Probably best remembered today for Women in the Early Christian Ministry, a free-thinking work which was published posthumously in 1897, Dietrick was a 19th century women's rights activist and woman's suffragist.

      Telling us something about both Dietrick and the state of the women's suffrage movement in 1893, all of Dietrick's resolutions to that National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) convention were adopted without dissent except one which generated a long discussion. It read:

      "Resolved, That we especially protest against this present attempt to force all the people to follow the religious dictates of a part of the people, establishing a precedent for the entrance of a most dangerous complicity between Church and State, thereby subtly undermining the foundation of liberty, so carefully laid by the wisdom of our fathers."

      Dietrick placed all of her comments regarding both creation stories in Genesis in the same section, under Gen 1: 26 - 28 Presaging contemporary exegetes, Dietrick used an early form of biblical criticism wherein she did not try to reinterpret the Genesis story. Rather she analyzed the history of the biblical texts, assessed the effects of redactors, and commented on the problems and pitfalls of translation.

      "The most important thing for a woman to note, in reading Genesis, is that that portion which is now divided not "the first three chapters" (there was no such division until about five centuries ago), contains two entirely separate, and very contradictory, stories of creation, written by two different, but equally anonymous, authors. No Christian theologian of to-day, with any pretensions to scholarship, claims that Genesis was written by Moses. As was long ago pointed out, the Bible itself declares that all the books the Jews originally possessed were burned in the destruction of Jerusalem, about 588 BC, at the time the people were taken to Babylonia as slaves to the Assyrians, (see II Esdras, ch xiv, v. 21, Apocrypha). not until about 247 BC (some theologians say 226 and others 169 BC) is there any record of a collection of literature in the re-built Jerusalem, and, then, the anonymous writer of II Maccabees briefly mentions that some Nehemiah "gathered together the acts of the kings and the prophets and those of David" when "founding a library" for use in Jerusalem. But the earliest mention anywhere in the Bible of a book that might have corresponded to Genesis is made by an apocryphal writer, who says that Ezra wrote "all that hath been done in the world since the beginning," after the Jews returned from Babylon, under his leadership, about 450 BC (see II Esdras, ch xiv, v 22, of the Apocryphia).

      When it is remembered that the Jewish books were written on rolls of leather, without much attention to vowel points and with no division into verses or chapters, by uncritical copyists, who altered passages greatly, and did not always even pretend to understand what they were copying, then the reader of Genesis begins to put herself in position to understand how it can be contradictory. Great as were the liberties which the Jews took with Genesis, those of the English translators, however, greatly surpassed them.

      The first chapter of Genesis, for instance, in Hebrew, tells us, in verses one and two, "As to origin, created the gods (Elohim) these skies (or air or clouds) and this earth . . . And a wind moved upon the face of the waters." Here we have the opening of a polytheistic fable of creation, but, so strongly convinced were the English translators that the ancient Hebrews must have been originally monotheistic that they rendered the above as follows: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth . . . And the spirit of God (!) moved upon the face of the waters."

      It is now generally conceded that some one (nobody pretends to know who) at some time (nobody pretends to know exactly when), copied two creation myths on the same leather roll, one immediately following the other. About one hundred years ago, it was discovered by Dr. Astruc, of France, that from Genesis ch 1, v 1 to Gen ch 2, v 4, is given one complete account of creation, by an author who always used the term "the gods" (Elohim), in speaking of the fashioning of the universe, mentioning it altogether thirty-four times, while, in Genesis ch 2, v 4, to the end of chapter 3, we have a totally different narrative, by an author of unmistakably different style, who uses the term "Iahveh of the gods" twenty times, but "Elohim" only three times. The first author, evidently, attributes creation to a council of gods, acting in concert, and seems never to have heard of Iahveh. The second attributes creation to Iahveh, a tribal god of ancient Israel, but represents Iahveh as one of two or more gods, conferring with them (in Genesis ch 13, v 22) as to the danger of man's acquiring immortality.

      Modern theologians have, for convenience sake, entitled theses two fables, respectively, the Elohistic and the Iahoistic stories. They differ, not only in the point I have mention above, but in the order of the "creative acts;" in regard to the mutual attitude of man of woman, and in regard to human freedom from prohibitions imposed by deity. In order to exhibit their striking contradictions, I will place them in parallel columns:

Elohistic	Iahoistic
Order of Creation:	Order of Creation:
First: Water	First: Land
Second: Land	Second: Water
Third: Vegetation	Third: Male Man, only
Fourth: Animals	Fourth: Vegetation
Fifth: Mankind; male and female	Fifth: Animals Sixth: Woman
In this story male and female man are created simultaneously, both alike, in the image of the gods, after all animals have been called into existence.	In this story male man is sculptured out of clay, before any animals are created, and before female man has been created.
Here, joint dominion over the earth is given to woman and man, without limit or prohibition.	Here, woman is punished with subjection to man for breaking a prohibitory law.
Everything, without exception, is pronounced "very good."	There is a tree of evil, whose fruit, is said by Iahveh to cause sudden death, but which does not do so, as Adam lived 930 years after eating it.
Man and woman are told that "every plant bearing seed upon the face of the earth and every tree. . . ." To you it shall be for meat." They are thus given perfect freedom.	Man is told there is one tree of which he must not eat, "for in that day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."
Man and women are given special dominion over all the animals - "every creeping thing that creepth upon the earth."	An animal, a "creeping thing," is given dominion over man and woman, and proves himself more truthful than Iahveh Elohim.
(Compare Genesis ch 2, v 17, with ch 3 v 4 and 22.)

      Now as it is manifest that both of these stories cannot be true; intelligent women, who feel bound to give the preference to either, may decide according to their own judgment of which is more worthy of an intelligent woman's acceptance. Paul's rule is a good one in this dilemma, "Prove all things: hold fast to that which is good." My own opinion is that the second story was manipulated by some Jew, in an endeavor to give "heavenly authority" for requiring a woman to obey the man she married. In a work which I am now completing, I give some facts concerning ancient Israelitish history, which will be of peculiar interest to those who wish to understand the origin of woman's subjection." pages 16-18

      Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Revising Committee, The Woman's Bible, reprinted by the Coaliton on Women and Religion, Seattle, 1992

      Annie Laurie Gaylor (ed.), Women Without Superstition: "No Gods - No Masters": The Collected Writings of Women Freethinkers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Madison, Wisconsin, 1997 pp. 307-308 (biographical information)

Return to Women's History Month 2000 Table of Contents

e-mail sunshine@pinn.net