Frank

Cheryl, since you and gengwall have covered so many aspects of how complementarians, in a very contradictory fashion, treat Gen. 1:26-30 and 2:15-24, I don’t think there is much more I could add.
Yet I will make these two brief, though obvious, observations:
1. If it weren’t for the assumptions they make about 2 Tim. 2:12-15 as their intepretive lens, complementarians could not interpret these Genesis texts in the way they do. First of all, the rule of man and woman over the rest of creation is not only delegated to them both from God, but it is also a shared ruling between those who equally bear the image of God; there is nothing in Gen. 1:26-30 itself that would indicate that the man possesses more of the image of God than the woman, or that the man has been delegated more authority than the woman. This is obviously a foreign idea that complementarians have imposed on these texts from some other source; it does not naturally flow out of the text itself.

2. Maybe it’s because how some translations render katergo ezer (forgive my poor transliteration of the Hebrew) in Gen. 2:18. But if you carefully study Gen. 2:18-24, I think it becomes clear that God intended Adam to go through this process discovery and confirmation, so that he would learn 1) that there was no companion among the animals that truly corresponded to him and could be his partner and ally; and 2) to make him that much more appreciative of the companion whom God would provide, one just right for him. I think the following rendering brings this out well:

The LORD God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” So the LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be a suitable partner. So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,…took out one of his ribs, and…then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When [God] brought her to the man, the man said, “This one, at last, is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”
Gen. 2:18-24, NAB

How anyone can read this passage, and think Adam believed and regarded Eve as anything other than a wonderful companion and partner, given by God to be such from the beginning; well, all I can say is the teaching that he regarded her as his servant and lacky, contrary to the divine intention of this text, is just plain stupid!