A Woman’s Natural Place
What the Creation Narratives Tell Us
IN THIS CHAPTER we turn to some contested biblical passages in relation to whether there is a natural place for women that places them under the authority of men. For this, we will discuss the identity of male and female at creation, the implications of the fall, and the question of whether male-female relationships reflect relations in the Godhead.
People appeal to two dominant scriptural narratives to make the point that God has ordained male headship, and the two narratives are used to interpret and endorse one another in a correlative fashion, so it is to these we will turn. The first is the creation story in Genesis 2, and the second comes in 1 Corinthians 11:2-10. From these two narratives, placed in a mutually interpretive relation, there derives a complex tapestry of claims for the place of men and women in the world, in the church, and in the family that justifies the deeply held belief in what is called male headship as part of God’s great plan for redemption and order. This is what is at stake in the interpretation of these texts. The question is whether the texts chosen to support these views are as unambiguous as they are believed to be by those who believe them to support male headship.
From here on I will demonstrate how the same text can be read in different and even opposing ways. In other words, different people or groups of people can take the same text and read opposite meanings out of it. We will see that the texts, as they stand, are able to support the idea of women serving in all capacities alongside men. Moreover, they are able to support this without embarrassing twists and turns, without ignoring difficult passages, and without that much effort for those who choose to see.
GENESIS 2 AND HEADSHIP
Those who believe in male headship read the creation story in Genesis 2 (not in Genesis 1) as a sequence of events that indicate Adam is the head of Eve. This is how it is described:
Adam, and not Eve, is made first and is thus preeminent.
Adam, and not Eve, is given the commands by God regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, indicating that he is the natural head/leader.
Woman is made out of man and is therefore dependent on him.
Adam names Eve, which is read as a sign that he has authority over her.
Woman is made to be man’s “helper.”
Eve sins first. For some, this is an indication that woman is the weaker sex, more vulnerable to temptation and deception. For others, this occurs because Adam has failed in his duty to protect, guide, and command her in turn. Either way, the story is read to indicate that woman and man are both naturally inclined to different roles, callings, and even temperaments, with woman somehow being dependent on man.
Thus it is argued that the preeminence and precedence of the man are clearly seen in this creation story, which lays the foundation for the man to take up his role as the head, meaning the one in authority over the woman and the family.
Male headship is rooted in the creation order and most specifically not in the fall.
WHOSE HEAD?
Now we have to fast forward to 1 Corinthians 11:2-10, where we find Paul uses the language of “head” for the place of man vis-à-vis woman, seemingly in relation to the idea that woman is made out of man and for man and not vice versa. In 1 Corinthians 11:3, we read, “I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ.” And in 1 Corinthians 11:7-10 we read,
A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels. (NIV)
It is quite easy to see how connections are made between these two narratives (Genesis 2 and 1 Corinthians 11), and how Paul’s explanation in 1 Corinthians 11 connects the language of “head” back to Genesis 2, where woman comes from man and is made “for” him.
These verses together are also cited to support the idea that men and women reflect trinitarian relations, where God the Father (who rules) is represented by real husbands and fathers here on earth, and God the Son (who is submissive) is represented by women. When we weave a certain view of the creation story in Genesis 2 together with 1 Corinthians 11:2-10, although I disagree with the reading, I find it understandable that people claim men are called to relate to God differently from how women relate to God. Here is an example of such a view taken from some members of the Anglican Church in North America who wrote the “Response to Holy Orders Task Force Report” in response to ACNA’s decision to ordain women: “The Bible teaches male headship in the family of the home and the family of the Church, both patterned after God’s Fatherhood in the Trinity and His creation. The problem is not that these texts are unclear but that it is impossible to square them with the modern rejection of hierarchy in the home and Church.”1
And here are the implications of such a theology: first, the underlying message is that men are deemed to be closer to God by virtue of their precedence in creation. Man comes first, therefore he reflects something of God’s image and glory in a more obvious way than woman, whose glory resides in him. He holds a particular preeminent and privileged position that carries with it responsibility and authority. Second, as a result of that, women are expected to relate to God through men, and we see this played out in the patriarchal structures of church. Men are expected to take the lead spiritually. Women are expected to follow. In concrete terms, the result is that men should bear the responsibility for church governance and for their families, especially with regard to the exposition of the Scriptures, spiritual authority, and decision-making. Women should contribute to anything related to the care of children and domestic management, but submit to the decision-making of the men. All these perspectives are rooted in our narratives cited previously. We turn now to how the same texts can be read in different ways.
