Corporal Punishment in the Bible: A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic for Troubling Texts

by William J. Webb

William Webb confronts those often avoided biblical passages that call for the corporal punishment of children, slaves and wrongdoers. How should we understand and apply them today? Are we obligated to replicate those injunctions today? Or does the proper interpretation of them point in a different direction? Webb notes that most of the Christian church is at best inconsistent in its application of these texts. But is there a legitimate basis for these lapses? Building on the findings of his previous work, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis, Webb argues that the proper interpretation and application of these texts requires ascertaining their meaning within the ancient cultural/historical context. In recognizing the sweep of God's redemptive purposes already evident in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New, we remain truly biblical.

Genres: Theology, Parenting, Nonfiction, Religion, Christianity, Biblical Studies

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Dr. Bill Webb (Ph.D. Dallas Theological Seminary), is Adjunct Professor of Biblical Studies at Tyndale Seminary. He has worked as a pastor, chaplain, and professor over a span of over twenty years. He is married (Marilyn) with three grown children (Jonathan, Christine, and Joel) and a dog (Muffin).

Reviews

[John Dekker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book arguing against smacking (spanking) children. Webb particularly interacts with organisations such as Focus on the Family, which advocates smacking, but suggests a parent administer no more than two smacks at a time. Webb argues that such an approach is not "biblical" at all, in the sense that it has moved beyond what he calls the Bible's "concrete specific instructions". Webb points out that the Book of Proverbs encourages using a rod on the back, rather than a hand on the bottom. Webb than says that the way Focus on the Family has moved beyond the Bible is a good thing, and we should go even further, following the Bible's own trajectory towards a more gentle approach. Webb calls this a "redemptive-movement hermeneutic".

Firstly, the book has a rather condescending feel about it. Webb is constantly "commending" corporal punishment advocates for going beyond the Bible, when they would argue, of course, that they are faithfully following the principles laid out in Proverbs. Webb also notes that he used to believe in smacking, but now he knows better.

Secondly, Webb focuses his attention on a narrow band within the broad spectrum of Christian smacking advocates. He seems to have no knowledge, for example, of Michael Pearl, who does indeed argue for using a "rod". Maybe he knows about Pearl but considers him too fringe or discredited to be worth mentioning. In any case, different pastors, authors, and parents apply the biblical teaching on smacking in different ways (this article from Capitol Hill Baptist Church mentions a plastic spoon), and it's not clear that the Focus on the Family approach can be said to be representative. Webb struggles to articulate what could be wrong in using an actual rod. The only arguments he gives are: (a) it gives him a feeling of revulsion, and (b) even Focus on the Family avoids it.

Thirdly, at the heart of everything he says about smacking is Webb's redemptive-movement hermeneutic. It's the idea that we look at how the Bible's approach to a certain issue is different to that of the surrounding culture. (In this case, ancient Egyptian and Babylonian laws.) To put it bluntly, we see how the Bible has improved upon that, we discern the direction that the Bible takes us, and go further in that direction. This sounds a lot like improving upon the Bible, and it is. Webb's hermeneutic fails to take into account that in Christ we already have God's fullest revelation.

I was all set to give this book a two-star rating, but Webb includes a postscript in which he gives an excellent overview of "alternative" disciplinary methods. Regardless of whether one agrees with smacking or not, there is a lot of helpful parenting advice here. That was good enough to lift the book up to three stars.

[Matthew Richey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personal note. I grew up with unabusive (by my definition of abuse) corporal discipline and have no anger or bitterness about it; but I've recently ceased using it because I have not found it particularly effective and have begun to feel uncomfortable with it.

If you've read "Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals" (which I recommend), you'll be able to predict where and why Webb comes down where he lands. His analysis of the Old Testament and its relation to ANE legal texts is helpful and helps put difficult Old Testament texts in a new light. I basically agree with his conclusions, but wouldn't expect those who disagree going in to find them especially convincing. I found his arguments that one is not biblically obligated to practice corporal punishment convincing (but I agreed with that going in); his biblical arguments to move completely beyond it were less convincing.

