Tamar’s Tears: Evangelical Engagements with Feminist Old Testament Hermeneutics

By Pickwick Publications

Evangelical and feminist approaches to Old Testament interpretation often seem to be at odds with each other. The authors of this volume argue to the contrary: feminist and evangelical interpreters of the Old Testament can enter into a constructive dialogue that will be fruitful to both parties. They seek to illustrate this with reference to a number of texts and issues relevant to feminist Old Testament interpretation from an explicitly evangelical point of view. In so doing they raise issues that need to be addressed by both evangelical and feminist interpreters of the Old Testament, and present an invitation to faithful and fruitful reading of these portions of Scripture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Nov 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781630876128

Book preview

Tamar’s Tears

Evangelical Engagements with Feminist Old Testament Hermeneutics

Edited by

Andrew Sloane

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Tamar’s Tears

Evangelical Engagements with Feminist Old Testament Hermeneutics

Copyright © 2012 Wipf and Stock Publishers. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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isbn 13: 978-1-60899-982-8

eisbn 13: 978-1-63087-612-8

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Tamar’s tears : evangelical engagements with feminist Old Testament hermeneutics / edited by Andrew Sloane.

xx + 378 pp. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 13: 978-1-60899-982-8

1. Bible. O.T.—Feminist criticism. 2. Women in the Bible. 3. Evangelicalism. 4. Violence in the Bible. 5. Bible. O.T.—hermeneutics. I. Sloane, Andrew. II. Title.

bs575 s56 2012

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

We thank the editors of Tyndale Bulletin for permission to use material from Robin Parry, Feminist Hermeneutics and Evangelical Concerns: The Rape of Dinah as a Case Study, Tyndale Bulletin 53.1 (2002) 1–28; and Andrew Sloane, Aberrant Textuality? The Case of Ezekiel the (Porno) Prophet, Tyndale Bulletin 59.1 (2008) 53–76.

Contributors

Nicholas Ansell (MPhil, PhD) is Assistant Professor of Theology at the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Canada.

Miriam J. Bier (BA, DipTchg, GradDipAppTheol, MTh) is completing her PhD on the book of Lamentations at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Richard S. Briggs (PhD) is Lecturer in Old Testament; Director of Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics at Cranmer Hall, St. John’s College, Durham University, where he teaches the Old Testament. Richard lives in Durham, England, and is married to Melody, with three lively children.

Grenville J. R. Kent (MA Film, MA (Hons) Theol, PhD) is Lecturer in Old Testament and Arts at Wesley Institute, Sydney. Based in Sydney, he is the besotted husband of Carla and proud father of five young children.

Robin A. Parry (MA, PhD, PGCE) is an editor at Wipf and Stock Publishers. He has written books on Old Testament ethics, trinitarian worship, universalism, and a commentary on Lamentations. He is married to Carol and has two daughters, Hannah and Jessica. They live in Worcester, England.

Junia Pokrifka (MDiv, STM, PhD) is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Azusa Pacific University (California, USA). Junia lives in Southern California with her husband Todd and two sons, Daniel and Immanuel.

Todd Pokrifka (MDiv, STM, PhD) is Lecturer in Theology at Azusa Pacific University. He is the author of Redescribing God: The Roles of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in Karl Barth’s Doctrines of Divine Unity, Constancy, and Eternity (Wipf and Stock, 2010).

Andrew Sloane (MBBS, BTh, ThD) is Lecturer in Old Testament and Christian Thought at Morling College (affiliated with the Australian College of Theology). Andrew lives in Sydney with his wife Alison and three young adult daughters, Elanor, Laura, and Alexandra.

Heath Thomas (PhD) is Assistant Professor of Old Testament & Hebrew at Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina and Fellow in Old Testament Studies at The Paideia Centre for Public Theology in Ontario, Canada. Heath lives in Wake Forest with his wife, Jill, and four children Harrison, Isabelle, Simon, and Sophia.

Jenni Williams (MA, PhD) is Tutor in Old Testament at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. She lives in Oxford with her husband Jon, son Daniel, and daughter Elanor.

Acknowledgments

It is customary for academics to thank those who have helped make their work possible. Let me follow that custom, but note that this is not an empty form. Truly we acknowledge—and give thanks to God for—the many people who help and support us and the projects we work on.

So first, we would acknowledge the generous support of our families and friends, those who give us so generously of their time and love and forbearance, and who are willing to express (or kindly feign) interest in the strange worlds of ideas we inhabit.

We also thank our various institutions for the provision of study leave and working environments in which it is possible to pursue interests such as these, as well as the editorial staff at Wipf & Stock for all their hard work.

Andrew and Robin would also like thank the editors of Tyndale Bulletin for permission to use articles originally published in the Bulletin as the basis for their chapters (2 and 7) on Dinah and Ezekiel. They originally appeared as: Robin Parry, Feminist Hermeneutics and Evangelical Concerns: The Rape of Dinah as a Case Study, Tyndale Bulletin 53.1 (2002) 1–28; and Andrew Sloane, Aberrant Textuality? The Case of Ezekiel the (Porno) Prophet, Tyndale Bulletin 59.1 (2008) 53–76. In addition, Andrew expresses his gratitude to the Tyndale Fellowship for the invitation to present the 2010 Annual Old Testament Lecture, which formed the basis of his chapter (1) on Genesis 2–3.

