Your thoughts are right on! The complementarian position is one of constructing an argument from innuendo and silence. Once one accepts the little bit of “evidence” for a foundation, an entire building is built on the premise. It seems to me that many have not thought these arguments completely through to their logical end. The “hook” has been a very long “tradition” that substitutes for real solid evidence. It is these traditions that keep men and women bound. The one thing that gives me great hope is that God promised to release women with the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is the time for God to bring full reconciliation so that the body of Christ will be whole, healthy and actively fighting the enemy together.

26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”

Let ‘Us’…? This is the Godhead, right?

It is true that all authority flows from God. It is true that the Word/Son became a person and was subordinate to God the Father while on earth. Howevver to read that back into the eternal relations in the Godhead is “making God in our image” something we are not to do as it is idolatrous. (P.S. We are are tempted to do this and so is something every believer should watch out for.)

The basic insight is that the Godhead is far beyond our understanding, so the Bible uses metaphors and similes so that we can have a glimpse of what is going on, else we would be totally baffled.

Look at the story near the Oaks of Mamre in Gen 18. This is an example of God talking to God. YHVH says “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?…” Does this SOUND like a command to functional subordinates or a discussion among equals?

An often missed metaphor for the Godhead is in the Patriarchs. Joseph is seen as a type of Jesus, rightly so. Much is made of Jacob’s sons bowing down to him and the fact that ALL of them needed to do it, when Benjamin is missing, Joseph asks for him to come. Benjamin then does this and many teachers just do not discuss the remainder of the 2nd dream, namely that Joseph’s mother and father ALSO will bow down to him.

But if Joseph is a type of the Son, then Jacob can be seen as a type of the Father in this part of the story. In other words, in this metaphor, the types demonstrate mutual submission in order for us to get a glimpse of what the Godhead is like.

This is seen even clearer in the Hebrew, the male is ish and the female is ishah. The “ah” suffix indicates the female, like in Sarah. So the male is saying the female is like him, only female, with his declaration. This continues with bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, which indicates being in the same family.

It is true that shem/name is used in Gen 3 with Eve, but where was this authorized by God? In fact there are at least 2 points to make about this. Naming is an act of authority and this is an indication that “he will rule over you” is coming to pass. Also, as in Adam the male we all die, he could be called the “father of the dieing”. This gives us a BIG hint that we need to look further in Gen 4-5 about what Eve is like and what Adam is like. Why does Gen 3:15 mention the seed of the woman? Why not seed of the man since they would be the same offspring physically? I believe it is becuase more is being hinted at, that one should look for satan’s crusher to be the offspring of Eve spiritually.

P.S. The CBE conferecne was great.

The literary genre of Genesis 1-3 itself is widely debated and is clearly unique in scripture. I believe we need to be very humble in approaching this unique God-inspired text written thousands of years ago in a very different culture and time to ours. Although it’s ‘ok’ to ‘suppose’ all kinds of things that the text ‘might’ be insinuating. I suggest that we need to be very careful moving away from what is explicitly stated in terms of building doctrines or theology. Consider any hierarchical-complimentarian’s arguments for the superiority/ authority of man over woman (wherever on the ‘scale’ they may sit) – I am yet to meet even one who does not root their argument in the Gen 2-3 text. Yet I believe that their claims (such as this so-called ‘naming’ activity of Adam over the woman in 2:24, or the argument for protogeniture – ie Adam comes first = Adam is boss) are NOT explicit and indeed very weak ‘possible’ meanings in the text.
We need to be very wary of arguments made from silence and subtle implicit ‘meanings’ in the text. I am not saying that they are not ‘there’ – but that it is extremely difficult for us to really know for sure and therefore I believe we should deal with the ‘explicit’ black and white facts presented to us as our basis for our theology and hold very loosely and humbly any other ideas we might have.

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges with the Gen 1-3 text is that there are so many things left ‘unsaid’. (And immediately I now enter the dangerous arena of arguments from silence!!!) However, it is a reasonable question to ask I think….Did God ‘forget’ to tell us clearly in the Genesis story that Adam was to rule Eve and expect us to work it out from some so-called subtle details that are very wide open to debate? If the whole male-female authority issue is truly a ‘creation mandate’ from the beginning of time that God intended us to follow for all time on this earth, he certainly did not make it explicitly clear from Gen 1-3. What we DO KNOW clearly from scripture and without doubt is that God DID make man AND woman in his image and gave them BOTH the exact same mandate (Gen 1:26-28). As Cheryl teaches on one of her WIM DVDs, it is not in the character of God to be unclear about ‘sin’. His Word makes it very clear in every case what is sin and what is not (through careful repetition etc). God’s word holds together perfectly and Gen 2 cannot ‘undo’ or undermine what Gen 1 teaches.

