Episode 302: Julie Faith Parker – How Interpretation Made Eve a Villain

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Jared: Hey everybody. On today’s episode, we’re talking about how feminism helps us see Eve from a different angle with Reverend Dr. Julie Faith Parker. 

Pete: Julie is the biblical scholar in residence at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, and a visiting scholar at Union Theological Seminary. 

Jared: She holds a PhD in Old Testament Hebrew Bible from Yale University and has taught at multiple academic institutions.

Dr. Parker is the author of, or editor of eight books, including most recently, Eve Isn’t Evil.

Pete: And we had such a great time talking with her. So let’s get into this episode. 

Julie: So if you ask anyone on the street who are the two most famous women in the Bible, my guest is they’re going to say Eve and Mary, the mother of [00:02:00] Jesus.

And this plays into the two places that patriarchy likes to put women, the pedestal or the pit. You can be a virgin mother, good luck, or a whore, or someone who has ruined the entire human race.

Jared: Well, Julie, welcome to the podcast. It’s wonderful to have you. 

Julie: Thank you so much. I’m really delighted to be here. 

Jared: Oh, I’m so glad. Um, okay, so we wanna talk about Eve, but we also wanna talk about feminist readings of the Bible. And this is a, it’s, it’s a growing topic. It’s gotten much bigger in terms of biblical scholarship.

So can you just introduce our listeners and our viewers to feminist scholarship with it when it relates to the Bible and like what a feminist reading of the Bible is and why it matters. Let’s just take a few minutes to understand this area of expertise that you have. 

Julie: So feminist readings look at the Bible with an attention to women and an eye to reassess their roles and [00:03:00] importance, and in particular, feminist readings question some interpretations that have been handed down to women especially, saying you are inferior people.

And it says, wait a minute, not so fast. When we look at the text closely, is that really there or is that the only way to interpret this text? And discovering that indeed, there are many ways to read the Bible that are actually very affirming of women.

Uh, feminism is a real loaded term for people, and I simply define it as liberty and justice for all, including people who identify as female. And so when we read that, the Bible with that lens, it can be a very liberating and joyful experience. 

Jared: Mm-hmm. Can, can we, I wanna dive into something real quick if that’s okay, because what you just said, how do you determine, um, within, within feminist readings of the Bible.

How do you determine when it is, uh, say [00:04:00] questioning an interpretation that says, well wait, we’ve kind of layered on some, maybe more, uh, patriarchal or, you know, anti-feminine, uh, readings of this and when do we say, well, the Bible also is written in a patriarchal culture and that just is kind of what is-

‘Cause I think sometimes, that can be confusing for, for the average person with the Bible is to say, one of the criticisms I think that I hear sometimes is, well, feminist readings are, uh, actually taking the, in the original intention of the Bible in this other direction. And in some ways, maybe that is true if we find that in the text, and sometimes it is actually just questioning the interpretations that’s been layered on.

So how do you navigate those? Are they different? Are they the same? How, how do you distinguish that? 

Julie: Well, I think it’s very hard to know the intention of ancient anonymous authors from thousands of years ago, and sometimes, sometimes it can, it may be very explicit, but often it’s something that we’re [00:05:00] seeing and that we’re taking.

Every reader, of course, brings their own biases, their own experiences, and that’s how we create meaning. I think one of the, one of the benefits of feminist interpretation, or one of the great gifts of this way of reading the Bible is, now women who are scholars have the tools to look at the original languages and say, wait a minute, what we’re told actually isn’t in the Bible.

Like, um, being told that Eve, for example, that that story is about the fall of humanity. The words, the fall, nowhere in the text, this original sin, nowhere in the text. And so what we think we know about the story actually isn’t in the story, and it took women scholars in some significant numbers, having those tools of Hebrew, Greek Aramaic, and being able to say, wait a minute, let’s really see what we have here.

Pete: Mm-hmm. It’s, it’s paying more attention to the text and, and taking away some of the, at least neutralizing some of the, [00:06:00] um, the, the, the male perspectives and assumptions that have been placed on this text. 

Julie: Yes. I think that’s it, but also questioning who is writing this and what are their interests, and who’s being served in the text itself.

Who’s being served in this interpretation? And keeping in mind, of course, you’re right, it does come from a very patriarchal culture. Of course, this was largely men who wrote the text. I, I like to leave the possibility open that there were some women who contributed.

