Susan Foh And Phyllis Trible: Feminist Interpretations Of The Bible

Feminist interpretations of the Bible are very scarce, but Susan Foh and Phyllis Trible grapple with the role of women in Genesis 1-3. Susan Foh, a Christian scholar, wrote on Genesis 1-3 with the fundamental thesis that men and women are equally blessed in the image of God, or ontologically equal, but the creation stories designate a functional difference where man is the head and woman is subordinate. In Genesis 2, the man was created before the woman, and Foh uses the order of creation as evidence that women are subordinate. In contrast, Phyllis Trible’s fundamental theses in her essays aim to depatriarchalize interpretations of the Bible and argue that men and women are equal. Trible highlights that the temporality of creation in the second

She interprets Genesis 3:16 and the deceit of the serpent as the woman’s attempt to control her husband by having him eat from the Tree of Knowledge. In Foh’s words, “The woman sinned against her husband by helping him… into sin” (393). Since an example of a woman exercising control results in punishment from God, she uses it as evidence that disturbing the roles of inequality in the male-female relationship will lead to chaos. In keeping with the complementarian perspective, she aims to argue that submission or subordination of the woman is God’s intention. Foh specifically analyzes roles for men and women in the church and in marriage. She says, “In church and marriage, God has established a unity which harmonizes and balances” (Foh 397). Her choice of the words, “harmonizes” and “balances” point to a level of stability. In addition, the word “unity” draws on the principle of oneness which implies that women have a dependency on men and therefore the two genders have different levels of

In particular, Trible focuses on the use of gender and sexuality in the Hebrew text. She notes that before the creation of Eve, ‘adham was used generically, and man is only specifically referenced as ‘ish simultaneously when woman is created as ‘ishshah. The use of the Hebrew helps to disprove the theory that temporality in the second creation story indicates difference in power. In fact, the contemporaneous distinction of the genders in the Hebrew text further proves the parallel between men and women that Trible argues. Trible also analyzes the naming motif in the second creation story that many complementarians use to assert inequality. She highlights that the name is not used in the poem in either noun or verb form. Instead, the Hebrew uses the verb qara’ meaning ‘to call.’ Therefore, the poem reads, “She shall be called woman” (Genesis 2:23). Elsewhere in the text, the author uses the explicit object of the name in conjunction with the verb to name other people and places including the Deity. Therefore, Adam never names Eve, so the supposed naming motif cannot be used as an argument for Adam’s headship over