Jesus Ends Patriarchy by samandlancelot Nonfiction Writing Contest contest entry |
|
Jesus Ends Patriarchy and Man’s Second Fall A recurring theme in feminist literature is the social system of patriarchy that positions men in authority over women. To abolish patriarchy in their lives, some women blame God for their unfair treatment and reject Him and motherhood to take control of their lives. In the Biblical book of Genesis 3:16, patriarchy is God-ordained as the woman’s punishment for eating the forbidden fruit. Still, God did not leave the woman under the oppressive state of patriarchy because Scriptural evidence shows Jesus paid the penalty for the woman’s sin; furthermore, the Apostle Paul preaches in favor of patriarchy in his letter to the Galatians and against it in his first letter to Timothy, mistakenly preaching to keep the woman under the man’s submission, with disastrous results. Patriarchy Rich’s definition of patriarchy omits its biblical beginning and continuance, but it is essential to understand God and His ordinance in the Old Testament and the New. By piecing together scriptural verses relating to sin, patriarchy, and salvation through Jesus Christ, the evidence shows that God established the hierarchy of the patriarchal system, but he also ended it. According to Beth Felker Jones, “From creation (which tells us about God’s good will), women are explicitly made in the image of God. That’s revolutionary. It’s the death knell to patriarchy, right there.” Jones’ words are valid, although God still punishes the woman in Genesis 3:16 by placing the man in authority over her. Before mankind’s fall, God spoke to Adam and told him he could eat from any tree in the Garden of Eden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and he laid out the consequences: “When [not if] you eat from it you will certainly die” (NIV: Gen. 2:16-17). In verse 24: “A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” There is no superiority between genders. The woman, Eve, conceivably received the forbidden fruit rule from the man, Adam, since no direct communication from God to Eve is recorded up to this point. Eve’s response to Satan in Genesis 3:3 suggests Adam may have embellished God’s instructions: “You must not touch it [the forbidden fruit].” God had said they would die if they ate the forbidden fruit; he did not say they would die if they touched it. The problem with adding more to what God says is that those words no longer belong to God. It gives Satan the power to lead mankind into temptation. What might have motivated Adam to change what God had said? Perhaps he did not trust the woman, but if God created her to complete him and they were equal, it suggests he did not trust God and His provision. God had spoken to Adam and not to Eve. It is possible that Adam felt himself superior to Eve and closer to God, speaking down to her as the unenlightened sex. Satan offers her the opportunity to “be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). How could she resist her chance to show Adam she was not inferior to him? In Genesis 3:6, Eve eats the forbidden fruit and gives some to Adam, who eats it, too. The Forbidden Fruit According to Compassion (a Christian organization to end poverty), “forbidden fruit’ is a metaphor for anything that is desired but not moral, legal, or permissible to indulge in … the Latin word for “apple” is mÄlum, while the Latin word for “evil” is mÄlum.” (Forbidden). In Genesis 2:9, God places two trees in the Garden of Eden: The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Tree of Life is a metaphor for Jesus. The tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is also a metaphor. But what is the metaphor? If the forbidden fruit were simply an apple or some other fruit, sin would merely be an act of disobedience. God is merciful. To curse the ground, the woman, the man’s labor, and the entire world for millennia without a second chance seems harsh unless the forbidden fruit was more than an apple on a tree. Evidence points to man’s destruction of something God loved as much as he loves humankind. After the fall, Adam and Eve know good and evil and realize they are naked. They use fig leaves to cover their nakedness. Fig leaves contain furocoumarins, which, combined with sun exposure, causes a phytophotodermatitis reaction. Early symptoms include itching or burning of the affected area. Exposure to sunlight causes cross-linking of the DNA, eventually leading to cell death in the epidermis (Papazoglou). Realizing their nakedness was the first sign of their sin, and dealing with the after-effects of fig leaves covering their bodies was the second. God has mercy on the man and woman and provides better clothing using the skin of the animal they had killed to eat the forbidden fruit. They killed the lamb of God—an animal that He loved. “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” Garments of skin come from animals; Animals must die to remove their skin. As God establishes His law, He requires animal sacrifices, even though he obtains “no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats” (Isa. 1:11). Hebrews 10:4 states that “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Since God ordered animal sacrifices to cleanse sins, even though animal sacrifices could not wash away sins, the ordinance further supports that the original sin was to kill and eat an