Genesis Gender Roles

The connected the mind and the body has been questioned and debated by philosophers and theologians. However, the Old Testament of the bible has little interest in distinguishing the “body” as separate from the “soul”. “Nor is the Old Testament interested in a conception of a human [being] as an individual person, either as distinguished from persons of as a small universe complete, in himself or herself” (Herion, I.768). Therefore, a human being is both “flesh” and “soul.” Genesis is the first book of the bible, and known in the Hebrew text as Bereshit, “in the beginning.” Chapters one and two include the formation of humanity and the world, which is called the Primeval Story. God’s power in ordering creation is enacted, and man and woman

The Israelites understanding of God in relation to themselves was saturated with gender stereotypes. The masculine continues to be divine and holy, while the feminine is impure and wicked. The gender roles and understanding of sexuality from Genesis continued throughout the bible as the Jewish people described their covenant like a marriage. For example, “…. Because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord” references God as Israel’s husband at the Siani covenant (Jer. 31:32). The Israelites view of themselves as God’s wife reinforced their unequal understanding of gender between men and women. Rabbi Sally Priesand also describes the covenantal relation with God as unequal parties in the bond of marriage. As Genesis 2 describes the relationship between men and women, the “predominant metaphor for the covenant is not vassalage or the master-slave relation, but marriage (Adler,156). When the Israelites broke God’s laws or the covalent, it was like committing adultery. The prophet Jeramiah also includes in verse 20, the Israelites are “…like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you, Israel, have been unfaithful to me, declares the Lord.” Gender roles are reinforced as the marriage metaphor extends to the covenantal relationship. Israel does not follow God’s rule, as His wife, so she is an unfaithful woman. Feminist critiques have argued using metaphors for adulterous Israel, have constructed “a social reality that… reinforces patriarchal monopoles over women’s bodies and women’s sexuality” (Adler, 157). Roles of woman and attitudes toward socially accepted behavior are evident through the characters in biblical literature. Gender for the Israelites in the Ancient Near East was socially constructed, and continues