What is a Woman... Biblically?
It's a big question these days. A deeply personal issue for many, a wedge issue for politicians (and that doofus Matt Walsh), and a point of A LOT of misinformation when it comes to the position of the Bible. Well, we're not qualified to talk about the personal or the political much, but on this week's show, we'll definitely be able to dive head-first into what the Bible has to say about the question of "what is a woman"? But before we get to that, we're diving into a murder mystery! An actual Biblical whodunnit. We all remember the story of when David killed Goliath, right? Well, what if that's not right? What if the giant Philistine was killed by someone else entirely, and David is just taking the credit? It's an episode of Law and Order: Bible Unit, and we're on the case. *Dun Dun* For early access to an ad-free version of Data Over Dogma, exclusive content, and an opportunity to support our work, please consider becoming a monthly patron at:
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Dan McClellan The scholarly consensus is that there was a story about a dude named Elhanan who killed this giant named Goliath, and suddenly there's a five-finger discount going on by whoever is responsible for the David history. And this just makes perfect sense of how his tradition developed over time. Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.
Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.
Dan McClellan And you are listening to the "Data Over Dogma" podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things, Dan?
Dan Beecher Things are good, man. Today's show is a heavy hitter.
Dan McClellan Uh-huh.
Dan Beecher It's a big one. I'm looking forward to it. I think maybe we'll be combating some misinformation, or maybe we'll just be muddying the waters and confusing everybody about everything.
Dan McClellan You know what? Sometimes that's what you've got to do to advance the football.
Dan Beecher That's right.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher So today, for our first segment, we've got a Bible versus Bible- Dun, dun, dun ... contradiction watch- Okay ... Bible style. And then at the end of the show, we are going to be taking on one of the questions of our time, a big deal question. I will make sure that I provide a trigger warning that we will be discussing some things that might be difficult for people who have been beat up a little bit based on their sexual identity. We're going to be asking and/or answering the question, what is a woman? So- Biblically. Biblically speaking.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Yeah. We'll get to it. We'll get to it. We'll get to it. But first, Bible versus Bible. Do, do, do, do. We're going to introduce our teams.
Dan McClellan We actually have one side of this is 2 Samuel 21, Missouri State. The other side is 1 Chronicles 20 from Ball So Hard University. And we have two different tellings of more or less the same story, but they are going to present a different picture, and that picture wildly conflicts with one of the most famous stories from all of the Bible, namely David and Goliath.
Dan Beecher Yeah. I was surprised you didn't start with 1 Samuel, because- ... that's sort of our base point.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher The story that we're all familiar with is the story from 1 Samuel 17, I think it is.
Dan McClellan It's chapter 17.
Dan Beecher Mm-hmm. About David killing Goliath. David is a little- Little guy ... up-and-comer- Yeah ... in the Israelite army. Goliath is a very large already upped and came, over on the Philistine side.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher And we all know the story. David has a little slingshot, bing, bang, boom, down goes the giant sort of thing.
Dan McClellan And it's an interesting story. If you read it closely, David doesn't kill Goliath with a slingshot.
Dan Beecher Oh, that's a good point.
Dan McClellan He kills him when he cuts his head off. With a sword.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan The text actually says he killed him and cut his head off.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan And so yeah, the slingshot basically incapacitates him. Just knocks him out.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Okay. And so, it's an interesting little thing that generally we kind of scoot past without- Sure ... paying too much attention. But I bring up the other passages because they reflect a different take, and they actually conflict with each other. And one of them seems to be- As well as conflicting with 1 Samuel. As well as conflicting with 1 Samuel. Well, one of them does not because- Okay.
Dan Beecher Right ...
Dan McClellan the secondary one actually tries to massage the text back towards what we see in 1 Samuel 17. And the question we're trying to answer here is basically, who killed Goliath?
Dan Beecher Now- You mean that's not a settled question after the conversation we just had?
Dan McClellan You would think it were settled, but we have this interesting story when we go to 2 Samuel 21, where we have a story about four different giants who are called the children of the giants, who are killed by different people. And this is lore.
Dan Beecher Hmm.
Dan McClellan This is giant lore.
Dan Beecher Hmm.
