Jesus in the Gardens: Undoing What Adam Did

It's Easter week, and I'm thinking about gardens.

My own garden is full of tulips and daffodils that are starting to fade now, but my cherry tree is still in bloom and dropping pink petals on the grass.  The grass is bursting out of itself, growing too fast, faster than a mower can keep up with.  And the birds are singing as they wing over my plantings. Gardens are beautiful in the spring.

Jesus' death and resurrection was in the spring-- right around the time of Passover.  Two gardens feature heavily in that story.  There was a garden at Gethsemane, where He prayed and cried on the night He was arrested.  And there was a garden where His body lay entombed.

When Adam and Eve first sinned, it was in a garden.  And they were driven out of the garden by an angel with a flaming sword.  In the garden stories of Gethsemane and the tomb, angels appear again.

Gardens. Temptation. Angels. Death.

Turning points.

I think that when we see Jesus in gardens, in narratives that repeat so many of the motifs of Eden, it's good to pay special attention.  Jesus, after all, is called "the second Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45).

Matthew and Mark tell the story of the "place called Gethsemane" (Matt. 26:36, Mark 14:32), but it is John who informs us that the place where Jesus withdrew after the Last Supper was in fact a garden (John 18:1).  The original readers, of course, would have recognized the name of this garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives (which is how Luke describes it in Chapter 22) without having to be told. But look what Jesus does in this garden:

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matt. 26:39)

The passage says He prayed this way three times.  Three is an interesting number, because that is the number of times Jesus asked Peter to reverse his denial of Him (John 21:15-17).  It is the number of times Jesus resisted the temptations of the devil in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13).  Adam and Eve were tempted just once, and they fell.  Jesus, as the second Adam, resisted three times.  Somehow, three is the number of reversal, of undoing what has been done.

Adam in the garden at Eden, all of his life ahead of him in a place of joy and peace, chose his own will over God's.  Here in the garden at Gethsemane, Jesus in an agony of distress for the death He is facing, gasps out three affirmations of God's will.

And an angel comes (Luke 22:43).  Not with a flaming sword to drive out, but with outstretched arms to strengthen and comfort.

And then there was the other garden.

At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. (John 19:41-42)

The narratives give several different versions of what happened next-- just as we might expect if a number of people all told individual eyewitness stories.  But several elements appear over and over again.

The stone was rolled away from the entrance of the tomb.

Angels appeared-- again not to drive out, but this time to proclaim: Jesus had risen from the dead.

And the first to see and speak to the risen Christ were women.

I want to focus on the story in John:

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved,and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. [Emphases added.]

One thing stands out immediately.  Mary didn't see Jesus just because she happened to be the first one there.  Jesus could easily have appeared to Peter and John, but He didn't.  He waited until they had gone home. Then He appeared to Mary.  Why?

In the first garden, the garden of Eden, the woman who listened to the serpent was thinking about her own gain.  She saw that "the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom" (Genesis 3:6). And so she took, and she ate.

In this garden, the one with the empty tomb, the woman isn't thinking about herself at all.  She's thinking about something else.  Someone else.  Three times she says it: "They have taken Him away.  Where is He?"

The third time, He answers her Himself.  "Mary."

And she rushes into His arms and won't let go.

Just as Jesus reversed what Adam did, Mary has reversed what Eve did.

But He has something He needs her to do-- something He chose her, and not Peter or John, to do.  So He must ask her to let go of Him and do it.

After the scene in the garden of Eden, God warned Eve that now her husband will rule over her (Gen. 3:16)  And what we see in the biblical story from that time on, is men ruling over women.

Until Jesus came along.

Two years ago I wrote an answer to the question, Why Did Jesus Choose Twelve Men? 

The twelve were the main witnesses to the life, death and resurrection of Christ. In the Ancient Near East and Roman cultures, the testimony of women was considered invalid. It was not accepted in court; it was not legally binding in any way. The world was simply not going to listen to women, and Jesus knew it.
So here’s what He did. His very first act upon Resurrection was to appear to the women. In fact, John tells us that though Peter and John ran ahead of Mary Magdalene on the way to the tomb, they saw nothing. Then after they left, Mary Magdalene was the first to see the Resurrected Christ. John 20:3-14. Other women also saw Him shortly afterwards– but no male saw the Lord, revealed for who He was, until that evening, eight hours or more afterwards. . .
The significance of this would not have been lost on the male disciples in that patriarchal culture. They knew that they themselves had refused to believe the women’s testimony that morning. Then when Jesus appeared to them, they realized the women had been telling the truth.
Jesus was communicating this very clearly (the fact that we miss it today is a product of our culture): “The world will not accept the testimony of your sisters, but I have just forced you to listen to it. My kingdom is to be different from the world. You are to listen to your women and allow them to testify of Me.”

