William A. Heth

Corporal Punishment in the Bible

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“When I read Slaves, Women and Homosexuals, I remember thinking, I wish I could have written a book like this. Now I had the same sense reading Corporal Punishment in the Bible. This book is about exercising parental discipline biblically by, paradoxically, disobeying the concrete specific instructions in the Bible (in seven ways!) that speak to this subject. Contemporary pro-spankers have, indeed, already done this but do not adequately justify how they could abandon an 'on the page' grammatical-historical exegesis of the corporal punishment texts to get there. In collaboration with Marilyn, his eminently qualified wife and mother of their three children, Bill includes chapters on the why and how of alternative discipline methods that I wish I could have applied when our children were in their preteens. I loved reading this book, not only for the details of the topic he addresses, but for the countless parallels, paradigms and ponderings that popped into my head as I considered the implications of being led by the Spirit for so many other aspects of biblical teaching.”