NOTE: This post is divided into three sections of increasing complexity to suit all reader’s tastes. Stop reading when you’ve had enough.
The Short Explanation
Over at Patriactionary, the author of “Eve’s Curse” thinks that Matt Cochran’s Twitter thread is a real banger (and, probably, his blog post too). Cochran explains that the real issue with women is that Eve is trying to subvert her curse by sinfully desiring to control the men in their lives. “What curse?,” you say. This one:
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
The crowd at Patriactionary is very impressed by Cochran’s argument that married and unmarried women are sinning by trying to subvert Eve’s Curse—the one about her husband ruling over her—over the men in their lives.
I was, umm, less impressed.
Commenters (and possibly readers) Jason and Bardelys have suggested making explanations that are easy for anyone to follow. So before my longer explanations, I’ll try a short-and-sweet approach.
Since women are sinful when they try to subvert the curse of men ruling their lives, then everyone must agree that it is sinning when…
- …women subvert the curse of painful labor by using epidurals.
- …men subvert sweaty field work by working a desk job in A/C.
- …men subvert the punishment of having to eat plants by enjoying them or by eating mostly meat. Terrible-tasting veganism for all men!
After all, they did all these things before the Fall, only now it hurts.
It’s just as absurd to say that women who try to control their husbands are sinning because they’ve failed to enthusiastically embrace Eve’s Curse.
See you in the comments below!
The Moderate Explanation
For anyone who is still with me, and wants to know why the above is correct and is okay with a somewhat longer explanation, let’s see what Cochran has to say on his blog:
The clear implication here is that Eve is meant to be Adam’s helper, but Adam is most certainly not Eve’s helper. She was made for him. She’s “the help.”
Cochran’s viewpoint relies on this exact understanding of “helper”. His entire argument is predicated on Adam already having rulership over Eve prior to the Fall because God gave Eve to him as her helper. If “helper” means something else, the rest of his argument does not logically follow (i.e. it’s wrong).
But, since we just talked about how “helper” doesn’t mean that in the previous post, we can begin a short refutation with this review:
The word translated “helper” in Genesis 2:18 is used in the Old Testament as a military term that refers to that of an ally, rather than that of a subordinate, with no connotation of an implied difference in power or authority.
…
The testimony of nature confirms God’s original plan of unity in the Garden of Eden found in the Old Testament, and is further revealed by Paul in the New Testament. Fallen mankind longs for authority because of the curse of the Fall and the loss of God’s image, but Christ has restored our potential for unity, restoring the image of God in every Christian man and woman without distinction (including for sex):
Ephesians 4:24 Colossians 3:10-11 Galatians 3:27-28
“…put on the new self, which has been created in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
You have put on the new self that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it , in which there is neither “Greek and Jew,” “circumcision and uncircumcision,” “barbarian,” “Scythian,” “slave,” or “free”—but Christ is all and in all!
“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female , for you all are one in Christ Jesus.”
Authority is no longer attractive, for it has been replaced by unity, as originally intended.
The curse has been ended. The image of God has been restored in mankind through Christ, the new Adam. In Christ, the previous contention between male and female is no more. Men were not created to rule over women, they were created to ally with them in marriage in unity, described as one flesh. After the fall, mankind was cursed. Part of the curse was that husbands would rule over their wives.
Some proponents of headship will claim that the curse is normative, that is, mandatory with no possible redemption from it. By this argument, wives must submit because it is part of their curse and also because it is for their benefit as much as a punishment.
This completely obliterates the redemptive power of Christ to end the punishment of sin once and for all.
See? I told you Cochran’s argument was wrong.
Well, that’s it. Pack it in. See you in the comment section?!?
The Long Explanation
For those still with me for that long, detailed explanation, let’s return to the core of Cochran’s argument:
We will be examining the two claims underlined in blue that reference scripture itself. The part about Adam still being in charge begs-the-question and we already addressed it above anyway, so we need not concern ourselves with that. As for the final claim, we already agree that the curse replaced unity with conflict. We believe that the curse was descriptive (rather than prescriptive) as a consequence of sin and that, to the extent that we can live in the world but not of it, any personal obligations under the curse ended with Christ’s redemption.
At issue here are two Hebrew words: the noun teshuqah and the preposition el. Unsurprisingly, Cochran prefers the translation of this as “your desire shall be” and “contrary to” (respectively), while also presumptively assuming that the sense is antagonistic: the woman opposes the man’s right rule.
While “Ambiguity in the Bible” is incredibly common, it is even more of an issue in this verse, which makes us naturally suspicious of Cochran’s assumptions. Let’s illustrate this by contrasting Cochran’s preferred translation with an alternative found in George Lamsa’s English translation from the Aramaic Peshitta—from a culture very similar to that of the time of Christ—:
Notice how Cochran’s assumption is gone? There is a reason for that. In the book “Hard Sayings of the Bible”, Kaiser, et al. wrote (emphasis added):
The Septuagint translates the word as apostrephó in Genesis 3:16. The standard Liddell, Scott and Jones lexicon gives the sense of apostrephó as turning away from all others to turn towards a single person. It may be translated ‘to turn away’, ‘turn back’, ‘incites…to rebellion’, ‘put…back’, and ‘remove’. It has the sense of changing direction, including turning away and turning back, that is, replacing or rejecting something for something else. It may be positive (i.e. restore), neutral, or negative (i.e. rebel).
From the 2nd century B.C. Septuagint, one might verbosely translate Genesis 3:16 as:
This translation from the Greek of the Septuagint (which Jesus used!) is identical in meaning to the Lamsa translation. Whatever else we may say, the wife moved in a broad sense from independence (equality? unity?) towards dependence (inequality? disunity? disharmony?); towards submitting and being ruled from its opposite. It represents a change of direction, a turning.
John Chrysostom, a native Greek-speaker writing in the late 4th century, agreed with this in Homily 26 on 1 Corinthians 11:3:
…
But when she made an ill use of her privilege and she who had been made a helper was found to be an ensnarer and ruined all, then she is justly told for the future, “your turning shall be to your husband” (Genesis 3:16).
Chrysostom believed that it was not until after the Fall of Mankind that rule and subjection was made mention.
After the rise of Roman Catholicism, the connotation of desire took root, perhaps derived in part from Jewish rabbinic midrashic interpretations. The error would spread wide and far, including incorporation into most English translations.
Hebrew scholar Andrew Macintosh argues the word does not mean ‘desire’ at all:
By translating it as devotion, the focus of this passage refers to the woman making the man the center of her world, so to speak: being dependent on him. As for whether this speaks of a woman seeking control, the evidence strongly militates against that possibility. Much more likely is a translation like this:
But if we want to take a more neutral rendering, to account for the generality and ambiguity of the Hebrew language, we could also render it like this:
It was not until 2016 when the tide changed. The ESV changed officially to become the first major modern English translation to capture the sense of turning. But, unlike many earlier non-English translations, the English translation presumes a strongly negative connotation (i.e. ‘contrary’) as opposed to a more descriptive and neutral connotation (i.e. dependent) seen in the Lamsa translation.