Dan McClellan And so, this one giant showed up, and this guy killed him, and then this other giant showed up, and this other guy killed him. And so, in 2 Samuel 21:19, I'll go ahead and read it from the NRSVUE. "Then there was another battle with the Philistines, uh, in a place called Gob. And Elhanan, son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite, killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam." And the interesting thing here is this notion that Goliath was a Gittite, "and the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" is word for word how Goliath is described in 1 Samuel 17.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan So when we're talking about Goliaths out there, this is the one who had the spear- Right ... whose shaft was like a weaver's beam. There are not that many Goliaths with enormous shafts. And don't take that- Spear shafts, just to be clear.
Dan Beecher Don't take that dirty.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Get your mind out of the Philistine gutter, please, everyone.
Dan McClellan And so, it seems like the killing of Goliath is being attributed to some dude named Elhanan.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And then we look at 1 Chronicles 20:5, and we have a slightly different telling of the same story. It says, "Again there was war with the Philistines; and Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother-" ... of Goliath, the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam."
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan So, we have 2 Samuel 21 that seems to be telling a story that is a little contradictory to what's going on in 1 Samuel 17. And then we have 1 Chronicles 20, which seems to be going back in the direction by identifying this individual, this giant that was killed, as Goliath's little brother.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And this actually contributes to a bit of eisegesis, a bit of reading into the scriptural text that I have always found fascinating. I have seen a number of videos, and people have preached sermons on this, where they say, "Why did David pick up five stones from the creek when he only needed one? It was the very first one that killed Goliath." And they say, "It was in case his four brothers came after him." And then they go into this story about how Goliath had these four giant brothers, and David was concerned that they might come after him, too, once they saw that he had killed their big bro.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And so, what that story does is it looks at 2 Samuel 21, which talks about these four different giants that got killed.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And 1 Chronicles 20 says one of them is Goliath's brother, and so they think, well, all four of them must have been Goliath's brothers.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And so that's why. And so people have preached whole sermons on this.
Dan Beecher I mean, it's plausible. You could make that or possible, at least.
Dan McClellan Yeah. I would say it's about the same as Russell's teapot.
Dan Beecher I think it's better than Russell's teapot. I think they've got Russell beat. Bertrand Russell went a little too far.
Dan McClellan Okay. We're not that far out in the stratosphere then.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan But there's something interesting that bubbles to the surface when you look into the Hebrew of the difference between 2 Samuel 21 and 1 Chronicles 20. Because 2 Samuel 21 called Elhanan, son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite. And Bethlehemite would be Beit Lechem. And when we look at 1 Chronicles 20, Elhanan was the son of Jair, who killed Lahmi- Right ... the brother of Goliath. And basically, the Hebrew has some kind of fuzzy edges that kind of overlap with each other, where if you just tweak a letter here and a letter there, you can get from one to the other.
Dan Beecher Mm.
Dan McClellan And so some people have said, "Well, this is textual corruption. Somebody mistook one letter for another, and then the next scribe down the road was like, 'Well, oh, this must be some dude named Lahmi.'" And other people say it was intentional, but the direction of change, I would argue, indicates that the 1 Chronicles reading is the secondary one, is the later one, is the corrupted one. And that is the one that identifies Lahmi as the one who was killed, as the brother of Goliath. And there are a few reasons for this. One is that Lahmi would be a name that means my bread, which is not a naming convention that we know from this time or place. Nobody called their kids my bread. Additionally, it would be a Semitic name, not a Philistine name, because the Philistines were not a Semitic people when they first arrived. It was not until the centuries after that they began to kind of merge with the Semitic people. So Goliath is a Philistine name. The notion that he would have a brother with a Semitic name that meant my bread is pushing it a little bit. The other issue is that the word brother is probably a corruption of the direct object marker. So when you do something to a direct object in Hebrew, you don't always have to, but you can indicate what the direct object is with this two-letter word et, alef tav. And this just indicates that's who this happened to. And in English, we use word order. In German, you use cases. The accusative case is the object and so forth. And et could be confused for ach, which would mean brother.
Dan Beecher Mm.
