Why offer this Lenten Bible Study?

Because women make up over half of the world’s population and yet, throughout vast
portions of history, in far too many cultures and traditions, women have been kept out of
power; they have been oppressed and disregarded ad have often had their stories
ignored.
This is a tragedy, not only for women, but for all of humankind. We all have much to gain
by hearing one another’s stories and by experiencing other people in all their rich
fullness – not from a pre-conceived notion that one group or sex is superior to another.
Men and women are different from each other and within each gender, there are many
differences and variants. We – all of us – live on a wide spectrum of identity, which is
precisely why we need to hear each other’s stories.

This is one of the greatest gifts our Creator has given us: the wonderful and amazing gift
of difference. We are, as the late Archbishop Desmon Tutu once said “the “rainbow
people of God”. Except, in the human rainbow, there are more colours than we could ever
have imagined.
However, the bulk of our history has been told by men. Whether or not they did a good
job is not really the point. What is important is that the stories we have preserved from
ancient times tell things from a cultural perspective that was androcentric, from within a
patriarchal society, and they often ignored women.
Furthermore, when we read scriptures and encounter women – either named directly or
implied, we need to pause and attempt to reconstruct her story, however we can. In
doing so, we experience scripture from another angle. This is not to fault the (almost
exclusively male) writers who told the stories, but simply to give fuller recognition to
those whose stories were not included or were included without mention.
We do not need to judge the ancient texts for what they told, or the storytellers for how
they told them, but we can and should question them. We can look for the pieces that
may have been left out.
The thing is, God has no gender. God is beyond gender. God is greater than gender. But
our language – the beloved English of Shakespeare and of King James – is fiercely
limited.
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It was only in the final decades of the 20th century that we dared to move away from the
practise of using masculine “men” and “man” as supposedly “inclusive” terms. Despite
this change, we are so used to hearing male terminology and understanding males as
primary, that so many people want to continue to use exclusively male pronouns for God.
So, let’s be clear: the problem is with our language, not with God. The sexism lies in the
way we use language to express ourselves, not the way God exists. God is not male just
because some people prefer to use male pronouns rather than the neutral (and
genderless) “it” to refer to the divine.
Consider Genesis 1: 27 which is offered here in the older and newer versions:
Genesis 1:27 – KJV (first published in 1611)
27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female
created he them.

Genesis 1:27 - Common English Bible (Completed in 2011. The translation project began in late
2008)
27
God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female
God created them.

We can see at-a-glance that the KJV uses the male pronouns three times in reference to
God and once in reference to humanity (along with the pronoun “man”). Clearly, this is
not what was meant, or the passage would make no sense; to say in modern English that
God created male and female in “his” image is non-sensical, linguistically and literally.

Translating ha-adam as “man” and letting that stand for centuries as an “inclusive” term
has allowed our minds to rest with the notion that “male” is the reference point relative
to which everything else is defined, and that “female” is somehow secondary.

We need to let it sink in that according to Genesis 1 (which does not have the characters
“Eve” or “Adam”), the humans are equal. They are both created in the image of God and
nothing in the text implies that one is more important than the other. If we only had
Genesis 1, in theory we would never have had problems with the equality of men and
women – at least not in the Bible.

All this is to say that we must continue to find new language, and new ways to use our
existing, cumbersome and at times sexist language so that we do not perpetuate
understandings that were never valid or meant in the first place.

Male and female were created somehow in God’s image – which works if we remember
that the Bibe does not tell us that God is male, but rather that God transcends humanity
and has no gender.

We are left to wonder why some people find it necessary to cling with tightly clenched
fists to the notion that God created “man” rather than “human beings” – and that the
God who did this must be a male.
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The Bible simply does not say those things; these are ideas that were imposed onto the
text later, by people who had an agenda that was different than that of the author of
Genesis.

So, having put these ideas to paper, and hopefully to humanity, our first Biblical woman
will be Eve.

Session One - Eve

Eve is the first woman who appears in the Bible. She is only
mentioned twice by name in Genesis. And one of those times is
simply when she is given her name. She is clearly a made-up
character, yet her story is arguably one of the most famous – or
infamous, depending on your theological viewpoint – of all time.

It is worth looking at Eve not as an individual woman, but for

The creation story in Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 is older than the one in Genesis 1, even
though it appears second. Before reading the biblical stories, we should note that
neither story is sexist in the way we might understand the term. As mentioned, the story
in Genesis 1 is non-sexist and clearly presents the two beings – male and female – as
being equal. Genesis 2: 4b-25 tells a different story about the creation of human beings,
where one is created before the other. The thing is, we have often assumed that the first
being is male (and thus, that the second one would be female), but the Hebrew text does
not support that idea.

Rather, God creates a genderless “earthling” and sets it to live in the garden. This first
earthling is so lonely that God sets out to create a companion for it.

There is nothing in the text to suggest that the companion would be anything less than
equal to the first being. When all the companions God makes turn out to be unsuitable
to the task, God scratches the divine head a little and thinks, “okay, let’s try something
else”. This is where things get a little complicated – or at least where we have altered
the story from it’s original a little to make it work.

