The penal theory of atonement isn't what I hold to as such, as I explain here, but J. Denny Weaver has other issues with it. His preference is to dismiss any scholarship that doesn't start with "non-violence" as a premise, and he aims to please those who don't like the penal theory of atonement because of associations with violence and blood.
In its place, Weaver offers a theory of "narrative Christus Victor" (basically, "Jesus won" and that takes care of atonement) which has elements of truth to it, but doesn't give us any reason to discard the penal theory. In fact, it's hard to see how Weaver's theory atones for anything whatsoever; the mode of operation seems contrived, and it is just as well complimentary to penal substitution. It also evades the problem that however you slice it, Jesus had to undergo violence -- with God's sanction -- to get the job done. Weaver's description of Jesus' death as "nonviolent" reveals a whole new definition of the word with which the dictionary is unaware.
The initial chapter on the "nonviolence of Jesus" is the most critical and the least helpful because of it. It never occurs to Weaver that Jesus practiced "nonviolence" on earth because he wasn't leading a military campaign. To make something of Jesus' "nonviolence" on earth is like saying that Jesus must have been against music because he never played any.
On the other hand, though he does a section on Revelation, Weaver seems to have missed the part of that book where Jesus goes out and gets quite violent. Instead he tries to turn our heads to the opening of the seals by the lamb who (supposedly) is a "non-violent conqueror".
Actually, the lamb here has conquered indeed on the point of honor; the part with the lamb getting violent comes later in the book. But Weaver, though offering a reading of Revelation that a preterist would appreciate, evades the point that the violent judgments of Revelation were ordained by God, that the victory of Christ is in the end achieved by violence.
It is amazing how far Weaver goes to evade this point, as he does in comments like this: "Even more important is the nonviolent character of the supposed battle in the last segment of Chapter 19...no actual battle takes place." [33] In the end Weaver fails to exegete the entirely of any chapter, thereby avoiding having to explaing every battle image as a symbol of something else that was actually and conveniently not violent at all.
Nor does Weaver successfully deal with Matt. 26:28, a clear statement of substitutionary atonement; he claims it actually fits his mold, but in the end does not negate the clear meaning, but diverts to a different true statement about it, that the sacrifice of Jesus was a gift to us. This is true, but not a negation of the substitionary aspect, and indeed, even more an exclamation of it, under the quid pro quo rubric of ancient patronage.
Most irresponsibly, Weaver evades the clear parallels of Jesus death to substitutionary sacrifices of the Old Testament by claiming that the similarities are "more linguistic than substantial" [58] -- never quite answering the question of why the words used were chosen in the first place, and once again pointing to a secondary elements (that of personal dedication to God) while failing to negate the substitutionary element at all. All of this is also devoid of any contextual reference to ancient beliefs in vicarious sacrifice and in interactive patronage (per our own article).
The last half of the book is fairly well without purpose, given over to objections in "black theology" and "feminist/womanist theology" about how objectionable a few persons from these fields have found the whole penal substitution theory. It's reader-response with no concern for what the text meant to those who wrote it.
I did find of some interest [114] an explanation of why writers like Yosef ben-Jochanon disregard writing conventions and constantly capitalize, bold, etc. various words: it "displays independence of Eurocentric conventions." I wonder if Weaver himself could remain consistent on this sort of hermenutic, were I to say I'd like to ignore the "Weavercentric conventions" of his use of words and decide that his book is actually meant to support penal atonement theory.
In the end, this book represents what happens when objectivity and serious scholarship is thrown to the winds for the sake of keeping unreasonable people from being offended.
-JPH