In light of the ambiguity, we can explain the curse in one (or more) of the following ways:
(1) A woman turns away from all others to focus on her husband, and by extension, her family. This makes sense: having children will be difficult and painful, but she will do it anyway. In ANE culture, when a woman had children (especially sons!), she had them for her husband. So, she is cursed to seek that very thing which causes her pain. And if she doesn’t have children, that will also be a curse. She’s ‘damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t’.
(2) A woman turns away from all others to focus on her husband, and he benefits from her submission. She is cursed to be harshly ruled over, despite that devotion.
(3) A woman turns away from all others to focus on her husband, becoming utterly dependent on him. Her loss of independence is her curse.
There are a number of options, and presuming any one in particular requires a very good reason.
Let’s look at “contrary to” in more detail, as well as address Cochran’s point about Cain, by referencing material from this link (which I had already cited above). The following is critical:
The author of this concluded from this that the antagonistic (i.e. “contrary to”) interpretation in Genesis 3:16 was thus not possible, because it lacked the necessary equivalent hostile context. His analysis implies that Cochran’s preferred “desire to control her husband” viewpoint is not a valid explanation. This isn’t to say that a woman can’t desire to control her husband (of course she can!), but that Genesis 3:16 isn’t—and cannot be—speaking to that issue.
[Aside…]
A primary source for the “desire to control her husband” argument comes from Susan T. Foh—a woman and proponent of complementarianism—in “What is the Woman’s Desire?” WTJ 37 (1975): 376-83. The TGC explains:
Remember what I said about ambiguity? That Cochran’s patriarchal viewpoint is the one used by female complimentarians is probably ringing alarm bells in some people reading this.
[…End Aside]
But this only considers where the woman is the antagonist. What about where the man is antagonistic?
Consider the interpretation that the wife seeks to control her husband while her husband rightfully seeks to put her under control. By the argument above, this is not a valid interpretation, because the context (the husband) is not antagonistic, so the preposition cannot be antagonistic (i.e. against). However, if and only if the husband’s rulership over the wife is itself antagonistic (and morally wrong), then the wife’s rebellion can also be antagonistic (i.e. against her husband). This doesn’t tell us whether the wife’s actions are good or bad, only that it opposes the husband. If the wife’s rebellion is good (or neutral), it would mean the husband’s rule is abusive (in a general sense). If the wife’s rebellion is bad, it would mean that both husband and wife are living in disharmony. Both interpretations are compatible with the notion that it is a curse. It’s ambiguous. The only possibility that is logically excluded is Cochran’s viewpoint.
Additionally, the quoted analysis above shows that Genesis 4:7-8 is not a parallel to Genesis 3:16. Genesis 4:7 is probably the primary reason one might interpret Genesis 3:16 as the wife being antagonistic over the husbands valid rule, but it doesn’t work for the reasons stated.
The discussion so far has focused on the wife and her motivations, and whether or not her devotion was part of her curse. Less attention has been spent on whether the husband’s heavy rulership is also part of the curse. In my research, I’ve found that whenever I assume the husband’s rulership is part of the curse (rather than part of the solution), it flexibly pairs up with the ambiguity of the passage, that is, it widens the lexical and semantic scope of the Hebrew language used.
In light of the ambiguity, if the word can be rendered “contrary to,” I favor the interpretation that both husband and wife will be (wrongly!) grasping at control, resulting in a disharmony that corrupts the designed unity of the one-flesh bond. This is, IMO, the most natural interpretation. Though it suits my biases, I just don’t think it is correct, because it should be “turning towards”, not “desire contrary to.”
By contrast, Cochran’s viewpoint is highly restrictive and lacks any sense of the ambiguity found in the original. It requires knowing precisely the exact and sole meaning of each word, as if the Hebrew language was as precise as the English is. It isn’t.
Whether we prefer “desire to control her husband” (i.e. “desire contrary to”) or ‘single-minded devotion’ (i.e. “turning toward”), the husband’s rulership is still (logically) most likely to be a curse as a result of the fall. When I read Ephesians 5, I don’t get a sense that the following description of a man’s rule is a good thing in a godly marriage…
…and I don’t think Paul—who talked of unity not mastery—did either. Husbands and wives were intended to be in unity, not in competition.
The issues I’ve raised are not unique to feminists, nor are they exclusively modern. Even among those who espouse Christian patriarchy, there is a great difference of opinion. This makes it especially ironic when they all agree on the conclusion, but disagree on how they got there while being completely confident—as is Cochran—that their viewpoint is the only valid one.
As I wrote in “The Context of Genesis 3:16,” there are a host of questions that have to be answered conclusively before one can make dogmatic propositions about the relationship between a man and a woman. Since I wrote that article, I’ve had precisely nobody attempt to answer them.
It’s not just Cochran who has a problem. You can see, in this discussion about Jack’s, Lexet’s, and Bnonn Tennant’s differing views, how difficult it is for different parties to agree on an interpretation. The same thing was true when a bunch of Sigma Frame commenters wrestled with this question. Even when one proponent of Christian patriarchy answers the questions, another will answer them in a different, mutually-exclusive way!
Did you know that Chrysostom—who also states that Eve being a helper means she was not ruled—was a proponent of Christian patriarchy? His ancient form of patriarchy is mutually exclusive with the anachronistic modern form that Cochran and his peers promote.
It’s like a house built on sand. The foundation is not firm and cohesive. The sense of agreement is illusory.
But forget all that. Unless Cochran becomes a hard-core vegan—so as not to try to get around Adam’s Curse—I guess we can just ignore everything he has to say. Right? Off to the comments now…
”Since women are sinful when they try to subvert the curse of men ruling their lives, then everyone must agree that it is sinning when…
…women subvert the curse of painful labor by using epidurals.”
i have been thinking about that for some years now ,but have kept it to myself even in RL.
”See you in the comment section?!?”
Yes the other thing that’s never discussed or even brought up in the ”Christian Manosphere” ,”should it be okay for a MAN i.e. a male OBGYN to ”check” a woman he is not married too?”
Is that not handing(even your very authority with your full approval) over your wife to another MAN?
When women were the ones ”checking” women this needed not to be brought up but ever since the last 150 years or so and especially since hospitols(i knew of relatives who were not born in hospitols at all , before it was the ”correct and proper” thing to do ) went ”mainstream” back in the 30’s it might need to be.
What’s the point of these viewpoints if not even the proponents take them seriously?
When in “the garden” they had all. The Bible says “Adam WALKED with God”
We learn in church and sign in hymns that “Jesus walks with us” and “he carries us” and all the other sappy “touching the weeping face of Jesus” modern praise songs that proclaim this.
In the “new earth” or “New Eden” or “eternity” we will indeed “walk with God, relational, perfect, sinless” for ever and ever, all hail!