THE GENESIS CREATION ACCOUNTS
We begin by looking at the two accounts of creation in Genesis and what they might tell us of male-female relations.
The first comes in Genesis 1:26-27:
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
It is notoriously difficult to summarize exactly or succinctly what is meant by the idea that men and women are made in the image and likeness of God. For a more general summary description, however, I favor Stephen Dempster:
The terminology used to describe the human beings shows this anthropological focus. The use of the terms “image” (tselem) and “likeness” (demuth) to describe humanity constitutes it as unique among the creatures. Much has been written about these words in the history of exegesis, but in their immediate context it is clear that they indicate that humanity is uniquely related to both God and the created order. Furthermore, these terms are relational and referential: humans are referential creatures; their being automatically signifies God. Since they are like God, they are best suited for a unique relationship to God, and this means that they also have a unique relation to their natural environment.2
In this summary, Dempster brings out the unique and uniquely referential and relational nature of the God-human connection. “Since they are like God, they are best suited for a unique relationship to God.” It is hard to imagine that this simple yet profound statement would be questioned by any orthodox Christian. This, however, is not strictly what is at issue here. The question before us, and at the heart of the disagreement, is whether God created male and female creatures to relate differently to himself relative to their sex.
Thus in line with Genesis 1, the hierarchicalists would say that they wholeheartedly believe in men and women as equal before God, as creatures made in his image. I do not doubt that they would agree with Dempster’s summary of Genesis 1. At the same time, however, they claim that Genesis 2 tells us a story of how God put man first (literally and spiritually) and that this was for the benefit of all humanity. Let us turn to Genesis 2.
Genesis 2:18 says, “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’” God then brings animals to Adam for him to name, but for Adam no suitable helper was found.
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. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.”
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
I have explained earlier how this text is read by hierarchicalists—the secondness and apparent dependency of woman dictates her place in relation to man for all time.
Interestingly, there is now a raft of commentators and scholars who read these texts as an indication of the equality and mutuality of male and female, even in Genesis 2. Much of this rests on our interpretation of ‘ezer kenegdo. This Hebrew term is often translated in our Bibles as “helper” (NIV, RSV, ESV, NASB, NABRE, NLT), although what follows denoting what kind of helper she is, is telling. In the ESV she is a helper “fit for him.” In the NIV and NASB she is “suitable for him” and in the NABRE she is “suited to him.” In the NKJV she is a “helper comparable to him” and in the NRSV she is a helper “as his partner.” This demonstrates the subtle distinctions that communicate to us the relationship of the woman to the man and how editors have chosen to depict that. Although it is not necessary to read “fit for him” and “suitable for him” as though she is made for his sake and to take a helping and assisting role in all that he does, this particular translation does allow for that reading. In contrast, the idea that she is a helper “comparable to him” and “as his partner” makes a much more definite statement about her equal identity and purpose. But let us see how much hangs on the interpretation of one phrase, one which Old Testament scholars are by no means agreed upon.
R. David Freedman writes,
I believe the customary translation of these two words [i.e., ezer kenegdo or “helper”], despite its near universal adoption, is wrong. That is not what the words are intended to convey. They should be translated instead to mean approximately “a power equal to man.” That is, when God concluded that he would create another creature so that man would not be alone, he decided to make “a power equal to him,” someone whose strength was equal to man’s. Woman was not intended to be merely man’s helper. She was to be instead his partner.3
Freedman goes on to explain in some detail how the root of the word ‘ezer developed over time and catalogs some of the different possible meanings.
Freedman’s in-depth word study leads him to conclude that the word used for woman in relation to man in Genesis 2 does have connotations of one who comes to another’s aid but crucially it implies one who comes in strength. This term is also used of God himself. He writes,
Thus, forms of ezer as used in the Bible can mean “to save” or “to be strong.” In Genesis 2:18b, when God speaks of the being He is to create to relieve the man’s loneliness, He is surely not creating this creature to be the man’s savior. This makes no sense. God creates this new creature to be, like the man, a power (or strength) superior to the animals. This is the true meaning of ezer as used in this passage.4
Clearly, this is a different and much more positive and empowering portrayal of the woman’s task vis-à-vis the man.
