Modern Christianity: male supremacy vs gender equality

Modern Christian ideas about gender relations hinges on the stories of creation, Paul's interpretations of them and his other writings on the roles of men and women.  Susan Foh fleshes out these sections of the Bible and provide her interpretation of them as it relates to Christians of today.

She first addresses Genesis, admitting that there are indeed to stories of creation.  However, the rest of her argument is based on the assumption that the two stories complement each other.  The general point of view is that the first story (Genesis 1) argues for the equality of men and women, while the second (Genesis 2-3) argues for the subordination of women.  Foh works to reconcile what seems to be opposing etiologies of women's place in the world.  Based on the first chapter, Foh concludes that men and women are equal ontologically.  That is, they were both blessed by God and commanded to subdue and steward the earth.  Both have the same relationship to God and creation.  The next two chapters, according to Foh, illustrate men's need for women.  She clams that in this version of human creation there still is equality, in substance.  Men and women are created equal and not one inferior to the other, yet possessing different functions.  Yet,  the woman was created to help her husband, to follow his lead (this seems to me to contract her earlier claim, but that can depend on the meaning of the word substance).  To Foh, temporal priority equals headship and that the act of naming someone is associated with having authority over them.  However, this is her assumption based on Paul's writing and does not stem directly from the text.  The raw text gives no indication that the man was superior to the woman before the Fall.  Just because I, for example, am older than a friend does not make me superior to them, nor does my act of naming someone give me authority over them.  For example, as a child I gave my parents names: Mom and Dad, and my older sisters: sister.  That is who they are to me, but that does not necessarily give me authority of them.  (One could argue that my parents gave me a name, ergo they have authority, but that is a divergent argument and come with other counter argues hinging on the question of what is authority).

Foh asks, is this fair? Answering that it is not our to says since we do not know how this felt to Adam and Eve because they, at that time, had not experience sin.  They operate harmoniously without the use of corrupt power.  Foh revisits the idea that men and women were equal in being at creation, yet I do not see how women can be equal and subordinate.  Foh does seem to address this later by claiming that though the sexes are equal, God put one in authority over the other.  That's the way it is and we shouldn't question his divine will.  I suppose this is valid from a religious standpoint that hinges upon faith.  Still though, I don not think that Foh can authoritatively argue that women were subordinate before the Fall.  In my opinion, this was not true until after it.  Foh then addresses the interaction between Eve and the snake.  She is writing under the assumption that the snake was Satan and that he was lying even though, as I have stated multiple time in other blog post, the raw text does not say so. In fact, the texts sounds like the snake was telling the truth, because what he said would happen did happen.  Foh does point out that the text doesn't support the ideas many hold about women being weaker and more easily deceived.  Rather she was, as perhaps Adam would have also, persuaded by arguments.  Foh supports this with the fact that Adam and Eve experienced the effects of the act simultaneously.

Like I said before, if the text is taken on its own without the later commentaries by Paul, in my opinion there is no concrete evidence that women were subordinate to men until after the Fall.  Foh argues that the Fall simply made men's exercise of authority more difficult.  I think this is a very broad reading of the text, as opposed to taking the text at its face value.  She argues that "woman's willing submission is replaced with a desire to control her husband" and a man must now fight for headship.

Next Foh address the problem of what women are allowed to do according to 1 Timothy 2:8-15 and several other related passages.  Whether or not women should work or exercise any form of authority of any men.  She posits that this passage is dealing with the church worship situation.  This validates the idea of the working woman.  She lists what some rules are from other passages: women may pray and prophesy, teach other women and children, and given private instruction to men but otherwise, not teach.  1 Timothy 2:8-15 teaches that women may not exercise authority over men.  Foh says that Paul supports this with the Garden of Eden story: man was created first and woman was deceived.  This 'support' is loaded with assumption which I have already discussed.

Next, Foh argues against women's ordination to the ministry, using the support of 'scriptural prohibition.'  They may no be ministers or elders.  This is where she puts forth that although this may be unappealing, this is God's command, whether or not is makes sense or is just is immaterial.  I will not argue with this because this line of argument branches into the topic of faith and is better suited to a sacral setting.  Debate that could stem from this could include but are not limited to: is God good/just? Do things have to make sense to us to be true?

Back to Foh's argument.  She states that man came first and and the woman came from the man.  Man must be a representative of the human race (note today our common use of the word mankind).  And this is may be why elders should be male, to represent the congregation.  However, this reminded me of something Susan B Anthony said: in the beginning woman came from man but now men are born of women, they come from women.  I wonder what Foh would say to that?

