Recognizing that the men in control of scripture have twisted it to elevate themselves to gods while reducing woman to inferior, evil beings has been an awakening for me.
In her article Genesis From Eve’s Point of View, Pamela Milne (written over 30 years ago on March 26, 1989) talks about the negative impact the story of Eve has had on women throughout history, having “ been interpreted in patriarchal and even misogynist ways by male bible scholars and theologians”, to support that women are “the devil’s gateway . . . the unsealer of that forbidden tree . . . the first deserter of the divine law . . . (who destroyed) God’s image, man.” (Tertullian), “helper of less importance” (Ambrose), “misbegotten males” (Thomas Aquinas), that justified “persecuting women as witches” in the 15th century, and “a wife who is not properly subordinate”.
Milne talks about monumental work of Phyllis Trible of Union Theological Seminary in the 1970’s to reinterpret the Eve-Adam story. Trible made some important arguments that we can and must build upon:
1. That Adam need not necessarily be thought of as male . . . the Hebrew text presents us with a word-pay: ha-‘adam’ (“earth creature”) is created from the earth, ha-‘adamah’, and remains basically sexless until the differentiation of female from male occurs in Genesis 2: 21 – 23, only with the advent of sexuality does the term ha-adam acquire the secondary meaning “male”; but even then is an ambiguous term.
2. The serpent speaks only to Eve, which ‘Church fathers’ interpret to mean that the woman is morally weaker than man thus an easier prey, that woman is simpleminded, gullible, untrustworthy; or that she is more sexual and her sexuality is used by the serpent to ruin the man, which is mere speculation. Eve’s “temptation” of Adam is not actually present in Genesis but has been read into the text by commentators.
3. Adam’s specific naming (and implied dominion) of Eve – – after the Fall – – is actually a consequence of sinfulness.
Milne is disappointed that Trible’s ideas “have been almost entirely ignored by mainstream biblical scholarship”, but is it a realistic to expect the Church and the world to change what has existed since the beginning of time? After all, we can only change ourselves. A better goal is to come to the truth through study of scripture with the guidance of the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father John 15:26 & 16:13, knowing that the world cannot receive it because it does not see it or know it John 14:17.
We must accept that we will not change the way the Genesis Creation account is understood by the masses because they have been brainwashed into believing Satan’s lies. He offers males dominion in the kingdom’s of the world if they worship him, an offer that Yahshua refused saying “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only” in Luke 4: 1 – 13. Through his suffering and death Rev 5:6, he become the perfect husband for his bride, the saints in the New Jerusalem Rev 21:2.
That is why the world is in the mess it’s in today with rampant greed and violence and why we must “seek first the kingdom” as Yahshua said in Matt 6:33. We must “enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are MANY who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and there are FEW who find it.” in Matt 7: 13 – 14.
Godspeed!