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To Kristen (338)
I understand entirely what you are saying and did the first time. What I pointed out is that the venn diagram set of possibilities which I constructed was a complete set spanning all possibilities. And your claim fit in category 2.

To illustrate Deut 17:16 instructs the kings of Israel that they are not to “multiply horses to themselves.” Does this mean that current kings shouldn’t own ranches? (how about Presidents?) Of course if you understand the culture ancient Israel – “multiply horses” was a means of waging war. Multiplication of horses was a means to “rely on your own political strength” and not God (multiplication of wives for a king was much the same). And you can see this if you read the biblical text carefully – horses are repeatedly used as an indicator of war and military might. So we see a transcendent truth – “rely on God and do not seek to create reliance apart from Him” find particular cultural expression which is no longer true of our culture (we don’t use horses for military might). But we note at the same time that the “10 commandments” were spoken into exactly the same culture – and yet we view these as transcendent of cultural particulars.

And this brings us back to the question: How can you tell? When Paul says “all christians should submit one to another” you say ‘that’s a transcendent truth of the christian faith” when he says to exactly the same group “wives submit to your husbands” you say ‘well, that’s just a result of the culture that he was speaking to.’ But how do you think you can know? Especially, how can you be sure that you aren’t simply reading the biases of your own culture into the text? (and egalitarianism is certainly a culturally popular idea now, ever since the French Enlightenment)

So, if Paul were talking about marriage as universal human relationship, transcendent of particular culture – how would you know?