Tagged: bible
The Risk of Becoming A Father: A Theo-Poetic Reflection
This is a reflection I wrote back in 2011, when my first son, Rowan, was born. It is, as I call it, a “theo-poetic” reflection, as I could not help but think about the grandness of this event as connected with faith in God.
Some would question whether fatherhood is a valid impetus for religious reflection. What do the two have to do with each other? I am of the opinion that even an atheist, when gripped with the beauty of life’s greatest moments ultimately resort to religious-like vocabulary: words of transcendence like “sublime” or even, “sacred.” There is a reason why the Hebrew prophets were not scientists or philosophers – those who think the mysteries of life can be objectified, scrutinized, and exhausted, those that naively hold that thought begins in doubt and ends in certainty rather than beginning and ending in wonder. Rather, all of the prophets were poets.
Many know their fathers as appearing cold and silent, perpetually poker-faced. After my son was born, my wife turned to me wondering why I did not cry at the sight of my son. I said that I did not know. I almost felt ashamed that I did not. Could I be that emotionless? However, as I reflect on this, and many of the powerful moments of my life, I have found that there are, for me, moments so profound that their magnitude invokes such a complex polyphony of emotions, our bodies do not know how to express one where our minds are wrestling with many. It is not that men are emotionless or emotionally shallow (as some have said), it is, I think, that sometimes we are so complicated, no one expression of emotion does justice. Thus, we appear reductionistically simple.
For this reason the Christian scriptures were not written as pure historical reports, logical propositions, and empirical data – objective yet dry, stale, and irrelevant – but rather as narratives, poetry, proverbs, and epistles – subjective, personal, and thus, real and relevant. Poetry is the enemy of science, as science accuses poetry of un-realism, yet it is poetry that seems to come to grip with what reality is for the human experience more than science. In French, the same word is shared for an account of history and a story, l’histoire, as it is understood that in order to communicate the flavor of life’s memories accurately, one must ironically use the metaphor, forsaking the demands of the factual in order to fulfill it and employing the rich meanings found typically in fiction. The wondrous thing about poetic reflection is that it is the attempt to wrestle into words the things that matter most to us, yet render us silent and speechless.
It is a strange wordless feeling becoming a father. Watching my wife’s pregnancy was just that: watching, a position that intrinsically predisposes a father to a sense of aloofness. Another’s pregnancy, for all its power to produce the sense of maternity, is no process to prepare for one’s own paternity: no inherent connection is formed between father and fetus, no nesting instinct clicks on automatically. A guy does not spend his childhood unwittingly rehearsing for childcare with his toys and their many nursery related accessories. Compared to the astounding ability to produce life from within oneself, to shift seamlessly and intrinsically into a parental-consciousness, men are left feeling as the “weaker sex.” Fatherhood, at least in its initial impulse, far from its place in perceived male headship, subverts the great chains of social hierarchy – hierarchy with all its promise of strength and security – that we as men wish to remain unthreatened.
I take Meagan in to be induced on the evening of Good Friday. We stay the night for observation. I don’t sleep. I can’t sleep: part anticipation part the stiff hospital chair-bed-thing is not actually suitable for sleeping.
Then the labor happens in the morning, Easter Saturday, April 23. Trumpets from heaven might have well of blasted: all the signs were there, all of it expected, however, an urgency sweeps over you that makes you feel you were never ready for what is to come. All preparations feel illusory and inadequate. It is the eschaton of my life, as I know it.
Moments become eternal as memory fragments into snap-shots that somehow also bleed together like a long exposure photograph: At the hospital, Cervidil administered, epidural, lunch from the Hospital’s Subway, contractions set in, the movie Ben-Hur plays in the background, cervix is fully dilated and ready to push. I look at my watch, its 4:25. Ben-Hur is at the chariot race scene. I hold Meagan’s hand. I hold her leg. Meagan’s mother, on the other side, does the same. Breathe. Push. Pause. Breathe. Push. Pause. I see the head.
I am not going to lie, it is gross. Life in it’s most raw forms, we often find disgusting; without all our prim and proper adornments to shield ourselves from the overwhelmingly messy purity that life is, we find it scary before we can properly appreciate it as sacred.
A haze of helplessness, ignorance, and anxiety from watching my wife have contractions, have pain, have labor, have something I have never witnessed before and can never understand, leaves me unsure of what is going on, what I should be doing, what I could even do at all. Men are supposed to “fix things.” I don’t know what to do. I say, “Good job,” as if I am the expert, as if I am not feeling awkwardly pathetic.
It all comes to the pivotal moment I see the little body and the loud cries begin. The sur-reality of labor splits sunder by the sharpness of the in-breaking reality of delivery. Adventus at 4:57.
The image behind the shadowy ultra-sound phantasms and amorphous movements within the belly manifests itself for the first time in one tiny distinct form: the crying naked body of a tiny baby boy. The tohu-wa-bohu of childlessness break by the bara of conception, that leads to the badal and miqveh of pregnancy, and culminates in the final barak of birth.
I give my wife a kiss, no longer simply between two lovers, but from the father to the mother of our child. A mature love is affirmed, love that culminated in new live, a new journey: our family. I hold my wife, my wife holds the baby, the baby holds my hand. Bone of my bone holding flesh of my flesh: we are three, yet, in love, we are one.