 Before Jesus commissioned the apostles to take His message to the world in Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus commissioned Mary Magdalene and her sisters to take His message to the apostles.  This was a much bigger deal than it looks like.  As Christianity Today's online article Five Errors to Drop from Your Easter Sermon puts it:

As you preach this Easter, do not bypass the testimony of the women as an incidental detail. In the first century, women were not even eligible to testify in a Jewish court of law. Josephus said that even the witness of multiple women was not acceptable "because of the levity and boldness of their sex." Celsus, the second-century critic of Christianity, mocked the idea of Mary Magdalene as an alleged resurrection witness, referring to her as a "hysterical female … deluded by … sorcery."  

This background matters because it points to two crucial truths. First, it is a theological reminder that the kingdom of the Messiah turns the system of the world on its head. In this culture, Jesus radically affirmed the full dignity of women and the vital value of their witness. Second, it is a powerful apologetic reminder of the historical accuracy of the resurrection accounts. If these were "cleverly devised myths" (2 Pet. 1:16, ESV), women would never have been presented as the first eyewitnesses of the risen Christ.

 Jesus does not send Mary back to the male disciples to be ruled over by them.  He sends her back to them to teach and proclaim His truth.  Far from telling her to know her place, He deliberately raises her out of a woman's place and into a place of equality.

Mary, in desiring Christ above all else, has undone what Eve did. And Christ responds by undoing "he shall rule over you."

Last year Preston Yancy wrote the most beautiful blog post I have ever read anywhere.  He called it When It Matters Because of Two Gardens, and I probably would never have written this post if I had not first read that one, and thought about it ever since.  Here is a little of what he said, though I encourage everyone to read the whole thing:

I think of how one little verse, one little verse of a redemption in the twentieth chapter of the most beautiful Gospel, the story of us, could mean all this. 

Could mean systemic patriarchy has been overthrown. Could mean that equality is now. Could mean that the Law of Moses would be overcome by the law of grace. Could mean that a woman is a person not a thing, joy of father or husband, and that her word is worth, her voice use. . .

And I think of them, sometimes, of that second Man and that other woman, in that garden west of Golgotha, and I think of her as she was sent forth, running east, and I think of the tangled mess of grace tripping and dancing round her in her wake, her feet bringing the news of healed cosmos, healed creation, and He has done this, first, and we shall follow, and so comes the Light.

Jesus in the garden is an undoing and reversal of what drove humanity out of the garden. He has begun the righting of all that has been wrong-- and not least what has been wrong between men and women.

We should not read the rest of the New Testament in ways that negate this truth.

For He is risen indeed.

The Bible and the Nature of Woman

[Note:  this is another reposting of a piece I wrote for the Take Heart Project.]

The message of most forms of Christianity is that women are in some way or other subordinate to men.  Women cannot be ministers or elders.  Women are to be "helpmeets" to their husbands and to be under male authority.  This is the traditional way of reading the passages in the Bible that mention women, and many Christians who think they are just reading the "plain sense" of the Bible are unaware of how much the way a passage reads to them, is informed by tradition.

I'd like to re-examine God’s plan and purpose for women.  The best place to start is at the beginning– Genesis 1. What is the first thing the Bible says about women?

“And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and . . . over all the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the earth.” Gen. 1:26-28.

Is there any distinction made here between the male and the female? No, what we see is identical treatment of the man and the woman, and identical status of the man and the woman before God. He formed them both to be in His image and to have dominion, and then he told them to be fruitful and multiply and rule the other creatures.

Of course we must be careful not to take these commands in an unqualified state. The life and writings of the Apostle Paul make it clear that not every individual must “be fruitful” by having offspring. Indeed, in the New Testament, being “fruitful” in terms of having children is not mentioned; what is important is “bearing fruit,“ which means good character and good deeds that help grow the Kingdom of God. Nor does “subdue the earth” give us the right to mistreat our fellow creatures; we are to be good stewards over the creation. But what I want to note here is that Genesis Chapter 2 must be read in light of Genesis Chapter 1. The woman, no less than the man, is given rulership. There is no hint in Genesis 1 that the man is to rule over the woman.

It is in the next chapter that we see the words “help meet” (please note that these are two words, not one):

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him an help meet for him.” Genesis 2:18.

It is important here to note that the name “Adam” is simply the Hebrew word for “human.” Genesis 5:2 says, “Male and female He created them, and blessed them, and called their name “adam” (human) in the day when they were created.” Woman is not an afterthought that God happened to have. When God made the “adam,” the male and female human were in God’s mind from the beginning. But he created one “adam” alone at first, for a reason. Genesis 2:19-20 says that God deliberately brought the animals to the adam to name them, “but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.”

God then causes the adam to fall asleep, and he takes “one of his ribs” (the original Hebrew says “from his side”), and makes a woman. She is made of the exact same substance as Adam, so that he cannot claim her nature as different from his in any way. Adam recognizes what God intended him to recognize– that no other creature is of Adam’s own nature, but this woman is. And this is where the word “man” as in “male” is first used by Adam in regard to himself, ”This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” v. 23.