In that mean time what of it? We will have trials, there will be sin, injustice, suffering but a HOPE of “what is to come” and to the real believers of “what WILL come”
Cant say I ever had a donkey speak to me. Never saw a burning bush. God *never* spoke to me personally, nor Jesus, nor some angel, or spirit, or “things of the air”
The Bible sets pretty well of HOW we can strive to live to be redeemed and concepts of “fleeing” from sin. Living righteously. All the other trapping that come from this walk with Jesus in the here and now.
If God didnt make “woman” in his image and only from Adam for him to “rule” over her or be “his helper” then we can close the discussion of female agency. She cannot have any ever. She is his “thing” to have sex with. She cannot help what she does because she is not “of God” she is “of man”
She cannot be expected to have any responsibility, or granted any. She is to only help Adam, or man. Nothing else. There is no reason to debate further IOI’s, or attraction, or female nature, because by this thought or idea………it doesnt matter. She isnt of God. She is an “it” and can only be redeemed by a man….because God didnt make her in his image. She is an AI. A fantasy. She is a cardboard cut-out. A manequin. There is no need for Red Pill (christian) or the gazillion books, podcasts, blogs, self-help books, sermons from the pulpit because its a moot point.
She cannot help what she is. A helper made from man…..not of God.
God made them male and female. And too many women in the Bible “as history” did plenty to save their people, lived righteously, and indeed had agency and accountability. Our current world of Game, Red Pill, PUA advocates that they do not, and “cannot”
Still driving sideways. Still making impossible standards for most men to even get or take or find a wife.
And they are perfectly happy with this.
Lastmod,
Your ‘refutation’ is extremely well-said. Also, it is longer than mine (well, the first one anyway). Congrats!
This is worth a reminder for anyone who doubts what you’ve said:
Peace,
DR
Sigma Frame claims that women do have agency….or at least the comments over the years demonstrate this; yet by their own adherence to Game, Frame, PUA….and the gazillion other sets of subset upon subsets they use there……..they dont
Depends who you ask, I guess. It’s notably inconsistent. Say one thing (or both things), demonstrate another. It’s the demonstrate part that proves conclusive and matches what you said.
”Sigma Frame claims that women do have agency….or at least the comments over the years demonstrate this”
As long as your getting high-value, high-quality and consistant iois does it really matter?😉
Animals have free will, and yet were not made in the image of God. A woman does not have to be the image of God to be morally culpable for her sins. Unlike us, God Himself does not sin. Women lacking the image of God in no way means that they don’t have a soul, aren’t human, or that they can’t be redeemed through the death of the perfect son of man and of God. The image of God endows men with a categorical superiority above all of womankind. It is foundational to who we are, and to our significance as His stand-ins.
Matthew 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Mostly retorical statement here.
”It is foundational to who we are, and to our significance as His stand-ins.”
So are you saying all MEN are ”sockpuppets”=symbols=repersenatives of their creator?
{That sounds similar to another concept so many don’t understand yet go heavilly ad-hominim about it.}
This is essentially what GBFM= the GREAT BOOKS FOR MEN(GBFM is not intialized as it should be obvious =self-evident what the letters stand for if one is familiar with the ‘sphere) is the metaphysical repersenative =symbol =image of the collective knowledge of MAN & he comes in many stand-ins or forms throughout history , your MOSES,JESUS ,Homer’s & many others(actually MEN no one has ever heard of are his stand-ins if they are knowledgeable on various subjects).
“Women lacking the image of God in no way means that they don’t have a soul, aren’t human, or that they can’t be redeemed through the death of the perfect son of man and of God. The image of God endows men with a categorical superiority above all of womankind. It is foundational to who we are, and to our significance as His stand-ins.”
This makes zero sense. If women were not made in the image of God…….then they dont have a soul. They dont have free will. They are your “thing” to have sex with and have a robot….and heaven forbid a man has a woman that doesnt ask permission to go to the bathroom you “married the wrong one!”
Make sure you bring you dog, cat, chickens, oxen to church with you….since they have “free will” and need to hear the gospel of Jesus as well…make them take the altar too. They have a choice you know 😉
Also, then there is no purpose for redemption, or women coming to “church”
The man should go, come home and tell his wife what “god” said.
As I go along this path longer its pretty clear:
Most of you just dont like women except for one thing, but cloak yourselves in this blather of “holiness” and following Gods word to the letter, while hating any man that actually has a good marriage.
Lastmod,
The evidence gathered over the years certainly suggests this. I’ve certainly been told to stay in my lane regarding any thoughts I might have on marriage, to stand aside so that those with failed marriages can speak about the important topics.
Do they actually like women? I wonder, what did Sharkly’s wife think when she found at that she was a land animal? I can’t imagine she would have taken that well. At least she wasn’t a land whale!
What a bunch of foolish rambling.
Those who promote God’s holy institution of Patriarchy (father rule) start from a God-published conclusion that wives should be in subjection to their husbands. (thereby she acts in unity with him)
God made the man first and preeminent, in God’s own image, then He made the woman for the man to be a “help” to “meet” the man’s requirements.
That seems pretty simple, if you are willing to accept God’s word for it. The woman was made to serve the man just as the man was made to serve God.
Colossians 2:8(NET) Be careful not to allow anyone to captivate you through an empty, deceitful philosophy that is according to human traditions and the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form,
All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form in the “Son of Man”, Jesus Christ. He does not need any female counterpart to be the complete image of God.
Colossians 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
Jesus Christ is the first man, the image of God, and the “Last Adam”. God does not call Jesus the last Adam and Eve, only the Last Adam. And all of God is exhibited through His masculine being. All power and dominion and authority are His, none was exclusive to women or to Christ’s bride. All dominion is rightfully masculine, from the Father to the Son and then to men. Cosmologically speaking any female’s authority is either subdelegated authority from a man, or else a usurpation against God’s divine order. (1 Corinthians 11:3)
God tells us through the Psalmist that in the beginning one single man was given dominion over all creation.
Psalm 8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 For thou hast made him [not them] a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him [not them] with glory and honour.
6 Thou madest him [not them] to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his [not their] feet:
7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
Your idea that women were not under men’s dominion until they were cursed for defiling themselves and men, is unbiblical. The woman was made from Adam, and for Adam, and she owed her allegiance and submission to the man she came from, whom we are clearly told had been given dominion over all of the works of God’s hands.
Was the woman not a work of God’s hands? Were not all things put under Adam?
Your granting of undue worth-ship (to be obeyed) to women is foolishness! (and repeating Adam’s original sin) Womankind was not made equal to men and are not now equal to men. They were created to be under men’s God-imaging dominion. Adam named her kind “woman”, before her curse, and then named her “Eve” when she started reproducing. Adam is never recorded as asking Eve for a name, because she never ever had any headship over his person. Even today the wife gets her last name from her husband, unless she’s a rebellious usurper.
