Cheryl Schatz

Gazza,

You asked pinklight:

What do you think of the narrator specifically not saying God named Eve woman but leaving that for Adam?

The narrator through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote that God created the woman. He specifically could have left out the fact of what God created so that the man could have named her in the way that he named the animals. With the animals, it says that God brought them to see what Adam would name them. But this is not so with the woman. God creates her with an identity that Adam does not originate, even though Adam agrees with God’s identity to the tee. If God wanted to report to us that He wanted to see what Adam would name the woman then that would have been reported. In this account the woman is already identified by her creation and she is brought for marriage not for naming.

Again the beasts of the field and the birds of the air does reveal as much as can be said about their natures in a plural form whereas Eve is the only woman.

“Beasts of the field” is not their name. It is intentional that God gave the man something to do that was not already accomplished for Him by God. But it is also intentional that God identified the woman by creating her from the man. He didn’t need to “see what Adam would call her”. His purpose was unity not naming. When people try to put the woman into the same category as the beasts they degrade the woman, the man who she came from and God whose image she also reflects.

I am yet to be convinced that the narrator really distinguishes different levels of designation here.

Then are you admitting that the woman is in the category of the beast? Or can you see that God’s purpose for bringing the woman to Adam was not the same purpose as He brought the animals unless you are also willing to accept that God would have married Adam to a brute beast if Adam would have liked any of them. No, the animals are not in the image of God and only the one in the image of God was right for Adam. The woman is in the class of the God image, not in the class of the beast and she is a delegated ruler of the beasts. There is far more differences between the ones brought to Adam then there are similarities.

As to Hebrew culture I would think that context for which Genesis was initially written was entirely Hebrew and thus the connotations of naming should be taken as the original intended audience would understand them – whether or not Adam and Eve spoke Hebrew themselves.

The book of Genesis is not just written for the Hebrews but for mankind for all of time. Secondly the naming of God in the book of Genesis should be a red flag that naming someone is not taking authority over them. I would think that Complementarians need to be consistent or drop a bad argument that devalues the woman as one made to be ruled.