But what does “help meet for him” really mean?

The word “help” is the Hebrew word “ezer.” It means “help,” but not in the modern English sense of “assistant.” The word actually refers to someone who renders strong aid to someone who needs it. Most of the other times that the word “ezer” is used in the Old Testament, it refers to God. In Psalm 33:20, for instance: ”Our soul waiteth for the Lord; He is our help (“ezer”) and our shield.” An “ezer” is not someone who is subordinate to the one helped. God as “ezer” is above the humans who cry for Him to be their “help.”

But the woman is not a “help” from a superior position, as God is, so the text in Genesis 2 adds a modification. The woman is a “help meet for him.” ”Meet” in the KJV is an old word meaning “suitable to” or “corresponding to.” The Hebrew word is “kenedgo,” which literally means “facing him,” or “as in front of him.” The idea is that here is a help (strong aid) that is not above Adam, as God is, but is face-to-face with him. Equal partnership is strongly implied by this phrase.

God makes the woman because one “adam” alone is not good. The “adam” needs a strong aid that stands face-to face with him. God wants the “adam” to recognize this strong, face-to-face aid for what she is, so God makes sure the “adam” knows that this being is not like one of the animals, but is of his own substance and nature. Genesis 2 then concludes with a parenthetical– that it is because of this manner of creation that man and woman are to join in marriage and be “one flesh.” There is still no hint of subordination of Eve to Adam. In fact, the later subordination of the woman to the man is clearly shown in Genesis 3:16 to be the result of sin.

Some Bible teachers will tell you that because Adam was made first, and because he named the animals, this means he was in a position of authority over Eve. But the Bible clearly shows that the reason God had Adam name the animals was not because of authority, but because God wanted to show Adam that there was no “facing-him-strong-aid” to be found among the animals. And even if naming something implied authority over it, Adam did not name Eve till after the Fall– in Genesis 3:20. When Adam said, “She shall be called Woman, for she was taken out of Man,” he was not naming the woman. He was simply distinguishing both himself and her from one another as male and female. The Hebrew word for “called” in that verse is a different word from the word used when he “named” the animals and (after the Fall) “named” Eve. If the idea of “naming” has any meaning of “authority” at all, then it is interesting to note that Adam did not name Eve until after sin had entered the world and after God told Eve, “he shall rule over you.” (Notice, too, that God did not give a command to the man, “See that you rule over her,“ but merely made a statement to the woman, “He shall rule over you.“ Male rule, like thorns and thistles and pain in childbirth, was a consequence of the Fall, not a command of God.)

Nor is there any indication that being made first put Adam in authority over Eve. If being made first implied authority, then the fish and the birds would rule the land animals, and the land animals would rule the humans! No, God made the human alone at first so that God could show the human how much he needed an “ezer kenedgo.”

Many Christians would reply here that 1 Timothy 2:12-15 says that a woman can’t teach or have authority over a man because Adam was made first and Eve was deceived.  They use this passage to interpret Genesis 2 and 3 and conclude that a woman was made to be subordinate.  Some read this passage to indicate that women are more easily deceived than men are.  But since the early chapters of Genesis do not actually say this, reading a particular interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 back into them is against the principles of Bible interpretation I outlined in my last post.

The 1 Timothy 2 passage actually starts in verse 11, where Paul says, “Let the woman learn.” Women were not allowed to learn theology in either ancient Judaism or ancient Greek cultures, and even Roman women did not usually receive more than a very basic education. Paul’s letter to Timothy was written in Ephesus, where there would most likely be women of all three backgrounds in the church. Paul qualifies the word “learn” with “in silence and all subjection.“ The word “silence” there is the Greek word “heschusia,“ which doesn’t mean absolute “silence” but simply “quietness.” (It is the same word Paul uses a few verses earlier in 1 Tim. 2:2, when he says “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.“) The word for “subjection” is the noun form of the word used in Ephesians 5:21, “submitting yourselves to one another.“ It conveys the idea of voluntary yielding or cooperation, and though it is often used in the sense of yielding to authority, it does not always convey that meaning. The two words used together convey the kind of attitude any student should have, of quiet receptiveness and yielding to teaching.

The word “usurp authority” that Paul uses in verse 12 is not the Greek word for normal authority, which is “exousia.” This word is “authentein,” and its meaning had to do with taking dominion over or dominating another. If Paul had meant that women could never have any legitimate authority, he would have used some form of “exousia,” not “authentein.” The two words are not synonymous.

