The Woman's Bible

Like we would predict, Stanton heavily relies on the first creation to bolster her point of complete equality of men and women. Tactfully, rather than entirely ignoring the creation in Genesis 2, Stanton meticulously explains its discountability. In one of the most fact based arguments I've seen so far, Stanton outlines the history of the modern old testament and develops a theory that the second creation is a creation itself by men to justify female subjugation.

Stanton continues to make very compelling points to shake readers from accepting the plotline of the story as a reflection of truth. One argument I liked was her proposal that after Eve's creation, all further life comes from woman, which is to say that woman would have subject over her sons (men). This sharp contradiction from the notion that female creation from man makes her inferior reveals the insanity of the latter argument. Stanton also counter attacks the notion of the woman as the source of evil, citing the snake's existance as the root of evil. Here she tries to absolve women of their blame. Stanton realy focuses on attacking the socially integrated notions that predispose genesis interpreters to lean towards female subjugation. For example, the common notion that women were always in subjection is swiftly overturned.

After attempting to heal the wounds of ingrained dogmatic thought, Stanton elevates women to superior in her actions with the snake. During this ever controversial scene, Stanton places Adam off to the side drooling as Eve accepts the fruit. I found it very interesting how Stanton makes use of the fact that Eve hears the command from Adam rather than god, as this argument is usually just the opposite to say that Eve knows the words of god because of her recalling of them. Stanton takes a different twist on this to say that Eve merely hears a "whisper" from Adam, as if this prohibition was not correctly conveyed to her. This image attempts again to absolve Eve from intentional misdoing by taking a stance of ignorance.

Stanton's writing was beautifully clear and took very new and interesting views towards the events of Genesis to bolster women in new ways. We see the first attempts here to reverse the societal standards that plague modern thought.

Counter-Voices

It is absolutely fascinating how woman use the same textual evidence to support their claims for equality as men do to support female submission. The construct of weakness rooted in the snake's decision to approach the woman is taken from a different angle by these women. While men obsess over Eve's use of "lest" in her argument with the snake, these women note the strength that Eve has an argument, as opposed to Adam who "submissively" takes the fruit from Eve. We see how paradise lost focused on such an important, unexplained facet of our story: Adam's presence and motive in eating the fruit. So paramount is this to understanding the story that Milton creates a motive in light of the absence of one. When looking at the text, it seems as though the women here are correct. Adam does not even mention the prohibition and God's word before he eats. Women are usually said to be more distant from god than men, both in their creation and how God does not speak directly to women. However, Eve demonstrates a much closer tie to God's word than Adam does.

Grimke adopts many of the themes we have seen so far in male interpretations and takes them a step further. The strong theme of companionship we saw in the protestant readings emerges here when she claims Eve's creation "was to give [Adam] a companion, in all respects his equal" (E&A 341.) Of course Grimke takes it one step further and advocates complete equality in Adam and Eve's life partnership, but drawing on previous notions is a good way to persuay a male reader. The previous thought that only man was given power over the earth and Garden of Eden is reexamined here by taking the word "man" as generic term for the ambiguous "mankind." Again most of the content used to support female submission is the exact content used to support their equality.

The "letter of the God of Love" was a very confusing text, as it seemed to try and elevate the position of the woman by relying on the very characteristics men use to subdue them. The initial argument of punishing all women for the deeds of one is compelling. However, multiple characterizations of women as gentile, plain, afraid, and weak filled the text. Hopefully we can clarify this issue in class.

