William Webb

This article is essentially two short book reviews; one about the redemptive movement approach to hermeneutics advocated by William Webb, and the other a review of one critical response to Webb’s proposal.

William Webb

Webb’s book Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis is a tour de force of individual insights that are somehow greater than the sum of their whole. He seeks to bring cultural analysis to bear on the Bible over against a “static” hermeneutic. Today, he argues, we must distinguish what is cultural and trans-cultural. That is, we must discern between cultural values and kingdom values.¹ The basic approach of his “redemptive-movement” hermeneutic is to:²