Smoodock's Blog

Although I may add to this subject later, this will be my final study of this series at this time. Because of men’s attitudes and self-serving traditions, women have been abased, abused, forced into prostitution, abandoned with their children to fend for themselves and generally kept from satisfying their hopes of personal reward and life’s fulfillment. Yet, no matter how we interpret the two creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2, there is absolutely no foundation for a hierarchy built into the male/female relationship. Therefore, God couldn’t have invented patriarchy or complementarianism, which is believed by so many modern Christians to be divinely established from the beginning of creation. Even if we hold to the position that Genesis 1:27 shows God created the man and the woman on the sixth day, something which I take issue with in previous studies, there is no evidence of a hierarchy between the man and the woman (husband and wife). Therefore, patriarchy must have come after the Fall and is an invention of man!

After God created man in chapter one of Genesis, not only did he create both male and female in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), but he also gave male and female five directives: 1) be fruitful; 2) multiply; 3) fill the earth; 4) subdue it; and 5) and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air and everything that moves upon the face of the earth (Genesis 1:28). All five directives are given in the plural form. This means either both men and women were given the same directives and authority over God’s creation, or, as I argue in previous studies, the man (singular) is addressed as male/female (Genesis 1:27), a plurality of gender. Therefore, no matter how we wish to interpret the Genesis 1 account of creation, no hierarchy is alluded to in the Lord’s creation of male and female (Genesis 1:28).

In the Bible’s second account of creation (Genesis 2), once again hierarchy is never alluded to in the relationship of the man and the woman. The man was formed from the ground (Genesis 2:7), but the woman was formed from what God had taken out of the man (Genesis 2:21-22). Although some try to point to hierarchy here, because the woman was taken out of the man, such an idea, however, is pure conjecture. Why would the fact that the woman was taken from the man suggest inferiority, when the man was taken from the ground? Which, on the face, is more demeaning? Nevertheless, through the operation of God, the man shared his life and part of his person, to build what became the woman. Did the very same life of the man become inferior, simply because it now beats in the heart of the woman? Did the thing, which God removed from the man, somehow become inferior, because it was used to form the woman? She was made of the same flesh and bone that made up what was Adam (Genesis 2:23), and the life that ran through his veins, also ran through the woman’s. According to the text, they were ONE flesh (Genesis 2:24), in the same sense that God (plural) was ONE Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4). What do we find here that is unequal? Where is there room for hierarchy in the male/female relationship in the Genesis 2 record?

Not until we come to Genesis 3:16 do we find any evidence of hierarchy in the relationship between the man and the woman. Nevertheless, all the Lord did here was tell the woman what would be the consequences of her sin. Nothing there is said of the Lord inventing patriarchy or making the woman inferior in authority with respect to her husband. What the Lord told the woman was, as a result of her rebellion, her desire would be toward her husband (to please him?), and he would dominate her. Therefore, patriarchy/hierarchy in the male/female relationship is the result of the Fall, and is the man’s, vis-à-vis the male’s, invention.

Thus, we have no evidence that patriarchy (hierarchy in the relationship between the man and the woman) was something God initiated from the beginning. On the contrary, the male and female represent the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and there is no hierarchy within the Godhead. Genesis 1 reveals that male and female were given authority over all of what God had created, and there is no evidence that their authority wasn’t shared equally, nor is there any evidence of either having authority over the other.

On the other hand, the Genesis 2 account does reveal differences. Differences of origin, and differences in time, as that relates to the beginning of the man and the woman. Yet, the conclusion of the matter is that, although they are male and female, they are one flesh, and ultimately have the same origin (Genesis 2:23-24).