Paradise Lost

Milton's retelling of Genesis 2 is much more than a simple reinterpretation. Much can be derived from Milton's constant references, strong character descriptions, and underlying themes of Paradise Lost. Adam and Eve share in a relationship before sin, which until this point is not well characterized. One of the most prominent aspects of Genesis interpretation that I found throughout the story is the question of equality of creation and gender roles. The word "godlike" is used to describe Adam's creation, whereas "Manlike" is used to describe Eve's. There exists an interesting interplay between power imbalance and acceptance. While Adam clearly takes "true autoritie," and Eve embodies "softness", accept these roles without abuse in order to form a perfect union of the two. This might reflect Milton's view on marriage, that while there are irreconcilable differences between husband and wife they can be used to strengthen a relationship. Eve "Yield[s] with coy submission, modest pride" implying that she accepts her slightly depreciated role. Very important is the sense of love and kinship felt by Adam and Eve that Milton portrays. Even Satan finds "In them divine resemblance," suggesting that their unity is more divine than each separately.

Keeping with their love for one another, the Fall is almost seen as a triumph of Adam and Eve's love rather than an act of disobedience. Yes, Eve can be blamed as causing the fall, but she also provides the first true test of love for humanity. The common phrase "I would die for you" is spawned here as Adam enters his monologue about his decision. Multiple different texts come to my head when reading this, such as Romeo and Juliet when they end up dead from love, and even Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech. When reading the bible, the thought process or Adam is not covered, as he merely takes the fruit and eats it. This explanation of love as Adam's motive for eating redeems the fall as a triumph of love.

The majority of awakening that occurs according to Milton is sexual. The first thing Adam and Eve do upon eating the fruit is have sex with an unprecidented lustfulness. This is contrary to the Biblical version where Adam and Eve immediately cover themselves after gaining knowledge. The clothing scene in Milton's work is not seen untill the morning after their awakening.

Adam's cry to god asking why Eve was created is very similar to a text we have read (which i cannot remember) that explained that if Eve's purpose was for companionship, surely another male would have been created. Milton uses this logic here when Adam asks why some other form of reproduction could have been created that does not use a female, and why the world could not have been filled with men.

Another thing I found interesting in this text was Eve's consideration of keeping the knowledge for herself. I find this as a contradiction to my previous argument of Adam and Eve's acceptance of their roles to create a strong unity. Here it seems as if Eve is resentful again, and would take the knowledge to gain an "upper hand" with Adam, to balance out their inequality. However, her reasoning for not choosing this course of action is somewhat redeeming, in that she seems more shunned by the prospect of not being with Adam than she does about death itself. Here too we see Eve's "heroine" qualities. She gives Adam the fruit to keep them equal and perpetuate their love.

Protestant Reformation

The ever perplexing question of life's purpose has so far been summed up for women with one term: reproduction. We have seen this as a way to subdue women to the status of walking uteruses that obey commands. With the protestant reformation and a change in thinking, women step up the ladder to a role of life partnership with their male counterparts. It is now recognized that women are creatures whom "God Himself took delight" (E&A 268) to create. The partnership between man and woman is now honored and called upon to characterize life in the garden before the fall.



Martin Luther, although he still recognizes an innate male superiority, goes far enough to say "the husband differs from the wife in no other respect than in sex" (E&A 270). Here, instead of superiority found in the total being of Adam, it is localized to sex, as Luther reinforces later. He draws parallels to humans and animals by saying "as in all the rest of nature the strength of the male surpasses that of the other sex" (E&A 270). The notion that male superiority is confined only to biology and not to creation and ordinance by god, is a huge step for women compared to our previous interpretations.

Calvin also supports the creation of women as a move towards perfection, as humans are social creatures. Our previous discussion of Eve as "defective" due to her creation from a rib is not construed as negative by Calvin. Eve's composition as part of Adam draws the two closer. The view of a rib "stolen" from Adam no longer applies, as his rib is always by his side as a faithful life partner. Calvin also agrees with Luther that the purpose of the woman is not merely reproduction, but a means for one human to combine with another on many levels. Of course, subservience is still seen, as Calvin says God perscribes the woman to help the man.