Honestly, am I just being pedantic or naïve here with my thoughts/arguments? Let me know… But iIt seems to me that we must begin with the explicit and then if we do ‘dare’ go into any possibly implicit meanings in the text, never ‘enforce’ our opinions of these on others as they are too open to misinterpretation and bias. This is the problem I see with the patriarchal argument – it ‘has’ to be based on things that are NOT explicitly taught/stated in scripture.

What do you reckon?

Humbly trying to learn…
Kerryn

good thoughts.

In addition how would the man have known that the creature before him was “from his side”? He couldn’t. Unless God told him. And what would God has said? He likely would have said this is your ezer (help) taken from your side. Hence the hebrew words would have been the same that the man repeated only he repeated them in poetic fashion. He might have even been singing them. Thus was born the first love song.

It is of note also that likely God sat with Adam while he named the animals naming them probably from different characteristics that he saw. There is no indication that Adam thought what he was doing was in any way “taking authority” over them, but an exercise of discovery. With the same curiosity and joy of discovery it would not be surprising that Adam would “play” with the words as he learned to do in naming the animals. I suspect this is where humans received the ability to have poetic thought. Some day I’d like to sit down and go through all the Hebrew names of all creatures and “discover” how much the sound of the words and meanings related to each creature.

if Adam ‘called’ the one from his bone and flesh ‘wo-man’ (out of man) in Gen 2:24 as a naming / authority thing, then what exactly was he doing in Gen 3:20 when we are told,
“?… Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” (NIV) ???

Interestingly, the first ‘action’ Adam takes after the consequences/curses of the Fall are listed in Gen 3:14-19 is that he DOES name his wife… and arguably in this case demonstrate a kind of authority over her. Note …scripture doesn’t say he REnames her. But just that he names her… cos he hadn’t ‘done’ that yet!

When we read Adam’s exclamation to his newly created God-given parter in Gen 2:24 it rings of absolute spontaneous joy and excitement at what he sees - not a ‘naming’ ceremony! Can we even begin to imagine what this ’solo’ man must have felt having finally ‘found’ what he could NOT find among the rest of creation. His statement in Gen 2:24 is one of incredible unity and ‘likeness’ - not differences or a raising up of him over her. God had already declared he needed help. I reckon after looking at all the animals and seeing no mate, he really understood that for himself (perhaps why God made him go through the ‘naming the animals process first?)

Any argument made that Adam showed ‘authority’ over the woman by what he exclaimed in 2:24 is pretty weak. The text certainly does not explicitly teach us that Adam had any inate ‘creation order’ authority over this woman created from his side. Any so called ‘implicit’ meaning in the text is shown to be unreliable as an interpretation in the light of his formal ‘naming’ in Gen 3:20 - which is POST Fall…when sadly Gen 3:16 - “he shall rule over you”..immediately comes into play!

i think a word study on the word ‘called’ in Gen 2:24 and ‘named’ in Gen 3:20 would be useful, but i haven’t had time to do that one yet! Anyone else got some helpful info on the Hebrew i’d love to hear what you have to say…

Any thoughts anyone? i welcome comments!

Regards
Kerryn

The issue of Adam “naming” Eve as “woman” has been so misrepresented by the opposition. I would love to hear other’s comments too but I would also like to do a post on this one. I will mark it in my post ideas.

Justa Berean,

The issue of authority in the Trinity has also been greatly misrepresented by complementarians and it really does break my heart. Their view of the Trinity has more in common with Jehovah’s Witnesses than it does historic Christianity. We have a DVD planned that will deal with the issue of the Trinity and one section will deal with the complementarian view of God.

Thanks for your kind words of confidence! I am back and we had a refreshing time away with Christians of like mind. More posts to come as I have been meditating on the gifts of the Spirit and how they relate to the women’s issue.

I just love having you folks visit on this blog and your comments are very precious to me!