Readers Reply

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Thinking About Important Things

I really enjoy reading your magazine, and particularly the Letters to the Editor. The magazine makes me think about things that are important; the letters tell me what others have thought about those things.

Offended by BR’s Cover

I am greatly offended by the cover picture of your June issue.

We have children in our home and the first exposure to naked men and women they’ve had is through your magazine. You probably call it art, but even Adam and Eve had more sense than you. At least they covered their nakedness, whereas yours is clearly seen.

As for the article on Adam and Eve (Pamela J. Milne, “Eve and Adam—Is a Feminist Reading Possible?” BR 04:03), I’m sorry such a carnal and degrading article was even written by a woman. This is not a Bible Review, it is unholy propaganda. I realize now what is missing in Bible Review: Spiritual guidance.

Cancel my subscription immediately. I’ll be praying for you. Please clean up your magazine.

A Feminist Reading Will Eventually Triumph

A hearty mazel tov [congratulations] is due you for the latest issue of Bible Review (BR 04:03). The magazine keeps getting better and better.

I write now in reaction to the fine article by Pamela J. Milne, “Eve and Adam—Is a Feminist Reading Possible?” BR 04:03. Despite her gloomy conclusion, I believe progress is not only possible but inevitable in the Christian community. Previous generations of male chauvinist scholarship notwithstanding, a feminist reading happens to be the only way to read the Hebrew text of Genesis convincingly and authentically.

First, as even Milne seems to agree, the magnificent liturgical poem in Genesis 1:1–2:4a cannot be read as sexist; the human image of God is “male and female,” with no hierarchical differentiation. This immediately puts the lie, of course, to David Jobling’s questionable notion (as reported by Milne) that ancient Israel, as a patriarchal society, could never have accepted “as a basic myth of human origins” a nonsexist creation account In point of fact, it did. It continued in its patriarchalism despite the lofty vision in Genesis 1:1–2:4a, just as early Christianity accepted Paul’s “neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free” as sacred text and, then proceeded to develop an anti-Judaic “teaching of contempt” and to uphold the validity of slavery for almost two millennia.

Just as the Christian and Jewish communities finally, when they felt they had to, found was to hold the biblical texts sacred despite their apparent sanction of slavery (the Hebrew Bible mitigates its practice, “for you were slaves in Egypt,” but does not attack it in principle), so too can we find, if the will is there, the biblical resources to fight the deeply sexist character of modern society. Jobling’s “deconstructionist’ response and Milne’s pessimistic conclusion are thus for me not an answer, but simply an unnecessary abdication of the necessary struggle to free the sacred text. In my view, Genesis 2:4b–3:24 (with which Milne’s article is really concerned) is not part of the problem, but properly understood, a great deal of the solution.

This, of course, puts me in the camp of the “reformers,” in Milne’s quite accurate taxonomy. But then, as someone whose life has been devoted to the historically tenuous notion that Jews and Christians, out of the integrity of their own faith claims, can move toward reconciliation and mutual respect after the Crusades and the Inquisition, the pogroms and the death camps, I suppose my optimism is at least consistent, if not logically overwhelming to Milne.

Phyllis Trible’s affirmative exegesis of Genesis 2–5 was not the first It was anticipated (though in less detail) in the 1920s by Edith Stein, recently named “Blessed” by Pope John Paul II in an official ceremony in Germany. Stein, who understood 007Hebrew, argued that the phrase ezer k’negdo in Genesis 2:18b means literally, “a helper as if vis-à-vis to him” (Essays on Woman, p. 59). It should be translated, she felt, as “equal opposite” in all significant abilities and potentialities.^a Thus, Stein, like Trible, rightly perceived male domination as attributable to fallen human nature and therefore as a “disorder” to be rectified, a sign of the persistence of evil in the world to be oppose by believers.

Second, Milne is too pessimistic in concluding that “there is little evidence to show that there is great interest, either in scholarly or in popular circles, in transcending the sexism of the [biblical] text” (p. 39). Father Jerome Walsh’s more than decade-old article notwithstanding, I have found indications of growing interest. The appearance of Milne’s article in Bible Review is just one such indicator.

