Biblical Ponderings

[wlotus]

To the woman [God] said, “...Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”
~Genesis 3:16b, NKJV

In the later years of my identification as an evangelical Christian, I understood this account of God's word to Eve after Adam and she sinned to be a warning: God was warning Eve that because they were no longer sinless, men would oppress women, rather than women and men living and ruling the earth (not each other) as complete equals as Eve and Adam had done up to that point (Genesis 1:27-30). But it was only this afternoon that I realized God made no mention to Adam of a backlash against men because of the way they had oppressed women. It couldn't be because God (as the writer of this account knew God) did not know; according to the Bible, God knows everything. So was that part of God's word left out by the writers (or later editors), who were products of their misogynistic culture? Or, perhaps, did God not say anything to Adam about the inevitable backlash, because he knew Adam's sinful state would not allow him to hear and understand the danger of giving in to that sinful desire to rule over women?

Discuss.

Comments

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

Personally, I believe that the statement to Eve is a product of misogynistic culture, a justification for the lack of equality between the sexes.

I grew up understanding it as a judgement against Eve: You disobeyed. You will be punished. But it can equally well -- or even better? -- be read as a regretful statement of consequences. It's not God declaring that women should be ruled over by men, it's a prediction of what's going to happen.

The lack of warning to Adam -- as you observe -- helps to give the passage a sense of being a judgement.

I also believe that our ability to hear the voice of the Divine is limited by our mental-spiritual state and our conditions. I think it's entirely possible that if God had given a warning to Adam about the backlash, the original writer might not have heard it. A backlash against men for ruling women? Inconceivable!

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I grew up understanding it as a judgement against Eve, too. It was only in the very late 90s that I began to read biblical scholars who were more versed in the original languages and cultures, who questioned the traditional translations and interpretations. They discovered those translations and the resulting interpretations were often based more on the prejudices of the translators than on a real understanding of the language and the culture and political climate in which that language existed. They also pointed out that in the New Testament, the message attributed to God's will usually went, "There is no male or female in God's eyes." That is to say, women and men are equal in God's eyes. When I began to look at the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament, as my church encouraged us to do, I realized God was warning Eve, not punishing her.

[tracied.livejournal.com]

There is word about that. God's punishment to man would be that he would have to labour and work the earth, and be a labourer. There may be stuff left out, but I don't think so. My understanding of it is, that women would have pain in childbirht, they would desire their husbands but he would "rule" over her. Not in the I'm the boss of you kind of rule, but the responsibility for. And in her desiring of her husband, she would be disappointed because it would no longer be the close three way relationship between man, God and woman. Man's punishment would be the heavy responsibility of providing for and working land that would no longer be as fruitful as when they were in the garden. Which, I believe fits if you look at the area in which they lived.

But here is the beauty of it. Jesus changed all that. He brought grace. And woman no longer has to fear birth, and her desire can be for a deeper relationship with Jesus. Man and woman are equal. Different of course but equal. Man has grace. And he is instructed to love his wife, as Christ loves the church.

I don't know if that makes any sense. SO much of my faith is tied to the emotional, "knowing" in my spirit the truth, even though there is so much I don't understand and may never understand until I get to Heaven.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

It is unfortunate that many Christian men still use that verse to justify ruling over women. They are able to convince themselves of that, because the word translated "rule" is the Hebrew word "mashal". the creators of Strong's Concordance define "mashal" as follows:

a primitive root; to rule: (have, make to have) dominion, governor, reign (bear, cause to, have) rule, have power.

If the creators of Strong's can be believed, the verse as it was written in Hebrew by the author was not saying the man would merely have responsibility for the woman. It was saying the man would have dominion over her. If the author (Hebrew copier/editor) meant something softer than that, they would have chosen a different word.

[jane-etrix.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this: Jesus changed all that. He brought grace. And woman no longer has to fear birth, and her desire can be for a deeper relationship with Jesus. Man and woman are equal. Different of course but equal. Man has grace. And he is instructed to love his wife, as Christ loves the church.

Women do have to fear childbirth. Mortality rates for women and babies are still extremely high in many parts of the world, regardless of what religion is practiced. Men (and women) still have to work, and Christianity has not really supported the idea of equality between men and women.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

In all fairness, there are some pockets of Christianity (http://www.cbeinternational.org) which fully support and teach the idea of equality between men and women (and not that "separate but equal" hockypock some Christians tout as "equality"). They are getting the message out there, but it's slow going, especially in parts of the country and parts of the world where patriarchal Christianity is still the status quo.