One crucial point I feel that Foh is leaving out of her whole line of thinking is context.  I am in Dr. Lewis' Introduction to Hebrew Bible/Old Testament class.  One extremely important thing I have learned is that the Bible is historically bound.  In my opinion, this is not to say exclusively, I am a Christian and hold my own beliefs about the Bible.  Since coming to college the beliefs I used to hold have been challenged and I am still working out exactly what I think the truth is.  I do know that the Bible contains truth, sometimes in the truth of the history and sometimes in the truth of what is being taught.  I aim to take the Bible not as 'literal' in the strictest sense but in the way in which it was meant to be received and what it was meant to teach.  That in itself is truth.  With or without the Bible, I hold to my beliefs because I have seen and experienced too many things that cannot be explained away.  But I am digressing.

The Bible was written in a different time and it is important to understand the time periods in which it was written.  In Paul's time, generally speaking women were never given any type of formal education, most were illiterate.  It was a predominantly patriarchal society.  Men were the ones given instruction in the matters of religion and teaching.  So, at such a time, why should Paul advocate for women to stand up and teach men.  This would probably have been seen as offensive, even aggressive, and might have caused havoc within the church and power struggle.  Maybe this was happening and that's why he wrote about it.  This would have been the easiest (perhaps the best) way to resolve the issue.  These instructions are a letter, not a theological book, written to a specific group of people at a specific time.  Additionally, I wonder if he had any notion that this letter or any of this letters would be canonized and kept for thousands of years.  How could he have foreseen or even comprehend a society such as ours; a patriarchy is all he ever knew.

Foh concludes, women may: pray and prophecy in the congregation provided they are covered, teach Sunday-school, or be deacons and administrators, and shouldn't: ask question during the period of instruction, hold the office of elder or a teaching-ruling position in the church.

Foh's argument has many holes and assumptions which I have outlined.  Honestly, in general, I don't think it's worth arguing whether or not Adam is superior before the Fall.  The fact remains, whether a person believes this is truth or not, the story teaches that we live in a post-Fall world.  And God said that women will be ruled by man.  So what's the point of trying to arguing it was such before; it really doesn't matter.  We're not in Eden anymore and we can't go back.

Phyllis Trible is another Christian commentator.  In my opinion, she takes a more academic approach than Foh, examining the raw text of the story and the precise words in the original hebrew.  She does have an agenda for writing what she writes but I think she has well grounded support.  Her agenda is to prove that the Eden story is not grounds for male supremacy and female submission.  She has several important points to support this:

1) The first human being (man/ 'adham/Adam) was androgynous.  'adham is where we get the name Adam but 'adham isn't a proper name or a term for 'male'.  It can be translated as such but in general it is a term meaning human.  Ergo, male and female were created together as one being and God separated them.  At such time, the different sexes originated, male and female ('ish and 'ishshah).  The woman wasn't an afterthought nor man superior by order of creation.

2) The woman was created as a helper.  That is: "a helper fit for him" = 'ezer, a relational term designating a beneficial relationship and doesn't specify the positions within a relationship or imply that one is inferior to the other.  Also she was made by God just as Adam was made by God.  Adam had no hand in making her

3) To name v. to call.  Adam named all the animals and therefore exercise superiority over them.  He call the woman woman.  After the Fall, he named her Eve, exercising superiority over her.

4) We don't actually know why the snake spoke to Eve.  There are theories but the text doesn't say why exactly.  No indication that the female was the weaker of the two.  In fact, she is a 'theologian and translator' who contemplates and examines and intellectually converses with the snake.  She acted independently while the man seems to take the passive role.

5) The woman should not be seen as a temptress or seducer of the man.  The man blames the woman (not say that she seduced him) and he blames God.  Like Trible points out: if the author had meant to make the woman appear as such he could have.  It is the snake who is labeled as the deceiver/seducer by Eve.

6)  The snake is cursed while the man and woman are judged and the judgements are commentaries, mandates.  "They describe and not prescribe."  Male supremacy is a perversion of creation.  Because of sin there are broken relationships between people and people and animals.  The subjugation of women is not a result of creation but a result of the Fall.

7) Repentance of sin and the grace of God liberate men and women from this brokenness.

Like Foh, some of these point hinge on faith and what one believes (no surprise since she is an outspokenly Christian commentator).  I like that she examines the Eden story on its own to better understand it instead of relying on Paul or other commentators or Genesis 1.  I also like her approach of analyzing the text with few assumptions and her examination of the hebrew.  In fact the only thing I would critique is to ask: was the snake lying or telling the truth? is the point really the disobedience or the tree? what about the tree of life?  She probably didn't address these because, like I said, she is writing for a purpose, which is not an examination of the story per se, but to show that the story doesn't promote male supremacy.