Male and Female in Genesis
Male and Female
in Genesis
On several occasions writers in
the New Testament refer back to Genesis when commenting on male and female
relationships. For this present study we are concerned with how brothers and
sisters in Christ should cooperate together in the ecclesia. It is sometimes
argued that male leadership and female silence is taught as God’s intention
from the beginning. What do the early chapters of Genesis say?
Genesis 1
Creation takes place in six days, culminating in the creation of
human beings. The important verses for our study are:
Then
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 birds of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon
the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to
them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every
living thing that moves upon the earth.”
... And
God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Genesis
1:26-31)
Points
of special relevance to our study are as follows:
(a) “Man” (“adam” in
Hebrew) means mankind, i.e. both men and women.
(b) Both male and female are in the image of God. Whereas
everything else in Genesis 1 was created simply by God saying “Let there be...”
and it was so, for mankind it was different: mankind was to be in the image of
God. First God announced His intention (verse 26), then He brought it to pass
(verses 27-28).
(c) Authority of greater over lesser is clear throughout this
chapter, in particular God’s authority over the elements of creation. Within
creation God also assigns authority:
And God
made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser
light to rule the night; he made the stars also. And God set them in the
firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and
over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that
it was good. (Genesis
1:16-18)
Mankind is placed in specific authority over the animals:
“Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over
all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” (Genesis
1:26)
This
dominion by male and female over all creatures is stressed twice, in detail, as
God’s intention. But despite the emphasis in this chapter on dominion and
authority, no authority is given to one human being over another.
This is a surprise if authority by the man over the woman had been
intended.
(d) Now that He had completed creation with mankind, God declared
it not only “good” as He had done on the previous days, He pronounced His work
“very good”.
To sum up our observations on Genesis so far: Chapter 1 shows
God’s approval of the world He had created, presents both men and women as
uniquely in His image, and allocates to them responsibility in managing the
world and its resources. No differentiation in basic nature nor in roles
between men and women is specified. Both are in the image of God and both are placed in
authority over other forms of life. There is no suggestion that the man is
placed in authority over the woman, nor vice-versa.
Genesis 2
In this chapter a man (not mankind) is created first, placed in
the garden of Eden “to till and keep it” and told that he can freely eat of
every tree except for “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” The account
continues that it is not good for the man to be alone. Animals and birds are
created, but none supplies suitable companionship. A woman is therefore formed
from the man’s rib and she is a suitable companion because, as the man says:
“This
at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”
(Genesis
2:23)
The conclusion is drawn that this unity is the ground for
marriage;
Therefore
a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become
one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)
How are we to understand the relationship here between the first
man and the first woman? Two conflicting arguments have been presented. Some
people argue that this chapter teaches the subordination of the wife to the
husband, and that this position is fundamentally built into the whole scheme of
things. Others argue that no such subordination is implied but that
subordination is one of the evil consequences of the fall.
Augustine (354-430
AD) argued that women stand in the image of God only through their husbands (De Trinitate,
12:7), despite Genesis 1:26-27. Can Genesis 1 be understood to indicate that the
man is in the image of God, not the woman? It is argued that this can be done
by attaching “male and female he created them” to verse 28, instead of its
being connected to the end of verse 27.
The rearrangement
makes it read:
Then 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 birds of the
air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creeps upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God he created him.
Male and female he created them, and God blessed them, and God
said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and
have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over
every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
The intention is to
allow for the events in Genesis 2 to be inserted in between the two sections,
thus also explaining 1 Corinthians 11:7.
It is, however,
contrary to the spirit and intention of Genesis 1 to suggest that woman is not
made in the image of God. It is precisely this aspect which differentiates men
and women from the animals, as both Genesis 1 and 2 indicate.
The rest of the Bible
also considers both men and women to be in God’s image.
When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and
female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were
created. (Genesis 5:1-2)
So too Genesis 9:6
and James 3:9.