I missed the past two studies due to being away on holidays. I’ll prepare some notes, as time permits, based on the study book and the sermons when I get to listen to the MP3s.
The subject text: Ge 2:18-3:1
18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 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 the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said,
" This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.(NASB)
The first question referred us back to Gen 1:26:28 and asked about it in relation to “men, women and marriage”.
Just to remind, that passage is:
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, " Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."NASB
This is one of the truly confronting and radical passages in the Bible, in my view! Considering what we know of the status of women in the ANE, this puts men and women on equal footing, and for no social reason, as far as I can see (even if one accepts the late date of this passage being a ‘priestly’ composition, or even more so, perhaps). I like Brunner’s remarks, reported by Von Rad in his commentary on Genesis: “That is the immense double statement, of a lapidary simplicity, so simple indeed that we hardly realise that with it a vast world of myth and Gnostic speculation, of cynicism and asceticism, of the deification of sexuality and fear of sex completely disappears.”
But, of course, it is more that this; man and woman are not just presented as equal (as the parish’s study notes declared with a limp flourish), which is certainly included here, as far as these words go, but far more. The image of God rests upon man as a collective, and male and female conjointly (and not just on paired men and women, in my view, but upon mankind in community): the image cannot be sundered apart by the sexual nature of our being which suggests a unity in image-bearing, but not one that is exhausted by the individual, per se or even as an exemplar. The lame jokes directed against women fall, by this passage, into a theological abyss, where they belong.
[An aside on this: against my better judgement I attended a ‘Katoomba Men’s Convention’ a few years ago. When I heard from the platform the first snide joke at the expense of women, I got the impression that this would mark the tone of the day. I decided to keep a count of this example of puerility. Unsurprisingly, on this one day I noted 8 such ‘jokes’. So much for men who’d taken upon themselves to ‘teach’ their brothers demonstrating an understanding of the nature of male and female as created! This is consistent, however with a) the widespread disregard for the direct meaning of Genesis 1 in the Anglican church, and b) the unbiblical view of women afoot in this diocese and represented in their exclusion from a number of man-made ‘offices’ in the diocese (you know the drill: ‘rector’; ‘bishop’, ‘archbishop’.)]
I was very pleased to see a comment in the study book on woman’s status as ‘helper’ of man. The author rightly pointed out that women are ‘helpers’ to men as God is ‘helper’ to Israel: that is, as one with superior endowment going to repair a deficiency in the other! The precise point of helping is of course that Adam needed help at the precise point of his alone-ness! The help was the companionship of an equal, at least!
Q. 3 “What does the passage teach us about men, women and marriage?” (2:18-25 that is).
The largest part of this passage concerns itself with the naming of animals (restricted to the beasts of field and birds of sky; incidentally notable against the ‘framework’ hypothesis that both avian and terrestrial animals are made from the ground, amplifying the confusion of its artificial tripartite mirroring scheme); so I wonder what we may draw from this.
I think an idea worth exploring is that Adam ‘names’ consistently with the mandate to rule. He identifies these creatures’ relationships to him and, perhaps, to each other and the creation. The naming reinforces the subjection of these creatures to him. Now, it gets interesting when he meets Eve. He doesn’t assign her a name as I infer from the passage he does with the animals, but recognises a creature astonishingly different from both them (in obvious morphology) and him (in refinement, she being made of his flesh, not of dust). Adam’s exclamation is of wonder: she is of him, with him and they are intimately in relationship (as flows from the joint image-bearing). He goes on not to name her, in the manner of animals, but describes her derivation that bespeaks an intimacy and equality that is shared by no other creature. It certainly comes over from Adam’s short hymn (v. 23) that he is not ‘over-above’ the woman in any sense, but an admirer of her as one like him and his companion.
This drives home the point of the special relationship between man and woman, and by extension, between men and women; it is not merely a reproductive relationship as would be obvious between the sexes in animals, but has a moral and spiritual dimension that is completely lacking in animals and flows from ‘image-bearing’ into a community of delight and purpose.
What does this go on to teach us about marriage?
It is a conjugate unity with the parties acting jointly because they are one family. It creates companionship that is marked by dynamic intimacy at all levels, and a depth of mutuality and respect that is notable in its absence since the fall!
In the study group we chatted about this for some time; with a couple of group members, at the end of discussions admitting: ‘but we know that the man is the head of the family.’
The illustration both of them gave (one a man, the other a woman) was the need in a business for a ‘final’ decision maker. Now, a married couple is not a business, and the decisions are personal not commercial!
I pointed out that the idea of a ‘final decision-maker’ and the man as ‘head of the family’ was not in the least biblical; much to their consternation. In a conjugate relationship it is the joint parties that are together the final decision maker. If there is to be any dispute, I would hope the godly direction of dispute would be each attempting to find the other’s best interest (Eph 5:21). Darn near impossible to live out, in my humble experience!
Naturally, we next went to the question of ‘head’, with a reference to 1 Cor 11:3. Knowing Sydney Diocese’s view of men, women, and heads, this was bound to come up. I am suspicious that it came up with more than a trace of tendentiousness.
Certainly Paul tells us in this verse that there are a number of ‘heads’. But he does so in a way that carefully avoids any implication of order to imply hierarchy (compare, for instance, the order in 1 Cor 12:28). This is a simple statement of relationship pairs; indeed, ‘source-response’ pairs, with the point being, I think, the validity of sexual difference and, by reference to Genesis 1 and 2, the lack of spiritual differentiation between male and female!
OK, so “how is male ‘headship’ [no such thing, of course, in the Bible] expressed in the context of the marriage relationship?”
The real question is: "what is it, then for a man to be 'head' in his relationships with women, particularly his wife?"
The answer is found by reflecting on Eph 4:15-16: the head serves the other as Christ served the church: to the promot the other's benefit to the point of sacrifice of the head.
An interesting little note struck about marriage in the Genesis 2 passage is that it is the man who leaves his originating family to assign his commitments to his wife. I wonder if there is any implication for women in their not being stated as leaving their family?
Singleness.
This took a heading in the study book. Just a brief remark here: “the New Testament shows us that a marriage relationship is not for everyone”. Yet I am told that singleness can be problematic if you seek ordination as an unmarried man and are confirmed in your desire to remain so. I know that we are built for sexual relationship, but some are gifted to, or choose to remain single (Matt 19:12); my Anglo-catholic friends would suggest that this scriptural fact is not always given the credibility it deserves in the Sydney diocese.
I wait with some interest the sermon on this passage on Sunday (23 Nov 8).