As editor, Andrew would like to thank each of the contributors to the volume for their valuable feedback, reflections, and discussion on each of our pieces. These made it a truly collegial endeavour and one from which we all profited—and demonstrates the value of hospitable engagement between those who share common concerns but different perspectives.

Finally, in July 2010 most of the contributors to this volume met in Worcester for a symposium on evangelicals and feminist Old Testament hermeneutics. This was an invaluable (and very enjoyable) experience made possible by Robin Parry’s generous assistance and the warm hospitality of his family and church (City Church, Worcester). It allowed us to present early versions of our papers, discuss the issues, note objections and possibilities we hadn’t seen for ourselves and hang out with an excellent bunch of people. The story, of course, did not begin there; it began in 2008 when Robin contacted me about the possibility of our working together on this project. So, on behalf of all of us who have profited so much from our ongoing conversations: thanks, Robin, for making this possible and for lubricating the wheels of our common endeavour.

Introduction

Engagement Not Conflict

Much public and academic discourse seems to be controlled by images of conflict: culture wars; remnants of class struggle; the clash between progressive and conservative political agenda; battles between rival schools of thought or disciplinary perspectives; the list goes on. So our imaginations and perceptions of interactions between alternative viewpoints are shaped; we come to see ourselves as manoeuvring through the frontlines, sniping at, ambushing, or directly assaulting the entrenched positions of our foes. Sometimes we do find ourselves embattled, defending the truth or seeking to establish or extend a bridgehead in hostile intellectual territory. But not all the time; at times a more irenic, a more conversational approach is appropriate. The contributors to this volume aim to exhibit just such a peaceable approach to the interface between evangelical and feminist approaches to OT interpretation. Of course, many evangelicals and many feminist biblical scholars would see this interface as a skirmish zone in a key conflict over the nature and use of the Bible. We beg to differ, seeking a more excellent way, a friendlier path through this territory that might prove fruitful for both evangelical and feminist biblical scholars.

But first we should perhaps explain how it is that evangelical and feminist interests are seen as being in essential conflict. Many feminists consider evangelical feminism to be impossible. They see the Bible as irredeemably patriarchal and, given their view of the priority of women’s experience and their critique of patriarchy, they argue that one cannot, therefore, accept the Bible’s authority and also embrace feminist perspectives. Many evangelicals consider evangelical feminism (or perhaps, being a feminist evangelical) to be impossible. They see the Bible as presenting a hierarchical (or complementarian) model of male-female relationships, and argue that to question that model on the basis of a feminist critique of patriarchy is to sell out the Bible and its authority. We consider both claims to be wrong—and do so in part on the basis of demonstration: that is, we are evangelicals and we are feminists and so our very existence challenges those claims. This book, however, does not aim to address this question (many others have explored the question of whether it is possible to be both evangelical and feminist¹); rather, taking it to be the case that it is possible to be evangelical and feminist, it seeks to address the issues that feminist biblical interpretation (specifically, Old Testament interpretation) raises for evangelical Christians who engage in the disciplines of biblical and theological scholarship. In so doing, we trust that this will show both that it is possible to be an evangelical feminist biblical scholar, and how it can be done.

What, then, are the key issues that feminist OT hermeneutics raises for evangelical interpreters? Here are some: is the text as a whole, or are particular texts, inherently oppressive? If so, how do we understand Scripture as God’s word? If not, how do we understand the criticisms that have been levelled against it and the features of the text that generate those criticisms? How do we wrestle with the historical and cultural particularity of the text/s while maintaining it is the word of a God of freedom and fidelity; a God of love and justice? What do we do with texts that seem to deny women the dignity we believe is rightly theirs—and which have been used in such ways? How do we hear the voice of feminist criticism, learning from it, without denying our evangelical heritage? In particular, how do we affirm the Bible as the authoritative word of the God of life in the face of such critique? It is questions such as these that exercise the minds of the writers of the pieces that follow.

Before we outline where the individual pieces take us, it is worth clarifying a few things. First, we want to be clear that we recognise that both evangelicalism and feminism/ feminist interpretation are pluralist enterprises. While there is no need to present taxonomies of these movements here (which are, anyway, outlined in pieces such as Robin Parry’s in this volume), it is worth noting the diversity that exists within them. Feminists range from those who see Scripture and the faiths informed by it as irredeemably patriarchal, inimical to women and their interests, to those who see Scripture and (elements of) the faiths informed by it as liberating and life-enhancing for all people, including women (at least when properly understood and appropriated). Evangelicals vary widely on their views of Scripture (ranging from, say, strongly inerrantist views that tightly identify the words of Scripture with the Word of God, to infallibilist views and beyond, which see a more dynamic and complex relationship between them), their understanding of the theological task (ranging from, say, strongly propositionalist views that see theology as a matter of systematizing the truth claims of Scripture, to post-conservative evangelicalism, which sees theology as seeking to articulate the narrative identity which is ours in the gospel in particular cultural contexts). Of course, they also vary in their responses to feminism (ranging from those who see it as a fundamental challenge to our faith, to those—such as the contributors to this volume—who see it as presenting challenges to which we must respond and insights from which we must learn). All of this to say that in this volume we seek to both acknowledge and reflect a variety of sympathetic responses to a variety of feminist concerns, doing so within the broad church of evangelicalism. We should also note that we are all too aware that (ironically) most of the contributors to this volume are men. This was due in part to a relative dearth of women evangelical OT scholars who are interested in the issues (or at least of our knowledge of them). Perhaps this volume might help prompt the solution to this problem. And so, to the essays in the volume.