Dan McClellan But only in the Aramaic square script, and the Hebrew Bible would not begin to be written down in the Aramaic square script until the post-exilic period. And between 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, 1 Chronicles is the later text, the one that would've been written in the post-exilic period, which would've been recorded in the Aramaic square script. That's the one where we would expect to see a confusion like this happen, or it may be an intentional change.
Dan Beecher Mm.
Dan McClellan And so what it seems happened is that 2 Samuel 21 seems to preserve an alternative story, at least a brief mention of an alternative story regarding the killing of Goliath. And then 1 Chronicles 20, which is being copied down much later, seems to recognize there's a problem here. And so kind of massages the text a little bit to distance, or to reconcile the problem and say, "No, Elhanan didn't kill Goliath. Elhanan killed this dude named Lahmi, who was the brother of Goliath." And so we have an attempt to try to make the contradiction go away.
Dan Beecher Okay, so when I was looking at this in preparation- Yeah ... for the show, I knew that that was going to be one of the possible explanations.
Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.
Dan Beecher That one of the possible explanations is what you just laid out.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher So I went and I also read an explanation from an apologetic source.
Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.
Dan Beecher And I got to be honest It also seems totally reasonable to me.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It's just in the other direction. It seems totally reasonable to me that Chronicles and 1 Samuel are in harmony, and that it was a mistake of the writer or a translator or a scribe of 2 Samuel that got the brother thing wrong or that sort of mixed that up. So I just wanted to blow your mind by saying- ... the apologists-- Okay, so going into this, I didn't know any of the linguistic things that you know. I didn't know how much the Bethlehem thing lines up with the brother thing or whatever.
Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.
Dan Beecher But just on its face, it seems reasonable to say that if 2 Samuel is the place where it got it just wrong, and it's just a couple of verses, it's not repeated over and over again.
Dan McClellan Right.
Dan Beecher That would make total sense to me.
Dan McClellan Mm-hmm. There are, in addition to the text critical issues that I would suggest throw the weight of support to 2 Samuel 21 being original, we also have a text critical principle known as lectio difficilior, which I think I have mentioned before on the show. The more difficult reading, and this is not a hard and fast rule, but it is a trend.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Normally, when a text changes, it changes from a more problematic reading to a less problematic reading.
Dan Beecher Right. Somebody's fixing something.
Dan McClellan Right. Things tend to get fixed more than they tend to get broken- Right ... when the text is being transmitted. Now, you can have text being broken, but we need to see evidence that can account for why this would happen incidentally.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And there is actually a case to make that there is some textual corruption in both of these verses because we have this Jare-Oregim is supposed to be the name of Elhanan's dad in 2 Samuel 21, but that's not really a name. And Oregim occurs again later on at the very end of the verse because that's the word for beam- Oh ... in the weaver's beam. So neither has a good case to make for being textually pure.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan However, and you could make the argument that the confusion went in the direction of changing Lahmi, the brother of Goliath, to the Bethlehemite killed Goliath. But I would say the evidence is 80/20 in favor of saying 2 Samuel 21 preceded 1 Chronicles 20, and that 1 Chronicles 20 is the corruption. And this would make sense. There are a lot of scholars who have written about this. The developments of the David tradition has several layers, and scholars have talked about how David seems to be initially just a mercenary. He's just a merc going around trying to scrape out a living where he has to feign being insane in front of the Philistine king so he can escape with his life, and he's got his little band of merry men going around and robbing people and killing people and stuff. And he gets propped up in these stories as this legendary, miraculous guy who just ascended to the throne because of how cool he was. And taking over other people's accomplishments is a classic move- Yeah ... for people who are later writing hagiography about these people.
Dan Beecher Sure.
Dan McClellan You get your guy to go tell your stories, and they're going to go and steal other people's stories. And so the scholarly consensus is that there was a story about a dude named Elhanan who killed this giant named Goliath, and suddenly there's a five-finger discount going on by whoever is responsible for the David history. And this just makes perfect sense of how his tradition developed over time.
Dan Beecher Do we think that 1 Samuel was written after 2 Samuel?
Dan McClellan No. They're basically part of the same text. However, there are many layers to the whole thing, and some of those layers are earlier and some of those are later. They're drawing from a variety of traditions.