We named him Rowan Albert Boersma, Albert after my dad, John Albert Boersma. However, I was so tired after the birth that when I called my family to tell them the news, I told them the wrong name! It was the most pleasant point of exhaustion, I’ve ever felt!
I take my son in my arms and I look at him, and he opens his eyes and stares at me. Some refer to a religious experience as an “I-Thou” encounter, the finite “I” encountering God’s absolute “Thou.” The presence of the infinite being produces a sense of being infinitesimal, under the weight of the wonder of that which is Wholly Other. To hold my son for the first time is an similarly unspeakable feeling, apophatic yet oddly inverse: I feel like the thou, staring down at this being that is in my “image and likeness,” this person that is utterly dependent on my providence: so small, so fragile, so vulnerable, so innocent, but above all else, just so. With all that I am, I pronounce blessing on this being: I see him as “very good.” His finger reaches out and touches my finger in Michelangelo-esque sublimity.
As I sense myself as the Thou, the child becomes the I. And thus, I see myself in something other than me. In doing so, eye to eye, I sees I, self-hood is seen in another and otherness in self, an infinite reciprocal circle of identity and alterity. A type of self-transcendence occurs. The I-Thou reverses as I stand before a new tiny Thou. All senses of deity, the feeling of being bigger than you have ever been, paradoxically permeates with the sense of being smaller than you ever have been, feeling the full weight of fatherhood, the magnitude of responsibility, and the fear of innumerable potentialities of failure. The future in all its awesome potentiality presents itself, simultaneously dazzling as dangerous.
In holding that child for the first time, with the instantaneous love, you feel that you are more sure about what is right in the world than ever before, yet at the same time the most unsure. With love, an kenotic agape occurs as someone other than yourself becomes the measure of your essence. As you love this little someone, you see yourself in them, and your own idenity as a loving person becomes bound to them, covenantally. You bind your self-hood to something other than yourself, freely allowing yourself to be taken hostage to this someone that you know has the uncontrollable judgment to pronounce you a success or a failure in your task of loving, in your ability to be loving. The certainty in love appears also as the greatest risk. For those that define masculinity as a man’s self-sufficiency, power, and ability, fatherhood appears as a threat-to more than a fulfillment-of manhood.
Is this what God felt like as he beheld Adam? Is this what the Father felt as he looked down upon Christ lying in a manger? Through the divine tzimtzum, is this the risk of God’s essence as love entails as he constantly proclaims to his children, those other than himself yet from himself? Is this the mystery of God’s promise and proclamation to all humans, when he says, “I am love; I created you from love; I love you; I will always love you”? Is it in the finite response of gratitude for God’s love that God’s infinity is realized? Did God, as a being whose supreme ontological predicate is love, risk his very deity in the act of creating humans? It is only when every “knee bows and tongue confesses” the Spirit’s love, Christ’s lordship, and the Father’s paternity that God will truly be “all in all.” The marvel of God’s sovereignty is his willful vulnerability.
How can God be vulnerable? In Greek mythology, Cronus the Titan devours his children so that none can challenge his sovereignty. Zeus the all powerful, Cronus’ son, slays his father, only to become an absent uncaring father himself to myriads of bastard children of the women he seduced. He, the “father” of all gods, is a god that intervenes to win wars for his subjects – wielding the symbol of his power: the lighting bolt – only for the profit of more temples, more worship, more reputation, more fear of his might. The gods of the Greeks were defined as timeless, impassible, unchangeable, omnipotent and omniscient. And because of this, the Greeks logically concluded, in all their metaphysical sophistication, that the gods do not care about us. They must not care, or else they would not be gods! To care is to be weak. This is what the world conceives of as divinity: power and control.
Some wonder why an infinite deity would choose to identify himself as gendered and allow himself to be named by his people as “our father” (although there are many parts of scripture, I should point out, where God is depicted as motherly too), yet everywhere in our world we see absent fathers – people, perhaps, afraid of the risk of love – broken homes, abandonment, even abuse. And yet in our darkest moments something, someone, beyond all our experience, beyond all notions of how the world is, pierces the veil of despair and shines through in glorious consolation: God as love appears as the one that never abandons, always keeps his promises, always protects, is always proud, is always daring to love.
The God who identifies himself with the stories retold by the community that claims their brother is Christ is a God that we profess does nothing like what a god is expected to do: he comes into history, changes himself into a sacrifice, suffers with us, becomes weak and helpless choosing powerlessness over violence, chooses compassion over wrath, and even is said to have become the very thing God is not: the misery of sin and death. Though the vile yet beautiful cross – the symbol of the Christian God’s awesome ability – all this was done to say to all the fatherless: to all victims those crying out for rescuing, to all the abandoned that will never understand themselves as being worthy of a father’s proud smile. All this to say to all people: you have a father! Daddy loves you. He is proud of you. He will rescue you. He is never going to leave you.
Indeed, no psychological projection, no philosophical system, no misguided mythology constructed by human minds could invent the notion that a God would choose to use masculine language to define his magnificent characteristics yet fundamentally in his very essence, in his very being and becoming, be something so unbecoming of the impassible power and sovereign invulnerability of our notion of “male” deity, that is, the unfathomable and ineffable reality that God is love.