Published in the same year as Father Walsh’s brief essay was a major work by a leading Catholic biblical scholar, Bruce Vawter, On Genesis: A New Reading (Doubleday, 1977). Vawter’s exegesis of Genesis 1–3, based on the original Hebrew, is very much along the lines of Trible’s. Vawter correctly notes, with reference to Genesis 1:27, that only of humanity “is it specified that God created them male and female,” i.e., as an image of God. He translates ezer k’negdo as “suitable partner,” and stresses that the author intends to portray a relationship of “equality” as the proper ordering of creation. Not coincidentally, the New American Bible, translated by the Catholic Biblical Association for use by Catholics (and approved by the bishops for use in Catholic liturgy), also translated the phrase as “suitable partner,” hardly a sexist reading of the text. Further, Vawter insists that, for the biblical author, both the pains of childbearing and the historic treatment of women by men as “chattels” are “due to no initial intention of a beneficent God,” but rather to “a disorder (in the universe) derived from human mismanagement.”

These, it should be emphasized, are “mainstream” Catholic views, not peripheral ones. Other examples could be multiplied from materials prepared for use by Catholic religious educators around the country. So while it is much too early to declare the battle over the interpretation of Genesis 1–3 “won” by feminism, it is equally too early to declare defeat. Truly meaningful, lasting change takes time.

Deconstruction Destroys

After reading “Eve and Adam—Is a Feminist Reading Possible?” BR 04:03, I understand what Jesus meant when he said, “Gag at a gnat and swallow camel.”

Also analyze the use of the word, “deconstruction.” If something is “deconstructed” it is destroyed. So is Scripture.

Does Apostolic Teaching Permit a Feminist Reading of the Creation Story?

I have just finished reading “Eve and Adam—Is a Feminist Reading Possible?” BR 04:03. If one accepts the Apostles as authoritative, and writing under divine inspiration, then the answer must be an unequivocal “No!”

The Apostles consistently represent woman’s natural, God-given place to be one of dignity, but under the authority of man (see 1 Corinthians 11:3, 7, 8, 14:33–36; Titus 2:5; Ephesians 5:21; Colossians 3:18; 1 Timothy 2:11–14, etc.).

Despite modern ideas on the subject; there is no ground for compromise, between “feminism” and the clear apostolic teaching on the relationship between men and women. That is especially so because the male-female relationship is the very picture of the Lord’s relationship to His Church. That simply cannot be tampered with without unraveling the very fiber of the Christian’s union with the Lord.

In the final analysis, the Scriptures themselves resist every attempt to read our own “modern feminist” ideas into them. This is the real reason why ‘feminist” interpretations of Scripture are not taken seriously. They simply don’t deserve to be.

So where does that leave us? Simple. Men and women can believe in the truthfulness of the apostolic teaching and live by it (that means men ‘loving their wives as their own bodies” and women ‘subjecting themselves to their husbands”), or they can reject Christ’s own vision for His Church. Rebel if you must; but stop trying to make the Bible say something it doesn’t say.

The Deeper Meaning of the Creation Story

I feel sympathy with the predicament raised by Pamela Milne in her article, “Eve and Adam—Is a Feminist Reading Possible?” BR 04:03. If the Bible is intrinsically misogynistic, how can a woman accept the Bible’s authority? I would like to offer an approach suggested by the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), whose tricentennial is this year.

God, in speaking to the people of an earlier era, allowed His prophets to speak from their cultural assumptions. If He had not, those people could not have understood His message at all. Nevertheless, God guided the way in which the prophets wrote, so that at a deeper, symbolic level, the Bible contains universal truths not limited by our experiences and attitudes.

We might compare the way a parent speaks to a two-year-old, a ten-year-old and an eighteen-year-old. His message remains the same, but the accommodation varies.

Swedenborg states that ha ’adam is a symbol for humankind, male and female. The woman stands for our free will. God created us free so that we can love Him. But being free, we may also choose to turn away from God. We can decide what is good and evil apart from God. This is the woman giving the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to ha ’adam.

“The letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). By looking into the spiritual, symbolic meaning of the Bible, we can rise above the cultural limitations of the past, and hear what God really means to teach us by the Eden parable.

Did Sexist Interpretation of the Creation Story Come from Christianity?

The sexist presuppositions with which Pamela Milne describes the Adam-Eve story (“Eve and Adam—Is a Feminist Reading Possible?” BR 04:03) all came from Christian interpretation. It is interesting to note that every authority she quotes as expressing anti-feminist views based on the Creation story was associated with Christianity: the New Testament (Timothy), the Church Fathers (Tertullian, Ambrose), medieval Christian scholars (Aquinas, Kraemer, etc.), founders of Protestant sects (Luther, Calvin) and modern Christian priests (Walsh).

