Let's face it - Eve's gotten a bad rap throughout the years. And no wonder. The blame for that whole fruit-eating fiasco was shifted to her from the very beginning. What were the first words out of Adam's mouth when God asked why it was they knew they were naked and if they had eaten from the tree? "The woman whom you gave me to be with, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." Adam is the first to immediately throw Eve under the bus (though, it might also be argued he put the blame upon God, too... "after all, God... it was YOU who gave me this woman, so had you not done that in the first place, this wouldn't have happened, God...") To be fair, of course, Eve then attempts to throw the blame upon the serpent. Playing the blame game apparently started very early on! And I suppose there's a lesson in that as well - it doesn't seem to matter who ultimately is to blame, all will suffer the consequences.
However, before moving onto the primary focus of this posting, I do want to note something. As much as Adam wants to blame Eve for what happened, don't miss that while Eve was engaged in this theological discussion about what God said and the meaning behind what God said (hmmmm... how familiar does that sound?) with the serpent, the story relates, "and Adam was with her." If anything, I would have to say Adam comes out of this whole mess looking quite a bit more the schmuck than Eve! At least Eve is arguing with the serpent before finally being convinced to take the fruit. Adam just sat by and watched, not saying a word, not contributing to the debate in any way. Kind of just a bump on a log that let his wife do the heavy-lifting when it came to theological debates. So what does that say about our dear friend Adam? Now to be fair, we are talking about a pre-sin environment where trust has not yet been broken, so perhaps Adam just so implicitly trusted his wife that he did whatever she told him to. My my, how that shall change!
To understand the curse that follows in regards to the relationship between men and women, we have to understand what actually occurred when Adam and Eve took a bite from the tree of knowledge. Prior to eating from the tree, Adam and Eve were concerned about caring for the garden, the animals, and one another. The moment they took that bite of knowledge, or as I like to call it, that moment of "self-awareness," the object of their concern immediately shifted. They neglected the garden and caring for each other and immediately the language went from "we" to "I." Walter Brueggeman notes in his Genesis commentary of the "Interpretation" series that the language is now: "I heard... I was afraid... I was naked... I hid... I ate..." I, I, I, I... suddenly, it's all about me! Because we now are self-aware, because we are turned in ourselves, our first instinct is to always do what's best for "me" first. The communal concern for well-being disappeared replaced by a concern for the self that overrode concern for the "other." Man and woman's concern now is about covering their nakedness, concerned about being shamed, concerned about how they might look to each other and to God. In other words, its become "all about appearances." And of course, concerned about the kind of trouble they're now going to get into.
Now for the curse itself that follows... Genesis 3 tells us how a woman shall "desire" her husband, and the husband shall rule over her. Traditionally, this has been seen as a woman wanting her husband romantically in some fashion, while the husband has now been placed in a position to rule over her. This understanding of the curse has been used to argue that since the fall, the woman has been put in a place of "subjugation" under her husband. That the husband rules his wife and that's the natural "order" of things.
However, I think more is going on here than a "curse" that God put upon the relationship between men and women, but is more a description of the reality of what has now happened to male/female relationships. For one thing, to suggest that a man does not also "desire" his wife is a patently untrue statement, as most married women know! If anything, who usually has the proverbial "headache" after a few years of marriage?
So I think we need to take a closer look at the word "desire" (tasuqah in Hebrew) The word "desire" is utilized again in the following chapter in the story of Cain and Abel. There, sin is described as "desiring" to overtake Cain and his response to this "desire" should be to "rule" over it, take control, don't let it do what wants, what it DESIRES to do. Given the phrasing is almost identical between Genesis 3 and Genesis 4, and that these are the only places the Hebrew word tasuqah appears in all of Genesis, I am going to venture there's a relationship between the two. So rather than a "sexual" desire for her husband, instead, Eve's "desire" is, like sin's desire, is to rule and control her husband, and Adam's response to this is to act like a tyrant to keep her subdued, to keep her from doing that which she "desires" to do... "and he shall rule over you." It is not necessarily a prescriptive curse, but a descriptive statement about the battle of the sexes that has now begun! Given that what happened at the fall was the turning in on oneself, the sudden "I" factor becoming far more important to both Adam and Eve rather than the "we" factor and tending to one another and tending to the garden, this makes sense. The fall turned us in our ourselves, and our desire is now to each be able to control everything around us - including other people, especially those we are closest to. We have now, as both God and the serpent noted, ceased to see ourselves as a creature of God but rather as autonomous beings separate from God. Each strives for control, and neither is living in the best interest of the other - the very nature of sin itself. This is exactly what Paul is getting at in Ephesians 5:21-33, the proper roles for men and women are to serve one another, not try and control one another.
Christ's coming has brought hope for a new balance between the sexes. Rather than attempting to control one another, Christ wishes for us to serve one another.