Dan Beecher So somebody could've just been adding some fun stuff to 1 Samuel and then forgot to tell his buddy, "Hey, by the way, delete that out of your version- ... on the 2 Samuel part. I got this over here now."
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher "We're putting this for David."
Dan McClellan Or, yeah, the whole David tradition could've been developed by one team, and then later on down the road, the other people were like, "Hey, we got to put all this other history on here. Okay, let's just slap it on there." And there wasn't somebody going through at the very end to make sure all the i's were dotted and the t's were crossed.
Dan Beecher There wasn't a continuity person.
Dan McClellan Right. There was no style committee- ... that went through. However, at the same time, maybe there was, and they could've easily looked at this and been like, "Eh, we can deal with that. That's not catastrophic."
Dan Beecher Or, "We'll just kick the can to whoever's going to write Chronicles."
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher "Somebody in Chronicles, will you fix this later? Fix it in post- ... in Chronicles."
Dan McClellan Yeah. I think we might be surprised how frequently a lot of these authors and editors were just like, "We elect to punt."
Dan Beecher The more I dig into this book, the more I wouldn't be surprised about how often that happened.
Dan McClellan Yeah. They're like, "We're just trying to clear tickets, man. We're just trying to clear tickets and get it off my desk."
Dan Beecher That's right. Well, that's a fun story. Elhanan, David, whoever it was, whether Goliath versus his brother, Bread. What was- My Bread.
Dan McClellan My Bread.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher Well, that's great. I like it. Much more difficult topic coming up. Everybody strap in, put on your seatbelts, and let's move on to Taking Issue.
Dan McClellan Taking Issue.
Dan Beecher So, Taking Issue. The issue we're going to take today, or tackle, is one that is tricky. A real dingbat of a guy named Matt Walsh made a whole movie called "What Is A Woman?"
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Where he thought he had the best gotcha in the world by asking a bunch of people what that is. Dan, you're our linguist. What's the definition of a woman?
Dan McClellan Oh, my gosh.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan We've got a show on why I don't like definitions, don't we?
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Somewhere in the back there. Yeah, this is like a gotcha that is about at the same rhetorical level as pronouns in bio opinion- Yeah ...
Dan Beecher rejected. That's right.
Dan McClellan Yeah, is a define woman, and it's annoying for me because it's like, I don't define anything. I am dogmatic about avoiding definitions, so this isn't the gotcha you think it is. But yeah, normally the traditional definition, and I was making a video about this earlier today just because I'm in a little spat right now with somebody about definitions, but there is no the dictionary. There is no the definition.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan There are definitions, and none of them has any authority over anyone else. The ministry of what words mean doesn't exist, and they did not crown any definition- I think- ... the king definition of what is a woman, because that would be God.
Dan Beecher Technically in French, the ministry of what words mean does exist, I think.
Dan McClellan But it doesn't actually have any real authority because people can use words to mean whatever they want.
Dan Beecher That's right.
Dan McClellan It's not like the ministry falls out of the sky if you use a word a way that they don't approve of, and they beat you up or something.
Dan Beecher The black helicopters come.
Dan McClellan Yeah, or the words get stuck in your throat and you're like Like Jim Carrey in "Liar Liar."
Dan Beecher That's right.
Dan McClellan It's like, "The ministry has not authorized me to say this word to mean what I want it to mean."
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan But yeah, if you look in a dictionary, many of them will have something like adult female human, and one of the problems with this is that many people today, and for a long time, have treated the word woman as a member of a gender rather than a sex. And we're going to look at an article from- Uh-oh.
Dan Beecher Uh-oh, you said two words that a lot of people think mean the same thing.
Dan McClellan Yeah. There's this place called Got Questions.
Dan Beecher Uh-huh.
Dan McClellan Your questions, biblical answers.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And they have an article question, "What is the definition of a woman in the Bible?" And so they're going to also use sex and gender as synonyms.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan But many people in the world today, in English and in other languages, acknowledge that these are two different things. There is an awful lot of overlap.