It is noteworthy that Milne did not cite a 009single Jewish authority—Talmudic, medieval or modern—that expressed a belief in male superiority derived from the Adam-Eve story. Of course not. Jewish scholars read the Bible in the original and within its context. They know the meaning of ezer k’negdo—a help corresponding to him.

The Hebrew Bible should not be blamed for Christian misinterpretation.

Feminists suffering religious crises about “patriarchal interpretation” of the Bible have overlooked some very matriarchal aspects of the Hebrew Scriptures. One glaring example is found in Genesis (21:12), where Abraham is enjoined by God to obey Sarah (shma b’kola). Nowhere in the 38 books of the Hebrew Bible is a woman importuned by God to obey her husband. The Hebrew Bible is rife with stories illustrating the influence and power of women, from the matriarchs to Deborah to Esther.

Reading the Two Genesis Stories as One

I am a Christian who reads the Bible prayerfully. I view the creation story as a myth that has been blessed by God for our edification—a tale told in a language that is understandable by our lesser intellectual capabilities, but nonetheless as God wishes us to deal with this immense mystery. I also believe that God continues to be with us, shedding new light on old mysteries to make them more understandable in our ever-changing view of the earth. Thus, as we come to accept that women are indeed equal to men, we can imagine the two creation stories (Genesis 1:1–2:4a and Genesis 2:4b–3:24) as really being one with an elaboration.

God created a being in His image, male and female (one being in both genders), to be later separated into man and woman.

I suggest that Genesis be studied from the perspective of the genders being totally equal. There is nothing I read in the Bible that disturbs me from this concept.

What Was Never Lost Does Not Need to be Reclaimed

Let me get this straight Pamela J. Milne and other “revolutionary” feminist Bible critics would have us jettison the first chapters of Genesis from the Hebrew and Christian canons of Scripture, fearing that the story of Adam and Eve is an “apparently non-reformable patriarchal text” (“Eve and Adam—Is a Feminist Reading Possible?” BR 04:03). This seems to me a classic example of missing the forest for the trees, of losing the whole in a minute examination of the pan. The sweep of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is to demonstrate for all of us the grace of a God who would save us from our own destruction, even though we deserve the hell we have made. Without the first three chapters of Genesis, none of the rest of the Scripture makes any sense.

Like many zealots, Ms. Milne purports to speak for a group who do not recognize her as their leader. “Can this story [Eve and Adam] be reclaimed for women? Can feminist analysis … make it a positive spiritual resource for women?” she asks. Well, Ms. Milne, most Jewish and Christian women never “lost” this story, and most of them find it a “positive spiritual resource” as it is, and will continue to do so for some time to come.

If we insist that the Bible be made to fit our conceptions of What Is Wrong with the World, we will be disappointed. If we accept its overriding message and humble ourselves before God, we will become the whole human beings we all must become in order to live together, forgiving each other, and changing the world for the better. Ms. Milne seems to know a lot about the Bible, but I am afraid she does not know the Bible.

New Testament Theology Is an Extension of Old Testament Theology

In the article by Rolf Rendtorff, “Must ‘Biblical Theology’ Be Christian Theology?” BR 04:03, I found an interesting dichotomy. I agree that the emphasis on the need for a study of Old Testament theology is appropriate. There is, however, much Old Testament theology which is left intact in the New Testament, for instance the Decalogue, the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4, 5) and the command to love your neighbor. In fact these latter two commands are the ultimate categories for any biblical theology, the love of God being primary to the love of neighbor.

However, to speak of Old Testament and New Testament theologies as separate 044absolutes is a false dichotomy. The interpretation and application of the Hebrew Bible by the Apostles for the new community is as legitimate and necessary as the interpretation and application of the Mosaic Law by the later Prophets. Yet we would think it inappropriate and unfounded to speak of “Prophetic Theology” versus “Mosaic Theology” as if this were a legitimate dichotomy. In fact the theology of Jesus and the Apostles, which was understood by the Church, is “Hebrew Theology.”

The crux of the tension lies in the failure of Judaism to accept the New Covenant. If Jesus and the Apostles were indeed inspired, then their interpretation is legitimate “Biblical Theology” built upon Moses and the Prophets. If these are not inspired, then one could properly speak of New Testament and Old Testament Theology. But John the Baptist and Jesus were Old Testament prophets and therefore are in continuity with the Hebrew Bible. Since the Apostles and early Church built their theology on these men, they too are in continuity with the Hebrew Bible. As a result we have two (actually several) covenants but one Bible and one Theology Proper.

