Women in Genesis 1-3 so

¶ … Women in Genesis 1-3

So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. - Genesis 1:27-28 (KJV)

Almost everyone in the Western world is likely familiar with the story of mankind's creation, and the fall of Satan and the angels as it is presented in Genesis. According to John Van Seters, the Book of Genesis is a work of ancient history in two fundamental senses. It is first a work about ancient times, an archaiologia, or a particular genre of early historiography that provided a "prologue" to the national traditions of many states and peoples that exist today. In this regard, the Book of Genesis shares a number of characteristics with these early records that must be understood from the outset to be interpreted correctly. Second, the Book of Genesis is the clear product of an ancient historian who understood what his task was in compiling such a record. Van Seters says that the notion of Genesis being a "history book" is not new, but previous investigations into the various smaller units in Genesis, however, have not generally resulted in an understanding of the larger form of the book or its characters in terms of their relationship to the larger patriarchal society in which they took place. To this end, this paper examines the Book of Genesis to identify the women and what roles they played in the first book of the Old Testament. A summary of the research will be provided in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Background and Overview. The books of Genesis 1-3 make it clear from the outset who is in charge and how things came to be as they are today. According to Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, "Boldly and lucidly, the originating words and acts of God are described." The narrative in Genesis 1-3 provides the basis for virtually everything that is in humankind's physical and spiritual universe, and has served as a powerful and authoritative foundation for much of the cultural aspects of modern society. According to Zornberg, the books of Genesis provide "an ordering and a goodness that shapes all the categories of creation. Smoothly, powerfully, and seamlessly, the text (Genesis 1:1-2, 4), through formal devices of sequence, repetitions of key words, and the leitmotif of 'Let there be... And there was...,'" have resulted in a wide range of theological meanings that have endured to the present day. For instance, that Elohim, alone, "at the beginning," created a good ordered world; that He "separated" and hierarchically ordered the primordial mass into a "good" pattern; and that the created world of nature is, as a result, a harmony; and that "Elohim is Omnipotent and without rival." In his early book, The Genesis of Genesis, Benjamin Wisner Bacon notes that these narratives were used almost exclusively to connect the history of Yahweh's relations with the patriarchs. "The narratives of Genesis are almost exclusively devoted to connecting this (sacred) tree, that altar, this (sacred) well, with the history of the patriarchs; and the origin of sanctuary after sanctuary, tree after tree, 'pillar' after 'pillar' is justified in the relation of how Yahweh had caused his name to be remembered there." This foundation has therefore provided men with the authority they needed to exert a controlling role over women in human affairs in the Western world ever since.

These issues are discussed further below.

Role of Women in Patriarchal Societies. According to H.M. Orlinsky, there was a fairly straightforward patriarchal social structure set forth in the Genesis narratives that was established early on in Genesis 2:18: "And the Lord God said, [It is] not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." Consequently, there has been a clear basis for the patriarchal societies that have broadly characterized the Judeo-Christian-Islamic ethos ever since. "The father was the head of the family. The sons and daughters, with the spouses and children, were all subject to the authority of the patriarch. By tribal law, the oldest son succeeded the father upon his death." A few pages later, Orlinsky writes: "In actual life, however, the matriarch too was a dominant figure, for example Abraham's wife Sarah and Isaac's wife Rebekah"; in other words, "In the domestic sphere, the woman's ameliorative counsels and her motherly feelings were taken seriously." Because the Genesis narratives have been widely interpreted and commented on by scholars from an almost exclusively patriarchal point-of-view, though, they are widely considered to be frequently confusing, contradictory, or simply difficult to follow from a modern perspective.

The "patriarchal" narratives in the early parts of Genesis are replete with episodes in which the will of the women is regarded as being superior to that of their husbands because in certain areas they did in fact command superior authority; authority that in some instances was clearly supported by the supreme deity as set forth in Genesis. According to Teubal, this aspect is evinced by Abram, who must accept the banishment of his son Ishmael from Hebron, where Sarah lives. "Whatever Sarah tells you, do as she says," his God instructs him. Unable to oppose Sarah's command, Abram follows Hagar and Ishmael to the wilderness of Beer-sheba. Traditionally, it has been believed that it was Sarah's intolerable abuse of Hagar that forced the slave to flee with her son; however, Sarah's action, with the God's approval, resulted not from an emotional state, but rather from a strict adherence to a form of legalistic tradition.

Here, Teubal suggests that some of the passages in Genesis can be best understood, in spite their enigmatic nature, if they are considered in the context of their depicting a society that was not strictly or absolutely patriarchal. "On closer examination of the texts, it appears that the women of the stories were struggling to maintain traditions and customs not always in accord with those of their husbands or fathers; and this struggle, though discernible in the text, is not directly acknowledged." However, it may be possible to identify and appreciate the role and impact of the women in Genesis 1-3 on these ancient societies through a careful examination of their actions and the context in which they took place.

Impact of Women in Genesis 1-3. According to Phipps, the Hebrew myth of Eve and the Greek myth of Pandora have both had a profound impact on Western civilization because they allegedly reveal the true nature of women. "Scholarly studies as well as popular treatments have generally presumed that both myths aim at alerting men to feminine evil." Theologian J.E. Bruno maintains that the two myths are actually different versions of the same story about the first woman; likewise, echoing this assessment, Walter Headlam argues that both myths serve to characterize women as being a mere divine "afterthought" and, in Hesiod's words, "a curse and a bane." According to Frederick Teggart, the series of events in both myths is identical: "First, a state of bliss; second, the mischievous activity of the woman; third, a description of evils. Consequently, it might reasonably be inferred that Hesiod, the Greek who wrote of Pandora, used a variant of a narrative that was also utilized in the story of the Garden of Eden."

