The Gender Conversation

Evangelical Perspectives on Gender, Scripture, and the Christian Life

Murphy, Starling

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781498298964
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Conversations about gender, both inside and outside the church, can frequently degenerate into stale and rancorous disputes in which predictable argumentsare traded back and forth, or fade awkwardly away into the tense silences of mutual misunderstanding. But the issue is an important one, and calls for a better conversation than either of those alternatives. In September 2015, Morling College hosted a one-day symposium entitled The Gender Conversation. A rich and diverse mix of contributors met to discuss issues of gender, theology, and Christian living, within a sharedframework of evangelical conviction. Our aim in hosting the symposium was to deepen mutual understanding and respect, highlight common ground, clarify points of difference, and unite us all in a quest to learn from theScriptures and live in the light of the gospel.This book brings together the papers presented at the symposium and the contributors' responses to one another, as a resource for further reflection and discussion.

Part One

Gender, Scripture, and Creation

Genesis 3—The Creation of Order, or Frustration of the Creation Order?

Anthony Petterson

In 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy the teaching about relationships between men and women in church is grounded in God’s work in creation. A crucial point in the contemporary debate is whether responsibility and authority are given to Adam in Genesis 1 and 2 before the fall (the complementarian position), or Adam’s “rule” is only a consequence of the fall and imposed on marriage as a source of oppression from which Christ liberates his followers (the feminist/egalitarian position). In this paper I argue that there are at least ten aspects of the account in Genesis 1–3 that support the conclusion that the man (Adam) was given responsibility to lead his wife (Eve) before the fall and that God’s punishment in Genesis 3 does not establish order, but frustrates the created order. I grant that some points will be more convincing than others but, taken together, I think they present a strong case. Indeed, many feminist scholars agree with this reading, but because they do not share evangelical convictions about the authority of this part of God’s word, they dismiss or question its relevance for today.1 While this part of the Bible is dissonant with our culture, my experience is that it is also often caricatured and misinterpreted, or made to say more than it does. Furthermore, the terminology that interpreters use in their exegesis and discussion of gender relationships often inflames and provokes tension, rather than providing clarity. I will address some of these issues later in the paper.

Before looking at the evidence for order in the man and the woman’s relationship before the fall, it is crucial to observe their equal status and importance. First, male and female are both created in the image of God (Gen 1:27), and represent his rule together. As a couple they are commissioned to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” Indeed, both male and female are indispensable to the fulfilment of this divine purpose. In Genesis 2, the oneness or unity between the man and woman is underlined in a couple of ways. Crafted from the man’s rib, the woman is “bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh” (vv. 22–23). She is made of the same substance as man.2 In addition, in marriage the man and the woman become “one flesh” (v. 24). While this certainly entails sexual union, it is more a statement of the new kinship relationship between husband and wife—the man and the woman effectively become blood relations.3 To be united (or to “cleave”) speaks of the permanency of the relationship.

Within this relationship of husband and wife there is also evidence of an order. The following points indicate the man is given responsibility to lead his wife before the fall and that she was to offer him willing assistance to fulfil God’s commission together.

First, the sequence of creation in Genesis 2 with the man created first indicates the husband leads in the relationship from the beginning (the man is created from the dust of the ground in v. 7, and the woman is later created from the rib of the man in v. 21). Paul refers to this aspect of the Genesis narrative in both 1 Cor 11:8 and 1 Tim 2:13. Some object to this point contesting that if the sequence in which God creates is significant, then this would give animals authority over humans. However, Paul’s claim seems to be about the narrative sequence in Genesis 2–3, where events in the story are carefully arranged in order to convey meaning. The panorama of Genesis 1 is crafted so that the creation of humanity on the sixth day crowns God’s work and the Sabbath forms its supreme goal, hence the sequence is animals then humans.4 In Genesis 2, where the narrative zooms in on the creation of humanity, the sequence in which the man and the woman are created is designed to convey an understanding of their relationship to each other—that the man is the leader. This leadership is seen later when he is the one to initiate a new family (v. 24). Elsewhere in Genesis 2–3, sequence is highly significant and reflects an order in creation (see points five and six).