Verses 13-14 then go on with “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Paul may be using the creation order to make the point that because Adam was made first, it is especially inappropriate for a woman to take illegitimate authority over a man– but as we have seen, there really is nothing in the story of the creation that makes the woman subordinate to the man either. They were created with equal authority to rule the creation, with her as his “face-to-face strong aid.” But another point, and one that fits especially well with Paul’s statement that a woman should be allowed to learn, is that Adam’s being formed first apparently goes hand-in-hand with Adam’s not being deceived. What does being formed first have to do with not being deceived? It makes sense in this context that Paul may have meant that being formed first meant Adam had more learning and experience than Eve, and that this prevented Adam from being deceived. Adam had, after all, named the animals. He would therefore have seen and named the serpent. He, much more than Eve, was in a position to recognize the serpent’s words for what they were. (If anything, this makes Adam more culpable, which may be why Paul places the responsibility for the Fall on Adam, in Romans 5:12.)

Be that as it may, this passage in 1 Timothy 2 does not say that woman is to be subordinate to man because man was made first. It does not say that all women are easily deceived. It simply says that Eve was formed later and was deceived. This Epistle is Paul’s advice to Timothy on principles of correct conduct and order, in a church threatened by false teaching (1 Tim. 1:3 & 3:15). In that context, Paul counsels that women be allowed to learn the doctrines of the faith and that they should not seize dominion over men. Should we go further than this and say Paul was making a blanket prohibition against any woman ever having an authoritative teaching position in any church? Paul himself said in 1 Corinthians 4:6 to “not think above what was written.” To say that forbidding women to take illegitimate authority, also means that they can have no legitimate authority, or that this is because they are more easily deceived, is to go way above and beyond what is actually written.

[Note:  I have done a five-part analysis of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 that begins here and is a more in-depth analysis of those verses.]

I must also address here 1 Corinthians 11:7-8, which many Christian read as saying the woman was made for the man and is therefore secondary to him, and that while the man is the image and glory of God, the woman is only the glory of man.

First of all, that word “for” does not mean “for the use of” as in “I made a cake for you.” The word in the ancient Greek means “for the sake of” or “because of.” This is exactly what Genesis 2 says– the man needed to not be alone, and the woman was made because he had this need. She is not “for” the man’s use, she is “because of” his need. This does not imply any subordination of the woman. On the contrary, the one who needs help is the one in the weaker position, not the one who comes to give help! This does not mean Paul is saying men are subordinate to women either– but it does say a lot about the interdependence God intends men and women to have to one another.

Secondly, as far as “glory” is concerned– we are accustomed to think of this word in terms of the splendor and divine beauty of God. But 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that all believers shine with this kind of glory: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (Emphasis added.)

This passage is not about that kind of glory, for it would be in direct contradiction to 2 Cor. 3:18 to say men have God’s glory but women have man’s glory. No, there is another meaning of the word “glory” in the ancient Greek, and that has to do with reputation, or the good opinion of others.

This passage has to be read in the light of the rest of 1 Corinthians 11. The Corinthian church was a large, cosmopolitan center in the Roman Empire, in which a large number of cultures mingled and which had a reputation as the “Sin City” of those times. The young church was comprised of peoples from a variety of backgrounds, and at the time Paul wrote the letter this church was struggling with a variety of matters, one of which was its reputation in the eyes of the community. It helps to understand that the cultures of Israel, Greece and Rome were honor-shame cultures. They tended to think of behavior more in terms of honor and dishonor, in contrast to our way of thinking in more terms of right and wrong. It wasn’t enough, for instance, for a woman to be faithful to her husband; she had to avoid even the slightest appearance of loose morals. This means that women did not go out in public alone; they did not talk to men who were not their husbands, and so on. A woman’s behavior was a direct reflection on her husband’s reputation, and when we see the word “glory” in a text that contains words having to do with honor and shame, we know that the meaning of “glory“ in that text is within that honor-shame context. From the context of 1 Cor. 11, it seems extremely likely that “reputation” is what Paul is talking about when he says “glory.”

Paul starts this section of his letter by praising the Corinthians for keeping the “ordinances, as I delivered them to you.” (verse 1.) This word “ordinances” is translated as “traditions” everywhere else in the New Testament, and it means the ways in which human cultures work out the Scriptures in practical applications. Paul uses this word sometimes negatively (Colossians 2:8), and sometimes positively, as in this passage; but “traditions” are clearly not on the same par as God’s commandments and are to be repudiated whenever they clash with the revealed will of God.

1 Cor 11 is mainly about whether women should cover their heads when they pray or prophesy in public, and Paul speaks of this matter in terms of tradition and not commandment. The passage is full of the kinds of words that communicate the honor-shame culture: ”disgrace,” “proper,” “dishonor,” and so on. It is in light of this that Paul speaks of man being “the image and glory of God.” Paul does NOT deny the truth of Genesis 1:26-27 that male and female are both the image of God; he does not say the woman is the image of the man– but Paul has to deal with the very real fact that in that culture, a woman’s behavior was viewed almost entirely in terms of how it affected her husband (or if she was unmarried, her father). The woman’s deeds, in the eyes of the culture, reflected not on God, but on the man in her life. In that culture, the only women who did not cover their heads in public were prostitutes. This is why Paul says women should wear head coverings, in order not to be seen as prostitutes in that culture, and thus to bring shame on their husbands or fathers.