I have to say that the postscript is worth the price of the book alone. His personal story moved me to tears and his very practical section on disciplining children through alternative means was very helpful and immediately practical. I bought a book he recommends after reading this post-script, which I will read soon.

[Adam Shields · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summary: A useful book to work through Hermeneutical issues (biblical interpretation) in modern culture, and worth reading as a book on parenting.

One of the things I am most thankful for is the fact that I was able to be a full-time nanny for my two nieces over a five-year period.  From about eight weeks after the birth of the oldest, until they both started preschool last year, I saw them almost every day, and most of the time I loved being a nanny.

Part of my thankfulness is because I am not going into parenting blind.  My wife has been a teacher for 17 years and is better at classroom management than pretty much anyone I know. Part of her job as an Academic Coach is to mentor other teachers and help them work through both their own professional development and to problem-solve with particular children who have not been identified as special education but are not being reached with standard approaches.

I feel we are fairly well prepared to parent our new daughter.

I have been aware of William Webb's books for a while, but just have not ever gotten around to them.  They fit in with my focus on hermeneutics a couple of years ago, but I think I found out about them after I was getting a bit tired of the subject. Re-reading Mark Noll's The Civil War as Theological Crisis and thinking through issues of culture and race as a Christian pushed these books back up to the front of my list. William Webb is probably better known for his earlier book Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis. (later review) I am sure I will read that eventually, but Corporal Punishment in the Bible is both intended to be a more popular-level treatment, and it is focused on parenting which I have been thinking a lot about lately.

William Webb is interested in something that is called a Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic. In simple terms, Webb suggests that God speaks down to us as humans, accepts where we are, and speaks to us there. Over time (both in scripture and in culture), there is a progressive movement that refines God's instructions to us and points in a progressive understanding of revelation and obedience. The idea of this is pretty uncomfortable for many Christians, especially Evangelicals who like to think of God as unchanging. But Webb is not suggesting that God is changing, but that the way God speaks to us changes as our culture changes.

One example from scripture is that we can see a changing attitude about polygamy from the patriarchs to the apostles. It changed to the extent that by the time directions in Timothy were being given about choosing elders, one of those instructions was 'husband of one wife'. Acceptance of polygamy, which was a part of Old Testament culture (including acceptance of concubines and maybe even some level of acceptance of prostitution), was now a disqualification for being an elder in the early church.

Another example that is developed in the book slightly, but more extensively in Webb's earlier book, is Slavery. This is an important example for Webb. Not just because most Christians now agree that slavery is wrong culturally (and many Christians actively work to end slavery worldwide).  But because there is some evidence in scripture that the Bible treated slavery differently from communities around it. This is where knowledge of the Ancient Near East around Israel is essential.  Webb talks about how it was legal to beat and kill slaves (and sometimes legally required, depending on the offense). But in Hebrew scriptures, there were limits. The limits that we read in the Old Testament seem tantamount to accepting slavery and torture now, but compared to the wider community, they were quite limited—and imposed real limits on the slaveholder.

In a similar way, Webb looks at the Old Testament (which is where most pro-corporal punishment texts are found) to see what it really says. Webb sees three types of punishments: the rod, the whip, and the heavy knife. Many of the texts are not explicitly about punishing children. But Webb works through the idea that these were for general punishment of those who were young, fools, wives, and Torah lawbreakers.

The biblical instructions are not similar to what Christian pro-spanking advocates suggest. Christian pro-spanking advocates like James Dobson suggest that you should not spank before two or after 12 years old. Also there should be two smacks max. And The adults should not be angry or out of control, and you should use your hand on the buttocks so you, as the adult, are aware of the amount of pain you are causing and that you are not bruising the child.

Scripture says that you should use a rod at a minimum; rods or whips are to be applied to the back and are designed for welts and bruises. Adults, as well as children, should be punished. Anger is acceptable, and the Wrath of God is cited as an example. Punishment extends to stoning a disobedient teenager.

Webb suggests that modern spanking advocates have already veered far from the letter of scripture in their restrictions and suggestions. Webb praises these ideas because they are essentially doing something similar to what Webb himself is suggesting; they are taking the importance of discipline that is suggested in scripture and modifying it to a modern cultural ethic.