Because we know that there were women who wrote in antiquity, elite women. Possible that they contributed as well. And some of the stories seem to me like women’s stories, but clearly it’s overwhelmingly the work of men. 

And so why are they writing the text in this way and how are they serving themselves?

And of course, it’s hard for us to know the answer to these questions, but even asking them opens up the text in new ways. 

Pete: Right. And, and you know, the other side of that, what Jared was talking about is it, to me, it’s interesting as well to, [00:07:00] to introduce creative angles on reading texts that are, I mean, I’m gonna say this carefully, not necessarily rooted in the grammar or the context, but just, texts have possibilities.

And, um, some people I think, shy away from that. But that’s largely the history of Judaism and Christianity in a whole lot of areas is, is midrash, right? It’s, it’s creative handlings of text because times change and circumstances change. People are asking different sets of questions and so you, you approach the text from, from angles that were not maybe not considered, even, by an antiquity.

Julie: Oh, I’m sure that’s true. Absolutely. And really, how could it be otherwise? Because we’re just coming at it from a whole different set of experiences. I like to say the power is not so much in the text, it’s in the interpretation. And we’re going to be interpreting it differently at different times.

How could we not? Right. But we don’t acknowledge that a lot. I think it’s really important. [00:08:00] 

Jared: Right. Well, maybe, um, we can talk about this for a minute just because, you know, the, the question of, of why this matters and, and first- I don’t remember what it was, but something you just said made me think of- I think for people who have already decided, like you said, feminism is like a loaded term and they sort of decided against it.

I feel like there’s some way of seeing the text that touches on what you just said that maybe draws that line between people who see feminism as, like, a threat and people who see feminism as an asset. 

As we read and interpret the scriptures, and it seems to me there’s this backdrop of what, you know, what we consider to be, uh, true about the text and how we get at that truth, where it’s sort of like, well, if, if there’s just one sort of way of getting at truth, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a woman who’s writing it down or if it’s a man or if it’s 2000 years ago or if it’s now, because truth is truth and it’s always static and it stays the same and it’s [00:09:00] universal and it’s objective and all these things.

So then if that’s the case, then another reading is gonna do nothing but distort that one true way of coming to the text. But if you have a different way of reading it, which is we’re all human, we’re all limited in our perspective, so we need as much perspective as we can get to sort of all sit around the table of truth and see it differently.

So can you speak to, have you talked to people in these various, uh, situations where like one person may be, kind of anti-feminist reading of the text because they hold this view, and others who the light bulb goes off and they say, “oh my gosh, I understand now why this is so important.”

Um, can you speak to that just for people who are still a little bit iffy on, “I get, I see some of the value, but I still have this idea of truth that kind of makes it hard to really get my hands around why it’s so important to have feminist readings of the Bible.”

Julie: I think that truth, [00:10:00] I, I don’t think there’s one definitive truth. When someone says this is the true way of reading the Bible, coincidentally, it’s almost always their- no, it’s always their way of reading the Bible, right? God’s perspective is mine. What a coincidence. 

Julie: But, you know, in, in all fairness, I do the same thing. Like I read the Bible as a text of liberation, and so when there are these texts of liberation, I say, oh, that’s the true word there.

That’s just how we’re going to be, but let’s admit it. And I think the key is, what is the hermeneutic with which we read the text? And a feminist will say, the Bible tells us all people are created in God’s image. So if we’re gonna take that seriously, it’s pretty radical. And, and, and when we read in Genesis 1:26-27, male and female that were created, I read that as a merism.

So a merism is a literary device where you have two opposite ends of the spectrum and it includes everything in between. So with day [00:11:00] one, we get, uh, you know, we get evening and morning. Where’s midday? We get the, the le the seas, but where are the rivers and the marshes? So things that we know are in creation aren’t mentioned actually in the story of creation.

And I see that also with all kinds of people, the male and female as opposite, opposite ends of the spectrum, but including trans people, non-binary people, all kinds of people in between. 

Um, so if we read the Bible in that way, then I think we’re going to see that truth varies according to our perspective and what is our hermeneutic in terms of reading this in a way that can be affirming of all people in God’s image.

I think it’s really important to just recognize what is, what is our lens. 

Jared: Yeah. Well, maybe let’s take that lens and talk. 

Pete: Let’s talk about-

Jared: Let’s talk about the text a little bit. 

Pete: The gift that keeps on giving.

Jared: That’s right. 

Pete: Eve. 

Julie: Amen. That’s right. 

