Saturday, October 29, 2011

Manhood and Womanhood Before (after) Sin Part 3

John Piper titled this sermon Manhood and Womanhood Before Sin.  In the beginning of this sermon he said,
"The other reason I think this is a good question (i.e., God's intention for manhood and womanhood before sin) is that in the New Testament Jesus and Paul, when they use the Old Testament to answer questions about how man and woman should relate to each other, go back to what things were supposed to be like before the fall. They don't take the messed up relationships of Genesis 3 and make them normative. They come back to Genesis 2 and talk about how it should have been from the beginning."

He makes a valid point that both Paul and Jesus refer back to Genesis 2:24 when speaking of marriage.  The rest of the sermon focuses on events that occurred after sin, which according to his own statement this messed up relationship of Genesis 3 should not be taken as normative.   This means that his entire argument hinges on what we have explored in the last two posts-  man was made first (maybe) and God only gave his instructions to man (probably not.)  Even though there is nothing *in the text* to indicate that either of these statements, if they are even true, have any significance to the intended relationship between man and woman, this is what complementarians use as their foundation for "biblical" marriage roles. 


The Man is Interrogated First  

Piper says:



"Make no mistake: God does hold the woman accountable for her actions. She is a personal, morally accountable being in the very image of God. And what man does or fails to do relieves her of no personal, individual responsibility to know and to obey God. But in their relationship to each other God looks to the man and says, "Have you been the moral and spiritual leader you ought to have been?" 

Is that what God said?


In Genesis 3:9-11 God asks some pretty straight forward questions:

Where are you?
Who told you that you are naked?
Did you eat of the tree that I commanded you not to?


Basic, clear, personal questions.  No hint of anything about leadership or any responsibility for Eve's actions.


Why did God talk to Adam first?  I don't know, because it doesn't say!.  Maybe he flipped a cosmic coin.

Does it matter who God spoke to first?  I think if it did, he would say so. 

  Let's assume for a minute that Piper is correct and the order in which God spoke to Adam and Eve has some meaning.  

God goes on to deliver the serpent's consequences before Eve's and Eve's before Adam's.  

God continues to show no discernible pattern throughout the Bible, and here is one example:

In Luke 1:27 an angel comes to Mary to tell her that she will give birth to Jesus.
In Mathew 1:18-1:20 an angel tells Joseph about the baby, after Mary is already pregnant.










Manhood and Womanhood Before Sin Part 2

The Man is Given the Moral Pattern

In this sectioin, Piper claims that Adam was given the instructions for how to behave in the garden (Genesis 2:16), because he had a "primary responsiblity" for their actions.  He says that God trusted Adam to pass these instructions on to Eve.

In my last post, I raised the strong possibility that Adam was a man/woman being that was separated into man and woman distinctly in Chapter 3.  If this is true, than God did, in fact, give both man and woman the instructions in verse 16.  Let's assume for the sake of argument that God only gave these instructions to Adam and that Eve was created after that.  Does this have significance?

Piper claims that this indicated Adam's "primary responsibility (not the only, but the primary responsibility) to receive and teach and be accountable for the moral pattern of life in the garden of Eden."

What does that mean?  Really?  In practical terms?  Some patriarchs believe this and take it to an interesting extreme.  They go so far as to believe that as long as a woman obeys her husband, she is off the hook with God for anything they do, because it is *entirely* the man's responsibility to make wise decisions.  Obviously, this is not true, as we see later that Eve bore consequences as well as Adam.  Complementarians see this logic and try to find a middle ground- Adam is only *mostly* responsible.  But what does that mean?  If someone has a good (or any) argument from a complementarian source on this I would love to see it, because I have yet to find one.  I have seen multiple proof-texted arguments that attempt to show that Adam *does* bear most of the responsibility, but none that show what that means in practical terms.  If Adam bears 51% of the responsibility and Eve bears 49%, is she 2% less dead than him at the end of the day?

Romans 6:23
"For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
         

So, did God tell Eve the instructions?


I believe he did, whether they were formed at the same time or not.


Genesis 3:8 
"And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day:"  

I'm just speculating here, because the text doesn't actually say, but do you think this was a new occurrence?  Do you think God just happened to show up that day after leaving them alone since the day of creation?  Or maybe this was a regular thing, for him to walk and talk with Adam and Eve.  I don't imagine that the one sentence of instruction was all he told them either.  They both got to WALK and TALK with God, getting to know his character, and learning his instructions for life.

