Masculine and feminine in the Garden of Eden

[Guest guest]

,

" Violet " <violet.tubb wrote:

 

i have watched Part I of a two part series, the second part which i also intend

to watch on the ABC on " Compass " . The " Compass " topic is called " Who wrote the

Bible? " . Some very surprising (or not so surprising information, whichever way

you look at it) has come up.

 

Dr. Robert Beckford is a genuine Christian and a theologian from Birmingham in

England who as a theologian discovered that what he was taught in his

childhood...namely, that God wrote the Bible, is too simplistic an answer.

 

So, he goes on a journey from Jerusalem to Rome and traces the footsteps of who

has written the Bible.

 

Through his journey of discovering and the interviewing of numerous people, much

to his shock and contrary to his being taught all along that it was Moses who

wrote the first five books of the Bible, also called the Pentatech (Genesis,

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy)....he finds that in actual fact

there are four different literary sources that underlie the Pentateuch.

 

He comes to the understanding, that obviously Moses can't have written the first

five Books of the Bible, and that believers have been hoodwinked for centuries!

 

However, he finds that it is true, that there are FOUR original sources of the

text and each of them has its own distinctive style and agenda.

 

According to Dr. Beckford, academics give each of the four versions a letter.

Below is how they differentiate the different sources:-

 

" J " ( " J " Source is for Jahweh, because God is called the " Jahweh " )

 

" E " ( " E " Source calls God Elohim)

 

" P " ( " P " Source is the Priestly source)

 

" D " ( " D " Source is named after the Book of Deuteronomy)

 

/message/6058

 

 

Dear All,

 

i will share more on the abovementioned in the next post, folks, but for now, i

just want to remind that in the article appended, 'P material' means the

'Priestly Source' in the Bible, and 'J material' means the 'Jahweh source' in

the Bible.

 

Here then is the article titled: " Masculine and feminine in the Garden of Eden " .

 

regards,

 

violet

 

 

 

Masculine and Feminine In the Garden of Eden

 

The fulfilment of God's purpose in creation is expressed in his desire to 'make

man in our image' (Gen. 1:26). One way of stating the goal of pastoral ministry,

therefore, is the attempt to restore or to sustain the image of God in another

person whenever that image has been fractured, defaced, or impaired.

 

The functions of pastoral ministry are aimed at restoring wholeness, mending

brokenness, and preserving the image of God in man.

 

Scholars have pointed out that the Hebrew word for man, 'adam', is a generic

word which differentiates mankind from the animals. Thus, in the P [Priestly

Source] creation narrative (Gen. 1-2:41), 'man' or 'mankind' includes both male

and female. We conclude that both man and woman are created equally, though

differently, in God's image. As Sapp puts it, 'in contrast to the J account

[Jahweh Source], man and woman are created simultaneously in P with no hint of

temporal, much less ontological, superiority'. [1] [2] Furthermore, God's

creation of male and female is 'very good' (Gen. 1:31).

 

The Creation narratives testify that man and woman are complementary; neither

one's life is complete without the other; God's image is fully revealed only

when both male and female are present. And God places them in a community of

two, 'the community derived from God, the community of love glorifying and

worshipping him as the Creator'. [3] In this community, man and woman are to

love by enjoying the gifts of each other and by affirming in each other the

image of God which is there. They have a personal relationship, but until after

the Fall, there is no pastoral ministry since the image of God in each is

intact. But when pastoral ministry is needed, it will be equally the

responsibility of man and woman; and each - created in God's image - will be

equipped equally for the fulfilling of God's purposes.

 

In the Garden of Eden, we have our first look at the masculine and the feminine.

The J creation narrative (Gen. 2:4b-3:24) is very descriptive of the personal

relationship between man and woman, and between mankind and God. Yet it appears

that masculine and feminine characteristics are found in both man and woman.

Man, for example, is portrayed as obedient, even passive. He goes where God puts

him and does not do what God says he should not (2:15-17). He is also emotional,

capable of a spontaneous, intimate expression: " This at last is bone of my

bones...' (2:23). Impulsively, and without weighing the consequences, he

succumbs to temptation (3:6, 'and he ate'). Reluctant to face the consequences

(like a man!), he tries to hide from the Lord and is swift to rationalise his

cowardice and unhesitating in casting blame on the woman. Some of his actions

come from post-fallen and some from pre-fallen states, but man is portrayed as

having a definite feminine dimension. The masculine dimension is seen in his

evaluative and decision-making aspects, as he gives names to the living

creatures and decides that none is a fit companion (2:19-20).