Jared: So let’s, yeah, let’s look at Eve and how, maybe how Eve has been misunderstood.

And let, let, let’s maybe take a, a magnifying [00:12:00] glass to some of these interpretations and how a feminist reading can help us at least situate and, and bring some context to some of those readings. 

Julie: So if you ask anyone on the street who are the two most famous women in the Bible, my guest is they’re going to say, Eve and Mary, the mother of Jesus.

And if they’re Christian, maybe they’d say, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene. And this plays into the two places that patriarchy likes to put women, the pedestal or the pit. You can be a virgin mother, good luck, or a whore or someone who has ruined the entire human race. And a lot of people can’t name other women in the Bible.

They’re not aware of them. And do you know how many times Eve is mentioned in the entire Bible? Entire Bible, including the apocrypha? Five. Five times, twice in Genesis. Now she’s referred to as the woman, but twice by name, twice in, I think Corinthians, 2 Corinthians. And in Tobit. [00:13:00] 

You can ask anyone on the street who Eve is and they’ll tell you, but she is the temptress who brings original sin into the world. So she has this incredibly powerful cultural presence, even though her textual presence is really minimal. And we’ve been told that she is the one, as I mentioned, who brings down the entire human race, and it’s just not in the Bible.

I read her in a very different way. I studied with, uh. Dr. Phyllis Trible, she was my professor at Union Theological Seminary, and she did a very famous exegesis of this that’s in the book, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, and heard the chapter on Eve is called “A Love Story Gone Awry,” and that was so insightful for me to see that all that I’ve been told about Eve and the ramifications that that has this, these interpretations have, for women which are very real, thousands of years later, that it’s, it’s not really in the text.

I [00:14:00] see, so in the beginning of that story, Genesis 3, the snake comes to her, and why does the snake come to her? Well, we’re told that she’s gullible. She can be easily deceived. I say she’s the decision maker of the couple. Let’s face it, most couples have one, you know, so she’s the one who’s, and you go to the top.

You go to the top, you go to the person with power. So that one- doesn’t tell us why. Text doesn’t tell us why the snake approaches the woman. So that’s one possible interpretation. And says to her that, you know, she, you, that invites her to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And she says, you know, we should not, that we should not eat. And what’s interesting, the snake says to her, did God say to you plural, that you plural should not eat of the fruit of the tree? In English, we miss it because “you” is both singular and plural. In Hebrew, it’s very clear that God, that the snake is speaking to both of them, but both of them weren’t there when this command was given.

If you go back, Genesis 2:16-17, [00:15:00] it’s only the man who was created or the Ha-Adam, I should say this undifferentiated creature. But no mention of the, the woman yet. And in Genesis 2:22, God tells her, God tells us, Ha-Adam, to not eat of the fruit of the tree. So maybe the, the knowledge came with the rib. Who knows?

There’s a gap in the text. But she says that, uh, so he says, you will not die. You know, we will. If we touch it, we will die. With no mention of touching, you will not die. The snake here is a very reliable source because they don’t die. You know, nobody dies. Adam dies when he was, he is, uh, 930 years old in Genesis 5:5. That’s a very good run.

You know, and she sees this, the fruit of the tree, Genesis 3:6. And when she saw that the tree was good for food, was a delight to the eyes, was to be desired to make one wise. She took of this fruit and she ate and she gave some to her husband who was with her. Here we [00:16:00] see all that goes into her process.

It’s good for food. It’s a delight to the eyes, and most importantly, it’s going to make her wise. She seeks wisdom. This is a good thing. She wants to know the difference between good and evil so she can make her way in the world. She takes of this fruit and she eats. Then she gives some to her husband, who was with her. One third of English Bibles leave out who was with her.

In Hebrew, it’s in all our ancient manuscripts, and yet it’s left out, taken out, of a third of English Bibles. It’s undisputed in every ancient witness. With her in Hebrew, and yet it’s taken out of our Bibles so she can be blamed alone. And then what does he do? 

“Does he discern? Does he say, no, wait a minute. I was there and God said not to do this.” No, he’s just maybe in the mood for a snack. He just eats right away. But all of this blame gets put on her. And what happens? They all get punished as a result of this disobedience with the genealogical curses, the, the [00:17:00] curses, the, the punishments that explain different observable phenomena, and that’s what we’re left with.

But people don’t talk about, oh, the snake now crawls. People don’t talk about, oh, the man must work constantly from the ground, but they talk about the woman being subordinate to the man.

