seeing in a mirror dimly

(ME: There were no headings for Kevin’s talk, so I hope that my brief notes can summarise the content of the lecture as accurately as possible.)

Genesis 1-3 is the most important text in the whole Bible for understanding men’s and women’s roles. Another way to go, is to start at 1 Tim. 2 and then read that back into everything. In some circles, 1 Timothy 2 is used as the hermeneutical key to understand the Bible. Thus, we need to read Genesis 1-3 in its historical context. Most evangelical commentators and the Roman Catholic church read Genesis this (egalitarian) way – we should also.

Four things to note about Genesis 1:26-28:

1. One species – male and female made in the image and likeness of God. Same dignity, value and worth.
2. Image implies dominion.
3. The cultural mandate is a joint statement here. Both male and female are to be fruitful and multiply.
4. Equality is the ideal.  Some subpoints:

• Egalitarians don’t deny difference.
• No-one is arguing for same-ness in biological structure. All complementarian books claim that Egalitarians deny difference within gender (Giles was in a meeting with complementarians once where he said let’s get undressed and I’ll prove you wrong!).
• Social equality is hard to put into practise.
• Scholarly commentators who hold to complementarian readings of Genesis 1-3 are like Climate skeptics! They are far against the tide of research.

Genesis 2:

Chapter two is harmonious with chapter 1. It’s not a correction to it. Adam is the archetypal person – incomplete without the woman.

Philip Payne, in his book (Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters) notes 7 incorrect interpretations of Genesis. Here are the 4 most common:

1. The animal naming is by the man, thus women are subordinate. But chapter one says that man and woman have dominion. Naming doesn’t define dominion.
2. Woman was created second, thus subordinate. But the order of creation of generic things doesn’t imply subordination (ie., man was created after the animals). Admittedly, what that means in Timothy is that there is disorder in the church.
3. The ‘helper’ term proves subordination. But when you help sometimes, it doesn’t mean subordination. KG gives lots of examples. Woman is his partner – not inferior, nor superior.
4. Women are more prone to error. This is taking a presupposition to the text. Ie., why not argue that the devil thought: ‘if I can trick the woman, the man will be a pushover’?

Genesis 3:

Adam blamed eve, Eve blamed the snake, and the snake didn’t have a leg to stand on!

Correct interpretation of this passage is that subordination is the consequence of sin. If this presupposition is true, then Christ’s dealing with the consequences of sin brings a reversal of subordination.

Concluding thoughts:

What about roles without subordination? Complementarians introduce the word “role” to obfuscate the subordination. They tell us that it is a reversal of ordered roles. It is not.