Hearing my crying child, holding him for the first time, and not knowing what to do to end the crying is an absolutely terrifying experience. Something so small renders someone so much older, bigger, and more capable that itself, ultimately incapable: omnipotence dissolves into omni-incompetence. However, he calms down and sleeps sweetly, and I pause to take in the strange soothing fragrance of a new born baby at peace on my chest, his soft head against my cheek. We both rest, I in pride and Rowan in purity. I think to myself that this is how God must have felt on the seventh day. Shalom, the peace that all existence strives for, engulfs us.
I use the blue musical teddy bear to comfort him, the same one my father used to comfort me. Now I understand what my parents felt, and I regret every moment that I ever took their love for granted. My father has passed away, my mother also, yet I am here. I say, “Daddy is here. Daddy is never going to leave you.” A generation passes, a generation comes, and yet in the flux of life’s frailty, for all its uncertainty, love is what remains eternally and assuredly the same. Death is no competitor to the renewing power of life through love. The “risk” of becoming a father, love’s risk of being inadequate, vulnerable, and the potentially a failure, in turn, is then what becomes illusory, dissolving into epiphany, as love’s jeopardy becomes life’s victory, as love demonstrates itself as the essence of immortality, as love demonstrates that love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, never ends and never fails.”
Why Genesis One Does Not Teach Creationism
“One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: I will send you the Holy Spirit who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon. For He willed to make them Christians, not astronomers.”
– Saint Augustine, regarding Genesis chapter one
Many of my fellow believers are creationists, who hold that Genesis chapter one should be read as teaching a doctrine of how the world was scientifically made. While I respect the sincere faith of these believers, some are even in my church, I also see many Christians, myself included, encountering significant faith crises, because of the assumptions of that perspective. Many creationists see it as the opposite: that evolution will erode and destroy one’s faith. For me and many other Christ-followers, it simply hasn’t. For me, it is mostly because I found that Genesis one should not be made to comment on the scientific composition of the universe. Here is a reflection on why I think Genesis one is best understood as offering a theological narrative: timeless truths about God and creation delivered in a culturally bound way.
There are some very good reasons not to take Genesis one as offering a scientific description of the creation of the world. Not doing so, I think, is the most consistent way to interpret it. This is because there are pre-modern notions about the cosmos that these text assumes. In fact, I will go so far as to say that if we do take it as a historical description of the material origins of us and the cosmos, if we make that the truth of this text, we force the text to contradict itself, reducing a literalistic strategy to absurdity.
So, the following eight exegetical points attempt to point out the problems of a creationist approach. Because the text assumes a geo-centric cosmology, it cannot be used to support creationism which does not hold to these details. I am doing this without offering a full positive doctrine of creation (which is another argument that I will give later). However, trust me, I do think Genesis one is God’s Word and that the universe is God’s creation. But it is God’s Word in proper literary context, understanding the cultural climate it was written in. I believe in creation. I believe that Genesis one teaches us about creation. I just don’t believe in “creationism” as an idea that tries to extract science into this narrative or things all of the aspects of these narrative are applicable today.
As I said, my argument is an reducio ad absurdum. Creationism, by its own uneven exegesis (or more accurately is consistent neglect of what the text literally says), is an interpretation that collapses into self-contradiction necessitating a different interpretation, a reconsideration of interpretive principles. So here are the eight interconnected arguments or features:
Creation from Water?
The opening verses describe the heavens and earth as “formless and void” yet the spirit of God hovers over the waters of the deep. Before everything else is created, there is water. Before there is time, planets, stars, there is water. That seems odd. Why is that? Is water the eternal, primal sub-atomic substance in which all things were constructed? Does this passage, as some suggest, contradict creation ex nihilo, the notion that God created the world out of nothing? No.
Water was a symbol of nothingness. The Mediterranean Sea was thought to be an “abyss.” Why? If a sailor sank into the depths of the sea, they would disappear into what would seem like bottomless black nothingness, a void. Beginning with water is a metaphorical way of saying the world was “formless” and “void,” and so, God created the world out of nothing.
Notice right off the bat then that choosing to see metaphor rather than concrete descriptions makes the images in the text make way more sense. It makes them much more meaningful. It has a better interpretive fit.
Earth then Universe?
Next we see that the creation of the earth precedes the creation of the very universe it is supposed to be situated in. This should tip us off that this is not a scientific description. In fact, we commit violence to the text by reading out modern assumptions into it. By all accounts the Sun is older than the earth, and the earth (as well as the moon) all formed because they were in orbit around the Sun.
A creationist might retort and say that God held these things in place until the solar system was created, but then natural history is being portrayed as intentionally deceptive. However, the text does not say anything about such a process nor would it even be suggesting it as it is speaking to a non-scientific world. Often I find creationists doing these kinds of ad hoc interpretations in order to save their theology. What ends up happening is that creationist invent miracles that the text does not describe to make the simple narrative make sense by their interpretive assumptions. A good rule of thumb is that if you have to invent miracles in order for interpretations to make sense, you are probably reading into the text with the wrong approach.
Light/Day before Sun?
Light and darkness as well as night and day are placed before the sun and moon, by which light, time and day are generated and measured. Even the ancient people understood that light only comes from the sun and moon (remember, they did not have electricity). Yet the sun was often worshiped, so we see the sun’s importance relegated to a later day in creation. It is no longer the primary act of creation or its pinnacle. Light, the source of all the earth’s nourishment, the symbol of moral goodness, comes directly from God. Time and day, the forces that structure reality, again, are not controlled by a solar deity, but proceed directly from God. The sun, not even named, is demoted to merely being a sign for the seasons. The “seasons” are the times of the worship festivals. So, instead of being a god, it is merely a sign for the people of God to know when to worship the true God! Thus, we see that the creation days are most meaningful when we see them as a rhetorical strategy for countering pagan mythology.
