Male and Female in Genesis 1-3 and in the Church



Male and Female in Genesis 1-3 and in the Church
©Cynthia F. Serio
 
Interpretation of the Old Testament I
Dr. Alejandro F. Botta
November 27, 2006
 
I. INTRODUCTION
            The Christian church is a perpetually inhospitable environment for strong and independent women.   Traditional interpretations of Genesis 1-3 have long been used to hold women back from leadership in the church.  The creation stories can be a valuable source for ordinary women in the contemporary Christian church who seek to be equal partners with men in the work of the church in the world.  However, the text must be set free from a traditionally literal translation that hides as much as it reveals.  As a seeker in the church, I believe there is deeply buried treasure to be unearthed in these ancient myths when men and women who study together approach them with a sense of openness and intense curiosity.   As a woman in the church, I believe this treasure can be a source of healing for both men and women when equality is viewed as the wholeness of creation as originally intended.  As a teacher in the church, I believe the search for truth requires discussion that is simple yet substantially informed in order to be not only wise but inoffensive to others.  Although offense can make a statement and draw attention, it rarely moves the conversation to the level of mutual respect which will provide fertile ground for deeper understanding.   In an atmosphere of respectful listening, one can be the recipient of Christian love even when there is disagreement about the biblical text and its interpretation. 
            The approach I will take in this exploration of Genesis 1-3 is that of the teacher who is both a seeker and a woman.  I will address the fact that there are two separate creation stories.  While there are different details, each story must be read in its own historical context and understood as mythical commentary on the human condition of male and female in the patriarchal society of ancient Israel.  For the purpose of this essay, the creation of the male and female in Genesis 1:27, 2:7 and 2:22 will be the focus of my search for the equality of man and woman in the creation stories to provide a priceless healing touch in the contemporary Christian church.  

II. TWO CREATION STORIES
            Genesis 1 is a beautifully poetic myth filled with the wholeness of life created by God.  Genesis 2-3 follows as an expanded myth with the feel of an old folk tale.  I have been taught there was one story.  Therefore, with only a surface reading that is what I see.  Genesis 1 is the big picture, and Genesis 2-3 provides a closer picture with all of the details.
These stories are so intricately woven together it takes an open and discerning eye not to overlook the internal contradictions which highlight their separation.  As a biblical scholar who supports the Documentary Hypothesis, Richard Elliot Friedman gives an excellent view of the sources of the creation stories in his book, Who wrote the Bible?  This repetition of similar stories is referred to as a “doublet” which means the same basic story is repeated, often with conflicting details.[1]  Friedman attributes Genesis 2-3 to the Yahwist (J) who wrote during the time of the divided kingdom between 848 B.C. E. and 722 B.C.E.[2]    Although biblical scholars have long believed the Priestly material (P) was written in the time of the exile, Friedman has argued quite persuasively that P was written soon after 722 B.C. E. at the time of the fall of the kingdom of Judah as an alternative to the version by a creative redactor (JE) who merged the traditional faith stories of the two kingdoms to form a cohesive account of Israelite religion.[3]  Regardless of the reason P chose to write Genesis 1, Friedman notes that “every biblical story reflects something that mattered to its author.”[4] 
             While each of the authors were writing to address the issues that mattered to them, it must be understood that neither story has any scientific basis that can be trusted to contain facts which give us the truth about how creation happened.  Setting these accounts of creation free from a literal and historical reading we find a treasure of mythical stories.  These stories give witness to a faith community who has, through the ancient art of storytelling, preserved ancient thought processes regarding the relationship between God who is the creator and humanity who are the created.    
When men and women seek to understand the relationship between God and humanity, they must engage the biblical text openly and honestly.   Phyllis Bird articulates a three-step formula for the believer to “[enable] meaningful conversation with an ancient text.”[5]  First, one must ascertain the original meaning of the author. Next, one must engage traditional interpretations throughout history. Finally, one must assess the truth of the message as it relates to persons and issues in their own time and place.[6] 
One must engage the process at all three levels or risk experiencing a shallow discussion that tends to serve individual purposes rather than the community.  Only with an attempt at this kind of depth study can the community be enhanced by a vibrant relationship with God, each other, and the self.  Only within safe and healthy relationships can the essence of a person be truly known.  The creation myths challenge contemporary men and women when they are seeking answers to the question of equality in the church today.   Danger lurks at the edge of this search for one wants neither to hear God when God does not speak nor to ignore God when God does speak.   The creative act of God in Genesis 1:27, 2:7 and 2:22 can serve to illustrate the process of engagement as outlined by Bird. 

III. GENESIS 1:27
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God
he created them; male and female he created them.   