In the traditional understanding, God puts the first earthling (often described as “the
man” even though the Hebrew does not say that) to sleep and extracts a rib from which
God creates a second creature and presents it to the first. At this point, gender comes
into the story – but still there is nothing to suggest that they are anything other than
equals.

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Unfortunately, the KJV relied on the word “helpmate” to describe the companion. Over
time, “helpmate” became a loaded word that clearly was meant to imply subservience –
“woman” was only a “helper” to the “man”, who was primary. Not quite what the text
actually says, but tradition ran with it.

A greater complication comes from the Hebrew word tsela which is usually translated as
“rib”. This is a bit curious because most scholars admit that tsela is not used that way
elsewhere; the word means “side” – not a single bone. Thus, it’s more likely the author
imagined God separating the ribcage and making two humans from it – two
complementary creatures that mirror each other yet have obvious sexual difference. And
they are equal.

Even Saint Agustine (hardly the most gender-inclusive of individuals) wrote “If God had
meant woman to rule over man, he would have taken her out of Adam’s head. Had he
designed her to be his slave, he would have taken her out of his feet. But God took a
woman out of man’s side, for he made her to be a helpmate and equal to him”.

Leaving aside the sexist language referring to God, and the reference to Adam (who
didn’t have a name yet in the story), Agustine makes an interesting point: If God created
the second human from the side of the first, they are equal. Potent stuff.

The Fall

Now let’s look at the key story about Eve that we find in the Bible – namely the whole
man/woman/snake/fruit thing. Some have called it “the fall”, but that makes little
sense if we recognize that the Bible continues from this point on telling us of God’s
unending and amazing love for us. If we had in fact fallen, why would God “waste” any
time with us? Why wouldn’t God just toss us out and try again?

Key behind those questions is the simple reality that, of course, this is a story, not a
factual account of a historical event. It is an early folktale that was told to try to explain
a few things: Why do snakes crawl on their bellies? Why do women experience
excruciating pain in childbirth? And why do men have to work so hard all day long?

These questions are not the focus of this study. It is more important that we address the
elephant in the room – which is to say what Christians have done with this story for
centuries. And how we have viewed the woman in the story ever since:

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 Genesis 3 - Common English Bible
Knowledge, not eternal life
The snake was the most intelligent of all the wild animals that the
Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say that
you shouldn’t eat from any tree in the garden?” 2 The woman said to
the snake, “We may eat the fruit of the garden’s trees 3 but not the
fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. God said, ‘Don’t eat
from it, and don’t touch it, or you will die.’” 4 The snake said to the
woman, “You won’t die! 5 God knows that on the day you eat from it, you will see clearly and you will
be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 The woman saw that the tree was beautiful with delicious food
and that the tree would provide wisdom, so she took some of its fruit and ate it, and also gave some
to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then they both saw clearly and knew that they
were naked. So, they sewed fig leaves together and made garments for themselves.
8During that day’s cool evening breeze they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden;
and the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God in the middle of the garden’s trees. 9 The
Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 The man replied, “I heard your
sound in the garden; I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you
that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree, which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man
said, “The woman you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 The Lord God
said to the woman, “What have you done?!” And the woman said, “The snake tricked me, and I ate.”
14The Lord God said to the snake, “Because you did this, you are the one cursed out of all the farm
animals, out of all the wild animals. On your belly you will crawl, and dust you will eat every day of
your life. 15 I will put contempt between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. They
will strike your head, but you will strike at their heels.” 16 To the woman he said, “I will make your
pregnancy very painful; in pain you will bear children. You will desire your husband, but he will rule
over you.”
17 To the man he said, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and you ate from the tree that I
commanded, ‘Don’t eat from it,’ cursed is the fertile land because of you; in pain you will eat from
it every day of your life. 18 Weeds and thistles will grow for you, even as you eat the field’s plants;
19 by the sweat of your face you will eat bread—until you return to the fertile land, since from it you

were taken; you are soil, to the soil you will return.”
20The man named his wife Eve because she is the mother of everyone who lives. 21 The Lord God
made the man and his wife leather clothes and dressed them. 22 The Lord God said, “The human
being has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Now, so he doesn’t stretch out his
hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever, 23 the Lord God sent him out of the
garden of Eden to farm the fertile land from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the human. To the
east of the garden of Eden, he stationed winged creatures wielding flaming swords to guard the way
to the tree of life.
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We are told that the snake (“serpent” in older translations) was arum. That’s the Hebrew
word used, and it immediately presents a problem because it is also used in Genesis 2:
25 am 3:11, where it is translated as “naked”. Most English language translations,
however, render arum as something like “shrewd, crafty, cunning”- perhaps seeing in
those words something that might be akin to “naked”, remembering that naked does nor
inherently mean nude but rather exposed or vulnerable.

No matter how we translate the word, it is a bit ambiguous.

The “snake” tempts Eve “Did God really say that you shouldn’t eat from any tree in the garden?”

