Reading Women Right?
Let us stipulate that John Howard is correct to read the creation stories in a way matriarchal way. Women, he claimed, were the leaders of creation fresh from the Creator’s hands. Mike Skinner summarizes his argument: What if the world was originally created as a matriarchy? (*cue dramatic gasp*) John Howard Yoder often explored this possibility by laying out the following pieces of evidence [discussed in Nugent’s The Politics of Jesus , 26-28]: [1] The Word “Helper” Yoder claims that the connotation of subordination which “helper” has in English is not present with the Hebrew word. The other 5 times the word appears in the Pentateuch it always refers to God. It appears that Eve is the crown of creation, who fills in a gap in the original creation. The point seems to be that the man is dependent on the woman (not vice versa). The man was called to leave his family and build his life around his wife (Gen. 2:24). The Edenic culture depended on what Ancient I...