Pete: I remember, um, the first time I noticed this, this with, with, um, with her. And I said he’s been standing there the whole time not saying anything, not doing anything. Like, who’s this henpeck guy? You know, who just doesn’t, maybe not the best way to put it, but you know what I mean.

He’s like, he’s not acting like a leader at this point, you know, and he’s, that’s-

Julie: No he’s not. 

Pete: Right. 

Julie: Speak up. You’re the one who got this prohibition, you know, for reading this Ha-Adam. Right? 

Pete: And, and then I lo get in, if you [00:18:00] get into this a little bit, the, the, the, the punishments or curses on both, I mean, when, when Eve is confronted.

She tells the, she tells the truth. She, she accepts responsibility. Right, but the man doesn’t. Adam doesn’t. He does not accept. He, he blames. He actually blames God it seems like. 

Julie: That’s right. He blames both of them. You know, it could be. So they hide in the garden, which is kind of funny. Like, how can you hide from God in God’s own garden, no less?

But, you know, and, um, I love the image God’s, you know, chomp, chomp, chomp, walking on the leaves, you know, where are you, yoo-hoo, and, and, uh, they hide in the garden and they, God says, you know, then God asked this, Ha-Adam, it’s, it’s also a translation issue because we read Ha-Adam, the Earth preacher, and translators render those Hebrew words as the man, the person or Adam.

And so it’s hard, you know, so that also plays into our understanding of the story. But God says, where are you? And realized, oh, I was ashamed because I was [00:19:00] naked. Who told you you were naked? Oh, the woman that you gave to me, she gave me the fruit of the tree. And I ate. And then, um, says to the woman, uh, what, you know, what have you done? 

The serpent tricked me. And I, and uh, and then on it goes, uh, with these ensuing punishments, and so the snake has to crawl on the ground. So we infer the snake before was upright and talking, and there will be this enmity between the woman and the serpent. And a lot of people have irrational fears of snakes.

Even to this day. And so it explains that phenomenon. Why are people, even if they know the snake won’t hurt them, even as the garter snake or something. 

Pete: Oh yeah. It freaks you out. They still are. 

Julie: Yeah. It freaks them out. And so that, that is explained in an etiology or the story of origins, and then the woman is going to have pain in childbirth.

And then it says, and this is tricky, Genesis 3:16, your husband shall rule over you. 

And that, but that I read as the origin of patriarchy, which we also see, [00:20:00] which is not part of the created order as God intended it, but part of the fallout that we need to deal with now. 

And then the man also receives his punishment that he’s gotta toil, that he needs to toil from the ground.

He has to toil from the ground. And that he’s going to eat dust. You are dust into dust, you shall return. So he is gonna become snake food in the end. And so it all sorts of, sort of comes around. 

But I see her punishment as much less than that, which the serpent or the man received, because I, unlike both of you, Pete and Jared, I have given birth and, and yes, it hurts a lot, the pain in childbirth. 

But at the end I had a, I had babies, you know, that was really a wonderful thing. And so, and it’s not day in, day out, year in, year out, like the man is, is, uh, punished with this having to work the soil in the end, and the snake is constantly slithering. 

So there are all, all ways that you can interpret this text, but they’re, and some of them are certainly life giving and affirming.

Pete: Yeah.

Can I [00:21:00] ask a, a question about this because, um, I, you know, I’ve come across an alternate understanding of the punishment to the woman, which is not incompatible with the traditional understanding. You’re gonna scream having kids. This is your punishment. It’s gonna be painful to you. It’s an etiology, right?

It’s, it explains the human condition. Like, why is giving birth painful? That doesn’t seem like it should be. So you have a story to explain it. Um, right. I, I’ve read also another interpretation, which goes something like this. It’s not pain in childbirth, but you will have sorrowful conceptions.

In other words, the getting pregnant is going to now be difficult, it was a joy, was a blessing. Getting pregnant is gonna be a problem and then having children’s gonna be a problem. And the first story after this is one brother kills another and we have these stories of difficult pregnancies or, or women who can’t have children and then miraculously do, right.

So it, another way of looking at that, and I really want [00:22:00] your opinion on this ’cause I mean, I find it intriguing, but I may be totally off. Um, it, it that, that punishment. Is almost setting up some of the action in the book of Genesis to follow. 

Julie: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I can definitely see that.

Pete: Yeah. 

