| Genesis 3:9 Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, " Where are you?" 10 He said, " I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." 11 And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" 12 The man said, "The woman whom You gave {to be} with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, " The serpent deceived me, and I ate." 14 The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel." 16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you." 17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return." |
This passage in Genesis is probably the most frequently sited as the ground upon which woman is consigned to inferiority. After order in creation it is the only real basis the traditionalist has for making such an assumption. Yet, this kpassage, while seemingly problematic, is clearly not a grounds for female submission once we understand what is really being. A great deal of assumption has crept into the text, and what appears to be the plain meaning really is nothing more than a case of wishful thinking.
In order to analyze the the true meaning of this passage, I will draw upon the work of an idividual obscure in history, and yet pivital in the rise of Evangelical Egalitarian thinking.
In the early part of the 20th century a pinoeer of women's rights, a bold woman of God faught for justice and women's sufferage: Kartheine Bushnell. She brought formittable scholarly learning, a rasor sharp mind, and a tough as nails temperment to the question of women's rights, and produced a book called God's Word to Women. Bushnell could not find a publisher and had to produce the work herself in the form of corrospondence devotional studies, a series of pamphlets, and other versions.At that time (1923) she was a lone voice in the wilderness. The work survived, however, thanks in large part to the private publication efforts of the late Ray B. Munsen.Bushnell's work, while obscure and overlooked in its own form, was popularized by a well known devotional writter from Wales, Jessie Penn-Lewis. Penn-Lewis' work Magnacharta of Women, was published and did find some readership. Today Bushnell is quoted in the bibliography of almost every major feminist theologain. Her answers to this passage are still radical, and not totally accepted. Yet she demonstrates the most logical answers on certain parts of the passage.
What exactly was the sin of the two frist humans? They disobeyed God and ate the fruit, but did they both have the same level of disobedience? Did they both share the same level of guilt? Is Eve cursed to obey and submit, and all women after her must bear this burden, because her she brought sin into the world? Eve was the first to sin? Let's look at the passage. We find a clue in the responses of the two in the interview with God:
9 Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, " Where are you?" 10 He said, " I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself." 11 And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" 12 The R77 man said, "The woman whom You gave {to be} with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, " The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
While the motivations from ealier in the chapter would seem to indicate that Eve's sin was greater, this passage clearly shows that the responses of the two were very different;Adam's response being much less forthright than Eve's. In the early part of the account, Eve eats of the fruit, disobeying God, becasue she sees that it is "good to the taste" and that it will "make one wise like God." She believes the lies of the serpant. Adam's motivations are much less clear. He merely seems to go along with the flow just because Eve gave him the fruit. But in their responses, Adam clealry tries to balme both Eve and God for his own actions; "the woman, the wone YOU gave to be with me, SHE gave it to me and, well you know, not to put too fine a point on it, but I did eat."
Eve comes right out and says "the serpent beguiled me" or "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." She makes no evasion, no attempt to shift the blame, except where it turely lies, with the serpant. She owns up to her mistake, while Adam tries to blame others. This creates the ground for one of the basic assumptions in the Egalitarian view, that Adam sinned wilfully, while Eve sinned as a result of deception. Adam's sin might be seen as more serious, since he was older and should have been more aware. Moreover, Adam was given the task of cultivating the garden. This term for "cultivate" implies protection. Adam was uppossed to be guarding against charaters like the serpant lurking about in the garden. In effect then Adam actually let Eve down, and sinned with his eyes wide open. While's Eve's sin is more one of being carreid away in the moment, not checking her emotions, believing lies that she wanted to believe; Eve was the first impulse buyer.