Luther and Calvin take different stances on Eve's punishments. Luther attempts to twist Eve's punishment as an almost positive sentance by highlight all the things which Eve still posesses: procreation, her sex, her husband, and "the glory of motherhood" (E&A 273). Luther goes far enough to suggest "Eve had a heart full of joy eve in an apparently sad situation" (E&A 273). This seems to be a tactic to propogate the sense of forgiveness and salvation in god, as even his punishment of sinners is not cruel and unjust.

Calvin recognizes more the punishing aspects of God's punishments, pointing out that women go from subjection to servitude. Calvin also discusses the pain that women endure during childhood, and compare it to a painless birth that might have existed in the natural state.

What's important in these readings is recognizing the new role of women as a social, intellectual, and "domestic" partner to Adam rather than merely a means of propogating seed.

Lilith

The story of Lilith has major implications for Genesis 2. Since this story is not contained in the bible, I'm not sure how it can be interpreted. Would it be appropriate to speak of the story as truth when analyzing its implications, or can one merely analyze the story as a reaction to Genesis 2?

If we take the story to be true, its implications are confusing and controversial. God had intended for man and woman to be equal, and created a female that expected equality. Man's dominance then, is not god given, but comes from somewhere else. The perfection so heavily referenced when talking about creation is shattered. Why would God create man and woman from the same material if man was going to have an innate sense of power and dominance. Did God know man was going to expect Lilith to be subservient? God's actions to bring Lilith back to Adam, by sending three angels to talk to her, seem to suggest that God's plan had gone awry. While this story does wonders for feminism, it creates many contradictions in terms of God's motives and omniscience.

Another aspect of our course that this story "clarifies" if taken as true is the question of intercourse before sin. The implications of this story are monumental. Not only are Adam and Lilith having sex before any fruit is tasted, but they have a preference of position! This almost surely corroberates the existance of lust from the beginning of creation. The fact that Adam and Lilith argue over who shall "lie below" implies a preference that could only exist with some kind of enjoyment of sex. Sex here is certainly not see here as solely a mode of reproduction comparable in emotion to shaking a hand.

The Zohar takes an interesting view on Adam's reaction to Eve's creation. The exclamations we discussed as verifying sexual intercourse and explaining kinship are taken here to support love and affection between Adam and Eve. If one thinks about the story of Lilith, it seems that Adam is so excited now to recieve his "obedient" wife after his bad experience with his first. The downward spiral of Lilith's actions lead her to become a deamon, and a prominant Jewish mythological figure. This further demonization of women, mixed with an equal creation as the story recalls, is confusing and raises questions of what is important about the creation story. Are God's intentions of an equal creation the more important factor of the story, or is it more important to note that Lilith's expectation of equality was rejected by Adam which in turn causes her association with evil?

I'm having a difficult time formulating a purpose for the story of Lilith, as it seems that so many things are being said at once. Is this story a triumph of the female spirit? Did men at the time feel that Genesis 2 was insufficient at explaining why women should be subservient, so they created an additional story to support that evil followed woman's expectation of equality? Whatever the motives were, how can we reconcile the fact that God made an incorrect judgement about female creation?

Nahmanides & Maimonides

Much is said in these texts about the nature of good and evil and what this knowledge really entails. The question of sex before sin is addressed by Nahmanides and characterized as passionless, lustless reproduction. It is described as almost involuntary, just another every day action not prompted by want or desire. Genitals were thought of "like the face and the hands and they were not ashamed of them" (E&A214). The knowledge of good and evil then becomes a conscious will to have sex and the institution of a decision between good and evil. The fact that sex now becomes a product of desire characterizes it as the evil choice, and tarnishes its original purpose of reproduction. The sin associated with sex is far removed from the physical act, and is rooted in the gained capacity to satisfy lustful desire. Almost synonymously, the knowledge of good and evil by Nahmanides is the capacity to fulfill desires.