Dan Beecher Yeah, and maybe more than two. Even though they're two different words. Can we first acknowledge that these are conceptual categories, to use a phrase that you like to use in your- Yeah ... in your TikToks. Anyone who follows you on any of your things knows the phrase conceptual categories. But even biologists don't all agree on how these things work, and linguists don't all... The reason I think that you, Dan, don't like definitions is because language isn't the precise thing we wish it was.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It just isn't.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher And so even the words sex and gender mean different things in different contexts and used by different people.
Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.
Dan Beecher So, I think we need to acknowledge that it's not an easy... Even if you're talking to a biologist or whatever, these are not easy things to nail down.
Dan McClellan Yeah. It's very messy, and far too many people think that it's their prerogative to just assert that their understanding reifies reality.
Dan Beecher Yeah. Or something like that.
Dan McClellan When it's like, no, the best you can do is say, "More people agree with my definition than with your definition."
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And that's the extent of it.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Wow, more people agree, great.
Dan Beecher Great.
Dan McClellan That doesn't mean anything. And so I think, yeah, right off the bat, we need to acknowledge that this is messy, and it differs from time to time, from place to place, from person to person.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan It is something that I used in my dissertation a lot that I think it's a great phrase, but a lot of people are like, "That's way too confusing." It's situationally emergent. In other words, it's not there until a situation calls for it, and it shows up in whatever form it needs to show up to respond to the needs and exigencies of the given situation. But what I thought we could do here, because neither of us are biologists- No ...
Dan Beecher or sociologists, or psychologists, or any of that sort of thing.
Dan McClellan And we could point to the fact that there is no definition of sex that also creates a hard, fast binary that works in absolutely all examples.
Dan Beecher No. There are exceptions- Not even close.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Well, even if you get biological, you don't get a binary.
Dan McClellan Correct.
Dan Beecher You get a whole bunch of stuff.
Dan McClellan Yeah. I think a spectrum is how I would describe it. You have majorities on these ends, but then you also have a lot of integration and overlap and stuff in the center.
Dan Beecher Stuff that's missing, stuff that's there twice. You never can tell.
Dan McClellan Yeah. One from one side, one from the other.
Dan Beecher It's a smorgasbord. It's a free-for-all.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It's not just a binary, as anyone who's looked at it even a little bit can tell you.
Dan McClellan But- Yeah ...
Dan Beecher that's not our question. That's not our question. I think what you're getting to is that our question is- ... what the heck does the Bible have to say about it?
Dan McClellan Yeah. And I thought a way we could do this is we could just go paragraph by paragraph.
Dan Beecher Whatever. Oh, wow.
Dan McClellan Okay. Does that sound reasonable to you?
Dan Beecher Sure.
Dan McClellan 10 little paragraphs, they're two to four sentences each.
Dan Beecher Uh-huh.
Dan McClellan We can just skip over the references, but just read. Do you want to read the first paragraph and then we'll- Yeah, sure ...
Dan Beecher commentate?
Dan McClellan Okay.
Dan Beecher Here, we got... By the way, the question posed in this article is: What is the definition of a woman in the Bible? And I love that they have "Answer" as if they have the answer, so that's good.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher We can consider this definitive, I assume.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher "God made all of humanity, both men and women, in his image." And then there's a quote that says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them."
Dan McClellan That's what? Genesis 1:27?
Dan Beecher Yes. "A woman is a person of the female gender, and a man is a person of the male gender."
Dan McClellan And here, female and male are actually references to sex, and so the female gender would be confusing those two categories.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Generally speaking, in today's society, sex is a biological trait, gender is a social construct or something along those lines.
Dan McClellan So anytime somebody says, "A real man does this, says this-" Right "... and wears this," that is an observation that gender is a social construct. It is all of the behaviors and the relationships and the norms and the circumstances that are around this concept of what a male person is.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher Spiritually, we're going on here, "Spiritually, men and women are equal in God's eyes." And then there's a reference to Galatians. "Both reflect God's nature and character. Yet the two genders each possess separate, distinct, God-designed identities."
Dan McClellan Woo.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan So first thing I want to point out here is we've got some univocality being presupposed here.
Dan Beecher Of course we do.
