I should preface this by saying that I am coming from an egalitarian viewpoint. I don't diminish/attempt to eliminate the differences between men and women, but I would also say that distinction between the two doesn't necessitate a hierarchical outlook. Nor do I believe that Scripture demands such hierarchy. And when I see things like Bob had posted recently, I get frustrated and sad at what I believe to be an oppressive misuse of the Bible. And I've dug up the quote that I mentioned previously to include here. It is from a book called Creation and the Flood by Davis A. Young. Written in 1977, I can hope his view has 'evolved', but don't know where he stands on the issue today. I should also say that the book itself, apart from this section, was quite helpful at looking at a concordist position of creation from the perspective of a Christian geologist (a position he may no longer hold, however).
"Moses provides considerable detail in the account concerning the creation of Eve. If he did not intend the account to be understood as ordinary history, it is a bit perplexing as to why he should provide such detail...
The literal-historical interpretation that is presented above would seem to be supported by the Apostle Paul. Hence the Christian, whose every view is to be formed and framed by the words of Scripture, has an infallible interpretation of the Genesis account... Paul accepts a kind of subordination of woman to man. In the latter text (1 Timothy 2:12-13) he plainly indicates that in time sequence the female of the species appeared later than the male. In the former text (I Cor 11:8-9) he corroborates Moses' teaching that woman exists and was made for the purpose of supplementing the man. She is for the man...
There seems to be no way that an evolution could produce a first male human before a first female human... There is no temporal priority of either sex in evolution.
The evolutionistic view must also account for the stress which Scripture lays on the idea that woman is for the man. In what sense can this be true in evolution? Is there a sense in which the female gorilla is of and for the male? Does the male gorilla have metaphysical priority or superiority? In what sense could evolution lead to anything other than a pure equality between the sexes?"
In my view, there are several problems here, beginning with the assertion that anyone could have an infallible interpretation of pretty much anything, particularly a text as complex as Genesis. I'm not denying the existence of Truth, but I suspect we don't often have access to it in an infallible way. Also, I would strongly question his interpretation of Paul. To look at another point of view, you may want to read Greg's article titled Paul: Anti-Women? Anti-Sex? Ascetic? in which he exegetes 1 Corinthians 7 in what I find to be much more convincing way. Finally, I just plain have an emotional response to the idea that men are "metaphysically superior" to women. I don't believe that humans evolved from apes either, but I don't accept a metaphysical priority based on creation order as a good argument against it. I make no claims to possessing a vast reservoir of scientific knowledge, but I don't think science demands that kind of leap, either. There seem to be other, more compelling and more empirical, data to support the position.
If you are interested in reading more about the issue of women from a Christian perspective, some resources I would recommend are:
- Slaves, Women and Homosexuals by William Webb
- An Apology to Women by Ann Brown
- Discovering Biblical Equality by Ronald Pierce, Rebecca Groothius and Gordon Fee
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