Sharkly,
I’ve been considering a new policy whereby I edit any comments that contain any attacks/insults (i.e. ad hominem) that fail to address the ideas raised, replacing them with obnoxious editorial notes. Since, by definition, it isn’t viewpoint discrimination it doesn’t go against my strict anti-viewpoint-censorship stance.
Perhaps then, commenters who have trouble focusing on the issues (instead of personal motivations) will feel suitably disciplined and fix their maladaptive and fallacious behavior.
What is your opinion of this?
I think it has a nice ring to it.
Oh, and for the record, it was an irrelevant attack…
…so it would be, umm, foolish to say otherwise. On the other hand…
…was not an attack, but actually addresses what was written.
Peace,
DR
Not foolish at all. God made man, made a helper for the man, took a rib frm the man to make eve.
Woman is not created by God, woman was created out of man. Women were made to be his helper. Women cannot have agency or free will they are not of God, they must obey….and if they dont “muh feminism”
If they do? A man must watch, at all times because she will try upsur his authority at any possible moment
What horrible, sad lives and a curse to live under….and yet spending all your time trying to “Game” and “get” and have sex wit this “thing” that was not created in Gods image or likeness.
Animals dont have free will.
Lets cut the foolish talk now. I grew up in the country. Aunts and uncles who worked and owned small dairy farms.
I don’t much care to debate animal agency. There are folks online who have written volumes debating free will and agency. But I would point out that when one animal (Balaam’s donkey) was empowered to speak (recorded in Numbers 22) she immediately mounted a moral defense of her actions. Take it from an ass! 😉
And yes, the woman was created by God from Adam’s rib.
You’d probably find it funny but according to an apocryphal writing I once read, all the animals and people originally spoke Hebrew, but, if I recall correctly the animals were all struck dumb for not raising their voices to warn Adam by crying out against the Woman and the Serpent’s mischief. And then all the other human languages were later created at Babel.
You brought up animals. Not me.
As for The Apocrypha, if it was the inspired “word of god” it would have made official Cannon.
My father told me that in Poland in the Catholic Church, on Christmas Eve it was taught from the pulpit that “animals have the ability to speak and praise and testify the birth of Jesus and adore his holy mother Mary at midnight”
We know this isnt true. Is it something to tell children? Perhaps. Again, this is all coming down to Jesus….what did he say?
“let what God has brought together not be destroyed” He did not say “But only if you wife isnt hot anymore / isnt having sex with you on command / didnt have your dinner on the table when you came home
Even Solomon supposedly the “wisest man who ever lived” mentioned that one “should stay single rather than to be married to a contentious wife.” He didnt say “if your wife is contentious tell her Jesus loves her, but get a wife who will follow you, accept you as Master and will glorify god through you”
Some men made bad choices when “taking” a wife. They have to live with those consequences sadly. Just I live with mine.
Being a former addict
I can be “good” forever and ever…..doesnt matter. Many women…and men view me as filth. Untrustworthy, and “once an addict, always an addict” and if a woman doesnt want a man like that…..I cannot be “mad” at her.
Its called the consequences of sin. Sin takes many forms and sin causes destruction. My car can get in a wreck, it can be fixed, but the resale value of it still drops like a lead ballon. Sure……it can sell. Sure, its repaired, it works. Does the job…but expecting it hold a value like it did before the wreck, or the same vehicle that did not have one……well?
Sin is like this in many cases, and countless situations. As varied as the human experience. My addiction in many areas wrecked me from and for most women that are or were maybe marriage material. Unfair? yes. “how dare they?!” Yes, I did feel that for a long time.
Reality. Sin and sinful behavior in these matters “wrecked” you. Sad but true.
If a man takes a “bad” or “wrong” woman as wife. That is on him. Not “feminism” or “society” or the “cukservatives in the pulpit”
No one made him marry her. Sin is terrible and has wrecked intense havoc on the world. Not much we can do about it.
Again, to quote Jesus. Not Paul, or one of his “letters” or other “saints”
“You will have trouble in this world, but take heart, I have overcome”
He has no choice but to do so, because he thinks women are animals, not humans.
In the Old Testament, the only word for human is “Adam.” If you want to say that women are human, then you have to include women in the masculine singular collective noun Adam, which Sharkly does not do. Thus, he is forced to include women in the category of animals, under which Adam has dominion (very convenient, that).
See Genesis 6:7:
If Adam—translated here as humankind/humans—only means males, but women are actually humans, then God only regretted making male humans, land animals, and birds. He did not regret making plants, fish, or female humans. So much for God preferring men!
Apparently Noah’s Ark didn’t need to include plants, fish, or human females, because these all survived the flood untouched. My guess is that Noah and his male family needed some activity to do involving their female servants during those long nights on the Ark, so they brought the females along anyway.
So, since Sharkly can’t bear to allow the Bible to call women humans, eisegesis rules: women are animals, not humans: and that’s why they were on the ark. Sharkly really has to so twist the words so meticulously chosen by God to arrive at this conclusion.
”He has no choice but to do so, because he thinks women are animals, not humans.”
Like MOD has said before they=the ”leaders” or those who have foght for the ”teacher” positions in the ‘sphere don’t seem to really like their fellow MEN. So why would it be suprising their preventing a return to a more sane world by not liking women either?
Thes same ”leaders & teachers” take no responsiblity for the failing ‘sphere as in being a straight up REAL MANtm and at least say ”my bad brothers-I say very humbly and sorrowfully ”, yet want to be praised too.
But for what?
While they tell other MEN to ”stay in their lane” like a feminist would.
Professor,
In a response to an article where I—and Bruce Charlton—describe Sigma Frame as being feminine, Jack comes over to complain about that designation and so tells me to stay in my lane. It’s beyond parody.
It’s not just that he told me to stay in my line, it’s that he did so on my own blog. My blog is literally my domain of authority.
It’s like when the woke mob got conservatives banned from social media, told them “to start your own social media platform,” and then worked to get the new platform banned by its internet service providers.
As I’ve mentioned to Sharkly time and time and again, Christian patriarchy doesn’t seem to respect a man’s authority within his domain. Per Boxer on Dalrock:
Peace,
DR
Sharkly,
There are only four passages (Ephesians 5:22-23, 1 Peter 3:1, Colossians 3:18-19, 1 Timothy 2:11-12) where you could possibly even claim that God explicitly published that conclusion. Anything else is an inference (i.e. your non-binding personal opinion). None of them are in the Old Testament, and so by the standard of the noble Bereans, I’m inclined to reject your addition to scripture outright. Can you give me any reason or argument why I should do otherwise?
It might be simple, but it’s still incorrect. The Old Testament military term refers to an independent ally, not an underling, so your presumptions on “helper” being a “servant” are incorrect. The best you can hope for is “counterpart” (i.e. men and women are different like two puzzle pieces, but still fitting together. Complementary.).
Are you suggesting that Jesus was a created being, and so comparable to Adam regarding being created in the image of God? Being an image of something means that it isn’t the thing being imaged. I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t continue trying to make this argument.
