Is the Decalogue addressed to men only? Why Polythress and Grudem are right and Plaskow and Brenner are wrong

In his “Notes: Gender-Related Changes to NJPS in The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition,” David Stein remarks on the irony of the fact that feminists Judith Plaskow and Athalya Brenner – superb scholars, I might note – take the masculine singular form of address in the Decalogue as excluding women, whereas anti-feminists Vern Polythress and Wayne Grudem take it as inclusive (on Exodus 20:2; online here). Stein goes on to show why Plaskow and Brenner are wrong and Polythress and Grudem are right. Details below the fold.

There is a tendency among some interpreters of the Bible to read it as androcentric through and through. Stein, on the other hand, while not interested in pretending that Israelite society was egalitarian in structure – it was not – argues that the situation the Torah addresses, and the Torah’s own teaching, was more gender-inclusive than hyperliteral readings of the Bible allow.

In his paper on the grammar of social gender in Biblical Hebrew (online here), Stein notes that “like all authors or editors of texts and their audience, the composers of the Bible and its target audience shared an unstated reading strategy that allowed the text to communicate meaningfully” (p. 3). His carefully argued conclusion: in the Bible, when grammatically masculine “you” address is to a class of persons, it cannot be inferred from grammatical gender alone that the audience is male (p. 4).

The conclusion might seem like an obvious point. I must admit, as a fluent speaker of Italian, a language as highly gendered as Hebrew, the point seems obvious to me. In today’s context, however, the Bible has become a battleground in which ideological readings thereof from the left and the right are not only common, but are positively encouraged by “standard-bearing” liberal and conservative institutions, respectively.

My first reaction to “strong readings” of a text from feminist or anti-feminist positions is often one of anger at the way the text is manhandled in the service of a powerful metanarrative. Then my anger subsides as I remember how often I too manhandle texts, despite efforts to avoid that very thing.

Are “strong readers” prone to hyperliteral readings of texts they wish to co-opt, positively or negatively? You don’t say.

Stein makes a genre-specific case for reading the masculine singular form of address in the Decalogue as including women:

In the case of the Decalogue’s legal genre, the text’s ancient Israelite audience would have taken it in the widest sense, in the absence of indications that gender is at stake (“Notes” on Exodus 20:2; online here).

A close reading of a number of legal texts in the Bible supports the above conclusion. Stein’s own research covers these cases with care and insight. In the case of the Decalogue, he backs up a gender-inclusive reading of the grammatically masculine singular form of address by noting that, in Exodus 20:10 / Deuteronomy 5:14, “the lack of mention of a wife – conspicuous by its absence in this commandment’s list of household roles – pointedly signals that atah is meant in an inclusive sense here” (“Notes” ad loc.). The argument is subtle but persuasive.

The often unmarked way a legal text switches from addressing the entirety of a particular audience to a subset thereof may bother literal-minded people, but the facts are clear. Unmarked switching – that is, switching marked by content change only - is also and even more typical of parenesis (instruction). Anyone who pays attention to the way parenesis works in “real life” knows this. The Decalogue is a parenetic legal text. It is not at all surprising that it is characterized by shifts in focus at the level of audience.

Stein summarizes as follows:

The Decalogue is couched both in the second-person masculine singular and in terms of a household – the basic social and economic unit. Such a format addresses the legal provisions to whichever responsible party they apply – most typically the (male) householder, or he and his (primary) wife as household administrators, or every man, or every adult member of the community. (pp. 367, 386 of The Contemporary Torah)

I would go further still. In Exodus 20:12 / Deuteronomy 5:16, the responsible parties to which the commandment applies probably includes non-adults, though adults are no doubt included as well.

This post concludes my review of The Contemporary Torah. I heartily recommend its purchase to lovers of the Torah of God.

Comments

[Suzanne]

I am a little confused. The link you gave has "Eternal" and not יהוה for YHWH. What is the link to?

[Doug Chaplin]

I beg to differ. See my post "Deconstructing the Decalogue" . The conclusion of the decalogue seems to be clear evidence that "it is addressed internally to married male property owners, the leaders and people of substance within the community"

[JohnFH]

Suzanne,

in "The Torah: A Modern Commentary," the Name appears as "the Eternal." In "The Contemporary Torah," it appears as such. I'm happy to have Stein's notes on his revision online, but I wish that a version of them were adapted to "The Contemporary Torah" and posted at the JPS website.

Doug,

your position was the one I held until I looked into the matter more closely with David Stein's help. I think the post you link to is excellent, and with the addition of a single qualification, that the Decalogue is "primarily" addressed to propertied male heads of households, there would be agreement. More precisely, the focus of its parenesis is often but not always on the subset of the Decalogue's potential audience that you indicate.

Still, I think the more important point might be the opposite. That is, when the Law was read out to the people, from Nehemiah 8 onwards, the tendency was for it to be given the widest possible application its diction allowed. That is true with respect to the question of addressees as well. It would certainly be mistaken to suggest that this hermeneutical move is an innovation of the Reformers.

[James Pate]

I acknowledge that the law was read to men and women. But the tenth commandment says you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. That commandment seems to be for the male propertyholder.

[JohnFH]

James,

you are right.

But the question remains: is it possible for the addressee focus in parenesis to change without warning, marked by content change only?

The answer, I think, is yes. As David Stein has noted, proof of this is provided by the book of Deuteronomy, "wherein (without marking) Moses shifts his address among various groups (warriors, householders, non-priests, Transjordanian tribes, etc.) . . . The reading convention must have been to construe 2m address in a 'to whom it may concern' fashion."

[Peter Kirk]

For once I agree with Grudem and Poythress. I just wish they would be consistent with this principle when looking at New Testament texts in which they have taken masculine pronouns as implying applicability to males only.