Freedman then turns his attention to the word that follows, kenegdo, often translated as “fitting” or “appropriate.” This word appears only once in the Bible, so we have no other biblical instance of the word to help us with the translation. In later Mishnaic Hebrew, however, the root of this word means “equal.” Freedman concludes,
When God creates Eve from Adam’s rib, His intent is that she will be—unlike the animals—“a power (or strength) equal to him.” I think that there is no other way of understanding the phrase ezer kenegdo that can be defended philologically. The traditional translation is based on a late nuance of ezer (help) which is not justified by the context.5
What I appreciate about Freedman’s work is that his translation accords with the account in Genesis 1 in a way that a hierarchicalist reading of Genesis 2 fails to do. If male and female both, and both together, are created “in God’s image,” Freedman’s translation
fills the literary function of the two phrases in Genesis 1—“in the image of God” and “male and female he created them.” Eve is in Adam’s image to the degree that she is his equal—just as man is created in God’s image in that he fulfills an analogous role. Moreover, “male and female he created them” does not lead us to conclude the superiority of either.6
It is easy now to see how we can come to differing and opposing readings. Once we have made a decision about Eve’s status vis-à-vis Adam and God, other statements about man and woman and how they relate take on an entirely different hue. Take for example the idea that Adam has authority over Eve because he names her (Genesis 3:20). There are two problems with this assumption. The first is that Adam only names Eve after the fall, at which point the Bible speaks to us of unhealthy and destructive patterns between the original couple. But further to this, even then the idea that naming and authority are linked is not derived from the text itself but is a signification that has been imposed on it. This leaves us free to understand the act of naming in other ways. Andrew Perriman writes, “One person names another not because he or she has authority over the named person but because he or she is the right person to identify or determine the essential significance of the named person.”7 The fact that Adam names Eve signifies their intimate connection, not an unequal relationship of the ruler and the ruled.
So once she is named Eve “because she was the mother of all living,” this still does not signal any authoritative role for the man. She is still the one who was taken out Adam’s side, demonstrating that she is “bone of [his] bones and flesh of [his] flesh” (Genesis 2:23). Rather than telling us that woman has a derivative, dependent role forevermore, this tells us instead that she is, unlike the animals, someone of his own substance—an equal—and the one who would share with him in the procreation of all creatures. Note the importance as well that she is taken from his side and not his head. In fact, there is no mention in any of these stories of a head or of one in authority. Freedman notes the idiomatic use of the term “bone and flesh” in Genesis 29:14, where Laban offers Jacob hospitality because he is his “bone and flesh,” as signifying that he is one of his own. It is kinship language. So we conclude, with Freedman,
The idiomatic meaning of “bone and flesh” as “equal” retains its force . . . alongside the literal meaning. . . . So it is that God made up for the inadequacy of His original creation of man—an inadequacy that He admits to by saying “It is not good for the man to be alone”—by creating the female of the species, who is intended to be ‘ezer kenegdo “a power equal to him.”8
THE RESULTS OF THE FALL
It must be clear now that much hangs on how we interpret the story of the origins of man and woman and how they are related to God and to one another. How we view Genesis 1–2 directly informs how we then go on to read Genesis 3—the fall of humanity and the implications of that fall. Here again we encounter starkly opposing views that will lead us in radically different directions in our expectations of how men and women should relate to one another in the eyes of God.
In Genesis 3, we read of the tragic deception and willful disobedience of Eve and then Adam, leading to multiple levels of brokenness: shame, blame, enmity, painful childbirth, painful toil, death, and banishment from Eden. In this context, God addresses the serpent, the woman, and the man, warning them of the consequences of their actions, and to some extent preparing them for all they are going to face. There is one verse, however, that has become the center of a heated and somewhat bitter debate. This is Genesis 3:16: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” The differences of opinion can be summarized as follows.