This seems irrelevant. Jesus was obviously the firstborn of the new creation. Eve—rather obviously—wasn’t firstborn either, she was secondborn. I believe you and I are somewhere billions or trillions down the list on the order of being born.
Wisdom is feminine.
That’s an insufficiently supported assertion. It begs-the-question that Adam isn’t a collective noun which includes both male and female. Consequently, no.
We’ve discussed this before. I reject your insufficiently supported presumption that Adam isn’t a collective noun which includes both male and female. So, no to that too.
And yet, I supported it by citing numerous biblical references without any difficulty or contradiction. Indeed, I found it quite easy to refute some commonly held beliefs about the Old Testament regarding Christian patriarchy.
You are going to have to do much better than merely dismissing the content in the OP if you want me to accept this kind of claim. Presenting your own counter-claims is fine, but since my own claims remain unrefuted, at best you can only hope for stalemate.
No, I agree with Chrysostom’s reasoning on this one.
Can you expand on this with some appropriate scripture references? Thanks. I’ll respond once I understand what you are asking.
Objection: speculation.
Also, since when to you believe “Original Sin” is a valid concept and not a Roman Catholic corruption?
People call others liars all the time. But that doesn’t put you in authority over me. Naming isn’t what you think it is.
Oh, so you’re fine with hyphenated last names then, so long as his name is included?
Peace,
DR
If you admit that there are at least four Bible passages and other Bible inferences that speak of wives’ subjection to their own husbands, then that’s a good start.
I don’t agree with many things John Chrysostom wrote, but then you also don’t agree with some of what he wrote. And when I cite multiple earlier church sources you just write off their agreement as “survivorship bias”.
I personally didn’t say anything about Jesus being “created”. And it is the Bible that calls Jesus Christ the image of God, in Colossians 1:15 and Hebrews 1:3 and calls Him the likeness of God in 2 Corinthians 4:4. Those same things Adam was also called. And Christ is in fact called the “Last Adam”. It isn’t hard to notice those two beings are often compared and contrasted as archetypes that are very similar yet different too.
“All dominion is rightfully masculine” -That’s an insufficiently supported assertion.
(I gave you the reference)
1 Corinthians 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
Did God mistakenly leave some female entity out of his patriarchal chain of command?
I reject your insufficiently supported presumption that Adam isn’t a collective noun which includes both male and female.
And as always you also reject all the masculine singular pronouns too, and terms like “son of man” that you once claimed specifically meant a male. You stubbornly cling to your Feminism, even against the clear words of the inspired text. That doesn’t seem like open minded truth seeking to me.
“Was the woman not a work of God’s hands? Were not all things put under Adam?”
Can you expand on this with some appropriate scripture references?
it was referencing the passage about Adam directly above it:
Psalm 8:6(KJV) Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
or
Psalm 8:6(YLT) Thou dost cause him to rule Over the works of Thy hands, All Thou hast placed under his feet.
Also, since when to you believe “Original Sin” is a valid concept and not a Roman Catholic corruption?
I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m not Roman Catholic, but call it something else if you prefer, like “Adam’s first sin”.
Oh, so you’re fine with hyphenated last names …
That’s not what I said and I think you know that I’m not. I don’t approve of those “cunt-joined” (conjoined) names. Their an insult to the husband and a rebellion against a biblically based tradition. God instituted honorary naming when he let every man be called by the name of the man, Adam (in Hebrew), from whom they all came. In English we are still called “man” and “mankind” in honor of our ultimate human patriarch “the man” first made in God’s image. We are not called after Eve, except perhaps when one of the early church fathers (like Tertullian) wanted to remind women of their sinfulness, he’d call them “Eve” or “daughters of Eve”.
Speaking of Eve’s curse, Tertullian wrote to women: And do you not know that you are Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that [forbidden] tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, Adam. Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die.
We did not do the same thing.
I said “I agree with Chrysostom’s reasoning“, which is an argument based on ideas. Bias led you to commit a fallacy of reasoning when you argued based on the supposed unanimous agreement of historical authorities.
You didn’t, but it is implied by your exegesis. Since your view of the image of God is highly non-standard, the logical consequences of that view are different. It’s fine to compare, contrast, and use archetypes and symbols as others do (e.g. 1 Corinthians 15:49). But, your exegesis goes beyond that, drawing tight inferences, assumptions, and non-figurative conclusions about the image of God re: created earthly humans and divine resurrected Jesus that only you draw in defense of your doctrine.
Since logically you can’t be an image (reflection; shadow) of what you are—you must be an image of something else—a restrictive exegesis will likely lead to heresy or logical fallacy/contradiction.
Yes, you cite that chapter a lot. I have previously responded here, here, here, here, and here.
Your interpretation of kephale is an historical anachronism, so your “masculine dominion” and “chain of command” explanation is fundamentally flawed. Beyond that, you seem to assume that the image of God is not transitive in any sense, that a person can’t have multiple heads, that ‘head’ is in some way related to the image of God, etc. Lots of insufficiently supported assumptions there to derive at your very precise view, where even a single error collapses the whole.
So, nice reference, poor conclusion.
Grammatical gender and biological sex are separate concepts. Tense of collective nouns do not follow the same grammatical rules as non-collective nouns. Doctrine does not determine grammatical explanations (reversing cause/effect leads to circular reasoning). Many of your doctrinal errors stem from these misapplications of language, which I’ve discussed before here.
That’s just ridiculous, based on the really bizarre claim that I worship women. All of this is, of course, completely unsubstantiated because it presumes that you have even the slightest idea what goes on in my head (i.e. what my motivations are), since you lack any outward evidence of that claim. Literally nothing. So, good luck finding a feminist who teaches what I do and agrees with my positions. You will find precisely zero.
I have no problems with the text. It is your personal opinion of the text that is not inspired. Open-mindedness does not require me to accept unsupported assertions, fallacious reasoning, or personal opinion.
You can go back and re-read what I actually said.
Oh, I was hoping there was more to your argument than that. Nevermind. Just click the link just above then to re-read what I wrote. I’d rather not repeat myself.
I do know that. But you needed to admit to yourself that it’s not just about taking her husbands name, every man’s wife has to do more than that to satisfy your personal growing list of requirements, which apparently involves embracing tradition now. You never struck me as a traditional sola ecclesia kind of person, but we can all see you appealing to it. I’ll stick to sola scriptura.
If subverting the curse of Eve is the topic, then firstly we’d need to define what the curse is. And I think I was pointing out that I disagree that part of the woman’s curse was to be placed under the dominion of the man. I believe she was originally created to be under Adam’s dominion, so that her continued subjection is not part of her curse, but a preexisting design of God’s that her curse now causes her to chafe against.
Note that God did not curse his own image and glory, Adam. God cursed the serpent, bodily. God cursed the woman, bodily. And on account of Adam’s sin God cursed the earth from which Adam had been taken prior to being formed into the likeness of God. God did not curse His own image and glory. (1 Corinthians 11:7)
As far as if it is wrong to make efforts to minimize your discomfort, I don’t believe so. But it may lull us into forgetting the judgement of God that those curses remind us of. So, we would be wise to remember God’s judgement, as we strive to live a more obedient life and as we should also teach greater obedience to those who will hearken to our teaching.
sounding more Mormon or Scientology as this progresses…..
