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Sunshine for
Women WHM 2000, ToC | Home |
As a grand finale for Women's History Month 2000, I intended on listing many of the insights feminists have had into the creation story over the centuries and developing a table (caution: the table is slow to load) to indicate which feminists used which arguments. Then, I intended on using these tools to develop my own insightful, analytical, scholarly, and only somewhat dry and boring commentary on the creation story. Well, I created the list and the table, but when it came time to write my own commentary, complete with my own unique insights into the creation story, I ran into problems. And the more I tried to fix it, the worse it got. So you will have to be satisfied with my own humble contribution to this ageless debate. By the way, I firmly believe that men and women were created equal, no matter what the Bible says. So with that, here is my own commentary on the creation story in Genesis. Feel free to share it with all of your fundie friends.
Sunny
PS. I hope you have enjoyed this presentation for Women's History Month 2000. Take pride in being a woman.
PPS. I finished my WHM 2000 presentation some time ago. Since then, three items have come to light.
Harken, O Eve, Mother of us all, greatest and grandest of women: you who have been maligned all down the ages, know at last that one of your daughters blesses you and proclaims your choice good. To you, oh Eve, we owe it that we are as gods, and as children playing in the garden - that we know the good and evil and are not left in ignorance and lust. Man had stayed ever in an uninquiring place, but to you was given strength to grasp the apple, to proclaim that woman at least prefers wisdom and the wilderness to idle lasciviousness in Eden.
Hionnor Morten, From a Nurse´s Note-Book, London, 1899, str. 152-3 quoted in str. 1 Independent Women (Martha Vicinus)
| Arguments of Various Authors |
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Sunshine for Women
2000
Adam, not being satisfied with running an entire planet populated with millions of varieies of other creatures, a planet which God created just for him to run as he saw fit, went whining to God about being lonely and overworked. As a gesture of good-will and in an attempt to placate Adam, God set about creating another companion especially suited for Adam, a creature who would help Adam get through life while She was busy tending to her creations on other planets, just as God herself was Adam's constant helpmate. After somehow managing to populate an entire planet without creating a being who satisfied Adam and wanting very much to finally make a creature who met with Adam's approval, God decided to fashion only this creature, who was sure to be Her supreme creation, in the finest of locations, Paradise. Believing that perhaps Adam would be more content with this creation if he could claim part of the credit for the final product and wanting Adam to vicariously experience the birth-giving process, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. Knowing that the quality of the finished product is strongly correlated with the quality of the raw materials, instead of using common clay, dirt, and dung as she had when she created Adam, God selected the finest material available, Adam's sanctified rib, to use as the raw material from which she fashioned her newest creation. Pleased with her new creation, she permitted Adam (which is Hebrew for earth- or dirt- man) to name this marvelous new creation Life (which in Hebrew is Eve). Knowing that Adam would always need the help and guidance of her newest creation, God commanded Adam to leave his father and mother and to cleave unto his wife, indicating that a matriarchal society is Her conception of the ideal society. God married the earth-man and Life and they became flesh of one flesh, HER. (Silly men, some men actually think that God commanded Adam to leave his family and cleave unto his wife and her family and then they became flesh of one flesh, him. Aren't they silly little gooses?) Thereafter God saw that her work was truly good, that she was truly finished with creation, and she rested from her labors.
In the most egregious instances of blasphemy imaginable, some of Adam's sons dispute with God herself about the fundamental goodness of a creation that God herself deemed to be good. Traditionally excoriated for her role in the Christian story of creation, using a totally outrageous interpretation of the Christian Holy Bible, Eve was blamed by theologians for centuries for bringing sin and death into the world. Using this story to explain why women are subordinated to men, in an interpretation of the Bible that can only be construed as a masculinist wet-dream of biblical proportions, Eve, the first woman, in turn, passes her guilt onto all future women.
In truth, the story shows that Eve was beguiled by a "wily serpent" into eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, a very laudable goal. After debating the moral and theological implications of the serpent's suggestion, Eve dives into the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil with gusto. But let us back up in our story. Before creating Eve, God forbid Adam from eating of this fruit because She understood that Adam was a hopeless case when it came to matters of morality and would always lack good judgment. To remedy Adam's weakness, She wanted Adam to always obey Eve who was to be blessed with the knowledge of good and evil. Some versions of the story claim that Adam passed God's command along to Eve. Nonetheless, God wanted Eve to eat of the fruit of knowledge. Disguising herself as a serpent, the good and merciful God herself beguiled Eve into eating the fruit which was forbidden to Adam. When Eve offered the forbidden fruit to Adam, weak-willed Adam, unable to withstand Eve's allurements (as opposed to the beguilement of a wily supernatural demi-god), in deliberate disobedience to the words which God personally spoke to him, and not motivated as was Eve to become a moral being, nonetheless joins Eve in eating the fruit which was forbidden to him. Adam, having done nothing to discourage Eve from her conduct, after refusing to take responsibility for his actions and trying to push the blame for the incident off, first onto God herself, then onto Eve, is cursed by God to earn his daily food by the sweat of his brow and was driven from Paradise for his transgressions. Because Eve aspired to become a truly moral being, God blessed Eve by allowing her to bear children periodically. Out of the goodness of her heart and for Adam's sake, Eve joined Adam in his banishment, even being willing to share in the labors of the world, even though God herself punished Adam and Adam alone with being given all of the world's work. Remember Eve was blessed only with child-birth, not child care, homemaking, housekeeping, dish-washing, clothes washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, farming, or any other tasks, just child-birth. Wanting to spare Adam's feelings by not making Her favoritism toward Eve too obvious and wanting to give Adam a "taste of his own medicine" by forcing the blame for the entire incident off unto the serpent, God hid from Adam the knowledge that She had temporarily inhabited the body of the serpent. And, as a further reward for Eve's conduct in attempting to become a more moral being, God assured her that God Herself would place enmity between Eve (and her descendants) and the nasty serpent and that she and her offspring would "crush the head of the serpent," virtually demanding that Eve take the lead in all matters requiring good judgment - religion, philosophy, politics, family life, the economic sphere. Perhaps if Adam had eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge with more gusto, God would have rewarded him, too. Arise, woman, and take the place that God has ordained for you from time immemorial.
Return to Women's History Month 2000 Table of Contents
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Sunshine for Women encourages you to support our feminist sisters by purchasing their books, reading them, disseminating the ideas they contain, but most especially, by making their book available to our sisters, our daughters, and the community at large by requesting your school library, your public library, and area bookstores to carry their books. Remember it is not enough to write literature, history, and theology, we must pass these works on to future generations. Help us to preserve these works for a new generation by putting them on library bookshelves.
last updated February 2000