Blue Sky Made of Water?
God divides the waters above to form the sky and the waters below to form the seas. The sky is described as being made out of water in the text. Again, I am amazed that creationists skip right over this. We know that the sky is not made out of water, but rather it is blue due to the fact that light rays going through the atmosphere show up blue, and the sea is blue because it reflects the blue of the sky. The sky is not blue because it is made of water. Again, this is a pre-modern description of the universe, not a scientific one.
I have heard some creations say that before the flood there was an expanse of water above the clouds that came down for the flood, since the text says it had not rained until then. There are problems with this. The biggest problem is that the “expanse” of water is not described as coming down at this time. In fact, the author that wrote at the time of Psalm 148:4 implores the “waters above the skies” to worship God. So, it is still there. Also, the expanse is not merely water held in the sky. It is literally thought to be a hard dome, which we will see in the next point…
Sky is a Hard Dome?
The sky is thought to be a hard “dome” (also translated “vault” or “expanse” or “firmament”). In the ancient cosmology the sky was made of water, separated by a dome-like wall. Creations oddly dismiss this detail, saying that it is no longer there because the waters came down in the flood. However, this neglects firstly that the dome is still around in Psalm 150:1 when the people of God are invited to praise him in this dome. The dome is a permanent fixture of the cosmos in the ancient mindset. Second, what is being described here is literally a hard dome, not a miraculously held up expanse of water. This dome has “flood gates” by which waters flood down (cf. Gen. 7:11). This dome is hard enough for God to “stretch out the heavens like a tent” over top and lay “the beams of his upper chambers on their waters” (Ps. 104:2-3). Isaiah 40:22 describes the heavens not like a spherical atmosphere, but as a “canopy” or “tent” on the flat earth. The flat earth rests on pillars. “When the earth totters, with all its inhabitants, it is I who keep its pillars steady” says God in Ps. 75:3. One cannot escape that the ancient people thought of the world like a building, with a dome over top and pillars below (cf. Ps. 104:5). For all their talk about reading the Bible plainly, creationist ironically read these passages as figurative.
Creation is a Building?
Expanding the last point, the sun and moon are described as embedded in this dome like lamps in a ceiling, “lights in the dome…God set them in the dome of the sky” (Gen. 1:1, 17). Experientially, we can look up and see that the sun and moon appear to be in front of the blue of the sky and it is no surprise that the ancient people literally thought this. They thought that the sun and moon were embedded in the dome of the sky, like lamps in a ceiling.
Instead of the earth moving around the sun, the ancient people saw the earth as a flat immovable building. Earth is described like a flat “circle,” not a sphere (Isaiah 40:22). God in Psalm 104:5 “set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.” Job 9:6 says God “shakes the earth…its pillars tremble.”
The sun and moon are described as revolving around earth’s building, not the earth around the sun. Ecclesiastes poetically describes this: “The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises” (Ecc. 1:8).
A creationist might respond by saying these are merely a metaphor. To which, I would say that is an ironic strategy for defending an otherwise literalistic interpretation! In other words, that’s my point! Bracketing parts of the text as metaphor to preserve reading the rest of the passage as a scientific description is a sad, self-defeating strategy. Why not be consistent and read the whole description as pre-modern poetic description? That makes more sense.
Dragons Existing?
The fifth day mentions the creation of the great “sea monsters” (v. 21). This is often glossed as something less offensive to our modern ears, reading something like “sea creatures.” However the word in Hebrew is tannim, which literally means “dragons” or “monsters.” The Bible was written in a time when people assumed these things existed. For instance the Book of Job reports the Leviathan and Behemoth as massive mythological forces of evil and chaos, but assumes they are real: “as I made you [Job] I made it [Behemoth]” (Job 40: 15). Isaiah 27:1 refers to Leviathan as the “dragon of the Sea.” Psalm 74:14 mentions that Leviathan has many heads like a hydra. Creationists have tried to say that these refer to the dinosaurs before the flood. Dinosaurs certainly do resemble dragons, but these passages refer to these beasts as presently existing at the time of writing, well after the time that the flood supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs.
The Bible also mentions creatures like Rahab (Job 9:13; also called Lilith, cf. Isa. 34:13), not to be confused by the prostitute that helped the spies in Canaan. Rahab is described as a dragon-like enemy of God that God defeats: “Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?” (Isa. 51:9). Rabbinic commentators describe her as a vampire-like woman. Job 26:12 describes God striker her down like he rebukes the Sea, the Sea (capital “S”) being a symbol for cosmic forces of chaos and nothingness in Job. Similarly, Psalm 89:9-10 refers to God conquering the chaos of the Sea, slaying Rahab and the enemies of God, Rahab being a kind of symbol for chaos and evil.
Why does the Bible include this stuff? It is because the ancient people thought they were real and the Bible is trying to comfort them by entering their cultural standpoint, assuring that God is more powerful than any evil they can imagine. What is more comforting? If the Bible said, “Those things don’t exist, silly” or “Whatever evil you can imagine, God is greater than that.” The Bible tends to choose the later strategy.
Different Creation Order from Genesis Two?