Maimonides tackles a view that the knowledge of good and evil is humanity's greatest triumph and was strangely given to us as a punishment for sin. Maimonides makes the crucial distinction between knowledge of good and evil and intellect, which he states was originally present in our innocent state. Before the downfall man has the capacity to distinguish between true and false, not right and wrong. After sin man loses the capacity to distinguish absolute truth and is stuck with apparent truths. The terms good and bad reflect apparent truths, whereas true and false reflect absolute truths. We see god, a knower of good and evil, use the word good repeatedly, and untill eating the fruit nothing the humans do is "good." Maimonides gives the clear example of how Eve "saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to the eyes" (E&A 217). This sentance includes newly acquired desires and apparent truths.

Going back to Nahmanides, I so thoroughly appreciated his explanation of the punishmet given to Eve. Finally, someone who does not solely rely on male superiority to justify Eve's punishment! Nahmanides asserts that Eve's submission to Adam is a punished reversal of the order of events that led to Adam's sin. Since Adam sinned due to Eve's command to eat the fruit, now it is her turn to fall under Adam's command. This refreshingly logical reasoning gives great support for Eve's punishment.

Aquinas

It was almost comical reading the highly reasoned arguments of Aquinas on the topic of Genesis 2, a story so highly critiqued and called upon that reason has almost completely been removed from many of the questions asked about the text. So far, in regards to female creation, we have heard rants about imperfection, evil, and motives that must include reproduction, for if not god would have just created a man. In light of these, Aquinas tackles the basic question of whether woman should have been made from man. Three objections are given in the full argument I found online. One objection states that different sexes exist in all animals, and an order of creation was not specified for these species, so it shouldn’t have been with humankind either. Another applies kinship laws to Adam and Eve as unfit parents if they were so closely related. I was a bit disappointed that Aquinas’ reasoning relied on an etiological explanation of male superiority to support creation order. To give a natural order of male as the leader of the human race, it seems fit that he be created first, just as god existed before the heavens and the earth. Aquinas goes on to rely on a very strict interpretation of the lines “wherefore a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife,” to reason that Adam would be more likely to join with Eve if they were made from the same material. This argument doesn’t appeal to me, as Adam and Eve could still have been created in the same fashion, both from the earth, just as all other animals that seem to have little trouble finding their sexual partners. To me, the rational objections provided before Aquinas’ answer seem more compelling than his answers. Although rational reasoning is used in Aquinas’ argument, the reasoning is applied to weak facts.
The second question Aquinas tackles in my reading regards Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib. We have seen the rib’s curvature construed as imperfection, and used to support male domination. Logical objections are made regarding Eve’s composition, and superfluity of god’s creation in that nothing not needed for life could have been created by god. Also, there is an argument that it would have been painful for god to remove a rib from Adam, even though the test clearly refers to a very peacefully anesthetic operation. Aquinas’ argument is less than satisfactory here, as he basically just gives reasons that the woman was not created from the head and feet. His reply to objection 2 is the most worthwhile in my opinion, as he reconciles the problem of superfluity in creation, by taking the rib in a general sense of human anatomy rather than a specific bone. He cites natural occurrences of body parts leaving the body, such as semen. My overall impression of this reading was that the objections had a stronger and more factual based argument that Aquinas, who often used reason out of context.

Demonization of women

If medieval Christians were alive today, they would say that women cause cancer. Demonization of women is taken to a whole new level in these texts. The underlying shift i see that leads to this new interpretation is a conscious evil, rather than a more "accidental" evil we have seen in previous interpretations. Until now, most talk of Eve as the origin of sin revolves around her weak nature and her ability to be tricked by Satan. Previously Eve plays an accidental spark that ignites a fire of sin for all ages to come. Here, the texts shift dramatically to a conscious lust and desire for evil. Eve no longer was tricked into sin, but seeks it out with her "insatiable desire." Women are no longer taken by sin, but now have "no shame or persuasion that can they desist from such acts." (E&A 247). The shift from passive to aggressive is seen in the words "lust," "ambition," "infatuation," "liar," and "passions."