In a general sense, the Old Testament is comprised of stories that can be categorized into three successive groups: 1) first, there are stories about individuals; 2) second, of families; and 3) there are narratives about tribes or nations. With the sole exception of the creation and downfall of Eve, though, all of the first category stories concern men, just as do the third category stories. In the infrequent narratives about the courage or enterprise of a woman, such as Esther, Ruth, or Huldah, the women are invariably described as being there to support the interests and activities of men; however, in the second category, which begins with the account of the migration of Terah and his descendants from Mesopotamia to Canaan, the primary focus of the stories is overwhelmingly on women and what they want from life. "It is precisely in this portion of Genesis, that which deals with the family, that we find episodes difficult to understand." For instance, Teubal points out that incest is strictly banned in most modern societies, just as it was in antiquity; however, he questions whether incest was permitted in Genesis? "Sarah is married to her brother. It is puzzling also that we are given more information on the background of Sarah's niece Milcah than on Sarah, the ancestress of Israel." Furthermore, it may be difficult for contemporary readers to understand why Abram and Isaac would rather say to kings that they were the brothers instead of the husbands of their wives, thereby allowing their wives to be taken.

Likewise, other passages create more problems than they solve from a modern perspective: "Why did Rachel remove the teraphim, the sacred images, when she left her father's house? Why Rachel and not Leah, the eldest? Teubal, though, points out that if these events are viewed in terms of the fundamental humanity of the individuals involved, their actions and motives becomes more clear to modern observers. "These episodes, and many others in the Genesis texts, are bewildering only if they are seen as occurring in a patriarchal society." Notwithstanding the high regard that women were almost universally provided in terms of their supportive counsel and motherly devotions, these attributes did not carry with them any sense of social authority in a patriarchal society, but were rather confined to the homes of the individuals involved. According to Teubal, "The vivid stories depicting Sarah's removal of Ishmael from the line of inheritance, Rebekah's triumph over Esau, and Rachel's appropriation of the teraphim despite Laban's agitated effort to retrieve them clearly show the effort by fathers and husbands to gain control of a non-patriarchal system existing at the time." Similarly, the matriarchs in Genesis are portrayed as being fully cognizant of the erosion of their rights as kinswomen. The picture of the women as headstrong and emotional suggests a later explanatory slant by the redactors who were compelled to deal with strongly non-patriarchal traditions in a patriarchal society.

In these so-called patriarchal narratives, the family's descent is traced through the mother; however, matrilineal descent has not generally been taken into account by scholars who were trying to justify the marriage of Sarah and Abram. Here again, there is some evidence of succession by the youngest (ultimogeniture) identified in Genesis in the narratives as well as the genealogies that can be drawn from them. For instance, the famous lists of "begettings" were originally compiled by priestly scribes in an effort to change the pattern and trace the descent of the Hebrews exclusively through the male line.

Male Influences on Linguistic Interpretations. According to William E. Phipps, the earliest of the biblical writers-based some of their language on those of people who lived in Western Asia long before the Hebrew patriarchs. These subtleties in language differences may have helped contribute to much of the difficulty modern readers may have in understanding how the specific form of Genesis evolved and ended up the way it did today. While much of the biblical text has been interpreted and reinterpreted over the years in a "Bible by committee fashion," the vast majority of what these committees used as a basis for their interpretation was the product of the early Semitic cultures. Phipps reports that these early biblical writers used "lh," which is the root for the name of deity in several Semitic cultures. For instance, this form resulted in the well-known Allah (alilah, the-God) of the Quran; likewise, in the Hebrew Bible, El refers occasionally to the deity worshiped by the Israelites. However, in the Old Testament, there is a clear preference shown for "Elohim," a composite term for deity that Phipps suggests may have been developed through merging El with Eloah (-ah is a feminine suffix) and adding a plural (-im) ending.

Walther Eichrodt explains that the plural term "Elohim" was employed by these early writers "to express the higher unity subsuming the individual gods and combining in one concept the whole pantheon." Therefore, the term "Elohim" suggests the inherent essence of individual male and female deities who had been incorporated into a single divine entity. In this regard, Elohim is used in the Holy Bible about 2,500 times to communicate the unified totality of the godhead, and the term is therefore ordinary accompanied by a singular verb. "Serving as the generic term for deity, Elohim could have provided either a female or a male reference. As a result, the Israelites called goddess Ashtoreth (Astarte) an elohim of the Canaanites."

Recognizing the androgynous components of the name Elohim may also help contemporary readers to better understand the difficult Genesis 1 passage that relates the story of human creation. There, Elohim announces, "Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness"; thereafter, text states, "Elohim created humanity male and female in the divine image." Here, Phipps suggests that the pronouns "us" and "our" may be leftovers of an earlier form of polytheism. Apparently both genders had been incorporated into the divine form of this name because the human sexes were both reflected in the image of Elohim. Since this form of the deity is considered to be inclusive of the favorable personal attributes that are found in both sexes, it would be as faithful to the Genesis affirmation to say that "God made woman in her own image as to say God made man in his own image."