Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 20:2 (Fall 2015)
Article: William Webb’s Redemptive- Movement Hermeneutic: Some Considerations And Concerns
Author: Brandon D. Smith

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JBMW 20:2 (Fall 2015) p. 30

William Webb’s Redemptive- Movement Hermeneutic:
Some Considerations And Concerns

Brandon D. Smith

HCSB Manager
B&H Publishing Group
Nashville, Tennessee

How does one apply the Bible to today’s life in a way that is fair to the text? This is a crucial question for Christians today. Bible readers must answer questions about cultural language and setting, literary forms such as poetry and allegory, and ultimately how these are tethered together in a way that matters for faith and practice. These questions are difficult to answer, particularly due to the futility of the human condition. Yet, this does not mean that Christians should not make a diligent attempt to answer them.

William J. Webb, formerly a New Testament professor at Heritage Seminary who is now teaching as an adjunct professor at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, has spent much of his career attempting to address these very concerns. In exploring this topic, he has authored several books including Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals and Corporal Punishment in the Bible. He is also currently writing a book on war texts in the Bible with InterVarsity Press.

These works are all tied to what he calls the redemptive-movement model (RMM) of hermeneutics, which will be discussed in this paper. First, the RMM will be summarized. Second, test cases offered by Webb for the application of the RMM will be briefly considered. Finally, the RMM will be evaluated and critiqued. The paper intends to show that the RMM, though helpful to the broader discussion on hermeneutics, is not a sustainable model for today’s Christian.

The Redemptive-Movement Model

Webb’s primary thrust is that Christians employ a “static understanding” of the Bible. In other words, they read the Bible “only within [its] immediate literary context” which “creates an isolated or non- movement understanding of the Bible’s ethic” and “neglects to understand its words within their larger

JBMW 20:2 (Fall 2015) p. 31

ancient social context.”1 For Webb, the Bible is not simply a frozen-in-time roadmap; it is a dynamic text that moves and is meant to move beyond its own immediate historical context and original application.

Webb is concerned that by restricting the Bible to its context, readers are: 1) forcing themselves into an unnecessarily safe and certain reading of its content, and 2) limiting their potential experience of God’s ultimate ethic as a result.2 In Webb’s opinion, Christian readers are convinced that a “contemp...

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