Dan McClellan And in ways that obscure some of the things that the Bible thinks and does and says that whoever wrote this does not want you to be aware of or does not want to have to deal with. For instance, we're merging Genesis 1 and 2, even though these are entirely distinct creation accounts.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan This is something that we've been over. In fact, I think our first episode ever was about the fact that these are two distinct creation accounts. The one in Genesis 2 and 3 was earlier, and then the priestly account in Genesis 1 was like, "Uh, I don't like that other one. We're going to write a better one."
Dan Beecher "And we're going to replace it."
Dan McClellan And so when you try to merge the two and treat them as one and the same, you're basically having to impose an overarching kind of unifying framework, which means it's not either of them. You've created a new third thing. You've created a third thing that is going to subordinate the one thing and the other underneath it.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And so this is not what any of the authors of any of these texts thought. This is what you think when you want to force them to kiss and- ... when you're like Darth Helmet in his room, "Oh, your helmet is so big." You're trying to force them together, and they don't want to be together.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And the same thing goes with Galatians 3. Men and women are equal in God's eyes. Not if you read several parts of the New Testament, several parts of the Hebrew Bible.
Dan Beecher Not if you read literally any part of this book.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher I'm sorry. I've read a lot, and there are some nice portrayals of women, but for the most part- Yeah ... they don't even get names.
Dan McClellan Yeah, and they even had to qualify that sentence by saying, "Spiritually-" Right "... men and women are equal in God's eyes." Which is basically like saying, "Physically, temporally, in every other way that a woman can exist, she is inferior."
Dan Beecher I also think it's fascinating that in order to present equality between men and women, they present a text that their version of it says, "There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ."
Dan McClellan Yeah. That doesn't just say- It's not saying they're equal.
Dan Beecher That doesn't say they're equal. It says it doesn't exist.
Dan McClellan Yeah. The binary does not exist.
Dan Beecher It eliminates the categories.
Dan McClellan Yeah. So yeah, that's a big problem.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And partly because there is going to be a concern to preserve this complementarianism, this notion that there are different roles, and it's like, "Well, the roles are equal." No, one's in charge of the other.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Yeah. It's like, "Well, they're equally important."
Dan Beecher No.
Dan McClellan No. One's in charge of the other.
Dan Beecher Right. So that is- You know, the way that the CEO is equal to the guy that vacuums his floors- Yeah ... at the company.
Dan McClellan Okay.
Dan Beecher I'll move on to the next- Yeah ...
Dan McClellan the next paragraph.
Dan Beecher "It is impossible to consider the definition of a woman in the Bible without also contemplating the substance of a man, since the woman was created from the man."
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan And here we're going into Genesis 2, because Genesis 1 doesn't say the woman was created from the man. Genesis 1 says, "God created humanity, male and female, he created them."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Boom.
Dan Beecher Created.
Dan McClellan Roasted. There is no distinction until you get to Genesis 2, and you've got the earlier problematic creation account- Yeah ... where it says, "Oh, he created the one," then he was like, "Something's not right here. We're missing something." And then had to go and was like, "I know.
Dan Beecher Animals."
Dan McClellan Turns out Adam doesn't want to pair bond with any of the animals that you created, oddly enough.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan So we need to try again. So yeah, that's problematic.
Dan Beecher Yeah. This paragraph goes on to sort of quote Genesis 2 and says- Right ... "Then the Lord God said, 'It's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.'" And it stops the quote there, which I think is amazing because it pretends like that quote is about the woman, and it's not. God tries a whole bunch of different animals- Right ... before, like, "No, dogs are pretty good, but no. How about a cow?" "A cow? Is that a good helper?
Dan McClellan No." And then finally- The serpent is, the way the story is crafted- Yeah ... the serpent was created as a part of this as well.
Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly. Who does turn out to be quite a good helper- Yeah ... in the end. But just to the woman, not to the man.
Dan McClellan So- Oh, and also helper who is just right for him- Yeah ... sounds complementarianism.
Dan Beecher Yes.
Dan McClellan It sounds like she is a supplement. She is just what he needs.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan But the word there- Right.
Dan Beecher She's there as a servant or something- Right ... in that rendering.
Dan McClellan But in the Hebrew, it's more like a helper equivalent to, because the word in the Hebrew means across from.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan The idea being this is the counterpart, this is equivalent to, this is suitable. And so I think that actually is a point for Genesis 2 over and against the translation that they have chosen. By the way, it looks like they're going back and forth between a bunch of different translations.