Notice in comparison to Genesis two that Genesis one reports the order and events of creation differently. Thus, if they are read as strictly historical accounts rather than literary-theological accounts, they are contradictory. It seems like Israel has two creation accounts that were quite different that the writer of Genesis knowingly put next to each other because both story’s teachings are true. They are both inspired stories. First, while in chapter one creation occurred in a week-long process, in chapter two it is in a day: “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens” (2:4). Now, “in the day” can mean a period of time, but in this context it does not seem to. This refers to Genesis two, where, as we will see, a new creation story is being presented, which does not use a creation week. Its events are presented undifferentiated by days. Thus, it seems that “day” could mean a week-long period, there are no creation days in Genesis two for it to correspond to.
Second, there is a different creation mode. Genesis one creates by divine word alone. Genesis two uses the imagery of a fountain (perhaps the river of life alluded to Rev. 22:1-2) springing forth and covering the earth (decidedly different from water being the beginning substance that is pushed back in chapter one). From there, God “formed out the ground” man, plants, animals, and birds. Chapter two describes creation not by word instantaneously but like a potter forming clay, then breathing life into it. In Genesis one God is a poet; in Genesis two, God is an artisan.
Third, there is a different order to the two creation stories. In chapter one, the order of creation goes birds and fish on day five, then on day six animals first and then male and female created simultaneously that same day. Day five: birds fish; day six: animals then humans, male and female. In chapter two the order goes as follows: the man, then vegetation comes up (v. 9 – where it is already made in the first account), then animals and birds are formed (v. 19), then the woman from Adam’s rib. It is an often neglected detail that in the second creation account God creates the man first, and it is only after he states that it is not good for the man to be alone that he then creates animals and birds, who are not suited for him, and only after that realization, the woman is formed.
Verse 19 sees the creation of every animal as a consequent act to realize Adam is alone: “So then out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air…” Creationists inject alternative meanings to say that God had already made the animals and birds, but the passage describes a subsequent and consecutive event. In fact, it is similar to most verses in this chapter that begins with what is called a waw consecutive (the Hebrew word for “and then”), which is the engine of Hebrew narrative (literally every sentence in a narrative will begin with a waw, “and then,” but most translations edit them out).
Again, if you read them as historical accounts, you force the passages to contradict themselves. If you try to use the passage to support creationism, you are glossing over a lot of details to make it work. If you read them like they intend to be read, as theological narratives, something closer to a parable, then you will have no problem seeing these different orders as incidental to the enduring theological truth of the passage.
What should we do with this? Is Genesis a Myth?
Is Genesis a myth or is it history? The Bible never uses the term myth to describes its contents. In fact 2 Peter 1:16 is quite condemning of the category. So, many are troubled to hear that the creation myths around and before Israel had similarities to Genesis one. In Genesis chapter one, we see what can best be described as an “inspired story” or a “counter-myth.” This is a story that resembles myths that proceeded it, told using the form of story that ancient people used to explain their world, but uses that medium to present truth that counters pagan ways of thinking about God.
Is it purely fictional then? Didn’t ancient Israelites think it was factually true? Creationists are right to think that the writer of Genesis one probably did think the universe was created in six 24 hour periods 6000 years ago. However, it assumes the geo-centric cosmology of culture as well. The text does assume a cultural history that the ancient people assumed, but is crafted through the covenant relationship with God to present us with redemptive truths that speak beyond the ancient assumptions.
The idea that Genesis one has pre-modern qualities or assumes a history that we do not hold to today, does not disprove its enduring theological worth. Far from, it shows its incarnational beauty. God worked from within the ancient culture. We as responsible interpreters need to be discerning about what is cultural and what is timeless. We do this by discerning the context of the text in its historical context and as it has been reflected upon by Christians for 2000 years.
Are we condemned to disbelief about God as a creator, creating the world out of nothing because of these prescientific descriptions? No. It should be no scandal that God used people where they were at to communicate his Word. The notion that God was trying to teach physics and astronomy to a pre-scientific people implies that that Bible is true because it is a science text book and not a book about a God that comes into our world. In fact, people who want to read the Bible as offering a culture-less statement of timeless principles often have a very docetic view: a Word from God without human flesh. It makes way more sense that, just as Jesus stepped into human (Jewish!) flesh, God stepped into a world that thought in terms of story to offer redemptive truth using the media of the culture. Just as Jesus assumes that the mustard seed is the smallest seed (which was the ancient assumption) to teach as about the power of faith, so also Genesis assumes a geocentric universe to communicate God. The meaning of faith is not damaged by the mustard seed not actually being the smallest seed nor is creation disproved by astronomy. So, the fact that God used ancient means of communicating theology should not bother us. In fact, it is a comfort: God uses imperfect authors to write his perfect Word just as he uses us imperfect people to be his Body. He uses our cultural thoughts to communicate his perfect thoughts.
This passage is offered in the form or medium of a nonscientific counter-myth or origin story (which is how the ancient people thought), yet its enduring message or substance is that God is creator and nothing else is, the creation is good, life-giving ordered, and beautiful, and humans are made in God’s image, designed to inherent dignity and to find themselves in his love, etc.
What we have to keep in mind is that God has communicated something enduring in something culturally-bound. This is called the form/substance distinction that Baptist interpreters (such as E. Y. Mullins and Walter Connor) have suggested for over a century. Does the Bible assume a hard domed universe? Yes. Does it assume a 6000 year old cosmos? Yes. Does it assume a geo-centric universe? Yes. Does it assume the existence of dragons? Yes. Does the Bible implore us to believe these things now in order to believe God is a creator? No. Those things are incidental.
