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.