One pushback that I know many will have (that I saw yesterday in another context in a conversation on Facebook) is that some will object to Webb's concept of redemptive hermeneutic because they believe that Webb is claiming to be better than those who are in scripture or earlier generations. This is not something that Webb deals with, and I wish he did. I have some ideas of how he would respond, but it is not in the text.

The book ends with a substantial epilogue. Webb believes that if you are going to accept the limited corporal punishment advocated by pro-spankers, then you should not have a problem taking it one step further and eliminating spanking as an option.

For Webb, this was an issue he needed to confront because his oldest son, around the age of 13, contracted a degenerative neurological disease and reverted back to the cognitive capacity of a pre-schooler. For Webb, this caused a personal reflection on corporal punishment. He believed it was degrading to spank his teenage son, whether or not it was effective and whether or not he was in the cognitive capacity of those that pro-spanking advocates thought should be spanked.

Webb's wife, who is a special education teacher and trained as a nurse, assisted other parents with alternative discipline strategies at their homes and with her own students at her school. Over time, the Webb family could switch to an all-alternative discipline system in their home.

The final epilogue both tells that story in more detail and gives a good idea of how that works in their home. I have read a number of parenting books, and in about 30 pages, Webb (and his wife, who co-wrote the epilogue) have a lot of very good suggestions. In a short space, it is one of the better alternative discipline pieces I have read. He is clear that alternative discipline does not mean no discipline. It means discipline without spanking. This can mean more work as a parent, but Webb believes it results in discipline actually resulting in a change of behavior and attitude at the heart and mind level, not just the fear of spanking level. He quickly notes that bad parenting can happen just as easily with alternative discipline methods as spanking.

For those interested in hermeneutics, this is a good book to work through issues in a real-life way. For those more interested in parenting than hermeneutics, this is still worth reading, but you may want to skim sections, especially the 2nd and 3rd chapters.

Related Bookwi.se Reviews on Hermeneutics and Parenting

Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids by Mona Delahooke
Scripture and the Authority of God by NT Wright (Second Reading)
The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John Walton
Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns
The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture by Christian Smith
Whose Bible Is It?: A Short History of the Scriptures by Jaroslav Pelikan
Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers by Eugene H. Peterson
Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible
Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan (Adam's Review)
Creating With God: The Holy Confusing Blessedness of Pregnancy
Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids by Kara Powell and Chap Clark
Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy

This is my full review originally posed on my blog at http://bookwi.se/corporal-punishment/

[M.G. Bianco · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books I received months and months ago, but didn't read because it wasn't the right time. I read it over the last few days, apparently it was the right time, and I am intrigued. The writing is a bit clunky at times, but Webb makes some interesting observations that I think will lead to most people--even those who support corporal punishment--being a bit more open to the idea of alternative approaches to discipline.

What he says: Basically, he views the Bible through a "redemptive-movement" hermeneutic. In other words, he sees the Bible as offering incremental improvements toward an ideal. For example, with slavery, the instructions in the Bible are incremental improvements upon what was happening in the cultures around Israel that were practicing slavery. The idea is that the incremental improvements would lead to continued improvements until the inhumane practice of slavery was abolished. This is essentially what happened with slavery over the course of history. Webb argues that a similar model is proposed for corporal punishment.

What he says: He, moreover, argues that we are already--even under the instructions of James Dobson and other pro-spanking people--operating under an incrementally improved approach to corporal punishment. Why not go the next incrementally improved step?

What he does not say: He does not, however, argue that those who still spank are wrong--especially those who follow Dobson, et al's wisdom. Although, he does seem to propose that they have stopped short of the redemptive movement the Spirit is leading us toward.

What he does not say that he should: How do we know what the "end" is for our redemptive movement? How do we know that the incremental improvements to slavery should have led to its abolition? How do we know that the incremental improvements to corporal punishment should lead to us not using at all? These are the questions I needed answer.