The point is that “glory” as Paul uses it here is not about the nature of man or woman at all– it’s about cultural reputations. The principle that applies today is that we should not act in ways that reflect poorly on our loved ones. But we do not live in an honor-shame culture. Since God looks not on the outward appearance but on the heart (1 Sam. 16:7), we need not follow the practices of those Middle-Eastern cultures that focused so much on outward appearance that even innocent actions (such as simply talking to a man who is not your husband) were deeply frowned upon. In any event, the wearing of head coverings was part of that culture, not part of ours. The view of woman as being only important in relation to her husband and father was also a cultural, not a divinely sanctioned, thing. Jesus always treated women as valuable individuals in their own right, regardless of how talking to a woman in public was viewed by his disciples or anyone else! (See the story of the woman at the well in John 4.) Paul gave weight to matters of reputation when necessary for the growth of the church, but he, too, treated women as valuable individuals in their own right (notice, for instance, all the women he honors by name in Romans 16).

Today a woman may give glory to God by her deeds in ways that were not possible then. Her nature as the image of God is no longer obscured by ancient cultural ways of thinking about women. Christian women can be assured that they were not created to be subordinate to men, but to be their equal partners from the day God made them.

[More analysis of 1 Corinthians 11, including the "man is the head of woman" text, will be covered in my upcoming reposting of my "The Bible and Male Headship" series from the Take Heart Project.]

The Bible and Human Authority, Part 1: Old Testament

I'd like to look a little further into this idea, so common among Christians, that "someone has to be in charge" in every area of life. Sometimes they speak in terms of "spheres of authority," saying that God has established different spheres, or realms, in which different authority structures hold sway, including the church, the family and society. But always there's this idea that hierarchical systems of authority extend top-down from God into each aspect of life, and that to operate without one or more of these authority systems is to invite chaos. It is even said that there is hierarchy in the Trinity: that because God the Son submitted to God the Father on earth, the Son functions in an eternal relationship of submission to the Father, even though they are equals. The idea of hierarchy in the Trinity is set forth as a justification for hierarchy in marriage, because if the Son's submission to the Father does not diminish the Son in terms of equality, the subordination of a wife to her husband would not diminish the wife's equality either.

It cannot be denied that human societies need some form of law, to protect people from being harmed by one another, among other things-- and that laws need someone with the power to enforce them, or they are useless. But is this idea that "someone has to be in charge," that there is a chain of command in every area of human life, actually taught in the Bible?

First of all, let’s define our terms. What is “authority”? How is the concept of authority treated in the Bible? Here is a definition from an online dictionary:

“The power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge.”

For purposes of this study, I'd like to draw a distinction between "authority," or the power or right to command, and "leadership," which is the actual act of leading or commanding, or the state of being the one leading or commanding.

The first mention of authority or rule in the Bible is found in Genesis 1:26-28. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth. . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them. . . “[H]ave dominion over . . . every living thing that moveth on the earth.”

Notice first of all that the word “man” here includes “male and female.” The meaning is “human beings,” not “male humans.” Notice also that there is no hint here of an authority relationship between the male and the female; both are to have authority over the creatures, but nothing is said about either being in authority over the other. Neither is there any indication of an authority structure within the ranks of other creatures. God does not say, “the animals that are bigger shall rule over the smaller animals, all the way down to the insects,” or anything like that (this may seem like an unimportant point, but I'll get into why it’s important later in this series). In fact, other than the humans ruling together over the animals, there are no earthly authority structures in view in the first chapter of Genesis.

When do we see the first mention of humans ruling over one another? In Genesis 3:16, right after the Fall of Adam and Eve. God tells Eve then that the man will begin to rule over her, as part of the consequences of the wrong that has come into the world. Note that this was not part of God's divine plan from the beginning; nor does God tell the man to rule the woman. God simply informs the woman that this is going to happen, as part of the consequences of the Fall.

Some Christians teach that because Eve was not yet created when God gave the command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that Adam had to convey God’s words to Eve, and that automatically put him in charge of her and made him an intermediary between her and God. But those are assumptions that are read into the text. The Bible never actually says anything like that. Instead, it says that God made Eve out of Adam’s own flesh, so that there was no way he could say, “this is a different/lesser sort of being than I am.” It says Eve was his “face-to-face strong aid,” which is a literal translation of “help meet for him” (Gen 2:20).* The Bible is actually silent on whether God spoke directly to Eve about the forbidden tree (though it does show Him speaking directly to both man and woman in Genesis 1:27), or whether Adam told Eve about the tree. It does not tell us one way or the other. Eve knows about the tree in Gen. 3:2, but how she came to know is simply not told. It’s important, if we make assumptions about what a biblical text is telling us, that we know the difference between what we are assuming, and what the text actually does or doesn’t say.