But the text doesn't actually say, so let's look at the rest of the Bible.  Who does God speak to when he gives his instructions.

Exodus 6:6
Exodus 14:2
Exodus 27:20
Exodus 30:21

These are just a few of the examples of God speaking to "the children of Israel."  He didn't call the men together and speak to them so they could tell their wives.  He spoke to everyone.




  








Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Manhood and Womanhood Before Sin

This post is in response to Manhood and Womanhood Before Sin by John Piper.  It was written in 1989, but conveys some beliefs that are still quite popular among complementarians.  In this post, I'm only addressing his first argument.        

The Man was Created First- Or Was He? 

Genesis 1:26-27
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.  So God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

Scholars have offered several explanations for the placement of this creation account, since it is before Eve's apparent creation from Adam's rib.  The Talmud offers this explanation:


Midrash Rabbah 8:1:

Rabbi Yirmeyah ben El'azar said: The Blessed Holiness created the first human being with both genders, as it is written, "Male and female [God] created them" {Genesis 1:27}.
Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman [agreed and] said: The Blessed Holiness created the first human being double-faced [with two fronts of the body], and then sawed them apart and made backs for them, a back for one and a back for the other.
Other scholars objected: It is written "[God] took one of his ribs" {Genesis 1:21}! [The word understood as "rib" is tsela- see Hebrew text below]
[Rabbi Shmuel] answered: It means "one of the two sides [of the double being]". As Scripture says, "For the tsela of the Sanctuary..." -- where the translation of tsela is "side".

This is the most likely explanation.  The word used for man in Genesis 1 is Adam, which is used for humankind.  It is not until Genesis 2:23, after the man/woman Adam was separated, that the word "iysh" is used for the first time to distinguish man from "ishshah" (woman).  In addition, we are created in the image of God, and God is Echad or plural One, with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  This explains how a man and a woman are to "become one flesh."  In the beginning, they were literally one flesh, and marriage should be a picture of that unity.  

1 Timothy 2:23
"For Adam was first formed, then Eve." 

Does this contradict the explanation of the man/woman Adam?  No, I don't think so.  Adam got to keep the body that was formed first before Eve got her newly formed body.  Paul's purpose in stating this was to refute a teaching that was circulating that woman was the originator of man. 

1 Timothy 2:12 
"I most certainly do not grant authority to a woman to teach that she is the originator of a man." 



But let's just say that John Piper is correct and Adam was, in fact, formed first.

He claims, "Now God wants to say something more about the relationship between man and woman. And what he wants to say is that when it comes to their differing responsibilities, there is a "firstness" of responsibility that falls to the man."

There is nothing in the text to indicate that the purpose of this passage is to show us anything about who has more responsibility before God.  This is entirely his opinion.  All the Bible does is state the facts of who was created first (if Adam was indeed created first), but does not say why or that it has any meaning at all.  He acknowledges that other teachers have pointed out that the animals were created before humans, so if being created first automatically implied a position of leadership, the animals should lead the humans.

He brushes this off by pointing out that "When the Hebrew people gave a special responsibility to the "firstborn" in the family, it never entered their minds that this responsibility would be nullified if the father happened to own cattle before he had sons."  Of course not.  Because being firstborn doesn't necessarily mean God will call you to be the leader.  If you're an animal, you just might get sacrificed.  If you're a human, there are special blessings and inheritances for the firstborn, however example after example shows that doesn't mean much when it comes to who God calls to leadership.  

Abel and Cain
Noah's son Shem was the forefather of Jesus, even though Japeth was the oldest (Gen 10:21).
Jacob and Esau
Joseph and his brothers
Manasseh and Ephraim
And so on...

Mark 10:31
"But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

What do the Hebrew word pictures say?

According to Dr. Frank Seekins in Hebrew Word Pictures, the word for Father is ab or Alef Bet.  "The word picture tells us that a father is the leader [first] or the strength of the family." (pg. 14)

 The word for Mother is em or Alef Mem.  "The word picture tells us that a mother is the strong [or first] water... the life giver."  (pg. 62) 


So there is strong evidence to indicate that man was not, in fact, formed first, rather Adam was a man/woman being who was later separated.  Whether this is true or not is irrelevant to challenging the complementarian argument, however, because there is nothing IN the text to indicate that being created first has any significance.  Certainly, if woman had been created first, patriarchs would have believed that indicated something as well.  They would have said, "Of course the woman couldn't manage on her own!  That's why God created man, because the poor helpless woman was lost on her own until God created the man to rescue her."  Can't you just hear it now?