Arguments for Subordination in Genesis
Arguments for
Subordination in Genesis
People have argued that subordination of the woman to the man is
indicated in Genesis 2 in four ways:
(1) The wife is to be a “help
meet”, i.e. a subordinate assistant.
(2) She is named by the man, something done by a superior to an
inferior.
(3) She was made from his rib, and is therefore beneath his head.
(4) She was made second, and is therefore subordinate to him.
Are these arguments supported by the text?
Help Meet
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will
make him a helper fit for him.” (Genesis
2:18)
The King James Version used the term “help meet for him”, and the
term “helpmeet”, or even “helpmate”, has entered the English language by a
misunderstanding of the phrase. Some people, on reading the text, tend to
imagine that the phrase means an assistant, a subordinate helper. The Hebrew
word is ezer and can mean a helper of
any kind, whether superior or inferior. Ezer
occurs 21 times in the Old Testament. Frequently the word refers to God as the
helper, a stronger helping a weaker.
Our soul
waits for the LORD;
he is our help [ezer]
and shield. (Psalm 33:20)
The word “helper” is neutral: it
does not in itself indicate that the woman should be inferior or superior to
the man. The man’s need was for someone suitable in the work God planned for
him. The animals were unsuitable precisely because they were not on a level
with himself: he couldn’t discuss with them, receive advice from them or be
encouraged when he felt inadequate. And it was God’s intention, as Genesis 1
indicated, that men and women should be in authority over the earth and the
animals.
The point of Genesis 2:18 is that the man needed a human being
like himself. The animals were not suitable helpers (Genesis 2:20). They were
not in the image of God. The preposition “for” in the phrase “a helper fit for
him” can be translated as “corresponding to” or “equal and adequate to”. The
most suitable companion for any task is one who has either the same abilities
or abilities complementary to those lacking in oneself. And this is what God
supplied: a human being. And because the woman was human like the man, she too
would not find animals to be suitable companions for the task in hand. She too
needed a “suitable helper”. It is no better for a woman to be alone than for a
man.
It has been suggested that God, though superior, acts out an
inferior role when He in His grace stoops to help mankind. We all do this when
we help someone: we put their needs ahead of our needs or our convenience. In
this sense, the woman as a “helper” was to be supportive, as Adam would need to
be to her. As the New Testament says: “Be subject to one another” (Ephesians
5:21). But the stress in Genesis 2 seems more to be on a suitable helper; both were to be God’s helpers in God’s work: as
Paul says of himself and others using the similarly supportive term “servant”:
What then
is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord
assigned to each. (1
Corinthians 3:5)
...
through love be servants of one another. (Galatians
5:13)
“God is the helper superior to
man; the animals are helpers inferior to man; woman is the helper equal to
man.” In His divine foresight
and planning, of course, God no more had the intention of creating a man
without a woman than a woman without a man. There is no point in making a key
without a lock. If the man in Genesis 2 was (as we believe) biologically a man,
then it presumes that God’s intention was also to create a woman. Only thus could
they be fruitful and multiply (1:28). Genesis 2 reinforces the teaching of
chapter 1 that God made man and woman suitable for each other so that jointly
and complementarily they should carry out His work on earth for which He
created them.
Naming
Since there are a number of instances where God who is superior
names or renames people, it is argued that the man’s naming of the animals
indicates his superiority over them.
Then the LORD
God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a
helper fit for him.” So out of the ground the LORD
God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them
to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every
living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to
the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there
was not found a helper fit for him. (Genesis 2:18-20)
When, therefore, the man says, “She shall be called Woman”
(Genesis 2:23), it is argued that this indicates an inherent hierarchy in
creation: man is superior to woman, woman is subordinate to man.
However, neither the text here
nor any other passage in the Bible draws such a conclusion from the naming of
the woman; rather the opposite. A careful reading of the text shows that
authority or rule is not the point of this passage; it is companionship. Man
has power over the animals (as does the woman, Genesis 1:28). By contrast, the
woman is on a level with him because she is “bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh” (Genesis 2:23). God suggested the need for a partner. In His
foreknowledge, God no doubt knew what He planned, but the need for a suitable
companion was demonstrated for human benefit by showing the unsuitability of
animals. Animals can be companions for humans but not to the full extent of
other human beings. The woman was created not only to be a companion for man
but also to be a vital part in the process of creating more humans – mankind.