In the first piece, ‘And he shall rule over you’: Evangelicals, Feminists and Genesis 2–3, Andrew Sloane notes that Genesis 2–3 has prompted many feminist interpretations, ranging from those which seek to recover from it (or read out of it) an egalitarian understanding of male-female relationships to those that deconstruct and reject it as irredeemably patriarchal. He identifies key interpreters and interpretive perspectives (Phyllis Trible’s now classic egalitarian, literary reading; Gale Yee’s patriarchal, ideological reading; Mieke Bal’s non-patriarchal, readerly perspective; and J’annine Jobling’s post-Christian, post-feminist reading) and engages with their interpretations of Genesis 2–3. In doing so he seeks to analyze their underlying assumptions and methodologies and critically appraise their interpretation of the text from an evangelical point of view. He concludes with some reflections on evangelical feminist interpretation of Genesis 2–3. While he resists the claims of suspicious and resistant readings of the text, he argues that evangelicals need to listen carefully to feminist interpretations in order to identify where our uses of the text have distorted its meaning and been damaging to women and to ensure that they reflect God’s liberating vision of human community.

Robin Parry’s chapter, Feminist Hermeneutics and Evangelical Concerns: The Rape of Dinah as a Case Study, begins by outlining the challenge feminist hermeneutics poses for traditional notions of biblical authority. In doing so he gives a brief introduction to the main lineaments of feminist hermeneutics (using, in part, Osiek’s influential five-fold taxonomy: rejectionist, loyalist, revisionist, sublimationist, and liberationist). Genesis 34 is set out as a case study for displaying feminist interpretations that read with the narrator but against patriarchal interpreters and those which read against the narrator himself. He argues that a high view of Scripture can accommodate many of the concerns raised by feminist critics of biblical narrative, including those that note the narrator’s focus on perspectives other than Dinah’s. While this opens up the possibility of imaginative reflections on her, and other women’s, experience in the text, these should not be considered as exegetical reflections. Furthermore, he maintains that an evangelical hermeneutic will not easily be able to endorse an interpretation that stands over against the stance of a biblical narrator.

The third chapter, Hermeneutics by Numbers? Case Studies in Feminist and Evangelical Interpretation of the Book of Numbers by Richard Briggs, claims that it is easy to treat both evangelical and feminist hermeneutics in an abstract and over-generalised way. His paper considers the two approaches by way of careful comparison of how self-defined writers in the two traditions offer comment on particular passages in the book of Numbers; in particular, passages which raise obvious gender-related matters (5:11–31; 12 and the story of Miriam; 27 and 36). From such a comparative study, it becomes apparent that both approaches to the biblical text highlight some features of it and leave others submerged, whether deliberately or inadvertently. This evaluation, however, accords differently with the declared aims of the two approaches. In particular, a key issue is the extent to which either of these approaches occupies themselves with probing and interacting with the theological subject matter of the text, an area in which there are weaknesses in each case. He also observes that there is almost no overlap at all between feminist and evangelical commentary on the book of Numbers, which itself suggests that there is scope for fruitful interaction between feminist and evangelical approaches in developing properly theological interpretations of Numbers.

In chapter 4, Adding Insult to Injury? The Family Laws of Deuteronomy, Jenni Williams notes that Deuteronomy is often seen as the OT legal witness to social justice par excellence. Its unequivocal freeing of women debt slaves and its law protecting a slandered virgin are often pointed to as evidence of a growing respect for women as people in Old Testament thought and an emergence from the idea of woman as property. Recent feminist readings of Deuteronomy have thrown this comfortable understanding into considerable doubt, highlighting such phenomena as a rape victim who can be made to marry her attacker (Deut 22:28–29). Through close engagement with the work of Carolyn Pressler and Tikva Frymer-Kensky her chapter examines whether, as far as its treatment of women is concerned, Deuteronomy has deserved the praise given to it by some or the blame attributed to it by others, and asks whether both may have been premature. It also asks how evangelicals may benefit from feminist perspectives on the text, noting that, while the texts do not themselves encode an egalitarian view of women, they can be used in the construction of an egalitarian and liberating theological vision.

