Man and Woman

Introduction
    A biblical theology of man and woman must explain how they relate to one another under God, with respect both to their differences and to their similarities, in the course of biblical revelation. What does the Scripture teach regarding man vis-à-vis woman and woman vis-à-vis man, in the order of God? And how does the Scripture address the human distortions of that normative order and its divine redemption? The following essay can survey only the most important of the passages which address the subject.
    The author is aware of the vigorous discussion surrounding this subject but has no interest in mere controversy. Some readers of this article may not agree with everything proposed here, but it is hoped that all readers will find the evidences handled modestly and responsibly.

Man and Woman at the Creation
    Genesis 1:27 initiates the biblical theology of man and woman:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
(RSV, in poetic structure)

    The divine intention declared in verse 26 is here fulfilled, but by shifting to poetic form in verse 27 the author conveys a sense of wonder at this climactic act in the sequence of creation. The third line of the verse draws attention to itself by introducing a new thought, viz. the sexuality (‘male and female’) and plurality (‘them’) of the newly created aœd≈aœm. And the inner logic of the whole, bound together with the same verb (‘created’), demands that both male and female alike be dignified as bearers of the divine image.
    The use of ‘male and female’ rather than ‘man and woman’ highlights the sexuality of the race. It is ‘male and female’ who are blessed with fertility (‘And God blessed them’, v. 28) and commanded to reproduce in abundant measure (‘Be fruitful and multiply’). Man and woman are more than sexual (‘in the image of God’, v. 27), but sexual nonetheless. And it is in their identity as ‘male and female’, together comprising ‘man’ in the image of God, that man and woman first appear in the biblical narrative; God endorses this identity as ‘very good’ (v. 31). There is no reductionism or prudery in the biblical account.
    The dignity of the man and woman’s shared station in the created order appears not only in the imago Dei but also in their authorization to rule together over the lower creation (‘and God said to them’, v. 28) and feed on its vegetation at will (v. 29). Psalm 8 rejoices in this vision of human existence, interpreting it explicitly in terms of ‘glory and honour’ (v. 5). Man and woman per se are not mentioned by the psalmist, but the Genesis account awards the psalmist’s ‘glory and honour’ equally to them without rank or distinction.
    While Genesis 1 emphasizes the divine image in man and woman, defining them vertically in relation to God, Genesis 2 explains more fully their earthly relationship to one another. The only man-woman relationship in view here is marriage, and it is presented in the biblical narrative with a respectful tenderness unknown elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern accounts of human origins.
    After the divine pronouncements in Genesis 1 that creation is ‘good’, the reader is struck in Genesis 2:18 by the reference to a flaw in the garden God has planted: ‘Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”’ This ‘helper’ is not found in the lower creation (2:20) but only in the woman.
    God defines the newly created woman with the phrase ‘helper fit for him’ ({eœzer k§negœdo®), suggesting a twofold understanding of woman vis-à-vis man. On the one hand, ‘helper’ positions her in the garden as his supporter (cf. Ps. 20:2). On the other hand, ‘fit for him’ affirms her unique compatibility with the man. She alone answers his need, for she alone is his true counterpart in the creation.
    The man, for his part, acknowledges in his own words this ‘helper fit for him’ by naming her. His outburst of joy requires the narrative to shift into a poetic mode:

Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ (Gen. 2:23)

    The one with authority to name (2:19), in his climactic act, captures the essence of this newest creature. The name he chooses for her, is¥s¥a® (‘woman’) echoing ˆîs¥ (‘man’), reveals how closely he identifies with her, for she is his very substance (‘bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’). The perfection and bliss of their union are signalled by Genesis 2:25: ‘And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.’