[jane-etrix.livejournal.com]

Oh to be sure, although I don't think egalitarianism is something Christianity, in general, has done much to support or promote, and I always tend to raise an eyebrow whenever someone says "different, of course, but equal" because, in my experience, it's generally used to justify unequal treatment.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

That has been my experience, too. And the more they try to explain their thinking on it, the worse it sounds to me. I toss it all into the same "hockypock" bucket and leave it there.

[jane-etrix.livejournal.com]

the more they try to explain their thinking on it, the worse it sounds to me.

Too true!

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

Personally I think it's a racket; men wrote it, and wrote it thus in order to provide divine justification for the oppression of women. I highly doubt that God said any such thing at all. But then, I'm a godless heathen with all manner of unapproved religious notions.

Do you know the Gnostic version of Scriptures? The idea that the God Yahweh of Genesis is actually the Demiurge, a false God who created the earth and humankind because he wanted to rule over something? It goes on that Satan was actually sent by the true Creator (or came of his own volition, the stories vary) to encourage Adam and Eve to partake of the Tree of Knowledge in a bid to free them from the blind enslavement forced on them by the evil Yahweh. In this interpretation, Christ came not to offer people eternal life with Yahweh via the traditional Christian take on salvation, but to offer them freedom from Yahweh's tyranny through enlightenment.

Alternatively, there is the story of Lilith, said to be Adam's first wife. The story for her follows that because she was created simultaneously with Adam, she considered herself his equal and would not submit to him (some variations put a decidedly sexual spin on this, saying that Adam wanted Lilith to be on the bottom, and she adamantly refused). She left him, and was turned into a demon, and Eve was given to Adam as a replacement. She had no real choice but to submit because she owed her existence to Adam, originating from his rib and all.

Both stories put a veeerrrry interesting new spin on how to interpret the Fall, and the Gnostic stories have always made much more sense to me, lending some internal consistency to the Scriptures that otherwise aren't there in the traditional texts.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I am not familiar with the Gnostic scriptures, but they bear further study. I can see why the patriarchal Christian church would suppress them. A woman refusing to submit to a man's every whim? Heretical!

Gnostic links

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

Here's a few links to Gnostic material you might find interesting.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/gnostic2.htm

Annnd...make that link. All the other links I rounded up turned out to be dead. Meh.

I'm currently reading a book on the Gospel of Judas, which has some gnostic elements.

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Yes, Lotus -- if you haven't read the Gnostic scriptures you should definitely check them out! There is a wonderful passage in one of them in which Mary Magdalene offers the rest of the disciples secret teachings which Jesus had shared only with her. Peter gets upset and says "You're a woman! He wouldn't have shared secrets with *you*!" and one of the others replies, in effect "Oh, shut up, Peter. You always were jealous of their relationship."

The Lilith story is not Gnostic, however. . . There is scholarly research which indicates that the version of her story in general circulation was part of a satirical work written during the Renaissance(?) called The Alphabet of Ben Sirach.

However, the figure of Lilith appears does appear in ancient literature, including Inanna and the Huluppu Tree.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I think I have some of the Gnostic scriptures in my religious library at home. (I used to be good for buying books out of curiosity.) I shall hang my head in shame...later. I need to comb my bookshelves, first. :-)

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

I don't know anywhere near as much about the Gnostic gospels as I would like.

Here's some good info too: http://gnosis.org/welcome.html

:-)

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to suggest that Lilith was a part of gnostic belief. Apologies for not being clear on that.

[iswari.livejournal.com]

The idea that the God Yahweh of Genesis is actually the Demiurge, a false God who created the earth and humankind because he wanted to rule over something? It goes on that Satan was actually sent by the true Creator (or came of his own volition, the stories vary) to encourage Adam and Eve to partake of the Tree of Knowledge in a bid to free them from the blind enslavement forced on them by the evil Yahweh. In this interpretation, Christ came not to offer people eternal life with Yahweh via the traditional Christian take on salvation, but to offer them freedom from Yahweh's tyranny through enlightenment.

