Response to Witt's Misrepresentations
So that no one may say I am embarrassed by, or don’t have answers to, Witt’s response—a response which was far angrier than I expected—I will go through it here, paragraph by paragraph.
Witt will suggest I think 3 times that I didn’t read his essay; he suggests that if I had I would have responded to the “key point” of the book: cruciform discipleship. But I was not writing an essay about his blog post, but about his book. The blog post he mentions made it easier to write about the book because he states the key chapters of the book. Here is a quote from his blog post:
[i.e., 5 through 7 and 11 through 14]
I set out to address the key chapters of his BOOK, one by one. And I state as much very clearly in my initial essay. Witt simply pretends like I’m trying to avoid “the key issue” because I’m a complementarian who is obsessed with Genesis 2. I only talk about Genesis 1-3 because that is part of what he covers in chapter 5. I don’t even consider myself a complementarian. Or: it’s not clear to me what a complementarian is.
I’ve never called myself a complementarian.
In my essay I go through each of his arguments for Genesis 1-3. Or, if not every one (maybe I missed one) just about every one. He has honed in on a single argument from Genesis 1, regarding the gender of the Hebrew word for God. He complains that he needs to point out “the feminine Hebrew ruach or the neuter Greek pneuma does not mean that the Holy Spirit is either female or a “thing”?” – I don’t know, why didn’t he make this argument in his BOOK and then I might eventually consider it in my essay?
This style of argument: “you’re stupid for not divining what is really important, or what is the real argument” … it’s evasion, nothing more.
Here is a quick rebuttal: there is a reason ruach is feminine and pneuma is neuter. Witt’s assertion in his BOOK is that the gender of words is completely arbitrary, which is absolutely wrong. I quote page 54: “Hebrew has only two genders, masculine and feminine, with no neuter, and the choice of genders for a noun is unpredictable.” My point was simply that it’s perfectly predictable in many cases, that anyone could have predicted the Hebrew word for God would be masculine. These New Testament examples Witt refers to in this response, pneuma and ruach are not as predictable but one can imagine how the origination came about.
No one to my knowledge is as stupid as Witt asserts they are; i.e., to my knowledge, no one believes that a Feminine ending makes the thing a Female. A table in French (la table) is not a Female, but there is something feminine about it.
“The author claims that I follow Phyllis Trible, who translates the word ‘ezer as “companion.” Here is what I wrote:
Two of the three people Witt cites retain the original translation of “helper”: Richard Hess and Carrie Miles continue to use “helper.” Witt follows Phyllis Trible, who translates ’ezer “companion.”
--- I was merely noting that Witt was fighting for a word, “companion” using three authors, two of which retained the word “helper.”
“He, however, prefers the translation “helper,” suggesting that “helper” presumes that the woman provides assistance to the man in cultivating the garden, and that such help implies subordination.”
Nowhere do I claim that Eve helped Adam maintain or cultivate the garden. Why would I claim that? I wrote in my essay (which Witt claims to have read!) that I thought it would be a more appropriate claim for him to make…
A side point: I can’t imagine there being any need for “cultivation” pre-fall. Can the Garden of Eden be improved?
In my essay, I was arguing with his explicit claim IN THE BOOK that “companion” was a superior translation to “helper.” I will quote his own book. I quote:
The expression here translated “companion corresponding to” (‘ezer kenegdo) is misleadingly translated as “helper” in English translations. (PAGE 56)
He constantly treats me like I am a liar or sloppy, when I am not. For example, the next paragraph is all premised on Witt’s own imagination of what I wrote rather than what I actually wrote.
I did not claim that Eve helped Adam in the Garden. I don’t think she did. Witt insults me for things I didn’t and don’t say. He really likes to throw his academic authority around undeservedly, treating me like I don’t know “a standard rule of biblical interpretation.”
Here is what I wrote on the matter.
Yes, but he hasn’t dealt with my objections to his exegesis. I am happy to say my argument from Genesis 3:16 is sufficient grounds for any church to retain its priesthood.
I invite the reader to read my essay where I quote his arguments and respond to them. Witt insults me in basically every paragraph.
Well I addressed two arguments he gave, quoting him from pages 173 and 174. But, per usual, they’re not his “actual arguments.” In any event, Witt’s secret “actual argument” is beside the point. I’m clear in my purpose: I aim to speak insensitively because I believe people are too sensitive.
Here is what I wrote:
As I’ll show in a moment, it’s clear even from this blog post that Witt cannot consistently claim that the OT Law is divinely ordained. Here is what I wrote:
I am aware that not everything in the OT is law, and my argument doesn’t depend on such an error. Witt insults me again.
Here he makes my point for me: no person who genuinely believes the OT law is divinely inspired would say “it’s an aspect of ancient ME culture.” It’s not a law made by men who are merely copying their neighbors, it’s a law made by God that set a people radically apart.