Man and Woman at the Fall
    By disobeying God’s command, man and woman squander their happiness and drag the creation down with them into futility. But their disobedience also entails a disordering of their own relationship. God sets forth two reasons for his cursing of the ground in Genesis 3:17:

‘And to Adam he said,
“Because [1] you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and [2] have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it’,
cursed is the ground because of you …”’

    This pronouncement is consistent with the temptation narrative earlier in chapter 3, where the couple’s disobedience in relation to God and their confusion in relation to one another are woven together in one event. The serpent engages the woman in a dialogue premised on the untrustworthiness of the Creator (Gen. 3:1–5). She tries to deflect his question rather than repudiating it directly, which concedes too much to the question. As the deception proceeds, her vision of God and her perception of the forbidden tree are shrewdly manipulated. Moreover, in approaching the woman the serpent addresses both the woman and the man (‘you’ in vv. 1, 4 and 5 is plural), leading her to speak on behalf of both her husband and herself (‘We may eat’, v. 2). But where is the man as this dialogue unfolds? The answer is unclear, but it would appear that he stands by and does nothing (‘And she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate’, v. 6, NRSV). The man and woman sin against God by disobeying his command of 2:17, but in doing so they also disrupt the order of their own relationship. The man ‘listen[s] to the voice of [his] wife’ by following her lead (cf. v. 6), and the woman fails to be his ‘helper’ by taking the lead (cf. 1 Tim. 2:12–14). As a consequence, the harmony of man and woman in marriage disintegrates into tension (Gen. 3:16; see Marriage).
    Relieving the gloom, the man names his wife ‘Eve’ (3:20), ‘because she [is] the mother of all living’. God’s promise that the woman’s offspring will crush the serpent (3:15) opens up to the eye of faith a future bright with triumphant human life. The man thus honours the woman he had scorned shortly before (3:12), bearing witness to the healing power of hope.
    The sorrows of the man-woman relationship throughout the rest of Scripture are traceable to the fall of the first man and woman in Genesis 3. The Genesis narrative recounts subsequent abuses: the violence, egotism and polygamy of Lamech (4:19, 23–24); the cowardice of Abram (12:10–20; 20:1–18) and Isaac (26:6–11); the rivalry and heartache of Sarai in relation to Abram and Hagar (16:1–6); the deceiving of Isaac by Rebekah and Jacob (27:5–29); Shechem’s rape of Dinah (34:1–31); and Judah’s disgraceful relations with his daughter-in-law Tamar (38:13–18).

Man and Woman Under the Law
    Pentateuchal law enforces the protocols of manhood and womanhood as created by God, as to both their outer parameters (Lev. 18:22–23; 20:13, 15–16; Deut. 22:5) and their inner dynamics (Lev. 18, passim; 20:10–21). The question asked by the modern mind, however, is whether the law treats the sexes ‘equally’. Some laws clearly do (Exod. 20:12; 21:28–32; Lev. 13:29, 38; 20:9, 15–16; Num. 5:6; 6:2; Deut. 5:16; 17:2–5; 27:16; 29:18; 31:12), but OT law in general does not lay out equal terms for both sexes with the scrupulosity expected of modern law (e.g. Lev. 12:1–5).
    The atmosphere of OT law appears to be that of a benign patriarchy. Vows made by a woman while in her father’s household, or by a wife, can be invalidated by the father or by the husband (Num. 30:1–16), while the vows of a single woman cannot be withdrawn (v. 9). And yet this social order also recognizes women’s concerns (Num. 27:1–11) and protects women (Exod. 22:15, 17; Deut. 21:10–14). Indeed, a newly married man is exempted from military duty ‘to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married’ (Deut. 24:5, NIV). The law looks askance at polygamy (Deut. 17:17) and guards the rights of the firstborn of the disliked wife (Deut. 21:15–17).
    Because the Mosaic law, considered as old covenant, regulates the people of God only during their years of immaturity (Gal. 4:1–11), its social arrangements, although just, are not intended in every respect to be permanently binding. The historical perspective assumed in the law is one that looks back regretfully to the fall, around realistically at the present, and forward in anticipation of greater gifts from God. When applying the law to the NT church, therefore, one must take into account the law’s context in the history of redemption. As will be affirmed below, woman is elevated under the new covenant, under which all God’s children are granted adult status (Gal. 3:23–29).
    The rest of the OT teaching on the significance of man and woman may be interpreted with reference to three hermeneutical touchstones: the ideal in Genesis 1–2; the fall in Genesis 3; and the Mosaic guardianship of God’s under-age children in the law. The domestic happiness commended by the sages (Prov. 5:15–23), the excellent wife of Proverbs 31:10–31 and the marital bliss of the Song of Solomon indicate that the pre-fall ideal is not completely out of reach. The irony of a bold Deborah prodding a timid Barak into action (Judg. 4:4–9, 14) shows that God’s purpose can move forward even under less-than-ideal conditions. And the OT’s lack of finality points forward to a greater day when the prophetic Spirit of the Lord will fall upon all alike (Joel 2:28–29; cf. Num. 11:29), irrespective of sex or rank.