An Original Hebrew Matthew?

In his review of Professor Howard’s book, The Gospel of Matthew According to a Primitive Hebrew Text (Bible Books, BR 04:03), Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen makes some interesting points, but in no way supports his claim that the Shem-Tob Matthew is simply a “free translation” into Hebrew (with puns, alliterations, etc.) of an already canonized Greek (or Latin) text.

The only plausible circumstance that would have motivated such a “translation” would be the desire of a convinced Christian to conduct missionary work among Jews. But it is hardly plausible to assume that such a person would have produced a “de-Christianized” translation from which such major Christian doctrines as the Trinity, the Virgin Birth and the Church as an institution had been removed. (Compare Matthew 1:23, 16:18 and 28:19 in Shem-Tob with the canonical Matthew.) Nor would such a person, working from what he considered a sacred canon, have bothered to correct, in a mere translation, an outright error that he may have discovered during the course of his work (i.e., Matthew 27:9, where the Shem-Tob text correctly attributes to Zechariah the “thirty pieces of silver” prophecy that the canonical gospel mis-attributes to Jeremiah).

Finally, given the centuries-long history of Jewish-Christian polemics, it is hardly likely that a hypothetical translator, even as early as the second or third century, would have bothered to tone down a sacred gospel text. (For that matter, why would Rabbi Shem-Tob have bothered to work with a “toned-down” version of Matthew when the canonical one was so readily available for him to use?)

In short, Professor Cohen’s assertion that the Shem-Tob Matthew is simply a “free translation” of an already canonized Greek (or Latin) text appears to be far less tenable than Professor Howard’s thesis that the gospel was, in fact, an independent composition, probably dating to an early period of Christian history when the “Mother Church” in Jerusalem was still dominant, and born-Jews still constituted the bulk of its membership.

Did Jesus Accept the Law?

I appreciated but disagree with Professor Shaye J. D. Cohen’s enlightening review of Professor Howard’s book, The Gospel of Matthew According to a Primitive Hebrew Text (Bible Books, BR 04:03). Cohen suggests that the Hebrew Matthew “tones down” what must have been an original Greek text’s criticism by Jesus of the [Jewish] law. This Hebrew text tones down Jesus’ criticism so the Jews could argue in the polemical debates of that day that “if Jesus did not reject the law, why do Christians reject it?”

A close reading of the Gospels—in Greek or Hebrew—indicates that Jesus’ rejection was of certain sectarian traditions of the scribes and Pharisees, not the Torah itself. In sharp contrast to Christians a generation after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C. E., the earliest believers in Jesus as Messiah (Nazarenes) did not reject Torah.

For example, after declaring that not even the merest yod [the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet; iota in Greek] of Torah was revocable, Jesus commends those who observe and teach Torah, saying they “will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). Furthermore, some 20 years after establishment of the Christian (Nazarene) sect, about 53 C. E., it was yet said that thousands of Jewish Christians were “zealots for the law (Torah)” (Acts 21:20).

It was about 90 C. E., as church and synagogue went their separate ways, with the ascendancy of rabbinic Judaism and gentile Christianity, that Christians rejected the law, but not in any case due to the example of Jesus or the earliest Christians.

More on Ebla

How about an update on Ebla’s “El” and “Ya”?

It’s in the works.—Ed.

Home as a Context for Bible Study

In your Fall 1987 issue you encouraged readers to share information about effective informal study formats (Bible Books, BR 03:03).

I believe it is in the family unit that one’s faith must be evident and real. Bible study in the home is the primary way to learn the Scriptures and the church/synagogue should be the complement.

In fact, in the Old Testament the parents are given the responsibility to teach their children (Deuteronomy 6:6–7), and in the New Testament the unfeigned faith of Timothy was credited to the mother and grandmother rather than the local church.

Bible Review Is Unique

Bible Review is truly unique. The historical insights, placement of cultural contexts and explanation of linguistic differences add greatly to my understanding of Scripture. Thanks for a great magazine.

Thinking About Important Things
I really enjoy reading your magazine, and particularly the Letters to the Editor. The magazine makes me think about things that are important; the letters tell me what others have thought about those things.