For example: Does Witt believe that God ordained the laws about goring oxen? It sounds like he thinks such laws were not divinely ordained.
If he does believe they were divinely ordained (which the Bible requires him to believe) then the other laws, including the laws about women, were also divinely ordained. In which case he cannot say that the social structures were not of divine origin.
He must choose.
Does Witt believe Numbers 30 is “of divine origin” or is it merely a cultural relic?
I’m perfectly aware of the distinction between ceremonial and moral law. I’m perfectly aware that Christians are not bound by the entirety of OT Law. The question is whether that law is divine or a cultural relic of the First Century.
To summarize: Witt’s claim IN THE BOOK (67), is that there is no “divine origin” for gender roles because these roles were merely cultural. He claims that OT Laws, rather than being of a divine origin, are cultural. Which is why I wrote what I did.
The arguments presented in both the book and this blog post confirm my view, or, if they don’t confirm it, they at least go a long way to explaining how I came to the conclusion I did.
It's not that Witt “recognizes a connection between socioeconomic realities and culture”; that doesn’t make anyone anything but sensible. The problem is his assessment of that connection and his corresponding desire to abolish the division of labor and gender roles.
Has anyone ever accused Witt of being “a blind advocate of free enterprise capitalism”? I doubt it. It’s his own fantasy that anyone could.
I made the argument he quotes, but I made it along with biblical arguments. It’s common to appeal to both reason and revelation in the Western tradition, and that’s what I was doing. Witt asserts he knows my real argument, claims I don’t have other arguments, and so insults me.
But here, I say very clearly:
Witt even takes part of “my real argument” from this exact paragraph (the highlighted portion)—simply ignoring that I say there is another argument, namely, one from our common authority.
Why is there “nothing remotely biblical about such an appeal to masculinity” when there are, by Witt’s own admission “masculine men in the Bible” not all of whom are the “bad guys” listed.
In any event, that argument about masculinity was one from reason, not from what I called “our common authority.”
The argument I suggested coming from our common authority was that Adam and Eve would have had sex (where there are roles…) and children (where there are roles). They would have been father and mother, and these roles result in further roles.
I also argued that the world was not redeemed and therefore we could not be called sinners for taking guidance from Genesis 3:16.
Witt insults me by constantly asserting I’m sloppy or stupid or malicious. If you are getting tired of me saying “Witt is insulting me”… well, I promise you I’m more tired of saying it than you are of reading it.
When Jesus flipped the tables.
When Jesus rebuked the storm.
When Jesus faced down the angry mob, in defense of the woman.
When John the Baptist denounced Herod.
When Peter jumped out of the boat.
These seem to me like masculine things. I think Witt assigns solely negative things to masculinity. Otherwise how could he say it is nowhere portrayed positively in the NT?
While he clearly thinks he’s insulting me in this paragraph, it’s not clear what point he’s making. Catholics are egalitarians?
Again, I was explicitly commenting on his book not the essay.
Here he’s misquoting me. He is rarely able or willing to quote entire sentences. Here is what I wrote.
My point was that Witt was doing what every Christian man should be doing, but he’s botching it so bad that “people like me” (i.e., conservatives) wonder if he even likes Christianity. He may scoff at the idea, but I was trying to explain how good intentions on both sides could lead to the present division. Instead of seeing my point for what it is, he’s bitterly insulting me.
The reason people like me wonder is not that Witt is an “egalitarian like the Catholics.” If they are egalitarians, they still certainly have kept up the gender roles and division of labor. The reason for wonder is his opposition to the division of labor and gender roles. I’ll say it again: Christianity is a religion with a priesthood. Every priesthood is premised on a division of labor.
I will note: a difference between me and Witt is that while he will constantly insinuate things about me, such as when he says “my essay he claims to have read,” I always state my opinion plainly.
The book Professor Witt did write, in his mind, is a book that only deserves positive reviews.
He gets in one last insult. And points explicitly to Chapter 7 of his BOOK, “Mutual Submission,” which he surely well knows I have not yet covered in my confrontation with his book.
Conclusion:
I have answered his response to me. I assume he will continue to spin out justifications and rationalizations for his errors (and now his behavior). Hopefully I will have the time to answer them. For now, here is a list that stands:
Most of my initial article was passed over in silence. He ignores my argument about Genesis 3:16 and my arguments about the necessity of a division of labor for the Christian priesthood.
He insults me by hiding the fact that I was commenting on the 5th chapter of his book, instead constantly suggesting that I was dodging the “key point” he won’t talk about until chapter 7.
He insults me by claiming I thought Eve worked with Adam in the Garden. He boasts of his own power of reading texts in the moment of his mis-reading them.
He acts as if no one but himself has access to what the “actual argument” ever is. So even when I say “there are two types of arguments” he decides I have one actual argument (and he doesn’t really refute that.)