Julie: Yes. And, and that’s a very good, very good point. Uh, it, uh, Carol Meyers in her book Rediscovering Eve, has a whole chapter on this, on Genesis 3:16, and she talks about your labors and, uh, in Hebrew and how that is going to be. That is the same word that’s used of Adam’s labor. 

Pete: Yes, exactly right. Yeah. 

Julie: Um, you know, when, when, when he is punished, um, and, and when it’s, when she’s, it says your desire shall be for your husband that in Hebrew. So it’s like you’re turning shall be to your husband and, um. I read this as an etiology explaining why a woman would have sex with a man. ‘Cause without modern medical care, your chances of dying in childbirth are pretty good.

And so [00:23:00] why, to have sex with a man would be like playing Russian Roulette. And so why would you even do it? So I think that this story might help to explain that. Yeah. It’s, it’s another, it’s another possible way to read it. 

Pete: So your desire will be, you’ll, you’ll turn to the man. And then the, tie this in.

‘Cause you mentioned before the whole part about, and he shall rule over you. I mean, is that- can, can you just flesh out what that means? ’cause this is, I mean, I have, I have undergraduate students, women, who are like, um, hello, what’s going on here? 

Julie: Right. Carol Meyer says in, in this chapter that I just mentioned, is she says that you’re, and he will rule over you sexually.

So in that way, it’s an etiology for the man’s role as the penetrator in sex. So that’s, so that’s, that’s one way of explaining why, why it says that. But another way is to say, as I, as I mentioned before, that patriarchy is part of the world order that we need to deal with. But that doesn’t [00:24:00] mean it’s the way it should be forever.

Like men aren’t farmers forever, you know, we do other things.. 

Pete: Exactly. Yeah. And, and people, um, who might, like, say, well, you know, Julie, this, you just made that up, or Carol just made, it’s not in the text. They’re like, well, you do better. ’cause there is no explanation in the text. That’s sort of the point. You know, that’s why it’s a gift that keeps on giving, it’s not entirely clear of, of putting these pieces together in some sort of linear order.

And it’s almost as if we’re invited to jump in and put something of ourselves in these texts. 

Julie: Absolutely. That’s the fun of it, right? That’s what makes it, as you say, the gift that keeps on giving. It’s always so alive and so vibrant because we change, the text doesn’t, and we keep returning and discovering new things.

Jared: But I think an important clarification too, that, that, um, you mentioned is there are people who would say, well, that’s part of the created order, and I think it’s really important, the couple of points that you’re making. One, actually, no, this is part of the disorder that comes as a [00:25:00] result of disobedience.

So we shouldn’t hold this up as like, well, this is God-ordained in some ways. Right? And secondly, to your point, the other curse for the man is not a once-and-for-all “you will work the ground.” It’s like, well now we have the industrial revolution. We have like, we have all these metal workers. We have, there are lots of things that are not just, you’re gonna toil and work with the ground.

So why would we then make it that the woman’s plight to be ruled over by the man is this once-for-all thing. It just doesn’t, you know, make a lot of sense.

Pete: But the rest of it isn’t.

Jared: Right. Yeah. Yeah. 

Julie: And we get, we get that a lot in passages regarding women. I think in the New Testament, wives submit to your husbands.

Well, that’s right next to a verse about slaves. Slaves submit to your masters. We don’t hold that one up as timeless. And in that verse, Ephesians 5:22, wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. There’s no verb. In the Greek, there is no verb in, it’s just women to your men as to the Lord.

Maybe they’re supposed to love their husband. So that’s another translation, textual issue. Right. But it’s a good example of what you mentioned, Jared, in terms [00:26:00] of holding up this one verse in a way to beat women down. 

Jared: Yeah. Well, I mean, it just, it, it begs the question then why are you doing that?

Like there’s already a preconceived idea that now you’re trying to justify because the, it’s not justified in the text at all, like even in a creative reading. You have to have some kind of inner logic that would allow for that. And you just don’t, you’re just bypassing it because you want to uphold a certain way of treating women.

And the only other thing I would say, which is just a little bit of a detail, I wonder too if the, um, you know, you kind of talk about the dominance of sexuality, um, for men. It just also in the history of, um, sexuality, like with non-consensual and, and thinking of women in this patriarchal submissive, you know, submissive way.

That is very much more of the norm in terms of like violence toward women, even if you were in a marriage or you know, however those were arranged in ancient, uh, time. The idea, the [00:27:00] modern idea that now that you’re married, you’re married because of love and you have this mutual love and respect and sex is a part of that, is also not a part of the ancient world.