And for any who wish to use the argument that because Eve was created from man, and to be a helper to man, not equal to man, one should be reminded that to be a "helper" does not constitute subservience or somehow being "less" than the one you are helping. God himself is addressed as a "helper" in Psalm 46: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." And I don't think too many people of faith would say God, as a helper, is subservient to man.
However, before moving onto the primary focus of this posting, I do want to note something. As much as Adam wants to blame Eve for what happened, don't miss that while Eve was engaged in this theological discussion about what God said and the meaning behind what God said (hmmmm... how familiar does that sound?) with the serpent, the story relates, "and Adam was with her." If anything, I would have to say Adam comes out of this whole mess looking quite a bit more the schmuck than Eve! At least Eve is arguing with the serpent before finally being convinced to take the fruit. Adam just sat by and watched, not saying a word, not contributing to the debate in any way. Kind of just a bump on a log that let his wife do the heavy-lifting when it came to theological debates. So what does that say about our dear friend Adam? Now to be fair, we are talking about a pre-sin environment where trust has not yet been broken, so perhaps Adam just so implicitly trusted his wife that he did whatever she told him to. My my, how that shall change!
To understand the curse that follows in regards to the relationship between men and women, we have to understand what actually occurred when Adam and Eve took a bite from the tree of knowledge. Prior to eating from the tree, Adam and Eve were concerned about caring for the garden, the animals, and one another. The moment they took that bite of knowledge, or as I like to call it, that moment of "self-awareness," the object of their concern immediately shifted. They neglected the garden and caring for each other and immediately the language went from "we" to "I." Walter Brueggeman notes in his Genesis commentary of the "Interpretation" series that the language is now: "I heard... I was afraid... I was naked... I hid... I ate..." I, I, I, I... suddenly, it's all about me! Because we now are self-aware, because we are turned in ourselves, our first instinct is to always do what's best for "me" first. The communal concern for well-being disappeared replaced by a concern for the self that overrode concern for the "other." Man and woman's concern now is about covering their nakedness, concerned about being shamed, concerned about how they might look to each other and to God. In other words, its become "all about appearances." And of course, concerned about the kind of trouble they're now going to get into.
Now for the curse itself that follows... Genesis 3 tells us how a woman shall "desire" her husband, and the husband shall rule over her. Traditionally, this has been seen as a woman wanting her husband romantically in some fashion, while the husband has now been placed in a position to rule over her. This understanding of the curse has been used to argue that since the fall, the woman has been put in a place of "subjugation" under her husband. That the husband rules his wife and that's the natural "order" of things.
However, I think more is going on here than a "curse" that God put upon the relationship between men and women, but is more a description of the reality of what has now happened to male/female relationships. For one thing, to suggest that a man does not also "desire" his wife is a patently untrue statement, as most married women know! If anything, who usually has the proverbial "headache" after a few years of marriage?
So I think we need to take a closer look at the word "desire" (tasuqah in Hebrew) The word "desire" is utilized again in the following chapter in the story of Cain and Abel. There, sin is described as "desiring" to overtake Cain and his response to this "desire" should be to "rule" over it, take control, don't let it do what wants, what it DESIRES to do. Given the phrasing is almost identical between Genesis 3 and Genesis 4, and that these are the only places the Hebrew word tasuqah appears in all of Genesis, I am going to venture there's a relationship between the two. So rather than a "sexual" desire for her husband, instead, Eve's "desire" is, like sin's desire, is to rule and control her husband, and Adam's response to this is to act like a tyrant to keep her subdued, to keep her from doing that which she "desires" to do... "and he shall rule over you." It is not necessarily a prescriptive curse, but a descriptive statement about the battle of the sexes that has now begun! Given that what happened at the fall was the turning in on oneself, the sudden "I" factor becoming far more important to both Adam and Eve rather than the "we" factor and tending to one another and tending to the garden, this makes sense. The fall turned us in our ourselves, and our desire is now to each be able to control everything around us - including other people, especially those we are closest to. We have now, as both God and the serpent noted, ceased to see ourselves as a creature of God but rather as autonomous beings separate from God. Each strives for control, and neither is living in the best interest of the other - the very nature of sin itself. This is exactly what Paul is getting at in Ephesians 5:21-33, the proper roles for men and women are to serve one another, not try and control one another.
Christ's coming has brought hope for a new balance between the sexes. Rather than attempting to control one another, Christ wishes for us to serve one another.
And for any who wish to use the argument that because Eve was created from man, and to be a helper to man, not equal to man, one should be reminded that to be a "helper" does not constitute subservience or somehow being "less" than the one you are helping. God himself is addressed as a "helper" in Psalm 46: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." And I don't think too many people of faith would say God, as a helper, is subservient to man.
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