By that logic, he didn’t curse Eve either. Indeed, if you read carefully, one can claim that he didn’t curse the serpent, the ground, Eve, or Adam. As I’ve noted elsewhere, Satan ultimately corrupted the earth, not God. So, was Eve’s Curse a prescription or merely a description of the consequences? What about Adam’s Curse?
Cochran made that exact point:
Before the fall, women gave birth without pain. Before the fall, men ate plants without dissatisfaction. Before the fall, men planted and harvested their food without toil, pain, sweat, thorns, or thistles. Before the fall, men ate and did not die. But after the fall, all of these things hurt.
Then it isn’t wrong for a wife to fight against her husband’s rule to minimize her discomfort.
If you believe that God had already put man in charge of woman, but now it’s going to hurt, then you are also forced to accept that it’s sinful to subvert giving birth without pain, sinful to enjoy eating plants, sinful to fail to toil in the fields, and sinful to try to extend your life through medical interventions.
If you claim that removing the hurt is acceptable in every case except for wives, that’s cognitive dissonance known as special pleading. That’s the point of my short explanation in the OP. Your viewpoint makes no logical sense. That’s why no one needs to read the moderate and long explanations, because the short explanation is sufficient to completely wreck that view.
It’s also worth noting that every curse that applies to Adam—humankind—applies to both male and female. I noticed from the language of the curses how meticulous God was to absolutely never exclude women from ‘Adam’. (It’s just as absurd when you do it).
Over at Sigma Frame, Bead Bedroom Dating makes this comment:
So it would seem that at least one person believes that it is sinful (or at least a bad idea) to try to avoid man’s curse of hard, productive manual labor.
Derek Writes: In the Old Testament, the only word for human is “Adam.”
I had previously written that women are human or of the man/Adam, despite not bearing God’s image. But you had to concoct another (Feminism serving) lie against me. I did a quick search engine query to see what Strong’s Hebrew words for human there were, and of the first ten results three were for other Hebrew words for human, mankind or person, besides Adam:
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/582.htm
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/606.htm
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/5315.htm
I don’t want any apology for your error. I just want other people to see that you’ll stoop to making up lies to discredit me, and the concepts I teach, and you’ll publish them with authoritative tone, and claim logical certainty that I am wrong built entirely upon your own ignorant false teaching.
Derek writes: A public declaration of the “sin” of the wife would be an insult to the man who marries this woman, aside from being ridiculous.
You don’t get to define patriarchy. Patri-archy (father-rule) already has a definition. You keep describing a society in which women can’t be corrected by society as your concept of patriarchy. When in fact a society that does not allow for the correction of women would be closer to a matriarchy than a patriarchy.
I’ve lived in a more patriarchal society than the one you live in, and women and children were subject to public correction when they misbehaved. It was assumed that any decent father/husband would want others to correct their wife and kids’ bad behavior on their behalf when they weren’t present to do it themselves. And if the husband ever were present and seemed negligent of correcting his family, they’d have jeered him for being an impotent husband and not correcting his dependents. But you didn’t ever see that happen because no man would have let his charges appear to go uncorrected after they committed an obvious offense seen in public.
Sharkly: “As far as if it is wrong to make efforts to minimize your discomfort, I don’t believe so.”
Derek: Then it isn’t wrong for a wife to fight against her husband’s rule to minimize her discomfort.
Don’t be asinine. God says that “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft”. And that wives are to rightly be under subjection to their husband in everything. God does not grant women any right to disobey His holy order of patriarchy, except if her husband’s orders clearly usurp God’s own applicable commands.
Like a Feminist you seemingly fail to imagine the unity and comfort that can result from a wife fully submitting to her husband as our loving God intends. Not every man is a budding sadist, like you Feminists claim. Part of Eve’s curse was to often miss out on such comfort and peace of mind due to her own second guessing of everything her loving husband instructed.
[This is a response to this comment]
Sharkly,
Do you remember when you said that all the church fathers are unanimous about only men being made in the image of God?
And I responded by saying that your claim was “unlikely?” Then I found two writers—Didymus the Blind and John Chrysostom—who agreed with me. Furthermore, I said:
That’s the infamous—but accurate—survivorship bias comment, which you didn’t comprehend…
…and refused to listen when I tried to correct your complete lack of understanding. Consequently, a great amount of unnecessary distress and false accusation has been caused by that uncorrected misunderstanding.
Now, do you recall when you told me that Origen believed the “heresy” that man lost the image of God? It turns out that Irenaeus does as well in Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 16.2:
Adam lost the similitude, and it was lost until Christ revealed it again and restored it in Christians. This is precisely what I found when I examined scripture for myself. So if mankind lost the image of God, how can we also say that the image of God masculine, when the New Testament clearly describes this restoration of the image of God in Christ as applying to both men and women?
The answer is that God has both masculine and feminine attributes. The Old Testament describes the wisdom of God as grammatically feminine and uses feminine pronouns to describe God’s wisdom, so if the grammatical masculinity of Adam was normative, then God must be both masculine and feminine.
With this in mind, do you know what Irenaeus said in In Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 20.1? Irenaeus, writing of Genesis 1 and 2, identifies the two hands of God the Father: Word and Wisdom, Son and Spirit. That’s the masculine and the feminine.
It is very clear here that he is referring to the creation of both men and women being both created in the image of God—a masculine and feminine God. Irenaeus then said (in Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 38):
To Irenaeus, Jesus fed us as from the milk from the breast, clearly a feminine portrayal of Jesus breast-feeding his followers the Word of God. Irenaeus had no difficulty assigning a distinctly feminine attribute to Christ, and he is not the only church father to equate “this is my body; this is my blood” with Jesus providing milk.
Irenaeus also appears to have been fine with women prophesying.
By my early reading of Irenaeus, I am forced to tentatively conclude that he must have believed that the image of God was not inherently masculine, because God himself was both masculine and feminine. At the very least, he testifies against your extreme claim…
…that to compare Jesus to “womankind” is to take away his glory. Yours is a non-biblical assertion based on a non-biblical concept “masculinity” and a highly questionable—almost unique to you alone—conception of the image of God.
You believe God meticulously set up this arrangement, but you ironically require lots of non-biblical terminology (“womankind”, “masculinity”, “defilers of men”; even “image” as a verb?) to describe it. That’s not the mark of meticulous simplicity (i.e. the Occam’s Razor that you favor).
The patristic fathers of the church were not unanimous about only men being in the image of God. Irenaeus brings the count up to three (at least, my search has been highly limited) of those who did not believe this in the Patristic era.
Perhaps you are under-informed for someone who is making broad statements about unanimous historical opinion?