So it’s a little etiological in that sense too. That is sort of like, propping up this patriarchal idea of sex even within a marriage. Um, it’s sort of like just, it’s not justifying it in the text, it’s etiological like we’re saying. Which maybe let’s take a step back and make sure people understand what that means.

‘Cause we’ve used it several times. Um, just understanding. ’cause I think a lot of people that would be, that would be a new concept. Um, the etiological, um, reading. So maybe can you, Julie, just take a step back just ’cause it’s the Bible for Normal People, we want to take a step back and say, what, what does etiological mean?

So that, ’cause we see it all over, especially in the early, you know, portions of the Hebrew Bible. Can you say more about what that is? 

Julie: Sure. Etiology is simply a story that explains an observable phenomenon. We get a [00:28:00] lot of them. As you mentioned, Jared, particularly in Genesis 1 through 11, which scholars call the primeval history, which is a series of myths.

For example, we get the rainbow at the end of the story of Noah and the flood. Why do we have a rainbow? Let me tell you, my child, long ago and far away, or just as you mentioned, Pete. Today when we give birth, we’re in a hospital and it’s very possible to go through your entire life, never witnessing childbirth.

But as you know in the Bible, there’s no word for privacy. And someone gave birth and people heard those screams. Why is she screaming so much, mommy? Let me tell you, my child, long ago and far away. And so these are stories that helped people to understand what they were seeing all around them. 

Jared: Mm-hmm.

That’s good. I mean, I think in Genesis, I just think it’s important that we put that context on it because we wouldn’t even be having this question if in the history of interpretation we understood what etiologies were and where they came from rather than, and not only that, I think there’s the etiology of, [00:29:00] of explaining what we observe in our everyday life.

But like you said, Pete, a lot of the primeval history in Genesis 1-11 is also setting up the later narratives for the rest of the Book of Genesis as well. Right. So it’s another part, it’s another layer to understanding what’s going on that maybe this isn’t about. Telling us exactly what happened in history and setting up for us these timeless principles and truths that we now must operate or else society’s gonna fall apart because now we don’t have traditional family values. Maybe there’s other reasons like etiology and setting up the other narratives in Genesis. 

Julie: I think it helps us to recognize this isn’t exactly what happened in history. When we see a talking snake, that should just be a little clue right there.

Pete: You think, or a magic garden, two magic trees with, with, uh, in a garden. Um, so yeah. I mean, you know, we laugh about that, but I, I tell my students these are genre clues. Right. You know, and, and I think, well, they have to be historical and they [00:30:00] ask, do you think the writers thought they were writing history here or they were writing a story?

And to me it’s, it’s self-evident that they thought they were writing a story. 

I, I’m really interested in what you, what you think about that relationship between, in Genesis in chapter two, between the Adam, the human, and then this woman, right?

And also, um, the, the etiology of sex and how that works in, in, in, in, uh, in this story 

Julie: When the woman is created, the word that’s used to describe her, it- I, I, I love this scene in Genesis where Genesis two, where all the animals are parading before the [00:32:00] Ha-Adam, and it was naming them, you know, you’re a chameleon analysis, you’re a giraffe.

We don’t get that in the text, but I’d like to imagine it. And, but none of them are going to work as the partner. And the word for the partner is ezer-kenegdo.

It means helper. It’s the basis of Ezra’s name, for example. And no, no one implies he’s subordinate to anybody, right? But we’re, we’re told in interpretation that she’s the helper, so she’s to be the helper to the man. 

But as you know, and I’m sure many of your list, I hope your listeners do too, uh, the, that word ezer, most of the time that it appears in the Bible, it refers to God. 

Uh, Psalm 121:1, for example, uh, I lift my eyes to the hills from whence cometh my ezer. And so to be called an ezer in biblical understanding is to be likened to the divine. So all the subordination that we’re told that comes with helper is not within the biblical context as I read it.

And then at the end of that story, what does it say? Therefore, a man [00:33:00] shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. That is remarkable because, because the culture in ancient Israel was patrilocal. A woman left her home to go to the man’s home. And so I see this as the text bending over backwards to give that woman equality by giving her more power there as it explains their union.

Jared: Can you, can you say more about that? ’cause I think that might be a new concept for people, the patrilocal and how this text maybe is challenging some of that. 

Julie: So people say the biblical culture is patriarchal, and I think there’s certainly accuracy to that in that it was male-dominated and andro-centric and male-centered.