As a Jew (who is, incidentally, far from traditional and far from uncritical of Judaism or its scriptures), I find this extremely reductionist and presumptuous. Beyond that -- as much as I agree that certain aspects of the texts are problematic -- I think the whole Old-Testament-Jewish-God-Evil/New-Testament-Christian-God-Good dichotomy is pretty offensive, has historically fueled a lot of Christian anti-Semitism and speaks to a real lack of understanding of the various and complex ways in which God is portrayed in the Hebrew scriptures.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

The thing that confuses me is the idea that one God is Jewish and the other is Christian. The way I was raised is that it is the same God in both the Old and New Testaments, and at some point, for some reason, God changed how God dealt with the Jewish people, moving from a law-based relationship to a redemptive one.

The first Christians, after all, were Jews (and devout Jews, at that), and they had no interest in sharing their belief in Jesus Christ as Messiah with non-Jews. As the account goes, it took a divine revelation from God to the Apostle Peter for Peter to preach the gospel to a household of Gentiles who were interested in learning more. Before that, Christianity was a purely Jewish thing. Christians who use Christianity to justify their anti-Semetic prejudices totally miss that aspect of their religion's foundation.

[iswari.livejournal.com]

I believe much of that particular idea would be traced back to Marcion, in the early church:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion

His theology was eventually officially repudiated, but continued to have some influence.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Marcion seems to be tied to the Apostle Paul, not the Apostle Peter, according to that article. Peter was the first Christian to preach the gospel of Christ to non-Jews, if the account in the book of Acts can be believed.

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

This blows my mind completely. I know a woman who adamantly believes that Jesus literally ceased to be a Jew at some point, and who blames all Jews, everywhere, then and now, for his execution.

I know that blame for the murder of Christ is part of the psychology of Christian anti-semitism, but having a person actually express the belief that every Jew ever born in history is personally responsible for nailing him on the cross...it's mind-blogging.

She's an extremely devout woman, but when I tried to discuss the matter with her once, pointing out that Christ's mother, relatives, and closest disciples were all Jews, all I got was a blank expression.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

More than likely, this brand of anti-semitism comes from believing uneducated preachers who did not actually study the scriptures or history.

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why you find it reductionist or presumptuous. It's not my interpretation, it's an alternative Christian theology that goes back way, way back. Moreover, Gnostic beliefs are not merely a differing interpretation of the Bible. There are quite a large number of gnostic texts that differ significantly from the official Biblical canon.

I don't think Gnostic Christianity is responsible for anti-semitism either. I concede the argument about the OT God = evil and NT God = good, except that mainstream Christianity, and most of the Christian anti-semites I know, hold the God of the Old Testament to be the same God of the New, and reject the notion that they are separate deities. The Christianity of today that we inherited from the early Church bears very little resemblance to gnostic Christianity, enough so that I don't think gnostic beliefs can be held responsible for antisemitism.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Personally, as a Jew, I think the scriptures contain a great deal that was editorially slanted, corrupted, or outright made up. This doesn't make them useless or wrong, just something that requires thought to read.

They're useful as a textual representation of several thousand years of conversations between the Divine and the Jewish people, but they should be the beginning of discussion, not the end of it.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

They're useful as a textual representation of several thousand years of conversations between the Divine and the Jewish people, but they should be the beginning of discussion, not the end of it.

I completely agree. It doesn't make sense for us, in a different time and place, to try to blindly apply what was unique to one culture and time in history to our own culture and time in history.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Blindly doing anything is a bad idea.

Unless you're blind, of course. In which case, you know braille already, I hope.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[iswari.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way.

[ciardhapagan.livejournal.com]

For info on the Gnostic gospels I highly recommend Elaine Pagel's classic book on the- simply titled The Gnostic Gopels. Some of the Gnostic gospels refer to an original Mother goddess, and that Yaweh was jealous of her.

I flirted with a sort of feminist Gnostic Chritianity from age 13-15, then was sort of "new-agey" minus the guru worshipping from 15-17, Then at 17 I finally discovered Paganism and found my spiritual home. (My mother was a liberal Southern Baptist and my dad was Agnostic, so individualism and personal questing for spirituality was a natural thing in my household.) At 19 I found my path within Paganism, as a skeptical solitary eclectic Wicca. That's been my path for 23 years now.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Fascinating! I have things to look up, the next time I go to the library!

I am surprised your mother could be Southern Baptist and liberal. How did she reconcile her liberal leanings with her Southern Baptist leanings?