What else does the Old Testament say about human authority structures? The next few chapters of Genesis after the Fall of humanity say nothing whatsoever about anyone being a ruler or leader over anyone else, by God’s plan or otherwise. Babel is set out as a story of human organization and structure, but no specific leaders are mentioned, and God deliberately scatters the people there. Abraham, of course, becomes a tribal leader with servants under his authority, but God seems curiously uninterested in that aspect of the matter, being more concerned with the covenant under which Isaac will be born.

God is shown as choosing individuals to further His purpose of preparing a people through which to bring the Messiah; but an interesting dynamic runs though this entire process: God almost always chooses a younger son over the older ones. Primogeniture, the idea that the oldest son is to rule, was a basic assumption of Ancient Near East societies, but God turns primogeniture on its head over and over again. He chooses Jacob over Esau, Joseph over 10 older brothers, David the youngest of eight, and so on.

We do see a couple of systems of governmental hierarchy set up in Genesis 41 and Exodus 18. In Genesis 41:31-35, Joseph suggests that the Pharoah set up an agent, with officers under him, to gather surplus food in preparation for a coming famine. In Exodus 18:13-27, after Moses had led the Hebrews out of Egypt, the people began coming to him to judge disputes between them. Moses was getting worn out, being the sole judge, so his father-in-law Jethro advised him to set up rulers over groups of 10, 50, 100 and 1000, to judge disputes between the people. In both these cases, there is no mention of God having directly instructed the setting up of these hierarchies. It is Joseph who requests the system of officers in Genesis 41:33. In Exodus 18:23 Jethro advises Moses to be sure God agrees, but the idea is shown to be Jethro’s.

In fact, God appears to make no direct law establishing any hierarchical authority structure in the Old Testament except for the priest/Levite orders, in which neither priests nor Levites are given any governmental authority. They are to run the tabernacle/temple and administer the sacrifices and holidays, and that is all. It would have been so easy to make the priestly class into the ruling class—but the Law simply does not go there.

Israel’s actual governmental systems reveal other interesting dynamics. First, although Deuteronomy 17:14 anticipates that Israel will decide to set a king over itself, God does not seem to actually desire them to do so. God does not give them a king, but rather raises up judges (often from the most unlikely sources!) until the people of Israel actually voice a desire for a king. And in 1 Samuel 8:7 God says that in desiring a king, Israel is actually rejecting God as their ruler. God tells Samuel to tell the people that the king will use his power to oppress them— and though the people say they want a king anyway, it seems to be a concession on God’s part to give them what they want. God also limits the power of the king by making him subject to the law and forbidding him priestly powers. 1 Samuel 13:10-14.

There is a consistent theme in the Old Testament of the sovereignty of God over human authority. Daniel 4:32 says, “The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whosoever he will.” However, the context here is God restraining a king’s self-glorification. God is depicted in many texts as having power over what authorities exist and who gets to be in authority. But often—and certainly here in Daniel 4 as in 1 Samuel 13— God seems more interested in restraining human authority than He is in creating it.

In fact, God's plan seems to be more about raising up individual leaders than setting up structures of authority (please keep in mind the definitions set forth earlier). The leaders God does raise up act in accordance with God’s authority, rather than being given some inherent right or power of their own to command— with the exception of the kings, which God apparently would rather not have given Israel at all.

It is interesting, if the Bible teaches that God is so concerned with making sure there are authority structures in every area of life— if having someone “in charge” in every sphere of human relations is such a vital part of His divine plan— that God in the Old Testament seems so reluctant to establish authority structures in Israel, so careful to limit the ones He does establish, and so ready to overturn human assumptions about who should be in authority.

I will look into how the concept of authority is treated in the New Testament, as well as how Jesus teaches that the kingdom of God differs from natural, earthly human societies in the area of authority, in Part 2.

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*I have written elsewhere a piece called "The Bible and the Nature of Woman." More information about "help meet" and my views regarding other aspects of woman's relationship to man can be found there.

5-Step Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 - Conclusion

In Part 3 we did the first half of Step Five of my analysis: an examination of the meaning of the original Greek words and grammar. Finally, now, we come to the conclusion-- my interpretation, in which I will go phrase by phrase from the Concordant Literal translation used at the end of Part 3.

“Let a woman be learning in quietness with all subjection.”
There is a question at this point as to whether Paul is referring to “woman” as a collective or as singular. The switch from the plural “women” in the preceding verse to the indefinite singular “woman” in this verse appears to indicate a change of subject. Paul therefore may be no longer talking about "women" in general, but about "a woman" in particular. If so, he does not name this particular woman, so whether he means women in general, or one specific woman, cannot be conclusively stated. However, there are very good reasons to think he might be talking about just one woman, which I will detail below.