Dan Beecher Yeah, they do.
Dan McClellan The NLT, the ESV, because they're looking for the things that are going to best serve their rhetorical goals.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan But the ESV is a complementarian translation. We would not have the ESV except for the fact that they were going to publish a version of the NIV in the United States in the mid-'90s that was going to include gender-inclusive language. So instead of saying brothers, it was going to be brothers and sisters- Uh-huh ... or siblings or something like that. And this just sent a bunch of evangelicals through the roof, and they were like, "Not in my country." And they got together in Colorado Springs and they actually talked the publishers down so that they said, "Okay, we won't publish this translation of the Bible in the US." And then they said, "Not good enough. We need our own translation so we can preserve our complementarian gender ideology for all the world to see." And so they created the ESV, and a lot of people read it these days because it's new. It was published in 2002, and they think, "Wow, this is a great translation. This is up to date. This is brand-new." And it's actually a bunch of people who thought the NIV was too liberal.
Dan Beecher Yikes.
Dan McClellan So when it comes to what is a woman according to the Bible, and they're like, "Let's go to the ESV," you already know there are problems.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher So blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to go onto the third paragraph. "As God carried out the task of creation, he observed only one thing that was not good, and it was for man to be alone." That's again a reference to that same Genesis 2 thing.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And this is one of the indications that the priestly account in Genesis 1 doesn't like Genesis 2, because what does God say after every single thing that they create?
Dan Beecher It was good.
Dan McClellan It was good. Because they're like, "No, no, no, God doesn't create things that aren't good."
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And Genesis 2 is like, "And then God created the thing, and then God was like, 'Uh-oh.'"
Dan Beecher God created a man and the man was bored, and he was like, "Oh, I didn't see that coming at all.
Dan McClellan Let me-" He's got anxiety.
Dan Beecher "Let me make you an emu and see if that makes it any better."
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher So going on, the Got Questions says, "Thus, God, quote, 'made a woman.' The Hebrew word bana, translated as made in this verse, literally means built."
Dan McClellan Correct? That is correct.
Dan Beecher Okay. The woman is the only created being described this way, as built by God. And I'm going to- Does it also describe her as a brick house?
Dan McClellan Mighty mighty, letting it all hang out.
Dan Beecher That's right.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And this is you build buildings and you build towns and you build altars and stuff like that.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan So it's talking about the fact that God took this rib, or, well, it's actually not a rib.
Dan Beecher Sorry.
Dan McClellan Excuse me.
Dan Beecher What?
Dan McClellan That's the traditional translation.
Dan Beecher What? You just blew my mind.
Dan McClellan What is it? The word there actually means side.
Dan Beecher Oh!
Dan McClellan And so, if we had to give a gloss, it would be side. And so literally, he took one of Adam's sides. And there is an ancient Jewish reconciliation of these two creation accounts that sees them as two subsequent creations. That first we have the creation of male and female together, and then in Genesis 2, later on, we take one half of that creation to make woman. And how this has worked in this Jewish tradition is the original creation was of an intersex person, a person with male and female sexes.
Dan Beecher Sure.
Dan McClellan And then in Genesis 2, what happens is basically that individual is split in two.
Dan Beecher And then you have- This has blown my mind because side is so different from rib.
Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, it's used to refer to the sides of a ship or something like that.
Dan Beecher Sure.
Dan McClellan And I think people, their imagery is like, "Okay, you got beams along the side of a ship, looks kind of like ribs. Okay, it's a rib."
Dan Beecher Yeah, but the meaning is so-- The word side is used in a lot of different ways. So I just want to dig into this. Could it mean that literally God took the left whole half of Adam and created Eve out of half of Adam, as opposed to a chunk?
Dan McClellan So that could be, yeah. And in fact, when you look later on, what does Adam say? He doesn't say, "This is my floating rib." It says, "This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And so you have bone and flesh together.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Whatever was taken off from him is bone and flesh together. This- And so, yeah, that is a rational, that is a plausible reading of what's going on here.