animal. The sacrificial ordinance was to remind man of the origin of his sin, and patriarchy was to remind the woman of the origin of her sin. Another example of God’s anger over humans eating meat is in Numbers 11 when the Israelites are in transition from Egyptian slavery—after crossing the Red Sea—to their journey to the promised land. While God rains down manna daily from Heaven for them to eat, they want meat, as they had in Egypt, the place of their slavery. In Numbers 11:19-20, God states: You will not eat it [meat] for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” The problem with leaving the metaphoric Egypt or place of slavery is that the transition place—before reaching the promised land—is like the desert for the Israelites. The benefits of slavery seem appealing when the fruits of the promised land are not yet realized. In the New Testament, Jesus paid the penalty for sin and set mankind free, yet the world has not yet reached the promised land. The law of the Old Testament doctrine of patriarchy allows the man to maintain the benefits he knew from his time in slavery to sin—before Jesus rose from the dead—keeping the man’s ranking above the woman’s. The Beginning of Patriarchy In Genesis 3:16, Eve’s punishment comes in the ordained hierarchy of the patriarchal system. Eve’s punishment only affects Eve. Adam—who had directly heard from God about the forbidden fruit—receives his punishment too, but it would affect the entire world: “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Gen. 3:17). Although patriarchy is a God-ordained hierarchy with the man ruling over the woman, it does not support Adrienne Rich’s conclusion: “Out of the struggle for paternal control of the family … God the Father is created” (53). In Genesis 1:27, God created man[kind] in his image, male and female. The female is just as much a part of God as the male. We are made differently, but together, we comprise the entirety of God. Because of sin, man was given authority over the woman (Gen. 3:16), but she would hate it. Jesus Ends Patriarchy Jesus changes the patriarchy’s hierarchical structure. After he rises from the dead, he first appears to Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18). Jesus’ male apostles will not discover Jesus has risen from the dead until they hear it from a woman. “Jewish culture considered a woman’s testimony worthless” (McNall). Jesus appears to a woman as a sign of the end of God’s anointing over the patriarchal system. This is where men resist God and hold onto their Old Testament beliefs in their God-given superiority over women. The Apostle Paul was a well-educated religious leader grounded in Old Testament beliefs. In 1 Timothy, Paul lists many requirements for women: silence, modesty, total submission to the man, and not being permitted to teach men. They are not allowed to wear jewelry or braid their hair. The clue to Paul’s mistake comes from his statement that “men are saved through Jesus Christ … but women are saved through childbearing.” Jesus said we are saved through Him, not through childbearing. If Paul were correct, barren women could not be saved. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Not through childbearing. Paul first wrote the truth in Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” It is common to receive God’s truth—as Paul has done—and then the mind’s prerecorded beliefs interfere and replace God’s message. Paul, as a biblical scholar, understands patriarchy, but he cannot rectify his ignorance about women’s equality in Jesus’ New Testament world. His mentally recorded knowledge about the rules for men and women would, in 1 Timothy, give the man back his pride and ownership over the woman, ruining what could have been blessed unions throughout time, where a man and woman contribute as equal partners in their journey through life. The patriarchal system ended when Jesus died on the cross and paid the penalty for sin, rose from the dead, and appeared first to a woman, instructing her to tell the men He had risen. This required the man to listen to the woman, ultimately resulting in the male gender leaving God to maintain their hierarchical supremacy over women through God’s abolished patriarchal system. Patriarchy’s Consequences. God called Anne Graham Lotz—like her father Billy Graham—to preach the gospel to men and women. The false teaching of patriarchy forbids it. She responds to her rejection from 800 pastors as follows: When I stood in the lectern at the convention center, many of the 800 church leaders present turned their chairs around and put their backs to me. When I concluded my message, I was shaking. I was hurt and surprised that godly men would find what I was doing so offensive that they would stage such a demonstration, especially when I was an invited guest. And I was confused. Had I stepped out of the Biblical role for a woman? While all agree that women are free to help in the kitchen, or in the nursery, or in a secretary’s chair, is it unacceptable for a woman to take a leadership or teaching position (Schatz)? The 800 pastors sinned against Lotz and God when they offended God’s messenger because of their wrongly held patriarchal beliefs. In Finding Phoebe, Susan Hylan analyzes the role of women in the New Testament, stating that, according to Roman law books, both men and women owned property (15), and both sons and daughters were under