Cheryl Schatz

carrying on….

I agree that God knew before Adam that he would call her ‘woman’. What I disagree on is that God ‘called’ her woman before Adam did. This is not in the scripture. God is all knowing and sovereign no doubt, but that does not dismiss the fact that it was the man who named the woman. This was God’s purpose and plan for it to happen this way. Do you disagree with that?

So God had nothing at all to do with the fact that she had her identify as woman? It was all Adam’s idea and God merely read his mind? I don’t think so. If God wanted her identity to come first from the man, then it would have been helpful and wise to refrain from identifying her as woman before Adam even set eyes on her. And if we were to believe that Adam had to identify her as woman and God wanted the man to create her identity, then we would also have to believe that God bringing the animals before Adam to find a mate for him was God’s plan to mate Adam with an animal if Adam found one he liked. No, my friend, God’s plan was set in stone before He ever created the first human. His purpose was male and female and His plan was that one would be created from the body of the other. Adam is the one who was ignorant of that plan, not God. And since God’s plan to bring her forth from Adam’s own flesh before even one of the animals was paraded before Adam, then the one who would be made from Adam’s flesh was created to be woman not just named woman because making her from Adam’s flesh was God’s plan not Adam’s. Let’s just accept the text for what it says. There is no mistake and there is no words or grammar that are there by happenstance. It is God’s divine purpose and His command. This is what gives God ultimate glory. God’s plan, God’s design, God’s building and identifying what He has designed and Adam accepting that design as His own.

Finally I find it interesting that you believe this “While it is possible that naming Eve was part of Adam’s sinful rule over her”, but that naming her before the fall is most definitely not to do with authority. Why is that?
In fact I would be more inclined to say that since Adam named her Eve (chavvah) which is closely associated with ‘life’ (chayyah), the naming is more associated not with sinful lordship, but with Adam’s recognition that through the woman would come the ‘seed’ to bruise the serpent’s ‘seed’. Adam’s post fall naming is more a declaration of God’s promise than it is sinful lordship.

You missed my point. I said it was possible…but I said that calling her woman before sin entered the world was definitely not an act of taking authority over her. That is the part that I emphasized and you completely missed it. Let me emphasize it again for your benefit. Adam identifying the woman’s source and identifying her as “woman” when God brought her to Adam was not an act of authority. It was an act of willing acceptance and happy fulfillment. “At last” Adam said, this one was just right for him.

Therefore there is more to naming something in the Hebrew culture than can easily just be dismissed.

We are not discussing all the nuances of naming here. This is a blog about the comp/egal debate and the discussion is whether identifying the woman by name of title is an act of a God-given authority of the man over the woman. No slight of hand can make this an act of authority when no authority has been given by God.

Jesus said that “all authority has been given Me” and as the God-man, He did not take authority that had not been given Him. Adam had no right as a mere human to take authority that had not been given him. And there is not a speck of wording that would cause one to believe that God gave Adam an authority over his wife to rule and reign over her. Rather both the man and the woman were given dominion over the world and God’s creation. They were not given dominion over each other.

You seemingly recognised this with your comments on ‘prophetic’ naming etc, but for some reason think that the man naming the woman is insignificant (at least before the fall).

No true at all. It is very significant. Adam’s recognition that the woman was his own flesh and blood and that she was taken form his flesh and was a competent mate for him is very significant. The term woman embodies all of that and Adam is there in agreement with God. Highly, highly significant. But significant in the way that would make him an authority over her? Not a chance.