Chapter 5, This Is Her Body . . . : Judges 19 as Call to Discernment by Nicholas Ansell, responds to Phyllis Trible’s claim that Judges 19 is a Text of Terror in a double sense; because it not only portrays events that are truly horrifying, but does so in a way that adds to the betrayal of the unnamed woman. Consequently, in Trible’s view, God’s call to compassion comes to us by means of a text that is itself in need of redemption. Building on one of Trible’s underdeveloped insights, this essay explores the intra-textual relationship between Judges 19 and the Achsah-Caleb-Othniel paradigm of Judges 1 to see how Old Testament wisdom thinking—in which patriarchal gender symbolism is subtly yet powerfully undermined—can help us discern the redemptive-historical potential of this unnerving narrative. He argues that, far from being complicit in the woman’s brutalization and silencing, the narrative requires that we hear her story as part of an unfolding canon that culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ (and his suffering, rejection, betrayal, and death) and speak for her and other victims of (male) violence.

Miriam Bier’s piece, Colliding Contexts: Reading Tamar (2 Sam 13:1–22) as a Twenty-First Century Woman, grapples with the question of biblical authority in relation to difficult texts; a problem that has been identified as a key issue for evangelical feminist readings of the Hebrew Bible. She examines three phenomena in Hebrew narrative that offer difficulties and possibilities for reading Tamar’s story in 2 Sam 13:1–22 in line with how the biblical narrative itself works. The first is the God’s eye view effect, and the difficulty this creates when the narrator’s (androcentric, patriarchal) word is accepted as God’s word. The second is the use of narrative techniques for evaluating characters and morality, and the possibility this creates for expressing a narrative and thus divine indictment of Amnon. The third is the narrative gap created by the absence and silence of God. This silence of God could be interpreted in at least two ways: tacit acceptance (or at the very least, ambivalence toward), or tacit indictment of the happenings of the chapter. In the face of God’s silence, she argues, it is entirely appropriate for people wishing to remain faithful to the biblical text to read the gap, and use their own voices to protest the treatment of Tamar by her brother Amnon. This will ensure that, despite male violence and divine silence, Tamar’s voice continues to be heard.

Andrew Sloane’s second piece, Aberrant Textuality? The Case of Ezekiel the (Porno) Prophet, addresses a specific criticism of the prophets brought by some feminist interpreters. Pornoprophetic readings of the unfaithful wife metaphors in Hosea 1–3, Jeremiah 2 and 3, and Ezekiel 16 and 23 criticize them as misogynistic texts that express and perpetuate negative images of women and their sexuality. He seeks to present an evangelical response to Athalya Brenner and Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes’ pornoprophetic reading of Ezekiel 16 and 23. He outlines their claims and supporting arguments, including their assertion that the texts constitute pornographic propaganda which shapes and distorts women’s (sexual) experience in the interests of male (sexual) power. He argues that both their underlying methods and assumptions and their specific claims are flawed, and so their claims should be rejected. While acknowledging the offensive power of the texts, he concludes that alternative explanations such as the violence of Israel’s judgment and the offensive nature of Jerusalem’s sin account better for the features of the texts which they find problematic.

In chapter 8, His Desire Is For Her: Feminist Readings of the Song of Solomon, Grenville Kent notes that the Song of Songs has been of great interest to feminist and womanist commentators, who have seen there a strong female voice and character and a relationship that approaches Edenic gender equality. Some recent oppositional readings have radically questioned this. His chapter surveys key feminist approaches, three that see equality and read with the text (Trible’s rhetorical criticism, Brenner’s politically savvy analysis of the text using critical theory, and Weems’ womanist commentary), one that considers resistant readings but predominantly reads of equality (Exum’s various contributions), and one resistant reading (Black’s counter-reading and use of the grotesque). He argues that, while it may initially seem too good to be true, egalitarian readings of the Song are more persuasive than those that read against the grain of the text or seek to find hidden oppressive agenda in it, allowing us to hear in the Song authentic voices speaking of equality and delight for women and men, and finding in it glimpses of Edenic harmony restored in God’s redemption of human love and sex.

Heath Thomas’ piece, Justice at the Crossroads: The Book of Lamentations and Feminist Discourse, observes that the little book of Lamentations has generated an extensive amount of interest from feminist readings in recent years. A central issue at stake in these readings is the notion of justice. His essay aims to assess feminist interpretation(s) of Lamentations and compare these renderings with an approach that interprets Lamentations within an OT theological context. He briefly assesses varieties of feminist interpretation as well as its deployment in Lamentations research, and queries the views of justice in Lamentations from feminist scholarship. He renders the conception of divine justice in Lamentations within the context of the larger OT, contrasting these findings against the view(s) of justice held up in feminist readings of Lamentations. As with other pieces in this volume, he demonstrates the existence of a variety of feminist approaches to the book. He concludes that wrestling with questions of justice in feminist discourse on Lamentations suggests that the book complexly affirms the justice of God explicitly through direct statements and implicitly through the very logic of lament prayer. This allows the writer/s of the text and its readers to both question and affirm the sovereignty and justice of God in openness to the possibility of a divine response.