In the beginning, there was Genesis 1.  The writer of P masterfully crafted Genesis 1 which was similar to an ancient story “found in the Mesopotamian myth ‘Enuma elish.’”[7]   Male and female were created in the image of God.  There appears to be no sense of hierarchy.  Susan Niditch writes, in the Women’s Bible Commentary, “without establishing relative rank or worth of the genders, the spinner of this creation tale indicates that humankind is found in two varieties, the male and the female, and this humanity in its complementarity is a reflection of the deity.”[8]    
Rosemary Radford Ruether disagrees with any assessment that would attribute P or J with an attitude of equality or a creation without hierarchy.  She states her belief that an “inclusive reading was far from the intentions of the original writers.”[9]   As the first step in the process, it must be acknowledged that the authors did not intend much of what we read into the text.  However, one may wonder if the purposes of God transcend the attitudes of the authors of antiquity and it is just such curiosity that leads one deeper.
Ruether makes ample reference to a wide variation in traditional Jewish exegesis ranging in the extremes, from readings of an assumed shared equality of man and woman in the image of God to intense glorification of the man who alone is created in the image of God with the misfortune of having woman as the source of all of his problems.[10]  She makes an interesting connection between “early Christian baptismal theology as gender transformation into a redeemed state in which there is “no more male and female” which “affirmed women’s spiritual equality.”  However, she points out that this “redeemed life is perfected spiritual masculinity.”[11]   In the second step of the process, we must acknowledge and accept that for most of Jewish and Christian history, women have not been seen nor treated as created equal by God.    

IV. GENESIS 2:7 AND 2:22
Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became
a living being …  So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon
the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed
up its place with flesh.  And the rib that the Lord God had taken
from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.  

            Even before Genesis 1 there was Genesis 2-3.  The equality of male and female is in jeopardy for it appears man comes first and woman follows.  Niditch states, “A clear hierarchy is established: woman and her offspring over the clever snake, who is now reduced to a mere dust-eating reptile, and man over woman.”[12]  The Yahwist writes with characteristically anthropomorphic language in the detailed style of a storyteller who highlights some aspects of the relationship between the male and the female which have been so problematic for women in the church. 
            Phyllis Trible delves deeply and freely into the text as she illustrates the third step of the process by breathing new life into an old, old story.  Trible describes God’s creation of an earth creature (hā-’ādām) that is sexually undifferentiated until the creation of male creature (’іš) and female creature (’іššâ) from material provided by the earth creature.[13]  This interpretation is not the intention of the original authors.  Nor does it align well, if at all, with the traditional interpretations of the church.  However, as the third step in the process, Trible’s interpretation of the creative act of God adds a dimension of original unity to the male and female creatures.   
            Bird’s 3-step process illustrates how informed scholarship can help contemporary men and women look at the biblical text free from the biases they bring to it.  As we study together as equals, we can allow God to speak into our chaos and create life once more, again and again.  Bird says, “To describe and to emphasize the limits of a biblical text is not to dishonor it or depreciate its message, but to give integrity and authority to its voice where it does have a word to speak.”[14]

IV. Conclusion
            To heal means “to restore to original purity or integrity.”[15]    Each human being has been originally created in the image of God.   One may spend a lifetime searching and never know what this truly means.   Yet this is something we hear deep within our souls calling us home.  Perhaps it is the Spirit of Christ.  As we journey together in Christian community as faithful men and women, may we recognize equality between the sexes as the restorative healing power to be found deep within the creation stories of Genesis 1-3. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bandstra, Barry L. Reading the Old Testament. 3rd Edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson and
Wadsworth, 2004.

Bird, Phyllis A. Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient
            Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.

Friedman, Richard Elliot. Who Wrote the Bible? New York: HarperCollins, 1987.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2006. http://www.merriam-webster.com.

Newsom, Carol A. and Sharon H. Ringe, eds. The Women’s Bible Commentary.
            Expanded edition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.

Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Women and Redemption: A Theological History.
            Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998

Trible, Phyllis. "A Love Story Gone Awry" in idem. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality.
 Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1978. 72-143.




[1] Richard Elliot Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: HarperCollins, 1987) 22
[2] Ibid, 87
[3] Ibid, 189-190
[4] Ibid, 206
[5] Phyllis Bird, Missing Persons and Mistaken identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997) 150
[6] Ibid, 150
[7] Niditch, 15
[8] Susan Niditch, The Women’s Bible Commentary. Expanded edition. eds. Newsom, Carol A. and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 16
[9] Rosemary Radford Reuther, Women and Redemption: A Theological History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) 25
[10] Ibid, 26-28
[11] Ibid, 29-30
[12] Ibid, 17
[13] Phyllis Trible, "A Love Story Gone Awry" in idem. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1978) 98
[14] Bird, 149
[15] "heal." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2006. http://www.merriam-webster.com (27 Nov. 2006).

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