Breath of his breath, and bone of his bone …
… she was the powerful companion God had brought out from the one to make them two together
This series of Bible studies seeks to retell the stories of women who were divinely called and empowered to do great things. Many of them rose to the occasion, and a few very famously did not. Often, the tragedies and triumphs in their lives are missed, and their stories are told from perspectives other than with the honor and dignity they deserve.
After excavating their narratives from millennia of obfuscation, now meet the freshly restored, valiant, vivid (and sometimes villainous) women of the Bible.
Eve, ‘Ezer Kenegdo
Eve’s account lies buried under layers that have been thousands of years in the making, obscuring the truth about women, and about Eve.
Millennia of misogynistic science, which presumed the inherent inferiority of women and the inherent superiority of men, read into these foundational creation passages a supposed God-ordained rulership of men over women, and of husbands over wives.
This thirty-page book includes the retelling of the second half of Eve’s story, a fifteen-question Bible study, and link to a twenty-minute multi-media presentation of Eve’s account, a woman much maligned and misunderstood, whose story deserves to take on a truer shape.
“What is this that you have done?”
The Genesis accounts are foundational to the whole rest of God’s metanarrative in the Bible. From Genesis we learn who we are, and why we are the way we are. We learn about God, about creation, and about the relationships we have with God, with creation, and with each other.
English translations of the Bible, and of Genesis 3 in particular, have obscured the truth of what God said to the woman and the man in the aftermath of the serpent’s successful attack on their innocence. Oddly enough, the King James Bible, published in 1611, and the Young’s Literal version, published in 1862, come the closest to a translation that conveys the actual Hebrew. But they still miss the mark, having been imbued with the patriarchal cultures of their time.
As part of my own research, I went to a small, yet powerful text called The Book of Eden, by Bruce C. E. Fleming. In it is a very carefully laid out study of Genesis 2 and 3. Fleming’s research borrows heavily from his wife Dr. Joy Fleming’s doctoral thesis A Rhetorical Analysis of Genesis 2-3 with Implications for a Theology of Man and Woman, available on their website, www.tru316.com.
Otherwise much maligned and misunderstood, Eve’s story will take on a much truer shape in this Bible Study. The apostle Paul’s references to both Adam and Eve help to clear up the confusion about who was the “first degree” offender and who was the “second degree offender.”
Rather than studying the man and the woman, as so many studies do, this Bible Study studies God. How did God respond to the two people and to the serpent? What do God’s words reveal about each beings culpability? What was the severity of judgment God settled upon each, and with whom was God the gentlest?
And how does the structure of God’s speeches reveal the whole arc of scripture?
This month’s free Bible study on a woman in the scriptures is available through signing up to the newsletter below. What’s included:
- Access to all the Bible studies that have been made available so far.
- One new study each month.
- Early announcement of new books, published by the author.
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