The final two pieces by Junia and Todd Pokrifka differ in kind to the others in this volume: they deal with thematic and constructive theological work from the OT rather than specific texts or books that have been subject to feminist scrutiny. Junia’s chapter, Patriarchy, Biblical Authority, and the Grand Narrative of the Old Testament, directly addresses the issues of patriarchy and biblical authority. She notes that many feminists have argued that the frequent and often pervasive presence of patriarchy in the Old Testament is incompatible with the idea that the Old Testament can speak authoritatively to women and to feminist concerns. She presents an alternative to this view that draws from a particular understanding of the grand narrative that unifies and underlies the various texts of the Old Testament. Beginning with Genesis 1–3, she outlines the way that the Old Testament narrative handles human relationships with God, with other humans, and with the creation. As she traces related themes through various phases of the Old Testament’s story, aspects of Genesis 1–3 will become a hermeneutical key for a redemptive reading of the remaining stories of the Old Testament. She suggests that this way of reading helps to defray some of the feminist concerns regarding the presence of patriarchal aspects in the Old Testament, while maintaining the authority of the Old Testament.

Chapter 11, the last in the volume, Can our Hermeneutics be both Evangelical and Feminist? Insights from the Theory and Practice of Theological Interpretation by Todd Pokrifka, offers the outlines of a hermeneutic that is both evangelical and feminist, seeing it as an instance of evangelical theological interpretation of Scripture. After defining the essential terms, he argues for a hermeneutic that is feminist because it is evangelical. This conviction depends on a certain theological reading or construal of Scripture, one that regards Scripture as a narrative unity that is structured largely around redemption. He presents a critical defence of the redemptive-movement hermeneutic expounded by William J. Webb. The result is a hermeneutic that fully recognizes the cultural patriarchy and other oppressive elements in Scripture, but that is nonetheless able to embrace the supreme authority of Scripture in witnessing to God’s redemptive and liberating justice for women.

Clearly, the pieces approach different texts and issues and do so from a range of perspectives that are both evangelical and feminist; indeed, there are matters of both method and substance on which the authors of this book disagree despite (sometimes even because of) our common commitment to being both evangelical and feminist. We trust that in the midst of this diversity there is a common commitment to friendly and faithful engagement with feminist OT hermeneutics from broadly evangelical points of view. We are, however, confident of one thing: this volume will not please everyone. We do hope it pleases some, who find in it perspectives and attitudes they share (or at least find compatible with a faithful reading of Scripture); we also hope that it challenges those it doesn’t please, encouraging them to rethink their assumptions about the nature of feminist or evangelical biblical interpretation or both. Even so, we realise that some of our evangelical friends and colleagues will see us as selling our soul (or that of the Scriptures) to the spirit of the age. And some of our feminist friends and colleagues will see us as trapped in false ideas of authority and Scripture. So be it. At the risk of presumptuously claiming the moral high (and middle) ground, that is the doom of those who seek to moderate between extremes. We believe that we have negotiated this middle ground (seeing it as middle ground and not as "no-man’s [sic!] land" or a demilitarized zone) without being unduly combative. We hope and believe that hasn’t come at the cost of compromise: of really losing our evangelical uniqueness; of actually betraying our feminist concerns. But that is something for readers to judge as they engage with the pieces that follow.

Bibliography

Pierce, Ronald W., et al., eds. Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy. 2nd ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005.

Van Leeuwen, Mary Stewart, ed. After Eden: Facing the Challenge of Gender Relations. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.

1 See, for instance, Van Leeuwen, ed. After Eden; Pierce et al., eds., Discovering Biblical Equality.

1

And he shall rule over you

Evangelicals, Feminists, and Genesis 2–3

Andrew Sloane

Introduction

Genesis 2–3 has played an important role in feminist theology and feminist Old Testament hermeneutics. This is, no doubt, because of the role it has played in traditional readings of Scripture and the patterns of male-female relationships that they endorse. ¹ It is also due to the crucial role these chapters play in setting the scene for the rest of Scripture and the conditions under which the rest of the story unfolds. ² For evangelicals this is heightened because these chapters are generally taken as presenting God’s intentions for humanity and the rest of creation, intentions which, after the fall are restored (and reaffirmed and transformed) in the eschaton. ³ It matters deeply, then, just what those intentions are, what the ordering of human relationships ought to be, and in what that vision of life as it is meant to be consists.

This has, as is (too) well known, generated significant controversy amongst evangelicals. Is this creation order one in which there is a natural and God-ordained hierarchy of men over women, with men and women being equal in being but having complementary roles in God’s purposes for the species?⁴ Or is it one of fundamental equality, which is marred by sin, so that hierarchy is a sign of disorder, of the disharmony that sin (is and) generates?⁵ As an evangelical feminist, I take the latter to be the case: but this is not the occasion on which to argue for that view; my job is otherwise and there are many useful discussions of the issues. Besides, all too often we evangelicals get caught up in our own in-house debates and fail to address significant issues in the broader academy. So, my aim in this piece is, as an evangelical feminist, to engage with general feminist interpretations of Genesis 2–3, with a view to: understanding different perspectives; learning from them when I believe we can; identifying issues and questions that arise from them for evangelical understandings of Genesis 2–3 (and biblical interpretation more generally), as well as questions that we as evangelicals might put to feminist interpreters; and determining points of resistance and rejection, places where evangelical interpreters must part company with our feminist friends (especially, I suspect, in relation to matters of the authority and function of the Bible).