Man and Woman in the NT
    After Genesis 2, the most explicit biblical exposition of man and woman is found in the writings of Paul. On the one hand, he affirms that ‘there is neither male nor female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3:28). The gospel dignifies all God’s people as ‘Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise’ (v. 29), without rank or distinction. To receive the redemption that is in Christ, mere faith is required. Therefore the human barriers of race and class, and even the divinely-created order of male and female, are transcended in Christ, producing a new oneness with respect to spiritual privilege. Paul cannot mean, however, that sexual distinctions are absolutely obliterated, for then he would have no logical warrant for condemning homosexuality in Romans 1:26–27. To quote F. F. Bruce, ‘It is not their distinctiveness, but their inequality of religious role, that is abolished “in Christ Jesus”’ (The Epistle to the Galatians, NIGTC [Grand Rapids, 1982], p. 189).
    Consistent with Galatians 3:28 is the outpouring of the Spirit upon all believers alike. The results of this include a united prophetic voice (Acts 2:17–18), the divine empowering of each believer to serve the whole church (1 Cor. 12:7–11), a common baptism by the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13) and the sharing of the burdens of church work (Rom. 16:1–23; Phil. 4:2–3). The NT breathes a spirit of inclusiveness created by the full revelation of the gospel of grace.
    On the other hand, Paul nuances the unmistakable equality of man and woman in Christ by preserving male and female sexual identity within the oneness of all in Christ. In 1 Corinthians 11:3–15 (a difficult passage to interpret) the apostle’s concern seems to be the blurring of sexual distinctions as members pray and prophesy in the assembly of the Corinthian church. Women are participating with their heads unveiled (v. 13), displaying an improper manliness (vv. 14–15). While affirming the delicate interdependence of man and woman under God (vv. 11–12), Paul also upholds the distinctiveness of the two sexes by reasoning from the relational dynamics within the Godhead (v. 3) and from human origins (vv. 7b–9; cf. Gen. 2:18–25). For a woman, therefore, to venture into male behaviour violates the transcendent ordering of relationships. She is to retain her feminine dignity, and the man his original headship, so that there is no falsifying of manhood and womanhood in the church.
    The meaning of kephaleœ in verse 3 has attracted debate. The NRSV reads, ‘Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ.’ Playing in verses 4, 5, 7 and 10 on the literal usage of this word, Paul argues that something about God in relation to Christ, Christ in relation to every man, and a husband in relation to his wife, may be truly predicated with the assistance of the word kephaleœ. Some argue that the word means ‘source’ rather than ‘leader’ or ‘authority’, appealing to the logic of verse 8. The function of verses 8 and 9, however, is parenthetical (cf. RSV), validating the idea that woman is man’s ‘glory’ (v. 7). Verse 8 does not function in Paul’s argument as a gloss on verse 3. The view that kephaleœ means ‘source’ has also been encountered by sophisticated philological objections.
    In 1 Corinthians 14:26–40 Paul sketches broad parameters for the meetings of the Corinthian church, giving special attention to tongues and prophecies. He instructs the women of the church to ‘be silent’, in keeping with their subordinate position (v. 34), and instead to talk to their husbands at home regarding prophecies spoken in the church meeting (v. 35). Neither the women’s silence nor their subordination can be intended by the apostle to be absolute, however, for he himself acknowledges in 11:5 that women may pray and prophesy (properly adorned) in the church meeting. The difficulty may be resolved on the supposition that Paul’s instructions in verses 34–35 have to do with the evaluating of the prophecies (‘Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said’, v. 29). Verses 30–33a expand upon the first part of verse 29 (the speaking of the prophecies), while verses 33b–36 explain what is required by the second half of verse 29 (the weighing of the prophecies). Given Paul’s understanding of man and woman from ‘the law’ (v. 34, alluding to Gen. 2:18–25), the subordinate position of the woman is inconsistent with her ‘weighing’ a man’s prophecies.