Second, the prohibition against eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is spoken to the man alone (in 2:17). He has the responsibility to mediate this command to his wife after her creation and protect her from disobeying it. Presumably this command could have been given to both of them after the creation of the woman, or given again to the woman by God after her creation, but the account as it stands implicitly gives the man this responsibility to which he is later held to account (see points five and six).

Third, the woman is created for the man to resolve a deficiency in his experience, namely that he was alone and needed “a helper suitable for him” (2:18). On its own, the word “helper” might not entail order if it means helping alongside.5 However, the immediate context indicates that the man is helpless without her to fulfil God’s command to fill the earth. She does much more than come alongside; the purpose of her creation is to meet and remedy the man’s deficiency (cf. 1 Cor 11:9). The man is not said to be a helper of the woman, which would make it clearly mutual. Instead, she is created as “a helper suitable for him.” Some argue that because God is said to be helper (e.g., Exod 18:4; Ps 46:1; cf. Isa 30:5), it cannot be understood in terms of order. However, this objection holds only if “helper” is understood in terms of value and status, rather than in terms of function. Instances of God helping humanity demonstrate that at times, God may respond to a person’s cry for help and place himself under them for their benefit. This does not affect his divinity (status or ontology), just as the incarnation did not diminish the Son’s divinity. Nor does being a “helper” diminish the woman’s humanity as one who is to bring glory to God—being a “helper” is a role with special dignity.

Fourth, when the woman is brought to the man after her creation, he is the one who takes the active role in speaking. Furthermore, he is the one who twice names his wife, once before the fall and the other afterwards. First in 2:23 he calls her “woman,” and in 3:20 she is named “Eve.” This may not seem significant until it is recognised that in the ancient Near East, giving a name is often an authoritative act.6 In Genesis 1-2, it connects to the task given to humanity to rule over the animals (in 1:26 and repeated in 1:28), which Adam demonstrates in 2:19-20 by naming them. It is a task which reflects the image of God, since on three days God names parts of creation (Gen 1:5, 8, 10). In this context, naming is undoubtedly an authoritative act. Two objections are often made to this—first, would not this make the woman the same as the animals? Clearly not, in the light of Genesis 1 where the woman also is given authority over the animals, and in the light of Genesis 2 where she alone matches the man. Second, some point out that, since Hagar names the Lord in Gen 16:13, name giving is simply discernment rather than an authoritative act. This observation seems to be true for Hagar, since the name she “discerns” is consonant with her recent experience of the Lord as the God who sees (“El Roi”). However, naming is much more than discernment for the man in Genesis 2–3. When the man names the living creatures here, the text is explicit that “whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name” (v. 19). Because the man’s naming carried authority, the name stuck, so to speak.7 Indeed, throughout the rest of the Bible, the women continue to be “woman” and the first woman continues to be called “Eve.” However, the name that Hagar gives the Lord is never again used in Scripture—it did not stick. This is precisely because she does not have authority to name the Lord. God is not named by human beings, whether male or female, but he reveals his own name when he sees fit (e.g., Exod 3:14–15). While Adam’s naming of his wife and Hagar’s naming of God use similar Hebrew expressions, each context indicates a very different type of naming.

Fifth, when the man and the woman hide from the Lord after eating from the tree, the Lord calls for the man first (3:9–12), then the woman (3:13). This implies the man had responsibility for his wife, even before the punishment is placed on them. God does not confront the couple together, which would be expected if responsibility were evenly distributed. This is all the more notable since earlier they were made “one flesh” (2:24). Related to this, and sixth, the pattern of evasion and punishment in Genesis 3 supports seeing an earlier order having been established in Genesis 1–2. In terms of evasion, the man blames the woman (3:12), and the woman then blames the serpent (3:13), each seeking to evade their God-given responsibility...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Additional Resources
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Overture: How To Have a Conversation
• Part One: Gender, Scripture, and Creation
• Part Two: Gender, Scripture, and Family
• Part Three: Gender, Scripture, and Church
• Part Four: Gender, Culture, and Context
• Part Five: Gender, History, and Hermeneutics
• Part Six: Gender, Power, and Politics
• Part Seven: Gender, Biology, and Identity
• Part Eight: Gender, Mission, and the Reign of God
• Epilogue
• Reference List