However, I believe scholarship can be exalted to a level that can prove uncomfortable.

I’ve noticed it can rely too heavily upon human reasoning rather than God’s. With regard to the issue of slavery you stated, “If you agree with me . . . you will need to rely on a more adequate interpretive principle than ‘Where the Scriptures speak…’ You will need the guidance of . . . moral philosophy and logic.”

I’m sorry, I can’t agree with you. Four reasons:

1. Your statement implies that Scripture is NOT God-breathed nor is it useful for teaching, correcting etc. (I hope you didn’t mean to say that.) But by your reasoning, one could be led to believe that the Bible suffers from deficiencies that only the mortal logic and moral philosophy of man can counteract. (See Colossians 2:8.)
2. Your statement also presumes that slavery was/is inherently a bad thing. If that were true, if slavery is inherently bad today, it must have also been bad back in the days of Scripture. But since the Law of Moses included a description of how God’s people would engage in slavery . . . and Scripture never condemned the practice . . . then it’s our human reasoning that must be altered.
3. You’ve also presumed that the slavery we saw in pre-Civil War America was the same as biblical slavery.
4. And lastly, you’ve presumed that our modern culture doesn’t engage in slavery today.

In 1850, there were church leaders who insisted on slavery . . . but their idea of slavery was morally indifferent to Scripture. Their idea of slavery was slavery for life. Their idea of slavery involved the buying and selling of human flesh principally because that flesh was black. And their slavery was based on the idea that black people deserved to be enslaved because of the heretical teaching that blacks descended from Cain (a heresy that good biblical scholarship has always condemned).

By contrast, the biblical concept of slavery was usually temporary. It often involved the paying off of one’s debts or the compensation of a crime. These slaves were freed when their debt was fulfilled, or when reparations were made. Every seven years all debts were forgiven, and every 50 years slaves were to be freed (the year of Jubilee).

Now, in our day we have our own forms of slavery, we just don’t call it slavery. For example, I often see slaves working by the side of the road wearing orange jump suits. Our government offers them this chance at slave labor as an alternative to spending time in a small cell or exercising in enclosures protected by razor wire.

In addition, there are others today who face lives akin to slavery because they have lost their homes and other possessions to foreclosure . . . never to regain what was once theirs. By contrast, God’s law protected his people against such permanent losses. They could pay off their debts by slave labor and at the end of seven years, regain what had been theirs.

Then, of course, there were those whom Israel made slaves who had once been enemy combatants. For them it was a choice between death and life in slavery. Given that choice, slavery wasn’t all that bad an option. In fact, Israel made good use of these enemy combatants . . . we put ours in “Club Gitmo.”

Slavery, as practiced under the law of Moses, was a humane and reasonable way of dealing with individuals who would otherwise have lost everything they owned to debt or have been condemned to interminable lengths of time behind bars.

But, since you rely so heavily on scholarship—I believe you already knew that.

Another problem with scholarship can be the presumption that scholars are always unbiased. But they aren’t. They are as prone to wanting to prove their theories and prejudices as anyone else. In fact, they can often engage in studies of obscure texts (kind of like Romans 16:7) in order to establish church doctrine. I’m sure that you had no intention of doing that when you introduced your reference to Mr. Epp’s book . . . that would be dishonest. I’m also sure that you didn’t intend to imply that the issue of whether Paul intended Junia or Junias was uncontested fact. It isn’t. There are reasonable scholars who have serious problems with both Epp’s position and with the resulting theology that many “scholars” try to impose on this ambiguous passage.

In regards to scholarship, I agree that it is important for our brotherhood to embrace it . . . but not all scholarship is sound, honest, or reliable. One of my favorite passages is Proverbs 30:1-6. It should be the watchword of every mortal who would take on the mantle of a biblical scholar. It says:

"I am the most ignorant of men; I do not have a man’s understanding. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands? Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and the name of his son? Tell me if you know! (Proverbs 30:2-4).