We might also call this the medium/message distinction. The form or medium of this passage is prescientific counter-myth, an event of creation that is dated somewhere around 4004 B.C. involving a domed universe and all that, which are details that the ancient people assumed to be true. However, the substance or enduring message of the text is more than that. It is teaching the following:
- God is creator of all that exists, creates out of nothing, and therefore, is greater than all the forces of chaos in our world.
- God is beyond creation, and so, nothing in creation is to be treated as god, and therefore, humans ought not to be enslaved to the worship of finite things.
- Creation is made by divine decree, and therefore is ordered, good and life-giving.
- Creation is designed for peace, worship and Sabbath.
- All humans, not just kings, high priests, or warlords but all people, male and female, rich and poor, are made in God’s image, deserving the dignity and rights God’s children deserve.
- All humans are designed to act like God, emulating his “likeness” of goodness and love.
- People have a responsibility to be stewards of the environment, not to destroy it or waste the precious gift we have been given, but to care for it.
- Reading Scripture through the entire canon, we know that Genesis one is true because it points to Christ. Christ is the logos of God, bringing creation into being (John 1). Christ is the truth of creation, and the truth of creation points forward not backward: Christ is the light shining in the darkness and is ushering a new creation in our midst. The power of Genesis one has not merely happened but is happening as we look to the transformation that Gospel is enacting.
All of that is still true and simply does not depend on whether a creation event happened six thousand years ago.
There are, of course, more truths in the text, and these can be discerned with wisdom, in the community of the faithful, gathered to listen to how the Spirit will use the Scriptures to speak to us.
You can hold to evolution and that universe is billions of years old and that Genesis is God’s Word. Why? For the same reason we trust the Gospel today: God has meet us where we are at.
“Where the Spirit is, There is Freedom”: Women Leaders in the Bible
The Gospel is good news for women. Scripture opens up liberty for all people, particularly women, and particularly with a liberty to follow God’s calling in the world. The church is to be the site where women are most heard and most valued, and thus should also be given opportunity to lead, not being held back. Here we will go through all the women leaders of the Bible. The amount may surprise you.
Often those that would restrict the Spirit will cite a handful of proof texts in the New Testament as universal commands and patterns for gender in the church, rather than situation-specific commands to promote order in disorderly churches. As we go through all these examples, we begin to see an inductive necessity for seeing those proof texts as contextual. The narrative of Scripture simply does not conform to rigid gender patterns.
Deborah
Judges 4:4: Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was judge over Israel at this time. She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided.
Notice a few things: Debroah is a prophet, a true prophet. You can only become a prophet if God picks you. A prophet is someone, if they are authentic, who communicates messages from God to the people. This might be something more intuitive like how a pastor can preach prophetically from God’s Word yet has not heard the direct audible voice of God. Martin Luther King, Jr. was in many ways a contemporary prophet in that regard. However in its most common form in the Old Testament, a prophet hears directly from God. Jeremiah describes hearing God and penning what he heard (Jer. 36:2). While authentic prophecy has to be discerned by God’s people (1 Cor. 14:26-33), a prophet is the highest religious authority for God’s people, higher than elders, higher than priests, higher than the king. As we will see, there were a lot of female prophets.
Deborah was a judge. She held court over all Israel. She was a judicial-political figure over all of Israel, all the people of God, and they were okay with that. What is even more interesting about that is that the qualifications of judges, given in Exodus 18, states that judges must be “men who fear God.” Apparently God and God’s people saw the description of “men” to be generic and inclusive. They did not have a problem with a women leading God’s people, provided she had the calling and ability. It was less common, yes, but it was not forbidden, even in a patriarchal culture. Fast forward to the New Testament and we see something analogous: in 1 Tim 3:2 and Titus 1:7 an overseer or bishop is described as a being male, using only masculine pronouns. These function as the New Testament equivalent of judges for the community. So, if the qualifications of judges in the Old Testament uses male pronouns as does the New Testament office, yet in the Old Testament there is a judge installed that is female and this is permissible, it stands to reason that the male description in the New Testament is inclusive also. The Bible, in its culture, had not problem saying a woman is the right “man” for the job.
Deborah was also a military leader. This story in Judges continues on to describe how an evil warlord Sisera attacks Israel. Barak, a male judge, refuses to fight Sisera unless Deborah comes with him. While he places a lot of confidence in her, Barak is also being a big coward. Deborah agrees to come and fight (despite war not being a female gender role of the time) and she prophetically declares that God will use a woman to shame and defeat Sisera. While Deborah commands the army and defeats Sisera, Sisera runs and hides in a tent where a woman named Jael kills him by stabbing him with a tent peg while he was sleeping, which is a very humiliating way to die. The story of Deborah shows that God can choose women to lead God’s people in all areas (military, religious, and government) and in fact, God chooses women to shame the brutality of some men. After all, he chooses the (supposedly) weak to shame the (supposedly) strong (1 Cor. 1:27).
Huldah
II Kings 22: 14-20 (cf. II Chr. 34: 22-28): Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Akbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophet Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the New Quarter. She said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and aroused my anger by all the idols their hands have made, my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.’ Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people—that they would become a curse and be laid waste—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’ So they took her answer back to the king.