There is a bewildering array of feminist interpretations of Genesis 2–3, adopting an equally bewildering range of theological and interpretive viewpoints; certainly more than can be scrutinized in detail here.⁶ I will, therefore, need to be selective in my treatment of the subject, seeking to cover a few major points of view in some depth, rather than attempting an impossible comprehensiveness. While a number of taxonomies of feminist interpretation are available,⁷ my choice is driven by both methodological and substantive concerns: that is to say, I will attempt to give something of a feel for the interpretive approaches adopted and conclusions drawn in feminist engagement with these texts. My exponents will be Phyllis Trible (an egalitarian, literary reading), Gale Yee (a patriarchal, ideological reading), Mieke Bal (a non-patriarchal, readerly perspective), and J’annine Jobling (a post-Christian, post-feminist reading). This is, of course, a highly selective portrayal of feminist hermeneutics;⁸ I trust it is not tendentious. I will briefly outline the key contentions in each interpretation of the text, and seek to identify contributions and concerns for evangelicals in their points of view. In so doing, it will become apparent, I believe, that deeper issues of reading strategies and substantive commitments relating to God, humans and Scripture will be at least as significant as surface details of exegesis and the reading of texts. I will attempt to identify some of these, I trust the most significant of them, and discuss their implications for our engagement with, criticism of, learning from, and appropriation of feminist interpretation of Genesis 2–3.

Phyllis Trible: A Stable, Egalitarian Text

Let me begin, then, with the work of Phyllis Trible. Her pioneering interpretation of 2:4b—3:23 has changed the way the text is approached.⁹ Her interpretation has generated significant debate, particularly over whether the text is, as she claims, fundamentally egalitarian in its orientation.¹⁰ I will briefly outline her argument, noting in passing criticisms and defenses of her central claims, before analyzing its significance for evangelical interpretation of Genesis 2–3.

Trible presents a close reading of the text of Genesis 2–3 in which she seeks to demonstrate that, far from endorsing the subordination of women to men, it presents a vision of life in community fundamentally sympathetic to feminist concerns. She believes that the original created state of humanity was one of total harmony, of freedom (within limits) and delight, in which male and female were equal partners, finding satisfaction, intimacy and fulfillment in each other.¹¹ While an original hierarchy of humanity over the earth and animals was established, there was no hierarchy of male over female.¹² However, sin has entered the picture: it distorts relationships, and results in oppression and alienation between male and female.¹³ Thus while sin and the hierarchies it creates are current realities, they are not inherent to God’s creation order.¹⁴ Genesis 2 encodes an egalitarian ideal for human relationships; Genesis 3 ascribes the loss of that ideal and the coming into being of the current pattern of distorted relationships to human sin. Hierarchies, then, are not normative for gender relationships, despite the arguments of those who see this text as encoding and fostering patriarchy.¹⁵ Thus Genesis 2–3 is a thoroughly egalitarian text that challenges all patriarchal relationships, including those of the societies that produced and read the text.¹⁶

Space does not allow a full and detailed appraisal of her interpretation of the text and the arguments for and against it.¹⁷ I will, therefore, limit my analysis to three of her key arguments: the sexually undifferentiated nature of the human prior to the woman’s creation; the nature of her creation as a companion corresponding to the human; and the role that naming plays in the narrative.

Trible claims that the human (הָאָדָם, hā-’ādām) as initially created by God is asexual; only with the advent of the woman, and the resulting interplay of man (אִישׁ, ’îš) and woman (אִשָּׁה, ’iššâ) does sexuality come into being.¹⁸ There is, then, a threefold use of the human (הָאָדָם, hā-’ādām) in the narrative: initially it refers to the sexually undifferentiated human being; with the creation of the woman it refers ambiguously to the male human being, without thereby losing its original inclusive sense; in the final scene it refers again to the male creature, but in such a way that the female is eclipsed from the reference, becoming subsumed into the man’s identity.¹⁹ This is important for her argument that male and female are equal in creation, for if there is no male until there is female then there is no temporal or theological priority of the man over the woman, and nor is she derived from his being.²⁰ This claim has been questioned, on the basis of the normal use of human (אָדָם, ’ādām), and the absence of clear textual markers signifying the shifts in meaning of the word that she suggests.²¹ Trible has sought to counter those criticisms: "Prior to the appearance of woman, hā-’ādām is the sexually undifferentiated earth creature. Only with the appearance of woman (i.e., with the introduction of a gender specific word) does the man appear."²² She also argues that the presence or absence of these markers is not a determinative indicator of a shift in usage: for in driving out the humans hā-’ādām is used (which she recognises is an inclusive use), but there is no marker for a shift back to generic use.²³ It seems to me that linguistic usage, allied with the ideal reader’s expectations of the word’s referent and the illocutionary force of the word in this narrative context indicates that Trible’s suggestion fails.²⁴ This does not, however, warrant the traditional hierarchical inferences drawn from the text, as temporal priority does not indicate inferiority, and thus creation order cannot be used to justify the relational inferiority of women.²⁵