The first centers on how one views the nature of the new, disordered relationship. A hierarchicalist, who believes that women are originally made to be under male authority, sees a distortion of the God-intended roles of male leadership and female submission. In God’s ordered society, men are destined to rule in a Christlike and loving fashion, and women are destined to follow in a Christlike submissive fashion. The fall, however, disrupts the benignly ordered relations of male and female, and God decrees that from then on women will have an aggressive desire to conquer their husbands and husbands will rule harshly. In other words, there is nothing in Genesis 3:16 that really is new. It is a disordered picture of the God-given order.9 If, however, one takes Freedman’s mutualist view of Genesis 1–2, then the reading of Genesis 3:16 will be very different: a tragedy of a different order. The first relationship of mutual support and strength, of equality and sharing, of recognition of the same and the different in one’s closest companion, has become a horribly disordered and emotionally unequal, power-based, unloving relationship. The woman will desire her husband, but he will dominate her. It is a chilling transition.
The second area of disagreement is whether the pronouncement of God over the man and the woman reflects God’s intent for them, in a prophetic sense (i.e., because of what you have done, I now decree that your desire shall be for your husband, etc.) or whether it is God’s pronouncement of the tragedy they have now brought on themselves (“From now on, your desire will be for your husband, but . . . etc.”). Naturally, a mutualist will choose the latter view.
Third, it became clear recently that there is sharp disagreement over whether the desire that the woman experiences for her husband is fundamentally a negative emotion or a positive disposition. In 2016, the editors of the ESV made a decision to translate Genesis 3:16 like this: “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you,” whereas the original read, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Clearly, the difference in message and implications is unmistakable.10 Suffice it to say, the problems of translation are many and varied, and that even in the ESV the editors have footnoted an alternative translation to “shall be contrary to” as “shall be toward.” This is quite a serious difference!
Is it against or toward? It makes an enormous difference to how we perceive relations between men and women, and what we decide on with respect to this issue has the potential to govern the way we view the fundamental disposition of a woman toward a man. This hangs on how we understand the Hebrew term used for desire, teshuqah.
Andrew Macintosh makes the point that the consequences of Eve’s sin are “defined against [this] background of [the] radical complementarity of the sexes in creation: precisely where woman’s joyful fulfilment in life is found . . . here now is the burden of pain, and of subordination.”11 So Matthew Lynch comments on this verse, “Just as her childbearing is a ‘good’ now tainted by pain (3:16a), so too her ‘devotion’ is a good now tainted by domination (3:16b). In my opinion, the only ‘contrariness’ in Gen 3:16b exists in the husband toward his wife.”12
This is an opposite reading and serves as an interesting if somewhat disturbing example of how the same word or text can be read in different and opposing ways. It is one thing to claim that God has somehow ordered creation to give men a leading and governing role. As much as I disagree with this view, I acknowledge how someone might come to this conclusion. From there, it might be thought that unhealthy patterns of dominance and submission were the God-given order gone awry. However, the ESV translation takes the whole debate, in my opinion, to a new and disturbing level, which I doubt is lost on most women.
The decision to convey that the fallen woman’s desire toward her husband is a hostile and aggressive one paints a particular picture with subtle undertones. The fallen woman is depicted as one who now acts in ways that are hostile to her fallen husband (aggressive, contrary, etc.), and this is worse still because her calling is to be submissive and helping. My fear here is that the underlying message is that the fallen husband, faced with this contrary, aggressive woman is goaded to respond in ways that are harsh, controlling, and domineering. What else does one do with rebellious, hostile, and aggressive women? Have they brought it on themselves? In my view, there is a subtle and potentially sinister message in the new Genesis 3:16 translation that a husband’s behavior is a response to the provocative behavior of his wife.
A mutualist, however, sees something completely different. Genesis 3:16 is a sign of both female and male disorder and tragedy. A woman, in her brokenness and vulnerability, turns to a man rather than to God to meet her needs, and instead of kindness and compassion she encounters his broken and disordered need to dominate her, a tragedy played out with sickening regularity throughout history. We will now turn to 1 Corinthians 11, the companion text to Genesis 2 that is used to build a picture of male headship as God’s intended order for the world.
HEADSHIP IN 1 CORINTHIANS
There are a complex series of steps in the use of Genesis 2 and 1 Corinthians 11 as mutually interpretive texts. A careful reader or listener should be alert to how one text is used in order to endorse a particular reading of the other and be able to assess whether this process yields coherent results. What becomes clear is that what is being claimed as true for one will then be employed to affirm a reading of the other. So we should be sure that we are in agreement with the interpretation of both texts before agreeing to a final conclusion on what we are claiming for the relations of men and women.
