kerryn

Thanks Justa Berean,

The literary genre of Genesis 1-3 itself is widely debated and is clearly unique in scripture. I believe we need to be very humble in approaching this unique God-inspired text written thousands of years ago in a very different culture and time to ours. Although it’s ‘ok’ to ‘suppose’ all kinds of things that the text ‘might’ be insinuating. I suggest that we need to be very careful moving away from what is explicitly stated in terms of building doctrines or theology. Consider any hierarchical-complimentarian’s arguments for the superiority/ authority of man over woman (wherever on the ‘scale’ they may sit) – I am yet to meet even one who does not root their argument in the Gen 2-3 text. Yet I believe that their claims (such as this so-called ‘naming’ activity of Adam over the woman in 2:24, or the argument for protogeniture – ie Adam comes first = Adam is boss) are NOT explicit and indeed very weak ‘possible’ meanings in the text.
We need to be very wary of arguments made from silence and subtle implicit ‘meanings’ in the text. I am not saying that they are not ‘there’ – but that it is extremely difficult for us to really know for sure and therefore I believe we should deal with the ‘explicit’ black and white facts presented to us as our basis for our theology and hold very loosely and humbly any other ideas we might have.

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges with the Gen 1-3 text is that there are so many things left ‘unsaid’. (And immediately I now enter the dangerous arena of arguments from silence!!!) However, it is a reasonable question to ask I think….Did God ‘forget’ to tell us clearly in the Genesis story that Adam was to rule Eve and expect us to work it out from some so-called subtle details that are very wide open to debate? If the whole male-female authority issue is truly a ‘creation mandate’ from the beginning of time that God intended us to follow for all time on this earth, he certainly did not make it explicitly clear from Gen 1-3. What we DO KNOW clearly from scripture and without doubt is that God DID make man AND woman in his image and gave them BOTH the exact same mandate (Gen 1:26-28). As Cheryl teaches on one of her WIM DVDs, it is not in the character of God to be unclear about ‘sin’. His Word makes it very clear in every case what is sin and what is not (through careful repetition etc). God’s word holds together perfectly and Gen 2 cannot ‘undo’ or undermine what Gen 1 teaches.

Honestly, am I just being pedantic or naïve here with my thoughts/arguments? Let me know… But iIt seems to me that we must begin with the explicit and then if we do ‘dare’ go into any possibly implicit meanings in the text, never ‘enforce’ our opinions of these on others as they are too open to misinterpretation and bias. This is the problem I see with the patriarchal argument – it ‘has’ to be based on things that are NOT explicitly taught/stated in scripture.

What do you reckon?

Humbly trying to learn…
Kerryn