. Here is what we find in Tom Schreiner’s RBMW essay, “The Valuable Ministries of Women in the context of Male Leadership: A Survey of Old and New Testament Examples and Teaching,” pp. 273-294.

First, Schreiner is writing the essay to challenge the appeal of “contemporary evangelical writers” to “the ministries of women in the Scriptures to support the notion that there should be no limits on women’s roles in ministry today.”

Second, he argues that women’s biblical ministries are primarily “unofficial” as compared to biblical men’s public and official roles. The “unofficial” nature of women’s ministry in the Bible, he argues, limits the ministry of women within the modern church albeit without denigrating it as less significant. As he concludes, women’s ministries are “complementary and supportive of the male leadership in the church…it is clear that biblical writers consistently ascribe ultimate responsibility to men for the leadership of the church.”

Third, he argues that Deborah (Judges 4:4-5) is a clear example of a biblical woman whose authority is not as public or official as that of men. As he writes, “Evangelical feminists consider Deborah particularly significant because she functioned as a judge over Israel, which would include judging men, and she exercised authority over the man Barak, who was a commander to the Israelite troops.”

Except, according to Schreiner, she didn't. He argues that 1) she had no military function; 2) she was not asserting leadership but deferring leadership; 3) she exercised private leadership (not public). “The difference between Deborah’s prophetic ministry and that of male Old Testament prophets is clear,” he writes. “She did not exercise her ministry in a public forum as they did. Note that even when she speaks to Barak she calls him and speaks to him individually (Judges 4:6, 14).”

In sum (according to Schreiner): Deborah exercised her leadership in a way that supported male headship because she was not a military leader, she handed leadership over to a man (Barak), she issued her judgements in private (under a palm tree) and spoke individually to Barak. Her leadership was private and deferential instead of public and authoritative. As he concludes, “those women who had the authoritative gift of prophecy in the Old Testament [like Deborah] did not exercise it in a public forum as male Old Testament prophets did. The reason for this is that such a public exercise of authority would contradict male headship.”

This week in seminar my graduate students read Wilda Gafney’s Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel. Gafney is an ordained Episcopal priest and the Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Ft Worth, Texas (just up the road from me). While Tom Schreiner earned his MDiv from Western Theological Seminary and PhD from Fuller Theological Seminary as a New Testament scholar, Wilda Gafney earned her MDiv from a historically black college (Howard University) and her PhD in Hebrew Bible from Duke University.

Through a close examination of all references to prophecy in the Hebrew Bible (drawing from comparisons of Masoretic Text, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls) and the category of female prophets as “professional intermediary religious functionaries in ancient Israel and the ancient Near East,” Gafney argues differently from Schreiner.

1. Gafney does not question Deborah as commander of a military expedition. Indeed, she affirms Susan Ackerman’s argument that “the disparity in perception of the combat roles of Deborah and Barak” stems from “culturally conditioned perception.” Just go look at the battle hymn Deborah sings with Barak in Judges 5.

“Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song! Arise, Barak, lead away your captives, O son of Abino-am. Then down marched the remnant of the noble; the people of the Lord marched down for him against the mighty…the princes of Issachar came with Deborah, and Issachar faithful to Barak; into the valley they rushed forth at his heels.” Judges 5:12-15

Then read Judges 4:6-15.

Then consider Gafney’s argument. “Deborah’s oracles indicate that she is both military strategist and warrior. The command of YHWH, contained in verse 6, is to take up position on Mount Tabor with the military of Naphtali and Zebulun. Deborah suggests a flanking move, dividing the troops. Barak objects to this because it means he would be separated from her. Barak’s refusal to march without Deborah suggests that the initial plan was for Deborah to draw out Sisera without Barak while he occupied Mount Tabor. Barak’s need for Deborah’s presence may also indicate that he believes her presence would guarantee victory as though the divine emissary of YHWH were present. It is not clear whether she expected an armed force to accompany her. It is clear that she expected to defeat Sizer herself on the field of battle. ‘I will give him into your hand.’ In the poetry of chapter 5—generally understood to be earlier than the prose of chapter 4—verse 15 states that Deborah led the chief warriors of Issachar while Barak led the troops of Issachar.” Indeed, instead of Barak’s subordinate, Deborah is actually his “commanding officer.”

Well, that certainly sheds interesting light on Schreiner’s claim that Old Testament women do not exercise direct authority over men…..

2. There is no reason to question Deborah’s authority as a judge. In her chapter on “Definitions of Prophet,” Gafney examines the use of titles for religious intermediaries—including “judges.” She finds the noun “sh-ph-t” (judge) “occurs sixty-eight times in the Hebrew Scriptures.” The semantic range includes dispute resolution, governance, administrative tasks, and military leadership. She concludes that, “given the expanded semantic range of sh-ph-t and its uses in Judges, Deborah’s judging should be viewed in terms of governance, consultation, and military governance.” Deborah’s exercise of power as a judge is just as direct and authoritative as that of male judges (with the caveat that she might actually have been more powerful—see point 3 below).

3. There is no evidence that Deborah’s authority was exercised privately. Schreiner associates Deborah’s seated authority with private authority that doesn’t parallel the public authority of men. Gafney reminds us of another leader who exercised seated authority: Moses. “One of the titles given to Moses and his successors, until the establishment of the monarchy, was that of judge.” Deborah as a judge is described in the same way as Moses as a judge. “Deborah is described as sitting (yoshevet), just as Moses sat (vayyeshev), to judge the people. The seated ruler regularly represented royal and/or divinely sanctioned human authority.” Deborah rules like Moses.

   Rather than Deborah’s seated authority making her less a public authority than other judges, perhaps it did the opposite? While “there are a number of military saviors in Judges who are described as judging Israel for a specific period,” “only Deborah is described as having a seat of judgement, with her seat located between a palm tree that bore her name and Ramah in the hills of Ephraim.” Instead of a palm tree evoking a private space, Gafney writes that the tree’s “location is significant in that it made her accessible to a majority of the tribes that she would muster for the war and presented consultation of YHWH through her as an alternative to the priestly consultation in Bethel (Judges. 4:5).” So much for quietly serving tea in her parlor! Deborah's seat of judgement positions her as a war leader. Moreover, Gafney reminds us that “Deborah is the only judge in Judges who is also called a prophet, in 4:4: ‘Deborah, the female prophet—the fiery woman—she was Israel’s judge at that time.’”

4. Deborah’s authority as a female prophetess is less extraordinary when compared to Ancient Near East history. Although scholars disagree about how widespread women’s prophetic authority was, they agree that city-states like Mari, Emar, and Nineveh show evidence of women serving in roles comparable to those of Deborah and Miriam. From prophetic activity of women in Mari to a propensity of female Assyrian prophets, evidence shows that Deborah was far from alone.

So let’s sum up:

Schreiner (a New Testament scholar) says Deborah isn’t a military leader; Gafney (a Hebrew Bible scholar) shows there is no basis for that claim. Schreiner says that Deborah exercised authority privately and deferentially; Gafney shows this is simply wrong. Indeed, Deborah exercises authority parallel to that of Moses. Moreover, evidence from Ancient Near East suggests that women like Deborah were not unique.

Schreiner himself states that Deborah is “one of the strongest arguments for full inclusion of women in authoritative positions of leadership.” If his argument that she plays a “supportive and complementary role” rather than exercising direct authority over men is wrong, then what does that mean for his argument? And, if his argument is wrong, then what does that mean for complementarianism?

Something to think about.