It is for this reason that I exposed the problems of interpretation in Genesis 1–2 first because this will affect our reading of 1 Corinthians 11. If, for instance, we follow Freedman’s interpretation of Genesis 2, then we will read the 1 Corinthians 11 references to “head” differently from those who take a straightforwardly hierarchical view of creation.
It is immediately obvious that 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is a passage about the nature of God in relation to man and woman and the relations of man and woman to one another. Here, it appears, Paul makes a number of key claims. Christ is the “head” of man. Man is the “head” of woman. God is the “head” of Christ (v. 3). This is one of the places in the New Testament where we encounter the Greek word “head” or kephalē in relation to men and women, and it is behind the idea that men occupy authoritative positions of governance over women. This view is drawn from a network of ideas and biblical references that are woven together to establish this view. The way they are interpreted and woven together can be summarized as follows.
First, the word for head in Greek (kephalē) can be sometimes translated as “ruler” (among many other possible translations), hence, it is claimed that verse 3 establishes that Paul sees the man or the husband as the ruler of the woman or the wife. (The words for man and woman can be translated as husband and wife.)
It also appears that Paul goes on to connect his claims in verse 3 with further claims in verses 7-9. Man is the head. He is also the image and glory of God. Woman is the glory of man because man did not come from woman but woman from man, and man was not created for woman but woman from man.
The connection between these two ideas (headship and the order and purposes of the creation of man and woman) are the reasons given in this passage for why a woman should wear a head covering and why a man should go bareheaded. (We will come back to the significance of head coverings.) These ideas are further expanded with a cross reference to Ephesians 5 where Paul refers to Christ as the head of the church and the husband as the head of the wife. This does not necessarily lead us to greater clarity as we will see.
It may appear, then, that the notion of headship in 1 Corinthians 11 refers back to creation, with reference to Genesis 2, and forward to the relation of Christ and the church in Ephesians 5, with men in all three texts appearing to be in a preeminent and privileged position in relation to Christ, presumably because they were created first but maybe also because they are male, as Christ also is male. It is here, in Paul’s writings, that the connections appear to be made. It should be noted that there is no mention of this in Jesus’ teaching. Jesus refers to the creation story in relation to marriage when he is questioned on divorce (Matthew 19:1-9). Here, though, rather than remind the Pharisees that a man can do as he pleases because he is the head of his wife, he cites Genesis 1:27b (male and female are both made in the image of God) and 2:24 (a man must leave his family and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh). Not only is this a startling reminder of the overturning of patriarchal marriage structures that we find at the beginning of the Bible, but it reminds married men that they are not at liberty to abandon their wives but are expected to keep their covenant commitment. Jesus’ use of the creation story is specifically aimed at highlighting the responsibility of husbands and the dignity of wives and directed toward protecting women from men’s capricious behavior. He is directly addressing patriarchal and misogynistic views of marriage where it might be assumed that the man has the right to divorce his wife for no real reason, leaving her shamed and destitute. So the notion of male headship appears to be Pauline and appears to be connected to creation and the church. This much we can say.
We noted in our study of Genesis 1–2 that there is no reference to authority in male-female relations and that the reference to male domination in any form can and, in my view, should be interpreted as a direct result of the fall. There is also no word in Ephesians 5 that could be translated as authority, thus no reference there either. The only reference to authority in our verses comes in 1 Corinthians 11:10, where Paul apparently identifies the head covering as some kind of sign of authority that the woman or wife should have on her head, “because of the angels.” Thus, the notion of male rule and governance stems from the use of the word kephalē in 1 Corinthians 11:3, of which “ruler” and “one in authority” are possible translations. But note that the choice of how we interpret this one word, head, in 1 Corinthians 11:3 then acts as a controlling concept that is read back into Genesis 2 and across to Ephesians 5 (that male headship means male authority) when there is no evidence of the idea that the position of the man in Genesis 2 or Christ and the husband in Ephesians 5 is being presented as one who rules or one who is in authority over the woman.
In chapter four I highlight three problems with these texts and explain why I adopt an alternative reading of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16—one that demonstrates that Paul’s primary intention was to free the women of Corinth from the oppressive and bullying behavior of the men.13