Another key to her egalitarian reading of the text is her understanding of the woman being created as a companion corresponding to the earth creature. Her argument is clear: the word עֵזֶר (‘ēzer, help or helper) neither connotes nor denotes inferiority, especially given the frequency of its use with reference to God as help or helper of Israel or the needy. So too, the unusual compound preposition that qualifies it כְּנֶגְדוֹ (cĕnegdô, like opposite, or corresponding to) reinforces the equality of the one being described.²⁶ Furthermore, the lack which the woman eventually supplies is a relational lack—aloneness—not a functional quality. The recognition of the need for a suitable companion for the human, the delay in God’s provision, the resolution of the narrative tension and the earth-creature’s need in the creation of the woman, and the man’s recognition of her as companion and mate all point to her significance and value in the narrative.²⁷ This description, then, far from entailing the woman’s inferiority to the man, accents her equality with the man and the man’s need for her. This claim has also been criticised, most trenchantly, perhaps, by Clines in his article What does Eve do to help?²⁸ His arguments are based largely on his perception of how the word help works in everyday English discourse and on the text’s being too naïve to have such a subtle view of the man’s plight as Trible suggests: rather, the man’s need is for help in procreation and his agricultural labours.²⁹ Given the weakness of his case (and its dependence on subjective readerly responses), and the strength of Trible’s interpretation (and its anchoring in the text), it seems to me that her claim stands.³⁰

Finally, she argues that naming—and its absence—plays an important role in the narrative. She believes that naming is an expression of authority or a claim to power; thus when the man names his wife Eve in 3:20, he is violating their equality, asserting his patriarchal power over her.³¹ It is important for her interpretation that this takes place only after they have sinned: hierarchy, and the subordination of the needs and very existence of the woman to the man, is not God’s intention for relationships but an effect and instantiation of sin: "Ironically, he names her Eve, a Hebrew word that resembles in sound the word life, even as he robs her of life in its created fullness."³² For this claim to work, however, naming must be a post sin act. Trible argues that 2:23 is not an example of the naming formula on the grounds that it does not contain all its standard formulaic features. The verb קָרָא (qārā’, call) is not joined with שֵׁם (šēm, name); אִשָּׁה (’iššâ, woman) has been used previously in the narrative in relation to the woman, and so this is not an act of re-naming; אִשָּׁה (’iššâ, woman) is not a name per se, but a common noun. The absence of these typical features means that this is not an act of power of the man over the woman, but a recognition that at last he has met his counterpart.³³ Thus, the man does not name the woman until after the Fall. Patriarchal ordering of relationships is a mark and consequence of the Fall: it is not God’s will for interpersonal relationships but a sinful distortion of it.³⁴ This, in my view, is one of the weakest aspects of her interpretation. First, her argument that 2:23 does not have all the features of a naming formula and so does not count as one fails to adequately account for the fluidity of naming formulae in the OT and ignores the illocutionary force of the words.³⁵ Second, it is, in fact, unnecessary to distinguish 2:23 from 3:20, with the latter being a true naming while the former is not, for naming is not in itself an act of dominion. It may be used in such contexts as an expression of an existing hierarchical relationship; it does not itself establish hierarchy. Naming is an act of discernment, by which the namer identifies a key characteristic of an entity or discerns its significance; it is not an act of power by which the namer claims authority over the named. ³⁶ In each case the man perceives something significant about the woman and her role in God’s world; in neither case is she subordinated to or marginalized by the man. This, of course, is not to say that there is no evidence of hierarchical disordering of relationships after the Fall; it is simply to say that Gen 3:20 is not an instance of it.

Clearly, there are aspects of Trible’s interpretation that are open to debate.³⁷ Furthermore, given that she sees clear evidence of an unacceptable patriarchal bias in Scripture, her view of the nature and authority of Scripture does not fit standard evangelical notions. ³⁸ This does not, however, affect her reading of Genesis 2–3; indeed, her close reading of the text, now a common feature of literary-oriented interpretations of Scripture, fits well with classical evangelical commitment to the careful study of the text of Scripture as a way of unpacking its theological significance, as is evident in the impact her work has had on evangelical feminists.³⁹ Her analysis has brought to light features of the text often overlooked in traditional exegesis, such as the significance of the man being with her throughout the woman’s dialogue with the snake in 3:1–6.⁴⁰ As such evangelical interpretation of Genesis 2–3 is well served by Trible’s interpretation of these texts.

