Of Equality!

It has often been argued that there is a hierarchy in God’s crowning creation – humanity. The arguments employed to substantiate the hierarchy that places man above woman finds a rationale in the biblical narrative particularly the creation account of Genesis 2 - After the creation of man God said that it was not good for man to be alone hence He would make a helper suitable for him; and also the account of the fall in Genesis 3 – The woman is deceived by the serpent. Her vulnerability to being deceived and also her creation after the man (as his help) are often cited as reasons to ascertain the superiority of the man over the woman.

Often folk allude to the instructions of the apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2:12 -where he states that women are not to teach a man and must remain quiet - as a directive for every generation and every place. Paul states that women are to abstain from teaching men because of the aforementioned Genesis 2 and 3 accounts which tell that firstly, the woman was created after the man and secondly, the woman was the one who was deceived by the serpent. These portions of scripture have proven to be very difficult to understand and come to terms with and portray Paul as being subject to a patriarchal mindset as feminist interpreters often say.

In order to shed light on these perplexing issues it is important that one returns to studying the biblical text and allow it to speak. It must be noted that according to the creation account of Genesis 1 God created man and woman to be equals.

“God created human beings in his own image,

In the image of God he created them.” (Gen. 1:7)

The inequality and hierarchy was the pitiable result of the fall of humanity (Gen. 3:6) where the woman is cursed to a life of being ruled by the man.

If God created human beings – man and woman – to be equals; and if the inequality arose as a result of the fall and the subsequent curse; and if Christ’s redemption through the cross removed the curse; and if Paul preached the redemption of Christ through which the curse is removed – for Paul elsewhere says that there is “neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female,” (Gal. 3:28) for in Christ everyone is one; Then why would he preach inequality in 1 Timothy 2:12?

There must be an interpretation other than the one that is commonly heard. Shannon Lamb in her essay on 1 Timothy 2:12 says that the woman’s vulnerability stems from the disadvantage of being formed second. (It must be clarified that this disadvantage in no way points to inferiority.) It is possible that she might not have had access to God’s direct command. Adam on the other hand as we know from Scripture had a first hand hearing of God’s directives. I find myself in agreement with Lamb for the Genesis narrative also appears to point to the self same fact. For when the serpent attempts to entice the woman into eating the forbidden fruit, she responds, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden but God did say, ‘you must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden,’” It is noteworthy that she does not describe the tree as the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” for that was how the tree was described to Adam. There appears to be a miscommunication of sorts. It is not hard to imagine that the serpent could have exploited her seeming sparse knowledge for only after the serpent explains about the tree does she begin to see that it is good for food, pleasing to the eye and more importantly desirable for gaining wisdom. If the woman was deceived, the man’s offense was disobedience. For the man’s error is not that he listened to the woman (as Lamb argues God created human beings to be equal and listening is something that equals do.) but rather that he ate the fruit that God had clearly directed him not to eat. Hence the fall of humankind happened not because of the alleged inferiority of women rather because of the frailty of human beings – man and woman.

In the light of these observations and also the fact that Paul was addressing the problem of false teaching in the epistle to Timothy it seems only too plausible that Paul could have asked women, who at that given locale and time might not have had access to “the written and taught word,” (Shannon Lamb) to abstain from teaching falsities till they were better equipped. And it definitely is hard to believe that Paul who lived and died to preach the redemption of Christ through and because of which all curse is removed would have preached a contrary teaching.

Feminist interpreters claim that the biblical account is patriarchal. On occasions it might have been interpreted in order to suit patriarchal sentiments. But even if the biblical account might appear to lend itself to patriarchal interpretation it is only because of the fall of humanity and its after effects. I believe that the Scripture is neither patriarchal nor feminist and in studying the word of God we need to approach it as human beings in desperate need of the message.