 

Woman is portrayed as intellectually alert and aware of the limits of her

creaturehood as defined by God. She knows which tree is off-limits and which

ones are not. Appreciating the complexity of the situation, she is engaged in

wrestling with options, principles, and risks. Eating from the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil is prohibited, but since God created the tree to

produce fruit good for food, he must have intended the fruit to be eaten. Woman

takes charge and decides. In these respects, she demonstrates characteristics

more usually associated with masculinity. Yet her femininity is there - she

appreciates aesthetics - the tree is lovely. Further, she has higher motives,

the yearning for wisdom. On a much higher plane than man's impulsive

disobedience, woman is 'the victim of the desire for infinity'. [4] Of course,

in her fallen state she is no better than man - she, too, tries to hide from God

and to shift responsibility from herself by blaming the serpent.

 

Outside of the presence of the Holy Spirit in human interactions, the most

crucial single factor in the effectiveness of pastoral ministry is the person of

the pastor. In the Creation narratives we find a variety of personal

characteristics (though not a complete catalogue by any means) which can be

affirmed as important when one person ministers to the needs of another in a

pastoral way, and these characteristics are not restricted to males or females;

a pastor, either male or female, clergy or lay, may exhibit any of these

characteristics. Where present they can be nurtured and strengthened; where weak

or absent, they may be compensated for or developed. We may identify such

characteristics as follows:

 

1 to be aware of one's own needs

2 to know proper boundaries

3 to exercise self-discipline

4 to be capable of emotional responses and bonding

5 to be able to evaluate objective data

6 to know one's own motives

7 to be able to make decisions and to abide with the consequences

8 to assume responsibility for one's own actions

9 to be sensitive to one's surroundings

10 to have a perceptive mind

11 to wish for and to seek a deeper knowledge of God and his ways

12 to think about and to do what is good for the other person

 

Adam and Eve were not only husband and wife. They were pastors to each other.

Had they ministered pastorally to each other as God intended, we would not need

all of the tending and mending which pastoral ministry today requires, to

restore the image of God in men and women.

 

One final observation has to do with the shame felt by man and woman when they

became aware of their nakedness after the Fall. Their sin was pride, of seeking

to become 'like God' (3:5), not a matter of sexual consciousness. As God had

created them, man and woman had a full awareness of their own and each other's

sexuality, of their respective masculine and feminine natures. They knew that

each needed the other, and they accepted this complementariness. Terrien states

that man and woman after the Fall 'are ashamed of one another'. [5] Bonhoeffer,

on the other hand, attributes the shame to the man's and the woman's 'reluctant

acknowledgment' of their limitedness [6] - the grace of complementariness is

transformed by sin into a self-centred resentment of each one's incomplete

nature, of each one's desire to be complete without the other.

 

A somewhat different interpretation would allow the truth of both positions

while restating the issue in different terminology: in the Fall, man became

ashamed of that part of his total self represented by woman (his feminine part

of completeness - his anima), and woman became ashamed of that part of her total

self represented by man (her masculine part of completeness - her animus). Thus

it is part of the recreation of the image of God in man that he recover an

unashamed affirmation of the feminine in himself, and of the image of God in

woman that she recover an unashamed affirmation of the masculine in herself.

 

 

The pastoral ministry has been exercised predominantly by ordained or monastic

males on behalf of the laity, either males or females, and this has resulted in

a quite natural lack of concern about the effects of masculinity and femininity

in the pastor and in the one who is cared for. I wish to propose that because of

the particular character of pastoral ministry - personal, by nature relational,

often intimate, private, and emotion-laden - it is especially important to

discover the effects of masculinity and femininity in this ministry. The Jungian

theory of the human psyche provides a framework in conjunction with which to

make this exploration. The male pastor in touch with his anima and the female

pastor in touch with her animus will be better able to do pastoral ministry

because they can affirm femininity along with maleness and masculinity along

with femaleness. A more whole person is better able to help another person to

become more whole. For the pastor, the second great commandment could then be

interpreted, '...love your neighbour as you love yourself, including that part

of yourself which is your contrasexual element'.

 

[1] Ontological - the science that treats of the principles of pure

being; that part of metaphysics which treats of the nature and essence of

things. (Chambers 20th Century Dictionary)

[2] Stephen Sapp, Sexuality, the Bible, and Science, Philadelphia:

Fortress Press, 1977, p.10

[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, London: SCM Press, 1959,

p. 62

[4] Samuel Terrien, Toward a Biblical Theology of Womanhood, in

Barnhouse and Holmes (eds), Male and Female, p.19

[5] ibid. p.20

[6] Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, p.80

 

The Force of the Feminine

Margaret Ann Franklin - Allen & Unwin Australia Pty Ltd

North Sydney - Australia

ISBN 0 86861 914 0 (pbk.).

p.171-174