Putting Women in Their Place - a Biblical Perspective Promulgated by These Christians

[zthatzmanz28]

know how to make a kickin swamp cooler..wait a minute, where are all the usual cultist suspects in this thread???

[zthatzmanz28]

Originally Posted by Hannibal Flavius

If I should ever marry again, my woman better be as scared of me as if I was a big O''ll black bear cause I will rule her with a rod of iron and spank her at least once a month just to keep her in line hmmph!

Spanking? hmmmmmm....

[Richard1965]

Originally Posted by whoppers

Sometimes I think providence throws people at me with just the right timing. There is a gas station employee near my house who I sometimes speak to, and yesterday he told me he has been going to a 12-session Church function his Lutheran pastor has been giving. I asked him what the latest topic was about and his reply immediately brought up this thread. He said it was about women being "under" men in a support role.

This particular fellow, who is sometimes pretty vocal in showing customers that he is reading a Bible when he's not ringing them up, is a good example of a Fundamentalist Christian who gets virtually all their information and theology from their Sunday School teachers. I understand that not everyone has the time to read a book they base their entire ethical and religious system on, but some of his statements are extremely hilarious. He has, at various times, claimed that King David lived before Noah, that the Apostle Paul was actually King Paul (mistaking him for King Saul, of course), that Jesus was born near the time of Moses, etc...

From the various elementary mistakes he has made, it is not really a surprise that he would be taking classes from someone who still holds the ancient belief that women are designated by God to be "supporters" only. The staggering amount of pure Biblical illiteracy among many Fundies astounds me sometimes. They love something so much, but cannot be bothered to take the time to study it with the time and care it probably deserves.


On that subject, I (and others) have already pointed out that the various books of the Bible were written thousands of years ago and any attempt to apply their ethical values to us today is extremely faulty. But I feel as if a lot of critics miss the pro-feminine books/passages that did make their way into the Bible, usually as a result of listening to traditional Fudamentalist rhetoric: it is dangerous to accept what a Fundie claims for a Biblical passage. Again - the Bible overall is a very sexist collection of books, but this does not mean that the individual books and passages were all a part of this zeitgeist. This is not an apology for how the Bible variously depicts the role of women. A few examples that some may find helpful or at least a little hopeful:

• The Yahwistic Source in Genesis 2-3 has the woman created after the man, but as an ʿēzer kenegdōw.

The human called out names for every herd-animal and for the fowl of the heavens and for every living-thing of the field,
but for the human, there could be found no helper corresponding to him (ʿēzer kenegdōw).
(Gen 2:20 SB Fox)

Traditionally translated as "helper", the word probably bears a meaning that is difficult to translate but means "something corresponding to" - an equal, in other words. The term ʿēzer kenegdōw does not indicate inferiority whatsoever. This passage has been used to argue that women are inferior to men and to limit their roles for a long time, but a more nuanced reading may show the Biblical author did not intend it this way.

• The Priestly Source in Genesis 1 was written after the Creation Account in Gen 2-3 and was aware of the problems in the above example, and decided to depict both male and female as being created at the same time as equals:

God said:
Let us make humankind, in our image, according to our likeness!
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the heavens, animals, all the earth, and all crawling things that crawl about upon the earth!

God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God did he create it,
male and female did he create them.
(Gen 1:26-27 Ibid.)

This author has a bit more advanced view of the sexes, at least in his Creation Account. Not only are they both created simultaneously, they are both made in the "image" and "likeness" of God and both given a Divine commission to represent the divinity on earth ("let them have dominion" - a common ANE idea that human rulers were Divine agents on Earth).

Both these accounts have, in some small degree, a pro-feminine stance - granted, the Priestly Author is a bit more advanced than his older Yahwistic brother. The unfortunate result of thousands of years of male-sanctioned authority over women, however, has ended with reading the Gen 2-3 passage and giving it more authority over the Gen 1 passage. Cherry-picking at its finest. Many Fundamentalists have no qualms over combining separate texts - (it is usual to find a Believer combing both Gen 1 and Gen 2-3 into some weird mish-mash that denies separate authorship, but which results in terrible narrative inconsistencies) - but are terrible when it comes to choosing priority of doublets in such a situation. The examples above are doublets - they both tell essentially the same story but with varying details. Since many Fundamentalists cannot accept the fact that Genesis is comprised of multiple human authorial sources, they must wrestle with 2 different accounts of the creation of woman, and they prefer to accept the Yahwistic doublet where women are created after men, since it is very convenient of their sexist rhetoric and fits their cognitive bias quite nicely.

• The Song of Songs! Erotic love poetry in which a female has as much of a role as a man in their relationship - and they are certainly not even married. It truly is wonderful poetry, and volumes have been written on its beauty. It is a shame that this book has been sanitized away into an allegory of God's love for his people. It was never written with this intention. Instead, it is a celebration of the sexual love between a man and woman. Go read it. It ranks up there with the erotic love-poetry of the goddess Inanna. If you can find Marvin H. Pope's translation of the Song of Songs for the Anchor Bible Series, you will find a very valuable resource. His interpretation suggested that the female may have originally been the goddess 'Anat. This is probably not correct, but the volume is packed full of good information regardless. In fact, he faced harsh criticism over his translation and commentary due to its pornographic nature. What can one do?

Any Jew will tell you that men and women are equal...