Reading Genesis Together Part 8
Taking on the "Because you have listened to your wife" argument of Genesis 3
Picture us hiking a mountain trail, aiming to return to our cars. One of us notices a potential shortcut and suggests it. In the end, we decide to take it, only to find it ends at a cliff. Unknowingly, we’ve strayed far from the path. A park ranger rescues us and says to me, “Because you listened to him, you’re lost.”
Does this mean I abandoned leadership? No, it doesn’t have to mean that. Instead, it can mean I chose to act on the suggestion, and I also bear responsibility for the outcome. Without some more context and qualifiers, you would have no reason to interpret the ranger’s words as implying one of us was the leader in charge of the hike.
And yet, as we come to Genesis 3:17, HCs/Complementarians will draw attention to the phrase, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife…” as a failure of male headship, leadership, and taking responsibility. As the argument goes, Adam has shirked his God-given authority and responsibility.
Complementarian pastor Kevin DeYoung, in Men and Women in the Church, writes,
Adam’s sin was not only in disobeying God’s command (2:17), but also in throwing off his responsibility as familial head, playing the coward, and following his wife’s influence instead of God’s word.
If I could rewrite what was said, I would put it this way. Adam’s sin was disobeying God’s command. Period. Yes, he threw off responsibility…for not following God’s command himself.1 Yes, he played the coward…for not deciding for himself to follow God’s command. Yes, he followed his wife’s influence instead of God’s word…he chose not to obey God’s command.
Ray Ortlund writes something similar in his essay in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. In his unpacking of verses 16-19, he looks at four conclusions. The second is pertinent for this post,
The second important point here is God’s rationale for this punishment [verse 17’s punishment of toilsome work]. God does not say, “Because you have eaten of the tree which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it’…” God does say, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree…” Adam sinned at two levels. At one level, he defied the plain and simple command of 2:17. That is obvious. But God goes deeper. At another level, Adam sinned by “listening to his wife.” He abandoned his headship. According to God’s assessment, this moral failure in Adam led to his ruination.
I can’t help but ask, did God really say that?
Yes, God did say, “Because you have listened to your wife…”; however, nowhere in the text is a deeper explanation or rationale given behind those words. One theme I have been exploring throughout this series, and even in my earlier posts, is that while this interpretation sounds good, it is just that - an interpretation. And an inferred interpretation at that.
Could it be as simple as God said that because that is exactly what Adam did, and for that matter, he blamed her for the choice HE made to break God’s command? Could it be as simple as, instead of following God, Adam followed her, and is just as culpable in this whole thing?
I have two boys. And, as if it is a tale as old as time, when one of them does something to the other one, it takes no time at all for one of them to utter the words, “Well, he did this to me,” Or, “Well, he made me react that way.” And our constant, broken-record response is, “You are responsible for your words and choices. You chose to react in that moment.”
There is no deeper level; it means what it says. However, if you have been taught or primed to see headship from the start, then such an explanation makes sense because you have been looking for it from the beginning. It is the power of the cumulative argument. However, it still begins with a set of lenses to guide a person in seeing the passages in a specific way.
Andrew Bartlett and Terran Williams draw attention to this in their responses to the Mike Winger video series on the topic.2
The cumulative impact can seem persuasive to someone who is viewing the text through complementarian spectacles.
What happens with these lenses is that this framework becomes the primary interpretation. Male headship becomes the focal point. Of course, this would not be explicitly said, and yet, if you read the material, it is all over it. Genesis 2 becomes the setup for the authority structure. The fall becomes about the enemy targeting this structure, and God reinstating it.
But again, as I have been laying out, this structure is nowhere explicitly stated in the text itself.
Instead, the foundation that is present is the divine harmony created vertically and horizontally, and the enemy seeks to divide and destroy this harmony. And the end goal is the coming of Christ to restore these harmonies.
William Witt, in Icons of Christ, summarises it well in writing,
In short, Genesis 1 and 2 depict a relation of equality and harmony between man and woman. Both are equal partners in their humanity; both share God’s image; both are made for one another; both are stewards of God’s creation. In consequence of sin, this original harmony was broken, not only between man and woman, but also between humanity and creation. In consequence, disrupted harmony between humanity and the natural world means that human beings live out their life in a struggle of “sweat and tears” to eke out a living in a hostile environment. Broken relations between human beings means that the harmonious “one flesh” relationship intended by God for men and women in marriage is disrupted as women yearn for the restornation of an original harmony that no longer exists,3 and men forget the orginial purpose of woman as a “suitable companion,” instead tend rather to “rule over” women. The end result is dysfunctional relationships for both men and women. In conclusion, a straightforward reading of Genesis 1-3 does not teach that the subordination of women to men is part of God’s original intention in creation; rather, Genesis teaches an essential unity in harmony between men and women with no mention of hierarchy or subordination before the introduction of sin into the world.
So, how do we arrive at these interpretations if the Genesis accounts are not as explicit as some would argue? HCs/Complementarians do not derive this interpretation from thin air. It comes from utilizing other passages, often in the New Testament, to bring back these interpretations to the creation account.
And this is where we will turn next week, in the last of Reading Genesis Together.
Before we proceed, let me conclude this piece with a reminder. The Genesis account, in and of itself, does not have to be interpreted through the lens of male headship/leadership. Even as we examine the New Testament texts in their own context, they do not necessarily have to be understood in the way they are within the HC/Complementarian framework.
And to say this in no way implies that a person does not believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God. Instead, we are saying perhaps we have been using the wrong interpretive lens through which we look.
Hidden beneath these claims of lost responsibility is a finite view of responsibility and leadership. It treats these ideas as finite resources; when one has it, the other has less. Or, when one takes it, the other has less. The dichotomous approach—viewing leadership and responsibility as an either/or—often overlooks the collaborative potential of shared leadership in marriages and faith communities. I wrote a little bit about this in my piece titled "How Do We Slice the Pie of Leadership?"
As an aside, the Winger series is quite lengthy, but it has gained significant traction. Bartlett and Williams have done an excellent job in responding graciously and thoroughly. The downside is that it is written and requires a lot of time to read. I would still highly recommend it, but be prepared for a lengthy read, especially if you plan to print it.
It is worth noting that Witt understands verse 16 in the historical sense, referring to Eve’s “desire for your husband.” Remember, the battle of the sexes interpretation is a relatively new concept introduced by Susan Foh’s paper, which I referenced in last week's post.