Eve replies “We may eat the fruit of the garden’s trees 3 but not the fruit of the tree in the middle of
the garden. God said, ‘Don’t eat from it, and don’t touch it, or you will die.’”
The “snake” replies to the woman “You won’t die! 5 God knows that on the day you eat from it,
you will see clearly, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Eve and Adam both eat the fruit from the middle of the garden The woman saw that the tree
was beautiful with delicious food and that the tree would provide wisdom, so she took some of its
fruit and ate it, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then they
both saw clearly and knew that they were naked. So, they sewed fig leaves together and made
garments for themselves.
God finds them in the garden The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
The man replied, “I heard your sound in the garden; I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid
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myself.”
11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree, which I commanded you
not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I
ate.”
The blame game begins: The man blames the woman, who then blames the snake. The
Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?!” And the woman said, “The snake tricked me,
and I ate.” ………etc.
Does this really let anyone off the hook? No. This is a vital point. Saying “I did not kill
the person because I did not pull the trigger” does not really count if it turns out you
were holding the gun. The man and the woman both realize they have done something
they shouldn’t have done, and neither of them wants to take responsibility for it.

The result is that God curses all three of them, beginning with the snake and ending with
the man. The order would not matter except that tradition has always blamed the
woman and has suggested that somehow her punishment was the worst.

But there is nothing in the biblical text itself to suggest this; there is only our choice in
how we read and interpret it. In other words, this is a classic case of people believing
something and then turning to the Bible to find a way to support their preconceived
belief. 6
If we dare to let the story stand on its own, it is simply a tragic tale of three beings doing
something wrong, and all three of them being punished – differently but, in their own
way, equally.

Each curse roughly relates to the ways in which their lives will unfold, which again
should not be surprising given that we are dealing with a folktale that was told to try to
explain or provide a reason for some of the harsher realities of life. The snake must
crawl on the ground and be despised or feared. The woman is told she will have horrific
pain in childbirth, and the man is told that he will work every day of his life, just to get
enough food to eat.

Verse 16 is problematic to the woman he said, “I will make your pregnancy very painful; in pain
you will bear children. You will desire your husband, but he will rule over you.” If we take this
statement as being what God intended versus the situation that was created, then the
word “husband” is an odd choice seeing that the two people were not “married”.

Think about that for a moment. In the context of the story, who exactly would oversee
the “marriage”? And why would they marry in the first place seeing that they are only
two people?

Again, these are silly questions the writer of this text simply is not interested in – that is,
assuming this is part of the original text to begin with. Alternatively, the use of the word
wife to the man he said, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and you ate from the tree that I
commanded, ‘Don’t eat from it,’ cursed is the fertile land because of you; in pain you will eat from
it every day of your life’. might be a linguistic clue that this idea was added to the text
sometime later.

Traditionally we have taken this verse to mean that the woman shall be ruled over by the
man because she did something wrong. According to the story she did. But so did the
man, and so did the snake. Some have suggested that she acted without her man’s
permission, but nothing in the text tells us or even implies that she needed the man’s
permission.

“Sin,” to use the word most often employed to describe the events of this story, can be
understood as an attempt to place ourselves above God, or the presumption to think we
know more than God. All the characters in the story do just that, and they all have to live
with the consequences.

We should note that the storyteller has the man name the woman “Eve”, a word akin to
“live” in Hebrew, because she is the mother of all who live. It takes some serious
theological twisting (much as that has been done over the centuries) to assume the
storyteller wants to suggest that the “mother of all who live” is cursed, or more
responsible than the other characters in the story, for what happens. They all “sinned” –
presumably equally.

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As the story comes to an end, God determines they now know too much, and they must
be banned from the garden. However, they are not sent away naked The Lord God made
the man and his wife leather clothes and dressed them. Is this not the action of a loving,
caring parent?

Eve briefly appears again at the start of the next chapter, where we are simply told that
she and Adam have sex, and that Eve bears a child named Cain. She then has another
son, named Abel.

The story of course continues as they wander into territory that does not have much
relevance to this study, other than to bring up more questions.

After Cain kills his brother Abel, he goes off to the land of Nod to find a wife. Which begs
the question, where did the people of Nod come from?

This is mentioned only to remind us that these are stories of human invention and full of
oddities. They are not given to us as “factual history” as we understand the term today,
but simply to show us how one group of ancient people understood life.

And what did they understand? To them, creation is wonderful, God is good, but
something must have happened – specifically something “we” (humanity) did to make
Slife so hard.

That is really what this story is about.

The fact that we have twisted it to suggest that women are responsible for the world’s
ills and should therefore be punished, or that they are secondary to subordinate
creatures is tragic. The story simply does not imply that.

Question to Ponder:

1. Were you raised being told that women are inferior? If so, do you remember who it told you
this?
2. Throughout your childhood, were you taught that men and women were equal? Were you
taught that Eve was bad?
3. When you read the Bible, do you find some stories unbelievable? How do you feel when you
are being told fables about your faith? What are you supposed to believe? Have you ever had
a conversation with a snake? – Neither did Eve…
4. Do you understand the circumstances in which those fables were written?
5. Would you say that both Genesis stories are necessary for the following generations to
understand where their faith comes from? If you could choose only one, which one would you
keep?