But when we speak of patriarchy, it brings a whole lot of assumptions that are modern that I don’t know we should necessarily layer on the Bible, but we can say with certainty that it was patrilocal. That meant that a, a girl like [00:34:00] Rebekah, for example, in Genesis 24, she leaves her parents’ home to go to the home of the man that she is marrying.

But in this story of Genesis, that’s not what happens. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. And so we get the opposite in this story because I see it as this text trying to underline this equality by actually favoring the woman. 

Pete: I’ve never heard that before. That is fascinating. I mean, I’m embarrassed. 

Julie: Oh, I’m so glad you think so, Pete. That’s really something. 

Pete: I’m, I’m embarrassed to say that never crossed my mind. And it just goes to show you the, the text that keeps on giving, right? There’s, there, there are things in there, there, there’s a subtlety in the story. You have to pay attention to it and it, it, it, it doesn’t fill in all the gaps.

It leaves it to you to, to imagine and to reimagine the text and, and people from, um. From different perspectives and different walks of life, we’ll connect with it and, and see things, even if they’re just [00:35:00] possibilities. ‘Cause we’re all doing that. We’re all seeing possibilities in the text. 

Jared: Well you and you said subtlety, and I think it goes back to what you said, Julie, at the very beginning, which is, it’s only subtle if you haven’t already been layered with these other interpretations. I mean, you don’t see it because you just make an assumption about-

Pete: A bit brainwashed.

Jared: You know, patrilocality. Like you just, in my brain, I, I probably literally just read it the other way around. Opposite, just because I’m so ingrained with a different way of seeing it, so I would’ve never even thought to notice it. 

Um, ’cause we just sort of rush over what’s actually there. I mean, I think one of the most impactful things I ever did in seminary was being forced to go through Genesis 1-3 in Hebrew. Because it just forced you to slow everything.

So, uh, you’re just getting so slow with the text that you notice things that you just kind of skipped over. ’cause you’ve heard the story of creation a million times. Like, okay, let’s get on with it. But then you start noticing these things that you’re like, wow, that’s okay. That’s not what I was taught[00:36:00] about these things. 

Julie: I think it’s so amazing and I was, uh, reading the text in Hebrew and I came to Genesis 4:1 and it talked about Eve, and it’s interesting at the end of Genesis 3, because only the Ha-Adam is forced to leave the garden. And so I like to explore the midrash, midrashic possibilities.

You mentioned, Pete, that maybe Eve stays there with God because she helps, she can create human life in her body and God is there with her and they are co-creators. But eventually she decides to leave, gap in the text. And because we do see her, there are in Genesis 4, but what does this say, Genesis 4?

So she has pain, um, because she, because I have acquired the qaniti of the Lord. Um, but in the, in the English it says, interestingly, a modern Hebrew kana means to acquire, it’s actually the verb for to shop. Right. So, so like I’ve shopped for him, I’ve gotten Cain, um, because I’ve acquired him of the Lord. That’s why we read in English.

But in the, in the English, it says in the NRSV and NRSVUE, I’ve, because I’ve [00:37:00] gotten a child with the help of the Lord. Right? Right. But in Hebrew there’s no, “with the help of,” right. It just says, I’ve had a child with the Lord. And just like you were saying, Jared. When I read that in Hebrew, I was, I. Oh my goodness, because we think of Eve and Mary as so opposite, and they’re the only two women who have a child with the Lord.

They’re actually coming together. I just thought it was amazing.

Jared: Well, maybe if we can get back to Eve just for, um, a, a few minutes here. What’s been, maybe look, not getting back to Eve, but getting back to some of these interpretations of Eve. What’s has been, we’ve talked about a lot of these misunderstandings of Eve and, and really kinda looked at some specifics, but what’s been the collateral damage of that?

Like what, what has the, these layers of interpretations [00:38:00] over centuries? It seems interesting and we can almost trivialize it as we talk about, oh, isn’t that interesting? But I think there’s been real harm done. Um, multi-layers of harm done by making these assumptions of what the text says and our interpretations being put back onto the text.

So what’s some of the collateral damage? And maybe talk about how do we start to undo that, especially within, you know, faith-based circles, um, in, in Jewish and Christian communities. How do we undo some of this collateral damage? 

Julie: The collateral damage, you’re right Jared, is deep and wide. I think of perhaps the most egregious example is witch trials.