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

It, er, helps if you have a religion-disdaining ultra-liberal friend from Massachusetts who is prepared to actually bite you any time you say something decidedly un-liberal. But then, eventually you stop being a Southern Baptist and people start blaming her for it. =P

[ciardhapagan.livejournal.com]

Nim, I was talking about my mom. She, like me, a liberal feminist, strong supporter of Civil Rights, etc... neither she nor I needed anyone from elsewhere to "educate" us. ;) We do have books down here too. ;)

You might want to look at the links I posted too- Southern Baptists aren't the stereotypes the media makes them into, the majority strongly reject the far right wing that have taken over the SBC. Moderate and Liberal Southern Baptists are so different from right wing SB that even to me- who went to a moderate SB church with my mom until I was 12, I don't understand how in the blazes they are even under the same religious name. Most moderate and liberal SB hate what the right wingers have done to besmirch their faith. I can recall when I was a child, they were mockingly called "snake handlers and holy rollers" by even conservative leaning moderate SB.

Liberalism has just as strong roots in the south as the north, my four times great grandfather was an abolitionist politician in a small town in Southern Kentucky (in the same town that the first Confederate capital of Kentucky was formed, no less!) Kentucky was violently split during the Civil War- it literally was brother against brother in my home state. Kentucky stayed with the union but there was a Confederate capitol as well (same thing happened in Missouri)

Yet after the Civil War my ancestor became a highly respected man. His daughter, my three times great grandmother, was also a fierce abolitionist, and did something few women, north or south did back then, she passionately testified in court for the right of a local African American solider who fought for the Union side, to recieve a government pension.

My maternal great grandmother and paternal grandmother were strong supporters of a woman's right to control her own body, and practiced family planning- my great grandmother had only one child, and my paternal grandmother spaced her three children 6 years apart.

In the house I grew up in Martin Luther King was a hero to all of us. I have been a dyed in the wool bleeding heart liberal feminist since my first memories. I was an ardent feminist already when I experienced my first direct experience of sexism in 1973, when I was 7.

I'm so liberal that I embrace elements of idealistic socialism (no I don't believe rich people's property should be taken away from them, but I think they should pay taxes like they did during the Rosevelt-Carter adminstrations- 70-94%. I'm strongly anti big business, and strongly pro union. The Green Party expresses many of the values I've had all my life.) I want the Green Party to become a viable third party.

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

I know you were talking about your mom. The question just reminded me of my own experience growing up as such. Nearly all of my relatives are Southern Baptists, and that's the church I was raised in. Prior to having that biting-inclined friend from Massachusetts who was willing to call bullshit at the drop of a hat, I was, erm...*cringe*

[ciardhapagan.livejournal.com]

So I take it that you grew up the right wing type Southern Baptist church? Because the moderate Southern Baptist church is all about finding your own spiritual path, which is why they absolutely will not baptize anyone under 12. They don't believe children under 12 are mentally mature enough. It has to be your own free choice. We were taught to listen for that still voice within to know when we'd discovered the right path for us. I think that's good advice. It's what led me to wicca. I explored various spiritual paths and finally when I came across paganism at 17, that little inner voice finally said "yes, this is your home." My mother was a bit uncomfortable at first but made no objections, before long though she realized it was "a positive religion" and was totally cool with it. My liberal Methodist paternal grandmother was completely accepting too. My agnostic dad was kind of roll his eyes, not bothering to take it seriously, he thought it was the same as the "flakey New Age stuff". My moderately conservative Southern Baptist maternal grandmother took several years to accept it, but oddly enough she's always been a believer in psychic abilities.(Edgar Cayce, Sybil Leek, etc...) It was when she started reading the Sylvia Browne books that she finally accepted it. Apparently Sylvia Browne (even though I think the woman is a con artist) explained Wicca in a way that my grandmother could accept. It also helped at the time the SBC finally went to far right wing for her to tolerate- the stupidity about women being subordinate to men and not being allowed to be missionaries, deacons, or pastors. That made her really angry. She stopped going to her church, and switched to another SBC that had a woman pastor.

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I did. My family isn't ultra-conservative, but they are somewhere to the right of of moderate, enough so that their sympathies lie with all but the most batshit of the theocons.

