TL

”My view is this- men and women are equal in essence, in the image fo God, but not in function. e.g- Adam is commissioned to look after the Garden and Eve isnt- she is his helper.”

You are correct that men and women are equal in essence and in the image of God they were created in. But you are incorrect that God had assigned lifelong functions to the genders. The woman was never stated to be the man’s helper. She was not “his” anything. Such language is not in Scripture. Rather the timing of her creation was after the man realized what aloneness was and how it was not good as God stated, and then the woman was created to allay the man’s aloneness. In addition, the meaning of ezer is not ‘helper’ as in an assistant. Ezer is a special word. There are other words that mean help in different ways. Ezer is used in the sense of one who rescues, one who is a strong help. It is used of God and of warriors and armies. There was nothing about roles to play in relationship to each other.

”I also disagree with TL who claims ‘ezer kenegdo’ means equal. This word is used in other parts of the OT in reference to God being our help.”

Ezer means strong help. Kenegdo means facing, counterpart, equal.

”TL, i also disagree that Adam’s exclamation of Eve shows equality, if you mean equality in every way. I think you were right when you said “I do think he was exclaiming that finally there was one like him”. It is simply a statement saying ’she is fellow human, made from me’. It has everything to do with equality of essence, nothing to do with equality of role/function unless you want to read into it. “

Yes, she is equal because she is human. Absolutely. It has nothing to do with roles or functions because no roles or functions were given. It has everything to do with the fact that like the word kenegdo means equal, we are all equally human , with all the same basic capabilities aside from physical differences of gender. Men cannot be women, and women cannot be men. But we are equal in essence.

”What i am saying is that the hebrew grammar only talks about ‘the man’ not man(gender inclusive).”

This would be incorrect. When God created the human, God created the human as male and female. And God named them human. This is all gender inclusive.

”Therefore we can come to 2 conclusions. God addresses ‘the man’ because he is the leader,”

God does not say this. This is an assumption, a reading of intent into Scripture that is not in Scripture