Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You said:

It would be better to stick with what we do have and see why. The obvious reason that ‘woman’ is used (‘ishah) is because she was made from man (‘ish). It is a play on words used by the writer.

The writer of Genesis is God and He used a man to pen His words. Do you disagree with this?

This is common in Hebrew and particularly common in these early chapters of Genesis. We see it with man/woman, with man/ground.

Isn’t God brilliant and witty? He is a marvelous God who didn’t leave out any detail that He wanted us to know. He is truly an amazing God.

Regarding where the narrative came from, as Christians we have to say both God and man. We do not believe as Islam does that scripture is the direct words of God per se and that there is no human agent.

They are the direct words of God, but God chose to use a human to pen His story.

Inspiration of scripture is that God uses human agents to fulfil his purposes, so yes it is the word of God, but it is also the writing of man.

The problem with this is that there was no man around that was conscious when the woman was created. So unless God told the human agent who penned God’s story what happened and He inspired the writing without error, we would only have human fantasy and inaccurate dreams since no one can know the truth but God Himself and those to whom He reveals His story. Try as you might, you cannot take away the accuracy of God’s story just as He relayed it.

That is why grammar, purpose, intention of writing, historical situation, culture etc are all important aspects for scholars when trying to understand the bible.

What has culture got to do with God’s story? No one can know what happened but God Himself. No culture can influence or distort the story for God prepared the vessel to write it as He wanted. Sure it is easy for complementarians to want to set aside the inspiration of the text as pure truth exactly as it happened because it contradicts their theory. I just accept it as it was written. I am not a liberal as egalitarians are often accused of being. If the very foundation of our human history is not real but “fluid” (i.e.) maybe it is truth and maybe it is just poetry and just a story through the interpretation of the culture of the one who wrote it) and your belief cannot hold water unless the account is not clear, then I guess we will have to agree to disagree as I hold to the account exactly as it is written.