the legal authority of their fathers (14). The evidence for Jewish women “likewise suggests that they owned property” (16). Yet, Hylan also concedes that “A woman of the same social class as a man had a lower status than he did, simply because of her gender" (77) and “people regarded it as problematic for a woman to upstage a man of high standing” (78). Today, as it has been since the New Testament began, man places himself above the woman. Cassie Chambers states in her biography Hill Women: Daughters were a liability. The community saw women as less efficient, weaker, and more delicate than their male counterparts. It didn’t matter that women were often the first awake and the last to bed at night. It didn’t matter that they did both housework and fieldwork, all while birthing and raising children (65). While Chambers had assumed unfair treatment of women was “grounded in religion … according to her Aunt Ruth, “There weren’t even that many churches ‘round here in those days … It didn’t have nothing’ to do with the churches. That was all pride is all that was” (66). While in high school, Chambers wanted to take two college classes, but the school principal refused, saying, “We don’t want our high school girls up there with those college boys,” to which her mother pointed out he had given two boys from the school permission. Again, the duality of rules for boys and girls and men and women continues to demean and rob women of opportunities to fully utilize their God-given talents. Counterargument 1 Timothy 2 is the most cited biblical example to support the continuance of patriarchy’s hierarchical structure that advances the man with freedom and demotes the woman to submission. In verses 11-15, the apostle Paul includes instructions for women: A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[b] she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women[c] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. Both Adam and Eve sinned, and both were punished. Although Paul made no difference between males and females in Galatians 3:28, he changed his mind several years later. Why? According to the website Dating the New Testament, “It seems likely that Galatians was written just prior to the Jerusalem Council, when the controversy over gentile believers was white hot.” The Jerusalem Council met in Acts 15:1-31 to address the following:
If Paul believes that gentile believers do not need to keep the law—of circumcision—why does he believe women need to follow the law of patriarchy? The Jerusalem Council was a governing body formed to unite two opposing sides. Their final decision allows both sides to continue their beliefs without encroaching on each other. Yet, man resists the same process between men and women. Conclusion The continuance of patriarchy after Jesus provided a better way through the forgiveness of sins presents the second fall of man through the extension of the male-dominated patriarchal system. Patriarchy is not God’s will for women and men. Man did not create the idea of God to support the hierarchy of men over women; they hung onto the woman’s punishment from the Old Testament. Interestingly, after Jesus rose from the dead, there was no need for animal sacrifices because Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to wash away man’s sins. Yet, men would hold onto the sign of the woman’s sin through patriarchy and abolish the sign of their sin through the end of animal sacrifices. Jesus took away the sign of the woman’s sin and set her free from its patriarchal punishment, and he took away the reminder of man’s sin when he abolished animal sacrifices. Can we ever live in a Garden of Eden world again? A world where there is no death? In my Garden of Eden world, we will not abuse and kill animals for food or other purposes. Patriarchy’s abolishment by males and females would further advance the utopia dream. “The truth will set us free” (John 8:32). Works Cited Chambers, Cassie. Hill Women. Ballantine Books, 2020. “The Forbidden Fruit and the Origins of Poverty.” Compassion, . Accessed 29 Sept. 2024. Felker Jones, Beth. “The Bible and the End of Patriarchy.” Church Blogmatics, . Accessed 31 Aug. 2024. “The First and Second Letter to Timothy.” Dating the New Testament, Accessed 26 Sept. 2024. Hylen, Susan E. Finding Phoebe. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2023. “The Letter to the Galatians.” Dating the New Testament, Accessed 26 Sept. 2024. Mahan, Michael. “A Narrative Analysis of the Jerusalem Council Discourses: Table Fellowship and the Implicit Theology of Salvation.” Regent University, . Accessed 29 Sept. 2024. McNall, Marney. “Why Does Jesus Speak First to a Woman on Easter?” Seacoast Church, Accessed 30 July 2024. New International Version (NIV). Bible Gateway, Accessed 10 Sept. 2020. “Confidence and Crises Post War.” Women and the American Story, Accessed 31 Aug. 2024. Papazoglou MD, Anna, and Elpis Mantadakis, MD, PhD. “Fig Tree Leaves Phytophotodermatitis.” The Journal of Pediatrics, Accessed 29 Sept. 2024. Rich, Adrienne. Of Women Born: Motherhood as Experience & Institution. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1976. Schatz, Cheryl. “Anne Graham Lotz and 800 Pastors’ Shame.” Women in Ministry, 24 Oct. 2008, Accessed 29 Sept. 2024.
|
| ©
Copyright 2025.
samandlancelot
All rights reserved. samandlancelot has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |