The "Suitable Helper" for the Man
Submitted by macsdad_777 on Fri, 07/20/2007 - 9:19pm
One thing that contributes to the patriarchal bias that is commonly taught in our churches is the fact that God decided that the man needed a helper in Genesis chapter 2. We interpret this to mean that the woman was somehow the subordinate, gofer, sidekick, or lackey to the man. He was Batman and she was Robin. He was the dad working on the car and she was the kid fetching the needed wrench or screwdriver.
But is this the only way we have helpers? I saw firemen rescuing people from the World Trade Center; weren’t they helpers to the ones rescued? I saw Good Samaritans carrying people out of Katrina’s flooded areas; were they not helpers to those stranded? These rescuers were not subordinate to the ones they helped, were they? When we consider that there are different types of helpers we are left to determine how the woman was to be a helper to the man.
The first clue for us should be in the needs of the man. What did he need help with? Why was it not good for the man to be alone? What would the man have learned from observing the animals?
God’s commission for mankind was that they would be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. He can not accomplish this alone. He might have seen in the animals how each alligator had an alligator mate and each elephant had an elephant mate but he found no mate for himself. So the man needed a helper, someone without whom he was powerless to accomplish his commission from God.
Another consideration that should have been part of the discussion all along is the meaning of the Hebrew word ezar ( rz<[Eß). This word is used (in the same form) eighteen times outside of Genesis 2. Four of these are in names. The other fourteen are used exclusively to describe helpers in the rescuer sense! 1 Ki. 20:16; 2 Ki. 14:26; Job 29:12; 30:13; Ps. 30:11; 54:6; 72:12; 89:20; 107:12; Isa. 31:3; 63:5; Jer. 47:4; Ezek. 11:1; Dan. 11:34.
Look at the role of the helper in Job 29:12 “because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist him.” Does this sound like it is referring to a subordinate?
In some of these God himself is the helper! Psalm 54:4 Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.
What should be somewhat disconcerting to us is how it is that simple considerations like these have been conspicuously absent from discussions in our churches about the woman as a helper for the man.
The search for Truth is as needed today as ever! May God richly bless yours.
Randy
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Comments
why is this unpublished?
why is this unpublished?
Because you forgot to hit
Because you forgot to hit publish. :-)
Bullseye. Only the ignoramus
Bullseye.
Only the ignoramus would interpret Genesis 1 & 2 to describe the female gender as some kind of sub-creation. Eve was created as Adam's equal; a point echoed through scripture and yet despairingly ignored throughout much of the culture it describes and created. Christianity is not unique in this massive failure however. Islam has gone further IMO to debase women than many other religions.
There sure are a lot of
There sure are a lot of ignoramuses (ignorami? lol)
So, that leaves us with Genesis 3. Nothing is more clear in the Bible than that the man, not the woman, is held accountable for breaking the command. This is mentioned by God twice to the man in this passage and not at all to the woman.
Furthermore, the entire Bible testifies to the responsibility of the man in the Fall, not the woman. Hosea 6:7; 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22; and especially Romans 5:12-19.
A common thinking in my experience has been that "Eve blew it and Adam had to be put in charge of her." This is somehow taken as the implication of God's message to the woman in Genesis 3:16. Yet, here are a couple of questions to ask the text:
1) Did God tell the woman to submit to the rule of the man in this passage?
Seems like "No."
2) Did God tell the man to rule over his wife in this passage?
Seems like "No."
3) Did God express this truth as what He wills to be the situation or was He describing a consequence that is a direct result of the expulsion from the Garden?
Seems like a consequence.
4) How many of the four or five consequences spoken to the man and woman were God's ordained will for all time and how many resulted from expulsion?
Seems like almost all are treated as consequences and one is considered a direct command from the will of God. How did we differentiate the incidental consequences with the command of God here? What a surprising coincidence that this one special consequence spoken to the woman teaches patriarchy! Could this be more of the same problem of patriarchal bias encountered in the common understanding of Genesis 2 and 3?
5) If the man is the one who is guilty of breaking the command why isn't the woman put in charge of him!?
Oh wait, God did mention that part of the problem is the fact that the man listened to the woman. Adam should have known what everyone knows; he broke the cardinal rule that you never listen to a woman! Right?
Had the one who was deceived been Adam's nephew, is it not conceivable that God would have said "since you listened to your nephew"? Would we then be convinced that nephews are always bad to listen to? Or his brother, uncle, aunt, sister, cousin, etc...
While it is absolutely true that he should not have listened to his wife in this situation, we have no reason to believe that he had any reason to refuse to listen to his wife for other reasons.
There was no patriarchy by this time, as we have already agreed, for the man to have know this "eternal truth" that it is never a good idea to listen to a woman. The issue is not about gender, it is about who we listen to! God said "do not eat" and yet for whatever reason the man ate! That is what the Bible deals with, not that Adam failed to keep his wife in check.
Back to the consequences.
Isn't it odd that we don't mind if a woman has an epidural or morphine in childbirth even though God ordained that she suffer this pain and meant for it to be for all time?
Or that the farmer can have combines with air conditioning and television and work the ground without ever breaking a sweat. And what about those weed killers! Don't they know that God ordained for all time that he suffer the pain of working the ground with those weeds in it?
Or if it is the case that God had not intended all of these to be His will from then on, how in the world did the one consequence that had to do with male and female relationships end up as a command of God that supports a patriarchal model.
How has this doctrine been maintained, especially after the responsibility for the Fall is rightly placed on the man instead of the woman?
Why did God mean by this statement?
There is a similar phrase (almost exact) when God said to Cain "But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; "it desires to have you, but you must master it."
What is God's point? Is it not that there is a power struggle going on and sin is trying to take over Cain but Cain needs to remain in control of himself?
The point for the woman would be, in my view, that as a consequence of being put out of the Garden, there is going to be a power struggle between her and the man.
Her "desire for her husband" according to the BGT Greek text in Bibleword could be translated:
gen. objecti, u[datoj avp. a resource or means for getting water, Id.; swthri,aj avp. Thuc.
If this is the meaning, it points to the common power imbalances which have existed in hunting and gathering societies and well as in agricultural ones that the man has over the woman. This has survived even into our industrialized world and services based economies.
When in the Garden the woman was dependent only upon the Garden and God for her survival. Having been booted from the Garden, she finds herself dependent upon the man for food and safety. After bearing children she finds that her only means of providing for their safety and sustenance is through the man. He is out there breaking the soil and hunting the animals and cutting the wood while she is becoming soft (at least softer than the man) in the nurturing of her children and caring for their home. The man gains all power having physical dominance and controlling the income of resources. Power corrupts...
So, because she has become dependent upon the man he will use this to rule over her. Why was this "rule" not challenged by or at least defined in light of Jesus' warnings about not being rulers over each other but servants to one another?
Had God intended the man to be the greatest in the relationship, would he not have been asked to serve the woman?
And what about the "curse"?
It seems to me that Christians believe Adam and Eve were cursed by God in the consequences of the Fall.
God never curses the man or the woman? The serpent is cursed because of what the serpent did and the ground is cursed because of what the MAN did but no curse is even mentioned in connection with the woman and the man himself is not cursed either.
What do we do with the fact that in this chapter the woman is identified (at least in Christian thought) as being the one through whom God plans to bring redemption for mankind and restoration to the presence of God?
Isn't it significant that the woman is given the name living because she would become the mother of all living things? While the man was told that he would die and return to the dust from which he came?
Life and redemption are associated with the woman in this passage and death is associated with the man!!!!!!! Oh my goodness! How inside out is common Christian theology here?
Am I the only one who is frustrated with how much patriarchal bias is taught from these chapters and how much of the real information is so unknown?
For any readers, I realize that I present things a bit chaotically, and I apologize. I have failed to devote the necessary attention to form and have usually made it through on substance.
God bless your study and your journey to His presence.