Not only the Salem Witch Trials here in this country, but also in Europe. Women were burned alive. Some estimate tens of thousands of women for being daughters of Eve. They were witches because they were daughters of Eve. [00:39:00] It speaks about that. Um, but not only long ago. I think today in Bangladesh and in India, women are publicly sexually harassed and molested and even assaulted.

And that is called quote unquote “Eve-teasing.” Uh, but not only long ago and far away, closer to home. There are all kinds of ramifications of this idea of women being subordinate and being the, the helpers. Um, as you probably know, but in the United States, women still, white women earn 82 cents for every dollar that a white man makes.

Black women, 58 cents Hispanic, uh, non-white women 54 cents and in addition to economics, women there, there’s a book written just came out. It’s 20th anniversary edition, The Second Shift, about the paid labor that women do now outside of the home. And then the unpaid labor, cooking, shopping, cleaning, emotional labor, keeping everybody happy.

Mm-hmm. [00:40:00] Childcare, laundry, all of this that disproportionately falls to women. Um, another New York Times bestseller is called, Why We Can’t Sleep by Ada Calhoun. And it’s about how women get a lot less sleep than men because of all this invisible labor, unpaid, unacknowledged, unappreciated, often labor that makes the world run.

And a lot of people subconsciously, I think to a great extent, but see this as part of the natural God created order and look to the story of Eve that she is to be a quote-unquote “helper.” And so the, we’ve come a long way and I, and I’m an example of that, uh, my, my paternal grandmother went to Vassar and she studied ancient languages and she taught Latin and Greek and she had to stop as soon as she was married.

‘Cause it wasn’t appropriate for a married woman to be a professor. My maternal grandmother only went to school through eighth grade, which was very common at the start of the 20th century. And here I am, their granddaughter and that I could have access to all this education and be able to be a [00:41:00] professor and a mother and married.

That’s, these are opportunities that feminists have gained. No one just handed it over. Feminists have worked really hard for them, so we’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go. 

Pete: And, you know, I think that in, in addition, just to, to, to support that further, um, it would be naive to think that the history of the interpretation of the story of Eve played little or no role in that, right? 

I mean, and that, that’s the thing to drive home really, I think for people who, who are listening, who are watching this, that there’s an ethics to interpretation. There, there are interpretations that are unethical, that are harmful. That can be just, you can justify anything in the Bible. You, you can knock yourself out.

You can justify why plastic is bad. Probably you’ll find some verse in Leviticus. But, um, the, the, the, the role I, I, the way I like to put it, it’s not the Bible. It’s the interpretation given to the [00:42:00] text that is damaging. The Bible does not have to be a damaging book. It doesn’t have to be weaponized. It can be, it is made as a weapon.

It, it’s not that, I think, inherently. And um, I think by exploring what you’re doing, by exploring, as Phyllis Trible did before, your teacher, exploring the nuances of the text to draw out, listen. This, like the, like the whole leaving home thing, you know, just like that was, that’s like, oh my goodness gracious.

That’s so interesting. You know, it makes you think differently about the story. And maybe the more we can get people just to think differently about the story, keep writing books about Eve, you know, or, or others. You know, I, I think that, um, that might be a way to go about doing it, but it’s, it’s difficult because this is America.

We don’t change quickly and, and, uh, baked into the DNA of our country is some form of [00:43:00] liberalism. It’s been there since the very beginning and it’s not going anywhere. So there’s still, uh, there’s a long way to go still. 

Julie: There is a long way to go. Yeah. And I just think it’s helpful to remember, as you say, Pete, that the power, as I mentioned briefly before, the power is not in the text.

The power is in the interpretation. 

And I like to say there is no one, as we’ve discussed, there’s no one right way to read the Bible. You can read it lots of ways, but there is a wrong way. And that is any way that’s harmful to yourself or someone else. And that’s where I draw the line. 

Jared: Well, I think that’s a, a really wonderful place to end, in terms of a launch point for people as you read your Bibles to do no harm with our Bible. Right. And so thank you so much, uh, Julie, for coming in and, and talking about Eve and teaching us something new. 

Julie: It’s been such a joy. Thank you so much, Jared. Thank you so much, Pete.

I really enjoyed our conversation. 

Jared: Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you wanna support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just want to give a little money, go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give. 

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Stephen: You’ve just made it through another episode of Faith for Normal People. Don’t forget you can catch our other show, The Bible for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by the Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Joel Limbauan, Melissa Yandow, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Lauren O’Connell, and Naiomi Gonzalez.