In any event, since “Let be learning” is the only verb form in the entire passage which is in the command form, I believe this sentence is the controlling sentence of this passage. Whatever else Paul says, he says in view of the need for “a woman” to "learn." In a society where women were largely denied education, Paul’s command that she is to learn sounds a clear counter-cultural note. “Quietness” and "subjection," according to their Greek meanings, do not denote silence and subordination, but rather that she should have an attitude of receptivity and willingness to yield, as is fitting for any student.

“Now I am not permitting a woman to be teaching nor yet to be domineering over a man, but to be in quietness.”
Notice that Paul does not say, “Timothy, do not permit a woman.” Nor does he say, "A woman is forbidden." Instead, Paul uses the word “I” and puts the verb in present tense, indicating a current action. Since Paul looked upon the church at Ephesus as uniquely his church, and since Timothy’s ministry there is a temporary measure during Paul’s absence-- and since Timothy’s main role was to stop false teaching-- I believe Paul is giving Timothy Paul’s own authority to act for Paul in a specific situation of false teaching by “a woman,” the effect of which is to domineer over “a man” (indefinite noun again). It is unlikely Paul is making any kind of policy about all women being forbidden to teach, or to teach in church meetings, because the facts are on the table that Paul did indeed permit women to teach and commended them for teaching. Junia was “outstanding among the apostles,” and it would be impossible to be an apostle (one who has the role of planting churches) without teaching church groups about Christ. And Paul simply cannot be forbidding women to “have authority” because that is not what the word “authenteo” means. What is clear is that false teaching is a real problem in the church at Ephesus and that Paul’s main purpose in writing to Timothy was to deal with this issue.

As I mentioned, it is the norm in Koine Greek, when one refers to “woman” and “man” together, that they are married to one another. Given the Greek construction, Paul could be saying, “Now I am not permitting this certain woman to be teaching-and-domineering over her husband, but to be learning in quietness.” If Paul is talking about women in general, and not a particular woman, it is a puzzle as to why he switches from the plural “women” in verses 9 and 10, to the singular “a woman” in verse 11. Be that as it may, I will also take into account that Paul might be speaking of “woman” in a generic sense, meaning “all the women in the church.”

“For Adam was first molded, thereafter Eve, and Adam was not seduced.”
As I stated in Part 3, I believe Paul is using Adam and Eve an example. The word “for” in the Greek includes the meaning “for example.“ Also, Paul specifically states in 1 Cor. 10:11 that he considers the Old Testament stories to be “for an example” and “for instruction” to the Christian churches. He says nothing about using them to “ground” a teaching of his, in order to render that teaching timeless and universal. In 2 Cor. 11:3 Paul specifically refers to Eve as an example, in a situation having to do with a particular circumstance of false teaching that he was afraid would deceive the Corinthian church. His reference to Eve there has nothing to do with “grounding” anything Paul is saying in order to make it timeless and universal.

It is most likely here in 1 Timothy 2 as well, that the reference to Adam and Eve is being used as an example only. There is no particular reason to believe that the Creation order set up a pre-Fall authority hierarchy of Adam over Eve, which Paul is claiming should be followed in this letter to Timothy. There is nothing in the actual Creation texts that says so. The only real way to read a Creation-order based hierarchy in Genesis 1 and 2 is to read it in from 1 Timothy 2:11-15. To then use the Creation-order hierarchy you have read into Genesis, as a “grounding” of hierarchy in 1 Timothy 2, is circular reasoning: Genesis 1 and 2 say there’s a hierarchy because 1 Timothy 2 says so, and 1 Timothy 2 says there’s a hierarchy because Genesis 1and 2 say so. But that only works as long as you stay inside the circle.

The emphasis on Adam being “first molded” is more significant in light of the fact that “Adam was not seduced.” That is what the actual text of 1 Timothy 2:13-14 says. If we then look at this in light of the controlling idea “let a woman learn,“ the most likely idea is that since Adam was made before Eve, he had learning (experience in naming the animals, for example) that Eve was lacking. Adam, unlike Eve, had seen the serpent before, because he had named it. Because of this, he was "not seduced" (or "deceived"). He still sinned, but not through deception.

The situation is probably similar in the problem Paul is addressing. An unlearned woman or women are teaching deception because she/they have not had adequate learning before beginning to teach.

I don’t believe Paul’s idea here is to blame Eve for the first sin, because in his letter to the Romans he places the responsibility squarely on Adam. Here he says that Eve sinned because she was deceived, but Adam sinned even though he knew better. The situation for women in Ephesus parallels this. They have not been permitted to learn and therefore, like Eve, they have become deceived.

(Paul may also, as a side note, be asserting this orthodox idea of the order of creation in refutation of the proto-Gnostic teaching that Eve was created first, that the Fall was a good thing, and that Eve was the wise one who led Adam into enlightenment. But in any case, it all appears related to the “teaching-and-domineering” of an unlearned woman or women.)