The man couldn’t do this on his own, nor could the woman. They both needed each
other.
Naming in the Bible can
express authority. But naming can also be a way of acknowledging the work of
God. In Genesis 4:25, for example, Eve named her third son Seth.
And Adam
knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said,
“God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel ...” (Genesis
4:25)
The
stress is not on Eve’s authority but on the purpose that Seth was to fulfil:
“Seth” means “given” or “appointed.” Likewise when Hagar named God in Genesis
16, she was not expressing authority over God:
... she
called the name of the LORD who spoke to her,
“Thou art a God of seeing”; for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained
alive after seeing him?” (Genesis 16:13)
So she
named the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’; for she said, ‘Have I really
seen God and remained alive after seeing him?’
(Genesis
16:13, NRSV)
In human terms, the one who names another expresses some authority
simply by being there first, as the man was before the woman was created. But
in Genesis 2:23 the man does not give the woman a name. “Woman” is not a name
but a generic description, and it is one already used in the description of
God’s action (of taking the man’s rib and making it into a woman) in the
previous verse.
and the
rib which the LORD God had taken from
the man he made into a woman (Genesis
2:22)
Further, there is a substantial
difference between the way the man named the animals and calling his new
partner “woman”. Of the animals it is recorded: “...and whatever the man called
every living creature, that was its name” (verse 19). The name for each animal
was entirely a matter of the man’s choosing. When, however, the man called his
new companion “woman”, he was acclaiming the action of God:
Then the man said,
“This at
last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
she shall
be called Woman [ishshah],
because
she was taken out of Man [ish]. (Genesis 2:23)
As the texts explains (“because she was...”), these names arise
from the action of God not from the action of the man. As well as calling her
woman (ishshah) he mentions himself
by a new generic description for the first time: “man” (ish). Hitherto man has been adam.
If naming is always expressing authority, is he, by describing himself in this
new way, also expressing authority over himself? It is consistent to consider
that in both cases he is exclaiming at the sameness and mutual suitability
which exists between them.
Finally, there is the conclusion drawn by the text itself. It is
not “Therefore a woman leaves her father and mother, cleaves to her husband and
he rules over her.” It is the opposite:
Therefore
a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become
one flesh. (Genesis
2:24)
We conclude, therefore, that there are no adequate grounds for
thinking that calling her “woman” indicates in itself any intention that she
was to be subordinate to him or that he was intended to rule over her.
Made from the Man’s Rib
It has been argued that the woman was not made from his head which
would indicate that she would be equal or superior to him, but from his side
and therefore she is inferior to him.
Matthew Henry (about 1700) quaintly and attractively commented in
reply:
The woman
was ... not made out of his head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled
upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be
protected, and near his heart to be beloved.
(Commentary
on Genesis, page 12)
Matthew
Henry’s sentiments go back at least as far as to Calvin (1509-1564), and are
probably a reply to some of the many elaborations made in earlier times on the
account in Genesis. Though attractively expressed, they are, nevertheless,
being read into the text by the commentator. The reason according to Genesis
for creation in this manner is that the woman should, unlike the animals, be a
human being like the man: “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”.
Man Made First
It is argued by reference to 1 Timothy 2:13 that because Adam was formed
before Eve, man therefore ought always to be in authority over woman, husbands
over wives, brothers in the ecclesia over sisters. We discuss possible
interpretations of 1 Timothy 2 and its use of Genesis on pages 89-92.
In Genesis 2 itself, there is no suggestion that the order of
creation has any bearing on who should teach or lead whom. On the basis of the
general use of ezer, helper, it could
be argued that the intention was that the woman should lead the man, where
necessary, in the right direction, just as God (superior) helped Israel
(inferior).
On the other hand, the fact that the man had received commands
from God before the woman was formed (Genesis 2:15-17) would have given him
some superiority, at least of knowledge and experience. It would be his
responsibility to pass this information on to his wife, as presumably he did
(unless God spoke to her directly also). By the time she encounters the serpent
(Genesis 3:1-4) she knows the command. Both man and woman are considered
responsible in the garden of Eden, but there is no indication of leadership
based on the order of creation.