I wonder if, as I keep researching this topic, eventually your viewpoint will not only fail to be even close unanimous, but fall into a minority opinion.
Peace,
DR
I can’t help it that you still stubbornly & ignorantly misuse the term “survivorship bias”.
Unanimity isn’t really the point, since truth and facts and science aren’t proven by unanimity, or majority opinion. The point is: what does the Bible actually teach us, and then to a lesser degree, what was the doctrine taught by Jesus Christ that was originally handed down through the apostles.
Early church fathers like Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus wrote that Origen was a heretic for his belief that men lost the image of God. And he gave scriptural proofs. No doubt he’d have said the same about Didymus, Origen’s blind pupil.
You keep trying to make a doctrine out of the word “wisdom” being feminine.
But the word “foolishness” is also feminine. Why not make up a doctrine about that?
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/200.htm
The word “sin” is also feminine. Why?
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/2403.htm
We have no reason to believe that the writings of Irenaeus are inspired. And your contention that Irenaeus was teaching us to breastfeed milk from Jesus titties, blasphemously turns the Son of God and Son of man into a hermaphrodite, like Baphomet. Are you now taking up the trans-agenda, and remodeling your god/goddess to suit it? I don’t recall Jesus saying, “If ye love me, suck my tits!”
It is to your own shame, and because of Feminist idolatry that you, seek to feminize God the Father and His Son and their Spirit, who Himself impregnated Mary. God had 66 books in the Bible in which He never chose to speak of Himself using feminine pronouns. He always chose to identify Himself as being masculine, not feminine nor neuter. Why do you insist on misgendering God?
You yourself said that the gender of a word in Greek or Hebrew has nothing to do with gender identity. So why do you then stubbornly ignore God’s own chosen use of masculine gendered pronouns to refer to the Father, the Son, and their Spirit? Or that specific names for God (e.g., Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, Kurios, Theos, etc.) are all in the masculine gender. You’d rather stubbornly imagine your god/goddess to be part female than to give up the naughty bits of your feminist idolatry.
Sharkly,
You do not even understand what survivorship bias is…
…let alone being able to apply it correctly. So let me try a different way to explain what is going on.
————————————————————————–
In my ongoing series on the Eucharist, I’ve found that among the 17 authors I’ve examined so far, almost half—Dionysius, Cornelius, Athanasius, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, The Didache—mention the corporate “Amen” that separates the Unconsecrated Sacrificed Eucharist from the Consecrated Unsacrificed Lord’s Supper:
But I’ve found something very curious. The “Amen” is never discussed in detail. The authors do not expound on why there is an Amen there, it just is. And for at least ~320 years after Christ’s ascension, the Amen survives without modification in the ancient liturgy, despite nobody worrying about why it is there or arguing over its inclusion.
If you read all the patristic writers from 50AD to 350AD and nothing else, you’d have no idea why that “Amen” is mentioned, and you probably wouldn’t even have noticed its presence, even though it is apostolic. I’m willing to bet that no Anabaptist, Protestant, Orthodox, or Roman Catholic who reads this site ever knew about its significance in the liturgy before I mentioned it. This lack of emphasis made it easy for Roman Catholics to eventually shatter that Amen so they could merge the first liturgical act (Eucharist) with the second liturgical act (Lord’s Supper) into its idolatrous bastard offspring (Mass Sacrifice).
To understand why it is there, you have to go back to Paul:
Otherwise, if you praise with the spirit, how will anyone who is unlearned say “Amen!” at your giving of thanks (eucharistia; εὐχαριστία), seeing he does not know what you are saying?
— 1 Corinthians 14:16
And that’s it. Do my readers even understand the significance of this passage and the significance of that Amen?
For three centuries the church stubbornly included an Amen in their ancient liturgy because the Apostle Paul told them to. They didn’t argue over it, they didn’t discuss it, they hardly even mentioned it. But they did it anyway, and they did it corporately at that!
————————————————————————–
There are “Image of God” references found throughout the patristic writers of the first 300 years. I’ve seen a number of them in my research without even actively looking for them. They are fairly common. But few I’ve found talk about women and the image of God together (except for one that says God is neither male or female, [ergo the image of God isn’t gendered]). Even accounting for the tiny number of references that you provided (a fraction of the number of times the image of God is mentioned), with respect to women, they rarely argued over it, they didn’t discuss it, and they hardly ever mentioned it.
And yet, the vast majority of the church over 2,000 years has believed that women were made in the image of God. They had no need to discuss it, because it was obviously the case from scripture itself that women are made in the image of God, so obvious that no discussion was required.
What you found was a tiny number of people who actually discussed it. And you assumed that because of that, the whole church must have agreed. But it is precisely the opposite. Nobody else discussed it, because there was nothing to discuss. But you took the selected quotes and assumed they represent the majority (even the unanimous view!) simply because no one else—besides Paul himself as I’ve previously explained—bothered to present a counterargument.
This is what survivorship bias is.
There is a reason that 99.99999% of Christians throughout history have rejected your viewpoint. Your viewpoint is less accepted than flat earth, because it is even less intuitive. It really is astonishing that you’ve convinced yourself that God meticulously worded his scripture so that it was so obviously the case that only you would realize it. This includes people who otherwise hold your views of women! Most people would simply dismiss you out of hand. Why bother even engaging on the subject? That’s what others like Bnnon Tennant did. They gave up and left you to your proverbial madness.
But I’m not like that. I am one, out of almost no one else, who is willing to address only the ideas. The argument from authority didn’t sway me, so I engaged with you. But, you’ve let yourself succumb to bias and it has blinded you into sheer boundless overconfidence regarding the strength of the evidence. I hope one day you see your error.
I don’t expect you to understand, but this is the last time I plan to explain it to you. Take the time to understand it before responding, as you likely won’t be receiving another explanation. Either you get it this time, or you never will.
Peace,
DR
Your beloved Wikipedia says that Survivorship bias is:
“Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on entities that passed a selection process while overlooking those that did not.”
You’re describing a theory that even though multiple prominent church fathers were publishing offhand comments indicating their belief that women are not in the image of God, that nobody else prior to around 400 AD ever responded to the contrary because none of them were aware of this belief, because the church was unanimously against what these men wrote, without ever stating such. That isn’t survivorship bias.
You’re describing a situation where you claim an entire topic was overlooked by all those hordes whom you claim would have been opposed to it, while those prominent fathers who espoused the belief just mentioned it in passing and were not really trying to push it, as though it were not a belief that needed to gain any wider acceptance.
You’re claiming that what I’ve cited was such a fringe belief that it went unnoticed, by all those church fathers engaged in refuting heresies and arguing over doctrines. And that the miracle is that so many citations of my belief somehow still exist despite over a thousand years of the church believing the opposite, and that oddly no early refutation exists until after the Romanization of the church and the introduction of the goddess worship of Mariolatry.