As a scholar who loved Scripture, Agur related verses 2 through 4 in order to lay the groundwork for what he was going to say next. In those verses he was telling us his personal reasoning was faulty and his insights were limited when examining God’s Word. But then Agur wrote:

"Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar” (Proverbs 30:5, 6).

I would advise you to take his advice seriously.
—Jeff Strite
Logansport, Indiana

A response from Robert Hull:
I am thankful for Mr. Strite’s interest in the important issue of the relationship between scholarship and the church. I will respond briefly to the concerns he raised about my article. First, concerning slavery, I made three points: (1) Many church leaders of the 1850s defended slaveholding on the basis that both the Old Testament and the New Testament approved of it. (2) Slaveholding in contemporary society is morally indefensible. (3) Good scholarship, and not just quoting Scripture, is necessary to make the case that slaveholding in contemporary society is indefensible.

I made no statements at all about the nature of slavery among the ancient Israelites. I also do not presume that antebellum slavery in the United States was the same as slavery in antiquity, nor did anything I write suggest that slavery does not exist in modern culture. I am well aware that slavery exists on a wide scale today in many parts of the world, and I believe Christians ought to oppose it with all their power. But I do not believe that any abolitionist has been able to make the case against slavery simply by quoting the Bible—at least none that I am aware of has attempted to do so.

The actual facts about slavery, in any era and under any conditions, have to be ferreted out by good scholarship, and Mr. Strite does not shy away from employing scholarship to make his own points. I leave it to the readers to judge whether he has used that scholarship to good effect.

With respect to the Junia/Junias debate, Mr. Strite asserts that there are reasonable scholars who disagree with Epp’s position that Paul was greeting (Romans 16:7) Junia, a woman, and not Junias, a man.  First, I refered to Epp’s book not because he has uncovered anything new, but only because it is the most thorough study ever published on the issue. Although scholars seldom achieve consensus, I am unaware of a single scholar who has published original research on this issue in the past decade who argues for “Junias.”

For the first 12 centuries of the church it was taken for granted that Paul was referring to a woman (named either Junia or Julia). To this day, not a shred of evidence has been uncovered in the thousands of inscriptions and literary works from Greco-Roman antiquity that the presumed name “Junias” ever existed. On the other hand, we have more than 250 examples from the city of Rome alone of women named Junia. There are still a few scholars who argue that Paul was greeting a woman, Junia, but that she and Andronicus were not themselves outstanding apostles, but only outstanding persons in the opinion of apostles. The most serious defense of this position is the article by Michael Burer and Daniel Wallace, “Was Junia Really an Apostle? A Reexamination of Romans 16.7 (New Testament Studies 47 [2001] 76-91).  Responses to this piece from other scholars have eroded what little support Burer and Wallace were able to muster from their examination of ancient literature. (Interested readers can follow the debate in Epp, Junia, the First Woman Apostle, 69-78, with full references to the literature).

I do take Mr. Strite’s point that “not all scholarship is sound, nor honest, nor reliable,” but bad scholarship can be corrected only by good scholarship. Even such a small matter as how best to translate a single word in Hebrew deserves our best efforts: Should the word tserupha in Proverbs 30:5—which Mr. Strite quotes—be translated “is pure” (King James Version), “is tried” (American Standard Version), “proves true” (Revised Standard Version), “has stood the test” (Revised English Bible), or “is flawless” (New International Version)? If we are to continue to be instructed by that wonderful text, we ought to thank God for the scholars who put themselves through the disciplines necessary to produce such a variety of useful renderings of the Hebrew text.

There are so many people who have accepted and taught this untruth and misled so many who love the Lord and yet would believe what people say rather than believing the truth of God’s Word. There are many of these folks in our congregations—perhaps they can find the truth through a study of God’s Word and preachers who are willing to teach the truth.
—Margie Soesbe
Gresham, Oregon