While there is other accounts of women prophets such as Miriam (Ex. 15:20-21), Isaiah’s wife (Isa. 8:3), Noadiah (Neh. 6:14), or Anna (Luke 2:36), these are mentioned in passing. Huldah provides an interesting case. Here Josiah, a good king, discovers the Book of the Law, forgotten in the temple. He sends his officials to Huldah to see if this will prevent the immanent judgment of God against Jerusalem (2 Kings 22:1-13). They go to Huldah, while Huldah comforts Josiah (she says the judgment will not occur during his life) she also blasts him, rather irreverently: “Tell that man who sent you this…” Why so feisty? Rabbinical commentators point out that Jeremiah was around prophesying coming judgment, it would have made more sense to talk to him. However, the king is going to a female prophet, perhaps to push or manipulate her into saying something for his benefit. Huldah has none of it, and she definitely takes him down a notch.
So notice what is going on here: This indicates that a women, by her religious calling, has more authority than God’s anointed king. King Josiah goes to her to get approval, and Huldah rebukes him. Huldah was a sharp, feisty, and formidable prophet of God.
This is what the empowering Word of God does.
Now, onto the New Testament…
Philip’s Daughters
Acts 21:8-9: On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters, who prophesied.
The Book of Acts begins with Peter excited that a new age is here, prophesied by Joel: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your son and daughters will prophesy” (Acts 2:17 cf. Joel 2:28). As evidence of this, mentioned in passing, Acts records an evangelist named Philip, who has four daughters who prophesy. Again, while true prophesy had to be discerned, prophets were the highest religious authority in the church next to the apostles, but above teachers: “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers…” (1 Cor. 12:29, cf. Eph. 2:20; 4:11).
This is important. Prophets are listed by Paul as higher ranking than teachers. Yet, in 1 Tim. 2, he bars women from teaching, and in 1 Cor. 14, the interpolation there prevents women from speaking (probably during a very specific time in service). This should be a red flag notifying us that 1 Tim. 2 and 1 Cor. 14 are situational, not universal. Prophets were teachers and they taught in the assembly. Moses gave the law as a prophet and teacher, the two being one and the same. You cannot prophecy without teaching, but you can teach without prophesy. Prophesy is similar but superior.
Prophesy was done in the church by women. How do we know? Look at the context of one of the most infamous “headship” passages, 1 Cor. 11, which actually insists on head coverings to show authority when women prophesy. The head covering seems to be a cultural expression that Paul is using to maintain some sense of decorum, as indicated by the often mistranslated statement at the end: if anyone is contentious on this “it is only a custom” v. 16). But make no mistake: whatever one’s view of the male-female relationship and the coverings of 1 Cor. 11, this passage shows that the covering actually shows the authority of a woman (not the submission!) when she prophecies in a church (v. 10)! All things considered, there is no reason why a woman cannot give the sermon on a Sunday. Preaching is not a action restricted to an office. It is the gift of the Spirit.
Philip’s daughters may have been his back-up preaching team in his evangelistic work. Whatever this means, you know that guy was a proud parent. The text makes a point of saying that they are unmarried, which means they very likely are young women also. Perhaps this was Luke’s (the author of Acts) way of saying “and fellas, they are single,” or it reiterates that these women were good at what they did, despite their youth. They were not discriminated against because of their gender, demeaned as too delicate for ministry.
Priscilla with her Husband, Aquila
Acts 18: 24-26: Now there came to Ephesus a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord; and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately.
Aquila was a Jewish Christian and exile from Italy (Acts 18:1-2). He and his wife are mentioned several times (Rom. 16:3-4; 1 Cor. 16:19; 2 Tim. 4:19). This indicates that this couple got around, and they did a lot of work for the Gospel. They were very likely traveling apostles. Here in Acts 18, we see this husband and wife team instructing a gifted teacher named Apollos, who apparently was discipled under John, knew Jesus, but was missing a few things. At any rate, the text makes a point that both Aquila and Priscilla took aside him and taught him. This should not be assumed to be just a quick chat, but rather hours of reasoning through Scriptures. It also should not be assumed that Priscilla sat there quietly leaving the men to talk. The text makes a point that both of them taught Apollos seemingly as equals.
Chloe
1 Cor. 1:11: For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters.
This is an implicit example, but strongly suggestive nevertheless. Who is Chloe? Some want to write her off as just a concerned congregant, and she may be. However, Chloe has people under her. They report to her, and in turn, she has sent these people to report to Paul, regarding the spiritual affairs of the church of Corinth. She is apparently well known to the church as she needs no introduction like “Chloe, the wife of [someone more important that you know].” So we know that she is well known to the church, has people under her, and reports to Paul regarding the religious matters of the church. This sounds like a pastor or even a bishop/overseer of sorts.
Nympha
Colossians 4:15: Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.
The early church had not formal buildings to meet in. So, often people would meet in homes. It was the norm that the person that owed the house usually was the leader of that house church. This is similar to small groups and house churches today. Thus, Nympha very likely was a sort of house church pastor.
Phoebe
Romans 16: 1: I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.
Some translations will say, “Phoebe, a servant of the church of…” in the sense of a beloved volunteer. That is possible, but unlikely. The word “deacon” is male, and just as Huldah and Deborah were described as “prophets” not “prophetesses,” the use of the male word was done to imply title and authority. Also, Paul uses the word “deacon” to describe his own ministry (1 Cor 3:5; 2 Cor. 3:6, 6:4, 11:23; Eph 3:7; Col 1:23, 25), which may indicate the importance of Phoebe’s work. The fact that she is of another church coming here also speaks to her having representative authority. She has been called in as a specialist to help the church in Rome.