[ciardhapagan.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a contradiction. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Jimmy Carter are all Moderate-Liberal Southern Baptists. Most people who didn't grow up around the Southern Baptist church are completely ignorant about it, and have all kinds of stereotypes. The reality is there are two strains of Southern Baptists. The Moderates (which have members that go from moderate to liberal) and the Conservatives. Most people unfamilar with the Southern Baptist faith think they are all like the Conservatives. The majority of Southern Baptists are actually moderate to liberal, but the moderate to liberal Southern Baptists are stanch supporters of the seperation of church and state, and have moderately liberal stances on most social issues. The moderates had control of the Southern Baptist Convention from the 1950's-late 1970's. The Conservatives used sneaky tactics to take over the SBC. But even with that take over, every Southern Baptist Church is independent, each church's leadership- pastor and deacons (and the deacons actually have more power than the pastor in moderate Southern Baptist Churches) decide whether they will accept or reject the SBC current statement of belief. Even some Moderately Conservative Southern Baptist churches have utterly rejected the far right SBC statements- most noteably the entire Texan delegation when that idiot made those misogynist statements about women in 2000. Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn, who lead religious classes in their local church also strongly rejected the SBC. Jimmy Carter made a statement about it, and joined the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship- which many moderate and progressive Southern Baptists have joined. (and Jimmy Carter is on the conservative side of moderate Southern Baptists, Rosalyn is more a liberal leaning moderate.) I'm probably running out of space to write a response, so I'll give you some links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Kimbrough_McCall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_Baptist_Fellowship
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/HowDominionistsTookOverSBCChronology.html
http://www.txbc.org/2001Journals/JanFeb2001/JournalJan01.htm
http://www.txbc.org/2001Journals/JanFeb2001/Jan01Jimmycarteroctober2000.htm

[tively-split.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.... interesting discussion. Personally I feel that that verse is a this-shall-happen-and-have-such-and-such-consequences thing. If you desire someone, you'll be inclined to put up with some things that maybe you wouldn't if you didn't have that desire. So to me, this verse answers the question 'why do women put up with so much lousy behavior from men?' ... And yeah, I know that's an over-generalisation, but it seems to cover some things well enough...

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense to me. Women put up with some real hockypock to keep a guy. Lord knows I have, in the past!

[jane-etrix.livejournal.com]

did God not say anything to Adam about the inevitable backlash, because he knew Adam's sinful state would not allow him to hear and understand the danger of giving in to that sinful desire to rule over women?

To what backlash are you referring?

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

More and more women are fighting back against men's oppression. They are getting educated, sometimes in secret and against their fathers' and husbands' edicts. They are leaving abusive husbands. Some women are choosing lives where men are dealt with only as necessary, but are not part of the woman's inner circle of friends, and some of them are clear they are making that choice because of the male ego and men's oppression of women. These actions are a direct response to (backlash against) male oppression.

[jane-etrix.livejournal.com]

More and more women are fighting back against men's oppression. They are getting educated, sometimes in secret and against their fathers' and husbands' edicts.

I don't think women fighting for their rights constitutes a "backlash" against men. To me, a backlash against men would have to be something directed at men, not something women are doing for themselves. Also, many men are fighting against oppression and mistreatment of women, and I don't really think they're participating in a backlash against themselves.

They are leaving abusive husbands.

To me, this has nothing to do with any kind of "backlash," because they're individual decisions. Most men do no abuse their wives, and cultures wherein violence against women is more accepted, women themselves tend to support and justify it.

Some women are choosing lives where men are dealt with only as necessary, but are not part of the woman's inner circle of friends, and some of them are clear they are making that choice because of the male ego and men's oppression of women.

While to me, this is not a backlash, I can see how one could argue it was. However, this kind of thing doesn't make the slightest impact on men, and women who lump all men together as egotists and oppressors are fools. Being whiny, bitter and shrill isn't likely to foster equality- on the contrary. Women who behave this way are more likely to be dismissed as misandrists, and in my opinion, they should be.

Harsh Choice of Words

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Just because a woman chooses to live her life without male influence other than what is absolutely necessary--doing business, for example--does not make her "whiny, bitter and shrill". Some women who make that choice are. Some are not.

I would argue that anyone who classifies every women who makes that choice as "whiny, bitter, and shrill" is taking an oppressive viewpoint of those women. I can see disagreeing with their choice, but calling them names because of it is overstepping the line.

Re: Harsh Choice of Words

[jane-etrix.livejournal.com]

I would argue that anyone who classifies every women who makes that choice as "whiny, bitter, and shrill" is taking an oppressive viewpoint of those women.

I'm not talking about every woman who makes that choice. I am specifically talking about the women who make that choice "because of the male ego and men's oppression of women." This presupposes all men are egotistic oppressors, which is patently untrue, and I stand by my statement that such women are whiny, bitter, shrill misandrists and will add that I do not think these women give a damn about other women.