“. . . yet the woman, being deluded, has come to be in the transgression.”
Here is the phrase that supports the notion that Paul is talking about one woman in a current situation. Since Paul was a teacher and a scholar, we must believe that he chose the exact verb form he meant to use. This verb form refers to an ongoing state of affairs that continues into the present. But how can he say of Eve, “she has come to be, and still is, in the transgression”? And why does he first speak of Adam and Eve by name, but then switch to “Adam” and “the woman”?

There is a common grammar structure in Koine Greek where a statement will begin with an indefinite singular noun (such as “a woman”), and then the noun will be repeated with a definite article later on. When this happens, both nouns are to be construed as referring to the same person or thing. An example of this occurs in John 4:7-9: “A woman of Samaria” in verse 7 is the same person as “the woman of Samaria” in verse 9. So when Paul says “the woman” instead of “Eve,” the grammatical construction refers back to “a woman” in the preceding sentence.

The only way Paul could be speaking of Eve as still being in transgression, is if he is referring to Eve in a typological sense as representing all women, with Eve’s sin as a type for all women’s sin. He does do something like this with Adam in Romans 5. So it may be possible that he is doing that with Eve here. But it’s also possible that he is talking about a particular woman but not referring to her by name, out of grace, in order to protect her.

“Yet she shall be saved through the child bearing, if ever they should be remaining in faith and love and holiness with sanity.”
We can only assume Paul knew what he was doing in switching from “she” to “they” in the same phrase. The two pronouns could not both be referring to "women in general."

“She” can mean either Eve, or a particular woman who is practicing false teaching and domineering over her husband. “The childbearing” (or "the chilbirth") refers to the bearing of the “seed of woman” as referred to in the Adam and Eve story-- ie., the Christ. So-- if this is about one particular woman who is in transgression, “they” probably means she and her husband together. If this woman will join with her husband in faith, love and holiness with clear-headedness (rejecting the false teaching), she will be saved by Christ, out of her current transgression.

If “she” means Eve, then “they” probably means the women of the church-- her daughters, who, if they continue in faith, love and holiness with clear-headedness, will bring the salvation that comes through the birth of Christ, to Eve (as a metaphor for womankind).

But in any event, there is no compelling reason to interpret these verses as saying, "Let women keep quiet, for God forbids them to ever teach or have any authority over men in the church. Women's role is to learn and to teach other women, but they can never teach men, because they were created second and moreover became deceived. But they will be saved from deception if they will accept their place and have babies in submission and holiness." This is simply not what the passage says.

The question that remains is, why did more accurate readings become so obscured? I think there is a reason for that.

Recent research indicates that during the earliest years of the church, when believers were meeting in houses, women had prominent roles in house leadership. The house was, after all, the woman’s particular domain. 1 Corinthians 1:11 refers to “those of Chloe’s household.” And Colossians 4:15 says “Greet Nympha, and the church that meets at her house.” These women were almost certainly leaders of house churches. If not, Paul would have been extremely remiss in greeting only the hostess of a church that met at her house, but neglecting to greet the actual leader!

But over the years, churches began to grow too large to meet in homes, and at the same time, as Christianity became more accepted, it also became more organized and structured. The idea of women doing anything in public was still shameful in much of the culture. Desiring to spread the gospel, churches followed the advice of Paul in fitting in with the surrounding cultures except in areas of conscience. “What shall we do with our woman leaders?” was the thought on the mind of the church as a whole. It became convenient to find a Scriptural basis for women not teaching-- and by this time, Paul’s letters had been around long enough for the situations in which he wrote to begin to be forgotten.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So. . . Having interpreted the Scriptures in this way, it still remains to find its application for us as part of the New Creation kingdom of God, living in the modern world. Even though Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 are most likely a situational mandate referring to a particular policy he set for a particular church at one particular time, this is still part of the God-inspired canon of Scripture, and there is still something we can learn from it today.

I believe there are timeless principles that are being conveyed even within this time-bound passage. Once we understand what Paul was probably really saying to Timothy, and what Paul probably wasn’t really saying-- then we can then figure out how Paul’s words might apply to us.

Here are the principles that I think we can deduce from this passage, which can be applied today:

1. All Christians, male and female, are to be taught the basic doctrines of their faith.

2. The doctrines of the faith are to be received in a quiet, receptive, yielding state of mind.

3. It’s important that a Christian learn the basics of the faith before attempting to become a teacher of others.

4. Teaching that domineers over others is not acceptable.

5. A person who is “deluded” or “deceived” can still be saved by Christ.

What I cannot see in this passage is any reason to restrict all women in the church today, as Paul restricted women (or a woman) in first-century Ephesus. The situations that existed in first-century Ephesus do not exist today. Christian women today are not uneducated; they are not influenced by the worship of Artemis, and they are not imbibing the teachings of gnosticism.

Which brings us to principle #6: Church leaders can set policies for their individual churches, to deal with specific situations there at specific times, which need not apply to all churches everywhere.

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I am indepted to Cheryl Schatz's website, Women in Ministry, for her insights into this passage.