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

[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.