An overlooked message: the critique of kings and affirmation of equality in the primeval history

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter, 2006 by Robert K. Gnuse

Abstract

The Primeval History in Genesis 2-11 contains symbolic polyvalent narratives with diverse levels of interpretive possibility. One meaningful level of interpretation is to see how the accounts contain a strident critique of kingship, especially the social economic abuses perpetrated by kings. Kings who receive the strident barbs of the author include not only Mesopotamian rulers, but also, by implication, the rulers of Israel and Judah, who likewise abused their powers. This exilic critique of kings is also, in turn, part of the great biblical message affirming human equality and dignity, and it speaks a powerful egalitarian word to any age.

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World history textbooks often allude to John Ball as one of the key leaders in the famous English Peasants' Revolt of 1381, but too often the rest of the rather dramatic story is not told. John Ball had been trained in Hebrew at Oxford University; so as he read the sacred text in the original tongue, he observed meanings and messages in the Bible that other preachers, theologians, and great leaders of the church did not see or ignored. In Genesis I he discerned that God had made "man" in his image, and then made "man" into male and female, which implied for him that men and women were equal, for both were made equally in the image of God. What further impressed him was that this "image of God" elsewhere was attributed to kings. If the man and the woman were portrayed as royal personages in this biblical text, and they were the ancestors of all humanity, perhaps that meant all people were equal and should have equal economic opportunity in a society in which there were no kings or nobility. For twenty years John Ball proclaimed his message in rural villages of northern England, and he eventually went to London to preach. A historian or chronicler of this age reported that he said the following:

   My good friends, things cannot go well in England, nor ever
   will until everything shall be in common; when there shall be
   neither vassal nor Lord and all distinctions leveled, when the
   lords shall be no more masters than ourselves. How ill have
   they used us? And for what reason do they thus hold us in
   bondage? Are we not all descended from the same parents,
   Adam and Eve? And what can they show or what reasons
   give, why they should be more masters than ourselves? ... But
   it is from us and our labor that everything comes with which
   they maintain their pomp [Bobrick: 60; N. Cohn: 199].

Eventually the country priest inspired the peasants to a revolution against his oppressive government. The peasants followed political leaders like Jack Straw and Wat Tyler, who forced king Richard II to negotiate with them. The king promised to end serfdom and the oppressive taxes which inspired many to revolt. But when the peasants, satisfied that their demands were met, dispersed to their homes, the king reneged on his promises and declared, "serfs you were, and serfs you will remain." The leaders of the uprising, including the young priest, were executed eventually, and the revolution failed (Bobrick: 59-62; Dunn: 59-62, 140). Had Ball lived four hundred years later and a continent away, he would be remembered as one of our great founding fathers, for his message was no different than that of the spokespersons for the American Revolution.

John Ball in 1381 read and perceived the implications of Genesis 1 concerning the man and the woman being made in the image of God. Why did not more clergy discover this message in the Bible, and why did it take almost two thousand years for democracy to emerge in a Christian culture that supposedly used the Bible as its primary source for theology, ethics, worship, and Christian faith? Why do not all Christians today see this message of universal human equality and the concomitant concept of the equality of men and women? Is it because we quote the Bible, but do not really read it? Though scholars comment upon it in learned commentaries and scholarly articles, this message has not yet infiltrated half of the churches in Christendom.

Throughout the Bible one can find an overall message of human dignity and equality before God. Though there be passages which admit the existence of the institutions of slavery and kingship, that acknowledge that in life there are distinctions between people on the basis of class, wealth, and sex, one senses that the texts speak of these matters in a mode of discourse which is concessive, that is, they are part of a world order that may someday be no more. For too long the institutional Church has allowed the concessive mode of discourse to become the normative mode of discourse for human society, and social realities which were to be changed by the people of God were ironically reinforced by the institutional churches.

We could review the entire biblical tradition to explicate those passages which speak of human dignity and equality or the imperative to move in such directions, but that would be an expansive work, hopefully to be undertaken by this author in the future. This brief essay seeks to focus upon the Primeval History in Genesis I-11, for seldom do biblical scholars and theologians turn to these texts for inspiration for social reform. These contain passages that too often have been used consciously and unconsciously over the years to legitimate oppression and subordination of certain people, especially women. I would maintain that within these passages there are clarion statements of human equality and that a subtle critique of the institution of kingship pervades many of the themes in these narrative accounts. Biblical scholars have focused upon these themes in scholarly discussion, though often in a tangential way, as they sought to elucidate other topics. Feminist scholars have been especially adroit at unveiling the egalitarian images as they pertain to women. But I believe there are more pervasive egalitarian themes, and anti-royal themes, which by implication are also egalitarian, to be found within these texts.