Female sexuality takes on an interesting role in these texts as a sort of rebuttle to their inferiority. It is referenced in the Testament of Reuben that the reason females tempt and corrupt men with their sexuality is that they're "lacking authority or power over man" (Reuben). This motive given to female lust is ridiculous to say the least. Regardless of specific motive it is apparent that female lust is seen as a consciously evil act, made to ensnare, corrupt, and bash faith. It is as if the pleasure is taken out of lust, and the word "carnal" is taken so literally it conjures up images in my head of a dog ripping apart a piece of steak.

Men at the time of these texts seemed to see woman as a force of evil with one redeemable quality, reproduction. The phrase "necessary evil" (E&A 243) used by Malleus Maleficarum comes up today when slavery in America is taught to high school students. Certain conflicted minds during the era of slavery in America saw the institution as a necessary evil, required to keep the economy running at a moral expense. It seems here that women are just kept around for their birth canals to sustain a population while their evil corruption is tolerated.

A point I found fascinating is how Malleus Maleficarum finds fault in the female creation based on the curvature of a man's rib. It is not enough that females are created from men and thus are second priority and are destined to rule. In addition, they are created from a harshly shaped bone! There are two main functions of the rib bone: protection and allowing us to breath. It is not noted that Eve was taken from such an important part of the human body, but that she was taken by a curved part of the human body, making her intrisically flawed. The only straight bones of the human body i know are the bones of the extremities, and if Eve were taken from one of those Adam would have been terribly disfigured, making a slightly awkward genesis 2 story. This point of explanation for inferiority seems like the most makeshift one we've seen yet, and proves that the men writing this must have had incredible insecurity issues.

Augustine

Apparently the problem of reconciling Genesis 1 and 2 is not a recent struggle. Reading Augustine's attempts at integrating the two creations really gives me a feeling of timelessness when it comes to this story, as I feel like he could have been sitting in our class pitching his ideas when we discussed contradictions of the stories, and completely fit in. His ideas about a "spiritual creation" are very interesting and fit well when trying to reconcile the differences in the stories.

He goes on to comment about circumastances of Adam and Eve's sin and their punishments. Characterizing the fall of man is probably one of the most important things when considering the notion of original sin. Augustine takes the sin beyond the simple act of dibobeying god's word. He asserts that Adam and Eve's sin also comes from not being able to admit their wrongdoing. It is the innate human sense of pride, to shift blame from oneself, that is their born quality of sin. What reason did Adam and Eve have to know morality or right and wrong. They were told not to do something and they did it. If they were created without any sense of human pride they would have confessed to their wrongdoing. It is, then, the pride that even the first humans were born with that constitues original sin.

It is also interesting to note, if looking at the issue of pride, that it seems to be a unifying force for the man and woman. Countless interpretations speak of the woman as the origin on sin (even later in Augustine's writing), and the man as this "innocent bystander." Augustine's mention of pride seems to put Adam and Eve on the same level for a nanosecond, and recognize them both as possessing a negative human trait.

In my eyes, these implications are huge. Original sin pretty much assumes that something went wrong with creation. God attempted to make humankind in his image, but somehow incorporated a fatal flaw in all of us. Original sin seems like a confession that our creation is somehow not 100% godlike.

Spong takes an interesting stab at original sin by very bluntly opposing the creation story as fact in favor of evolution. Therefore, the original humans could not have literally passed this sin onto all of humanity. According to Spong, all human nature at least has the potential to be intrinsically good, as it is not doomed by original sin. Jesus throughout time assumes a role of savior to perpetuate the notion of original sin. Spong takes a popular view that sin is used by christianity as a form of guilt to increase its power and reach. On a personal note, i feel that humanity in its essence is the state of nonperfection. Our definition as human is an embodiment of our ability to recognize our own shortcomings and sins. To me it is not as important to define that we are born with "original sin," but to note that we are born with the capacity to recognize sin.