I read the Scripture lessons in church today, one of them from a Genesis passage I don't like much.
It's the second chapter of Genesis -- a passage that suggests female human beings were an afterthought.
The passage, starting with verse 18, goes like this:
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper as his partner. So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal 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. ... But for the man, there was not found a helper as his partner."
I can just picture it: God showing Adam a cow, a pig, a dog, a sparrow, an orangutan, maybe a giraffe and a penguin, too -- and Adam says, "Nope, that won't do for a helper/partner."
So, only after Adam rejected beasts and birds did God decide maybe it would be a good idea to make a female of the species Homo sapiens.
So women's existence is God's afterthought, God's Plan B.
Another way to look at that, I suppose, is that Eve is Homo sapiens 2.0, and Adam was a rough draft.
Now, I am a Christian. God the Creator, Christ the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit the Sustainer are the foundation of my life, and the prism through which I look at all things.
While I don't take the Bible literally, I believe it to be a principal means by which our species knows Who the Divine is, and who we are in relation to the Divine.
And I wouldn't be so bothered by this passage, were it not seeming to suggest that patriarchy is God's way, that males are the ones who truly matter, that women exist only in terms of males, and (the most absurd thing of all) a reversal and perversion of the most fundamental of all realities -- that all people, male and female, come into existence by and through women.
Is it any wonder, then, that world societies have been built on patriarchy as long as our species has existed, and that we're only now coming to realize the ways in which patriarchy marginalizes and oppresses girls and women?
What a wonderful passage (not!) to read on the day after Brett Kavanaugh was given a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, despite convincing testimony that he is an abuser and oppressor of women!
But, as I said, I don't take the Bible literally -- that is, I don't read it like an encyclopedia, or like a technical manual. I read the Bible as what it is -- literature in a variety of genres.
And the genre of the Genesis creation story is allegory. It's a story that points the reader in the direction of deep truth, and whether the story actually happened exactly as told is irrelevant.
Furthermore, there isn't just one Creation story in the early chapters of Genesis, but many. Bible scholars have discerned at least four different narratives.
Picture four youngsters, all about 12 years old, telling a story around a campfire. One starts the narrative, but before long, the others interrupt -- sometimes to add or embellish details, sometimes to say, "This happened, too" or "No, that's not the way it was, this is what really happened..."
In this context, I tend to think of the campfire storytellers as boys, because much of the Genesis story is told from the experience and perspective of males.
To know that the story is an entanglement of threads from different storytellers, you only need to jump back to the first chapter, starting with verse 26:
Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness...So God created humankind in God's image...male and female God created them."
Now, doesn't that sound like a female of the species was in the plan from the beginning?
Doesn't that suggest that the Creator's nature is neither fully male nor fully female, but both-and?
And if our species is created in the image of the Creator who is both-and, than neither sex is either a rough draft or an afterthought.
As I meditate in this space on my body, and my identity, I do not, and cannot, think that the God who created me, and the God whom I love and who I believe loves me, made people with bodies like mine only because Adam wasn't inclined to hook up with a beast of the field or a bird of the air.
Women, like men, are made in the image of the Creator. Women, like men, were in the plan from the beginning.
And the moment you start looking at men and women through that prism, that's the moment when you give both sexes the dignity that the Creator intended.
Thus endeth the Scripture lesson for this Sunday.
It's the second chapter of Genesis -- a passage that suggests female human beings were an afterthought.
The passage, starting with verse 18, goes like this:
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper as his partner. So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal 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. ... But for the man, there was not found a helper as his partner."
I can just picture it: God showing Adam a cow, a pig, a dog, a sparrow, an orangutan, maybe a giraffe and a penguin, too -- and Adam says, "Nope, that won't do for a helper/partner."
So, only after Adam rejected beasts and birds did God decide maybe it would be a good idea to make a female of the species Homo sapiens.
So women's existence is God's afterthought, God's Plan B.
Another way to look at that, I suppose, is that Eve is Homo sapiens 2.0, and Adam was a rough draft.
Now, I am a Christian. God the Creator, Christ the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit the Sustainer are the foundation of my life, and the prism through which I look at all things.
While I don't take the Bible literally, I believe it to be a principal means by which our species knows Who the Divine is, and who we are in relation to the Divine.
And I wouldn't be so bothered by this passage, were it not seeming to suggest that patriarchy is God's way, that males are the ones who truly matter, that women exist only in terms of males, and (the most absurd thing of all) a reversal and perversion of the most fundamental of all realities -- that all people, male and female, come into existence by and through women.
Is it any wonder, then, that world societies have been built on patriarchy as long as our species has existed, and that we're only now coming to realize the ways in which patriarchy marginalizes and oppresses girls and women?
What a wonderful passage (not!) to read on the day after Brett Kavanaugh was given a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, despite convincing testimony that he is an abuser and oppressor of women!
But, as I said, I don't take the Bible literally -- that is, I don't read it like an encyclopedia, or like a technical manual. I read the Bible as what it is -- literature in a variety of genres.
And the genre of the Genesis creation story is allegory. It's a story that points the reader in the direction of deep truth, and whether the story actually happened exactly as told is irrelevant.
Furthermore, there isn't just one Creation story in the early chapters of Genesis, but many. Bible scholars have discerned at least four different narratives.
Picture four youngsters, all about 12 years old, telling a story around a campfire. One starts the narrative, but before long, the others interrupt -- sometimes to add or embellish details, sometimes to say, "This happened, too" or "No, that's not the way it was, this is what really happened..."
In this context, I tend to think of the campfire storytellers as boys, because much of the Genesis story is told from the experience and perspective of males.
To know that the story is an entanglement of threads from different storytellers, you only need to jump back to the first chapter, starting with verse 26:
Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness...So God created humankind in God's image...male and female God created them."
Now, doesn't that sound like a female of the species was in the plan from the beginning?
Doesn't that suggest that the Creator's nature is neither fully male nor fully female, but both-and?
And if our species is created in the image of the Creator who is both-and, than neither sex is either a rough draft or an afterthought.
As I meditate in this space on my body, and my identity, I do not, and cannot, think that the God who created me, and the God whom I love and who I believe loves me, made people with bodies like mine only because Adam wasn't inclined to hook up with a beast of the field or a bird of the air.
Women, like men, are made in the image of the Creator. Women, like men, were in the plan from the beginning.
And the moment you start looking at men and women through that prism, that's the moment when you give both sexes the dignity that the Creator intended.
Thus endeth the Scripture lesson for this Sunday.
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