Cheryl Schatz

Gazza,
You said:

I would not for a second say that Adam had authority over the animals in the same way he had authority over Eve – so there is no surprise that there is a difference here.

But where do you get an explicit authority given by God to Adam from the text? Not only is the authority not explicitly given over the woman, it is explicitly given for the animals. How can you read a “difference” in Adam’s authority when his authority over the woman is never explicitly given or compared to the authority given over the animals?

But none the less naming in Hebrew society does carry an authority.

Then surely Hagar must have exercise her authority over God because she named Him.

What happened at creation is not bound by Hebrew society. But as Genesis was written by a Hebrew for Hebrews, Hebrew society is significant.

The book of 1 Timothy is explicitly written by Paul to Timothy. That isn’t a secret. But where are you getting this from the text that the book of Genesis was written just for Hebrews? Can you not see that the book was written for all of us as the record of the works of God in creation and the history of man? Who convinced you that it was written merely for Hebrews? Which part of the text says that?

It is the context in which the original and true meaning of Gods inspired word was written into. Just as we need to translate the Hebrew words into our language we need to consider what those words meant in their Hebrew context to correctly translate the meaning conveyed to our Western mindset.

The problem with this is that complementarians are reading part of Hebrew culture into the text when God did not say that man’s culture interprets His acts? And where is the Hebrew culture of naming one’s wife? The strength of the argument must be reasonable from the inspired text right from Genesis. The complementarian position reveals its greatest weakness in trying to force man’s tradition into the creation account. It cannot be done without violence to the text.