Paul tells the church to “give her any help she may need from you” which means he is giving her authority that the church needs to follow. Paul offers a reason why and it is because she has been the “benefactor of many.” Notice something that is often missed: “benefactor” is a bad translation. The Greek word is prostatis. The prostatis may have been a title used in the early church for those who lead worship and communion in a church service, or a general position of leadership in the church. In fact, the verb form of prostatis, proistēmi, is used to describe the act of church leadership (Rom 12:8; 1 Thess 5:12; 1 Tim 5:17) and household management (1 Tim 3:4, 5, 12), most notably used to describe the gift of leadership in Romans. 12:8, the home context where Phoebe is mentioned: “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” So, Paul states something like this, “Listen to Phoebe, she has lead ministry for many, including me. She good at what she does. Do what she tells you to do.”
Junia
Romans 16:7: Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
I have seen a lot of prejudiced translations intentionally mistranslate this passage to downplay Junia. For instance some translations say, “Junias… famous to the apostles.” However, there a lots of reasons why that translation does not work. First the oldest manuscripts we have say “Junia.” The manuscript that renders this word “Junias” has been demonstrated to be flawed. As scholars looked at the rest of the manuscript, it shows that it accidentally records several other female names as male. However, the biggest problem with this is that “Junias” is not a name in the Greco-Roman world. The root word for “Junia” means something feminine, so there are no known male versions known in the Roman world to corroborate and warrant it being translated as a male name.
Also, the translation “famous to the apostles” is grammatically less sound than “among.” “Among” in this case is usually used to indicate that something is apart of something, like saying, “This hockey player is respected among his or her team mates.” Practically speaking, mentioning that Junia is merely famous to other apostles other than Paul does not rhetorically make much sense. Why would Paul bother pointing out how famous two people are among other apostles other than himself? It does not make much sense. It makes more sense that he is speaking of them as excellent apostles.
Others have tried to render them as famous “messengers” (which is what “apostle” meant in Greek), however, Paul seems to reserve the word for a person who has similar authority and role to himself (although not as important as the 12 Apostles). Junia is not the first century version of a FedEx girl. For Paul, apostles, when mentioned, are never messengers, as seen in the case of Epaphroditus in Phil. 2:25: “I think it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus – my brother, co-worker, fellow soldier, your messenger/apostle and minister to my need.” Paul says Junia and Andronicus both endured prison with him. This means they – both of them – were doing similar work to him. So, the more likely translation is that these two people – probably an apostolic couple like Aquila and his wife, Priscilla – were prominent among the apostles, who are their colleagues. Junia, as far as we can infer then, was an apostle, having authority to proclaim the gospel, teach disciples, start churches, etc., all for which she was imprisoned, and so, apparently she was outstanding at what she did.
Euodia and Syntyche
Phil. 4:2-3: I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Euodia and Syntyche are apparently having an argument and Paul wants them to resolve their differences for the sake of church ministry. They are described as Paul’s “co-workers,” at his “side” (connoting equality). Paul refers to Epaphroditus as a fellow “co-worker,” and he is also described as an “apostle” (Phil. 2:25). “Co-worker” is a description Paul uses to describe his fellow apostles often: Timothy (1 Thes. 3:2), Titus (2 Cor. 8:23), Justus (Col. 4:11), Priscilla and Aquila (Rom. 16:3), Urbanus (Rom. 16:9), and in general (cf. 1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor. 6:1). Euodia and Synteche are listed here along with a man named Clement for the “cause of the Gospel.” We know that Clement may have been the same Clement that went on to become overseer of the church in Rome, so these women are being described as being among an important group: the apostles.
Conclusion
Many people cite, for example, 1 Timothy 2:11-12 as a command that limits women in the church today: “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.” They take this to be a unilateral teaching that Paul applied in all his churches, representing the universal position for the church today. However, a good question to ask is why are these particular women in Ephesus so forcefully being barred from teaching? There are good reasons for that. We should also ask whether this lines up with what we see elsewhere in Scripture. Paul obviously would have been aware of Deborah and her position. When we see many other instances where women did in fact exercise high degrees of authority in the biblical narrative, we should do the work of good interpretation and consider that contextual factors might be in play in what Paul teaches. What Paul did to establish order in the church that Timothy oversaw might not be suitable today to further the ministry of the gospel.
While much good can be said about traditional gender roles, marriages, families, etc., my sense of the matter is that we cannot turn gender roles into gender limits, much less gender stereotypes. While we must respect our differences as men and women, these are to be done within the framework of equal worth, equal opportunity, equal distribution of work, all in order to love each other better and to follow God’s calling for each of our lives.
So, does the Bible have women leaders in it? Yep. It explicitly has apostles, judges, prophets, deacons, and while not mentioned by title, it also has teachers, pastors, and possibly, bishops. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17), and as Peter describes it in Acts, this is evidence that a new age is dawning, where the Spirit is being poured out on “all flesh” (cf. Joel 2:28), where the curse of patriarchy upon the daughters of Eve is being lifted (Gen. 3:16), where a new age of equality is here in which there is no longer “Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free, for all are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).
Spencer Boersma 