Gale Yee: A Stable, But Oppressive Text

Gale Yee presents a very different reading of the text. She believes that the Bible, including Genesis 2–3, expresses fundamentally negative attitudes to women, which she seeks to identify and expose.⁴¹ She aims to investigate the problem of the symbolization of woman as the incarnation of moral evil, sin, devastation, and death in the Hebrew Bible, and how this symbolization of a particular gender interconnects with the issues of race/ethnicity, class and colonialism during the times of its production. Holding man in thrall by her irresistible attractions, woman embodies all that is destructive in man’s experience, seducing him away from God and a life of good down paths of moral perversity and entrapment.⁴² She applies this to her analysis of Genesis 2–3.⁴³

She believes that both class and gender relations are important in the text’s presentation of Eve as the vocal temptress,⁴⁴ with the relationship of king to peasantry finding its theological origin in the relationship between the divine and the human at the primordial beginning.⁴⁵ Furthermore, the woman is created to serve the man as the man serves the deity in tilling the garden.⁴⁶ The story legitimizes royal interests and justifies the current lower status of the peasant in the tributary economy by shifting the conflict from the public (male) realm to the more private domain of household relations between men and women and further enhances the power of the monarchy by undermining existing power systems by stressing the nuclear family and the marital bond.⁴⁷ The woman mediates the fundamental contradictions in the story, and so highlights a gender conflict so as to mask the broader class interests of the text which become mystified and concealed through the theological cover of a story about origins and ‘the fall.’⁴⁸ Through ideological displacement the text shifts attention from the latent text of class conflict to its manifest text of gender and subordination.⁴⁹ This manifest text is equally oppressive: The woman becomes responsible for the man’s violation of the single command imposed on him; and so in the politics of blame, the woman becomes liable for the theological breach between the man and his God and the political breach between the peasant and his king.⁵⁰ Thus: In the ideology of the text, the woman pays a big price. Renamed Hawwah/Eve by her husband, she becomes the mother of all living. She can only become mother, however, through suffering. For her role in the man’s transgression, God punishes her by increasing the pain of her childbearing. Her husband will rule over her, just as the king governed the peasant. Because her husband ‘listened to her voice,’ she becomes temptress, seducer and the downfall of men.⁵¹

Yee’s reading utilizes the method and assumptions of ideological criticism. Hers is a materialist-feminist reading of the text that understands literature as an ideological production of social praxis, which itself is governed by ideology.⁵² In her hands this involves both extrinsic and intrinsic analysis of the text. Extrinsic analysis aims to shed light on the sociohistorical circumstances of a text’s production and their ideological associations.⁵³ Genesis 2–3 is correlated with the transition in Israel from a familial mode of production to a native-tributary mode of production, which took place in the early monarchy.⁵⁴ Intrinsic analysis investigates the rhetorical strategies of the text itself to ascertain the different ways in which the text inscribes and reworks ideology.⁵⁵ Paradoxically, the absence of an obvious political agenda is a clue to its hidden presence: "Since it seems to be a story primarily about male-female relationships, Genesis 2–3 mystifies and conceals the class interests in the text.⁵⁶ This mysterious and hidden ideological agenda is encoded in a number of symbolic associations that she finds in the text: God represents the king, and God’s relationship with the man that of the king to peasants in the emerging tributary system; the prohibition of one tree indicates the royal elite’s concern to control knowledge, and so power; the planting of a garden represents claims that the royal elite provides for the peasants, who should acknowledge their largesse with appropriate subordination to them; the expulsion from the garden and the clothing of the couple after the fall" both represent the cementing of distance and distinction between king and peasant, and so on.⁵⁷

This narrative is, for Yee, particularly unfriendly towards women and their interests, given the way it encodes the increased stratification of gender roles in the monarchy.⁵⁸ The woman is created as agricultural and reproductive assistant to the man; he asserts his authority over her by naming her and controlling her sexuality (both before and after the fall); she is blamed as temptress and source of evil; and she is firmly placed under male control.⁵⁹ Moreover, the broader political agenda further demonises women as the ones most susceptible to these forces [represented by the snake] that threaten the state,⁶⁰ and, by identifying her primary role as childbearing in submission to her husband, mirroring that of the peasant to his king, Gen 3:16 legitimizes the king’s use of power to keep peasants under control.⁶¹ The traditional interpretations of Genesis 2 that justify the subordination of women by appealing to this text are consistent with its thoroughgoing androcentrism.⁶² Her conclusion matches that of Kennedy, whose work is an earlier mirror of hers: The social values encoded in the text are anything but egalitarian. Overarching the subordination of the woman to the man is the subordination of the peasant couple to the royal élite.⁶³

Such an approach to the text of Genesis 2–3, should it stand, poses serious problems for evangelicals and others committed to the authoritative status of the Bible as the word of a God of freedom and justice. While the analysis of her claims entails examination of her methodology and assumptions, once again, a detailed critical analysis of ideological criticism lies beyond the scope of this piece.⁶⁴ Nonetheless, there are crucial problems with this approach to texts. First, she does not explicate the mechanisms by which this story functions as an ideological expression of monarchical power and the subordination of women. Kennedy, for instance, sees political allegory as the means by which textual transmutations are made;⁶⁵ Yee articulates no such mechanism, leaving me bewildered as to how she makes those associations.⁶⁶ Second, the symbolic connections seem curiously inconsistent. While God stands for the king and the man for the agrarian worker, the woman is just woman. Why? Given that the surface gender story both conveys and obscures a deeper political story, it seems oddly arbitrary that the woman does not stand for some element of the political order. Third, she relentlessly adopts the most negative construal of the text, using the putative role of texts as bearers of oppressive ideology as justification. This, however, seems to be a case of assuming the conclusion: that is, she is using those features of the text to argue for her claim that the text is oppressive; but the grounds on which she identifies those features of the