Epiphanius wrote against the heretical doctrine of Origen’s claim that men had lost the image of God, saying:
And again, in the tenth generation, two thousand two hundred and forty-two years afterwards, God, to vindicate His own image and to show that the grace which He had given to men still continued in them, gives the following commandment: “Flesh…with the blood thereof shall ye not eat. And surely your blood will I require at the hand of every man that sheddeth it; for in the image of God have I made man.
Clearly there were church fathers writing against heresies surrounding the image of God and how it applied to “men”. And I don’t see how Origen’s belief that men lost the image of God, through Adam, stands up against that citation from Genesis 9, where God claims that men who were to descend from Noah’s sons were then the images of God and therefore should not be murdered.
Sharkly,
After you said all the church fathers are unanimous about only men being made in the image of God, I was able to find two patristic writers who disagreed without even making an effort. Then last week while I was doing research for my ongoing series, I stumbled upon Irenaeus’ views and added him to the list.
Without even trying to research the topic, I found that Irenaeus of Lyon in Gallia (130-202) also agreed with Origen of Alexandria (185-254) that humans lost the image of God. He described Jesus using feminine attributes. He was also fine with women prophesying. And wouldn’t you know, without even trying, I found a fourth and fifth person to add to the list: Gregory of Nazianzus the elder (276-374) and younger (329-390).
You’ll recall I said
“The patristic fathers of the church were not unanimous about only men being in the image of God. Perhaps you are under-informed for someone who is making broad statements about unanimous historical opinion? I wonder if, as I keep researching this topic, eventually your viewpoint will not only fail to be even close unanimous, but fall into a minority opinion.”
As before, you appear to be significantly under-informed on this topic:
My intuition told me that your viewpoints were “unlikely,” and that was me politely putting it mildly. Now I’m seeing that I was right.
I also said:
“There are “Image of God” references found throughout the patristic writers of the first 300 years. I’ve seen a number of them in my research without even actively looking for them. They are fairly common. But few I’ve found talk about women and the image of God together (except for one that says God is neither male or female, [ergo the image of God isn’t gendered]). Even accounting for the tiny number of references that you provided (a fraction of the number of times the image of God is mentioned), with respect to women, they rarely argued over it, they didn’t discuss it, and they hardly ever mentioned it.”
The following quotation is from this oration that was delivered by the son when his father died. It is a funeral oration and eulogy. Here he is talking about his mother’s relationship with his father:
She indeed who was given to Adam as a help meet for him, because it was not good for man to be alone, Genesis 2:18 instead of an assistant became an enemy, and instead of a yoke-fellow, an opponent, and beguiling the man by means of pleasure, estranged him through the tree of knowledge from the tree of life. But she who was given by God to my father became not only, as is less wonderful, his assistant, but even his leader, drawing him on by her influence in deed and word to the highest excellence; judging it best in all other respects to be overruled by her husband according to the law of marriage, but not being ashamed, in regard of piety, even to offer herself as his teacher. Admirable indeed as was this conduct of hers, it was still more admirable that he should readily acquiesce in it. She is a woman who while others have been honoured and extolled for natural and artificial beauty, has acknowledged but one kind of beauty, that of the soul, and the preservation, or the restoration as far as possible, of the Divine image.
…
Some women have excelled in thrifty management, others in piety, while she, difficult as it is to unite the two virtues, has surpassed all in both of them, both by her eminence in each, and by the fact that she alone has combined them together. To as great a degree has she, by her care and skill, secured the prosperity of her household, according to the injunctions and laws of Solomon as to the valiant woman, as if she had had no knowledge of piety; and she applied herself to God and Divine things as closely as if absolutely released from household cares, allowing neither branch of her duty to interfere with the other, but rather making each of them support the other.
There is a lot here to unpack regarding the shared belief of the father and son, the latter of which became the Archbishop of Constantinople and is considered among the most important Church writers for his work on the Trinity.
(1) The image of God had been lost and was restored in Christ
(2) Both men and women were restored to the image of God
(3) The Genesis 2:18 helpmate is an equal partner (e.g. yoke-fellow and ally)
(4) It is pious—derived from the Divine Image—for capable wives to be teachers and leaders of their husbands, while submitting in other areas
(5) The aforementioned submission was mutual
(6) The aforementioned submission was at her discretion (cohering to Paul’s use the middle voice for submission in Ephesians 5, and Peter’s in 1 Peter 3)
(7) Wives are masters of the house
This is the most explicit so far, and I’m not even researching this topic. I’ve only examined a tiny fraction of the patristic writings and I’m up to five men who explicitly disagree with you. And I’m going to add a sixth to the list, Basil of Caesarea (330-378), who was in attendance that day and was a close friend of Gregory the Younger (329-390). We should also be able to infer that Gregory of Nyssa (335-395), Basil’s younger brother, held similar views, so that makes seven fathers of the church. If I had more time and interest, an examination of their works might be revealing, although the fact that they all worked together on the Doctrine of the Trinity should probably be sufficient to conclude that they largely believed the same things. As expected, your research was of no help whatsoever:
Then there are the uncounted and uncountable number of men and women who implicitly agree: the congregants (and their families) of all the many churches under the domains of these fathers (has anyone mentioned survivorship bias yet?).
Does that now make your view the minority view among the Fathers? Imagine what would happen if an actual scholar could find all the references!
Did you notice that these views are coming from churches all over the Roman Empire? From Lyon, from Alexandria, from Asia Minor across a couple hundred years? This is not simply a matter of an isolated heresy or only from after the rise of Roman Catholicism.
At this point, I have no reason to trust your analysis of these things. You have clearly not adequately researched this topic and you’ve jumped to extreme conclusions that no one else holds, with extreme overconfidence, while failing to acknowledge the bias inherent in your position.
Also, your anachronistic view that anyone who disagrees with you is a feminist needs a serious rework.
Peace,
DR
Sharkly,
Because of the rise of Roman Catholicism, we only look at church fathers in the 4th century or earlier. I have cited seven men and you have cited two: Tertullian and Ambrosiaster. Let’s address these one by one.
First, Ambrosiaster‘s work is presumed to have been written in the period of Demasus, and he was likely a member of the clergy in Rome. So, he’s a contemporary and underling of the man largely responsible for Roman Papal Supremacy. So he was part of the congregation out of which the Whore of Babylon arose, which does not yield any evidence at all to the idea that his viewpoints had wide acceptance among the ancient church. It is quite the contrary, in fact.
Second, we’ve covered Tertullian before here. By deductive reasoning through Tertullian’s own words, his view on women were not even fully accepted in his own region, let alone across all of Christendom. I pointed that out at the time we last discussed it, and all I’ve done since then is confirm it.
I believe that’s the extent of your argument, at least so far as you’ve presented it in the comments on this blog. You do believe that Epiphanius disagreed with Origen about losing the image of God, but that’s a separate discussion. If there are more I missed, please list all the fathers who hold your view so I can examine them in depth.
I have seven fathers who disagree with you, and I believe if you include Origen, the view that mankind lost the image of God is also the majority viewpoint among those I’ve examined to date.
Peace,
DR