Two more points. I think Webb does a pretty good job of remaining balanced through his discussion of corporal punishment. He works especially hard at trying to show that the anti-spanking crowd and the pro-spankers who follow Dobson, et al's wisdom in corporal punishment are not that far from each other. He also presents what may be the best approach I've ever read to arguments against spanking. He doesn't try to pretend the texts mean something other than they say (the rod is a symbol of authority, not an actual tool). He makes many, many arguments in support of his view--arguments I don't want to enumerate here because I'd rather you read the book itself than trust my haphazard presentation of them. Event he fact that he leaves some questions unanswered with regard to his hermeneutic is not a reason to oppose what he has put forth.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in our eldest's first year of life, and am grateful I did. I already knew what the science said re. corporal punishment; Webb provides a compelling theological basis for thinking about corporal punishment and beyond. In this book, he argues that advocates for "loving corporal punishment", with "appropriate" constraints, are substantially departing from the "natural" meaning of the relevant Biblical texts--that the meanings the writers intended and the original audiences took would have been far from the "carefully constrained" physical punishment for which Focus on the Family et al advocate. And, he argues, this departure from original intent, and in the direction of constraining corporal punishment, is right and good, and follows the "redemptive movement" that we see in Christian Scriptures. He also argues that it doesn't go far enough.

At the time I read the book, I experienced the "felt strangeness" of a conservative scholar using careful, Christian reasoning to demonstrate that (a) something that many of those in my context held as "Biblical" wasn't particularly "Biblical", (b) that the truly Biblical approach is repellent to contemporary sensibilities, and indeed would likely land parents in jail, and (c) that moving beyond the "Biblical" in this regard is to move in harmony with the "redemptive movement" of Christ.

[Sean Perron · Rating 1 out of 5]

A train wreck of hermeneutics.

[Ben Copeland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid starting point

Webb makes a solid case that the "spare not the rod" passages in the Bible need to be interpreted within the wider context of the OT, which in context unquestionably supports beating both children and adults - practices that are unanimously considered abusive today. He shows that discipline can only be biblical in the literal sense of the oft quoted Proverbs passage if we essentially beat the daylights out of fools (naughty children or adults). But goes on to show that true allegiance to the Bible does not require us to go by the literal, concrete meaning of the rod and whip texts (the opposite is actually true).

The book is primarily aimed at parents who use the Focus on the Family method of two-smacks-on-the-bottom-max. He thoroughly shows that two-smacks is not in any way reflective of what the Bible actually (literally) says about discipline.

This begs the question...what is biblical? Here I think he could have had a much more definitive answer. He essentially says that the two smack folks are on the right track, but they fall short. He is pretty convincing in guiding us to conclude not to hit, but he could have outlined a much more reliable ethic based on the New Testament and Church history. The reader essentially walks away thinking, "ok ok I won't hit my child," while, given the true trajectory of redemptive and Church history, he could have left the reader convinced that it is an ethical imperative not to discipline physically. Or to put it a different way, while he does a good job showing that the Bible does not prescribe that we hit to discipline (perhaps good enough to convince many people not to), he doesn't do so well at stating exactly why we *should not* hit.

I also feel like there is an entire audience that the author missed. I would guess the majority of Christians who spank do so, not because they think they should by Biblical mandate (although they may think they have it's support) but because of tradition. They were spanked, their parents were, it's just an unquestioned part of life. This rather large group, I believe, needs a more thorough ethical treatment of why a redemptive-movement framework necessitates that we drop this tradition, just as we have dropped others that were previously believed to be biblical (such as slavery).

Overall, this book serves as a great biblical case against corporal punishment. I'm not very familiar with Webb otherwise, but hermeneutics seems to be his strong point. He has paved the way for someone else to develop his idea further with a practical, ethical framework of discipline.

Note: Webb is very balanced in dealing with the pro-spanking position. Pro-spankers are in friendly territory if they read this book.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes a strong biblical case against spanking children (and other forms of corporal punishment), and argues instead for creative and effective noncorporal means of discipline. The writing is a bit wooden and repetitive at times, but the arguments are very clear and convincing. I did lots of highlighting. The postscript on noncorporal discipline techniques is especially helpful.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will post more of a review later. However, I think it is great that some mainstream Christian resources are starting to point out that the use of corporal punishment, on children, does not have much of a defense in the Bible, or the church.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written, clear, and persuasive (at least to me). :)