This distinction in their reactions, that Adam did not repent but tried to shift the blame, that in effect Eve did repent since she owned up to her mistake forthwith, set's the stage for the whole arguement. The argument is this: that becasue Eve did not refuse correction but owned up, she is not blamed for the enterance of sin into the world, and in fact she sinned through unblief, while Adam's sin was one of out right rebellion. Eve was guilty of unbleief int that she was willing to listen to the serpant's lies and trust them over God's command. This is not a statment that women are more easily decieved, not such inference can be made, as there is nothing in the text that would connect it to all women. Adam's rebellion does not necessarily connect ot all men, except in so far as sin nature is connected to all humans. Nevertheless, Adam, in as far as he rebelled and then refused to repent, is blamed for the entrance of sin into the world. That blamed is fixed by ST. Paul who lays it squrely on Adam's shoulders: "through one man sin entered the world (Romans 5)." To reinforce the idea, he construes Christ as the "second Adam." Christ, the second Adam, the "new man" brings life, while the orignal man (Adam means man) brought death.
Thus we see that Eve's sin is treated in a different way than Adam's. Adam takes the blame for brining sin into the world. The consequnces for both are seperation from God and the need of redemption, but neither of them is cursed. It never says of either human "you are cursed."
Adam is chided for listening to his wife: v17 "Then to Adam He said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you.'" One could legalistically try to extend this as a warning to all husbands not to listen to their wives. One could try to connect it to the consquences upon Eve as a sign that her sin was greater. In the final analysis, however, it makes much more since to understand it as a warning toanyone who is tempted to follow the influence anyone else who is sinning, regardles of marital status or gender, and to take the Bible at its word in assigning blame to Adam for the enternence of sin into the world. Since no curse is actually pronounced on either human, much less extended to all progeony of their paticular gender (men are decnedents of Eve too, why should women get some speical handicap for being women?) there is no basis for understaning anything in this passage a ground for woman's submission. as Bushnell herself puts it "who made them Christian female decendents of Eve? Women, or God?" God made them Christian female decendents, why should they be hanicapped for that? The consequences of Adaam's sin are a curse on the earth, Eve told nothing of the kind. Thus Eve's sin may be seen as brining heavy consquences upon women, through pain in chidbirth, but Adam brought consequences to the whole human race through the curse on the ground and having to till the soil for food; be that as it may, the only curse mentioned is that on the ground, not a curse upon Eve.
In the interview with God Eve is never told that she is cursed, even though God seems to say that he will increase her pain in childbirth:
16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you."
If Pain in Childbrith is the price all women must endure for Eve's role in the fall, why do women who don't give birth get to avoid it? Why doesn't that mean that single women get to avoid this "curse?" How is it that in 1 Tim Paul seems to imply that women are saved by giving birth, but in Genesis its a curse? Moreovver, why isn't that enough? How does one extrapolate form this consequence of the fall to a ground for submission of all women? That comes in with the final phrase "he will rule over you." This I will get to soon. At this point, I want to obvserve that there is actually no clear statement in this text that all women are put under subjection to men in retaliation for Eve's sin. This is all conjecture.
Bushnell's view is more radical. It is based upon her own scholarly interpritation fo the passage, a view which has reamined obscure and has failed to grag the attention of modern Hebrew scholars.This is not to say the view is wrong, far from it. I think it's correct. Basically Bushnell argues that the passage is traditionally translated wrongly. The traditional meanings of certain words, she says, were given a particular "spin" as Rabbinical authority was consulted by Christian scholars. The baiased assumptions of a male dominated Chruch led scholars to overlook the more ancient meanings of these words. When taken together these verses indicate that the passage cannot be curse on Eve because they don't declair her to be a sinner. This is not to say that she didn't sin, but that her confession of wrong doing is taken as reprentence and the promise of her role in bringing the savior as a token of forgiveness. In that sense the "curse" is a warning rather than a punishment.
Thou art turning
Traditional reading:v3:16 "...I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you."
The phrase "your desire will be to your husband" is wrong. Bushnell proves this by examining translations going as far back as the Jerusalem Talmud, which existed before the Massoretic text, and before the writtings where Rabbnical thinkers declaired this a curse, (in the middle ages). "Desire" in this passage does not mean "desire" but "turning." you are turning to your husband is the sense here. The passage is no imparative but future. That means it is a warning about future events, not a command or decliariation that this is what has to be!
Because the woman was turning to trust her husband,rather than God (perhaps as a reuslt of the pain in childbirth) she would allow him to control her. This means that the true Christian resonse for women is to continue trusting God and to have their own reliationships with God without assuming a husband as mediator!