    Paul authorizes Timothy to instruct the Ephesian church on ‘how one ought to behave in the household of God’ (1 Tim. 3:15). Included in his instructions are guidelines for men and women in church (ch. 2). Men are to pray without anger or argument (v. 8), and women are to adorn themselves with good works rather than with extravagant dress (vv. 9–10). Moreover, a woman is to ‘learn in silence with full submission’ (v. 11). Then Paul explains more fully what this silence with full submission entails: ‘I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man’ (v. 12).
    While women served in many roles in the early church, the apostle sets two ministries apart for qualified men only, viz., teaching and exercising authority. The teaching ministry described in 1 Timothy 4:11–16 suggests that the teaching mentioned in 2:12 is the church’s formal doctrinal exposition by those in the pastoral office (cf. 1 Tim. 3:2; 5:17). The exercise of authority is presumably the ‘ruling’ of the elder (5:17), which is comparable to the management of a household (3:5).
    Some interpreters understand Paul’s instructions to be intended for their original Ephesian context only, for the correction of abuses specific to that church. The weakness of this view is that Paul grounds his teaching not in the local situation, as he sometimes does (Titus 1:10–13), but in two primal human events: the creation of the man first, and then the woman (1 Tim. 2:13; cf. Gen. 2); and the deceiving of the woman, not the man (1 Tim. 2:14; cf. Gen. 3:1–7). His first rationale, analogous to his reasoning in 1 Corinthians 11:8–9, draws upon the divine intention that the woman would be a suitable helper for the man (Gen. 2:18), which implies that she has a supportive role. The significance of Paul’s second rationale is more difficult to perceive. It is improbable that he is making a statement about the vulnerability of women to deception, since the Scripture nowhere teaches this and because his concern in this passage is woman’s relation to man in the church, not woman’s ‘nature’ in some abstract sense. Instead, Paul simply notes the fact that, at the fall, the serpent engaged Eve, not Adam, in the deception (cf. Gen. 3:13). The tempter led her away from learning from her husband ‘in silence with full submission’ into the equivalent of teaching and exercising authority over him (cf. Gen. 3:6), so disrupting their divinely ordained roles; Paul wants the Ephesian church to reflect upon the negative consequences of this confusion.
    1 Timothy 2:15 directs the Ephesian women to a sphere of activity where they can experience the salvation they desire in abundant measure: ‘Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty’ (NRSV). While the proper translation of this verse is not as obscure as our various English versions might imply, its interpretation is difficult. Paul may be using a strong soteriological term (‘saved’) to counter arguments that women can experience the fullness of what God has for them only if they discard their womanly roles (cf. 1 Tim. 5:14; Titus 2:3–5). He would not imply that only mothers can be ‘saved’. But Paul does regard motherhood as a distinguished form of human experience, rich with saving potential, if the children born continue in faith, love, holiness and modesty. Indeed, sons marked by these qualities would provide church leadership in the next generation and thereby extend the woman’s influence to the highest levels of church governance.
    To sum up: the apostle affirms the oneness of the entire people of God, and he also demonstrates a sensitive alertness to the implications of sexual identity. His views on both the unity of the church and the distinctiveness of the sexes are rooted in biblical precedent and argued strongly against opposition.
    Finally, the NT envisages an eternal state in which manhood and womanhood, while not erased, will be transcended in a final, heavenly order (Mark 12:25). The people of God will be ‘like angels in heaven’, in that the centre of their existence will be undivided communion with God. Then the beautiful and delicate interplay of man and woman with one another will give way to the ultimate reality of Christ and his church for ever at one (Rev. 21:2, 9–10).
    See also: IMAGE OF GOD.

Bibliography
    J. A. Fitzmyer, ‘Kephaleœ in I Corinthians 11:3’, Int 47, 1993, pp. 52–59; S. J. Grenz, Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry (Downers Grove, 1995); A. J. Köstenberger, T. R. Schreiner and H. S. Baldwin (eds.), Women in the Church: A Fresh Analysis of 1 Timothy 2:9–15 (Grand Rapids, 1995); R. C. Kroeger and C. C. Kroeger, I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking 1 Timothy 2:11–15 in Light of Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, 1992); J. Piper and W. Grudem (eds.), Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism (Wheaton and Cambridge, 1991, 1992).
R. C. ORTLUND, JR