Dan Beecher That is entirely different. I'm sorry.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher The meaning to me in that is literally completely different.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher My mind is actually blown. That doesn't happen too often because usually I do a lot of work research before we do our show, but this one, that one has me thinking. This is some Hedwig and the Angry Inch stuff. This is some good, cool...
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher I really dig that imagery- Well, and- ... of just slicing him in half and building two totally separate people out of it.
Dan McClellan Well, and then we get to Genesis 2:24, "Therefore a man leaves his mother and his father and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh." And that's basically saying sexual union is the return to the male and female together.
Dan Beecher Wow.
Dan McClellan So that's a reading that comes down from ancient Judaism that is still popular with a lot of people today.
Dan Beecher Yeah. It also very much sort of takes the wind out of the sails of, well, the man's the important one and the woman's- Right ... not the important one. Because they're just the same thing. They're clones. They are the same thing, just differentiated in a new way.
Dan McClellan Well, there's going to be some pretty intense patriarchy that's going to come barreling through the walls like the Kool-Aid Man- Yeah ... in the next chapter, where you have part of the curse is that your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And so one thing to point out is that, hey, this patriarchal arrangement, that's a consequence of the fall.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan There are a lot of Christians who like to say we have to try to overcome our fallen natures.
Dan Beecher Mm.
Dan McClellan Well, the patriarchy would be a part of the fall, so- Oh my gosh ... you would need to overcome that as well.
Dan Beecher Yeah, a lot.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Biblically speaking, the idea of the man ruling over the woman isn't inherent to male and female. It's inherent to humanity after the fall.
Dan McClellan Right.
Dan Beecher Ugh.
Dan McClellan So they're created as, and again, if you go back to what she is, she is a helper that is equivalent to.
Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.
Dan McClellan And it's only because of the fall, at least as we reconstruct this concept of a fall, that we have this power asymmetry.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And so if you want Genesis 2 and 3 to be a part of your understanding of the biblical idea of sex and gender, and you want to try to mush it all together in one rather than preserve the different perspectives from the different time periods, then you should pay attention to that.
Dan Beecher Yeah. This isn't a hero and sidekick thing. This is a dynamic duo. This is a buddy comedy.
Dan McClellan All right. Yeah, this is- We'll keep going with the nonsense from Got Questions.
Dan Beecher Okay. Where was I? On the fourth paragraph, I think.
Dan McClellan Yes.
Dan Beecher "When God constructed the woman, he supplied what was lacking and necessary for a man's fulfillment or completion."
Dan McClellan Gross.
Dan Beecher Yeah. I think that's gross. That's a gross sentence.
Dan McClellan And it's going to get even worse, if I remember correctly.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher So women, the man was bored and not feeling fulfilled, so that's all she's for.
Dan McClellan Anyway- Yeah ...
Dan Beecher Eve was custom-made to be Adam's corresponding opposite. Now, that gives us a link to Genesis 2:21.
Dan McClellan But corresponding opposite, it doesn't feel like that's- So that's the help meet from the King James version. That's the equivalent helper, suitable helper or something like that, which up above from the New Living Translation, they share it as "A helper who is just right for him."
Dan Beecher Yeah. But I don't know about opposite. It doesn't say that. Anyway, "Only with God's unique gift of Eve could Adam become not merely a solo male of his species, but a legitimate model of the human race."
Dan McClellan What?
Dan Beecher What are you saying? Yeah, this doesn't make any sense because it's not saying- How does that follow from anything that you've presented to us in the Bible?
Dan McClellan I don't...
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And one thing here is they continue to try to eat their cake and have it, too.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Because Adam, by himself, he's nothing. But with Eve, it's not the two of them are now the model.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan It's still just Adam who is the model, but Adam needs this feature that is being added to him.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan It's just a supplement that is being added to him.
Dan Beecher It's the upgrade package.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Okay.
Dan Beecher It goes on to say, "Intrinsic in the biblical definition of a woman is this quality, this gift. Woman is man's cooperative complement or reciprocal. She is not merely a helpful assistant..." I think you literally just said she is merely a helpful assistant, "Or an add-on accessory." Literally that's what you just said. "Fitted together as woman and man, the two become symbiotic humanity created in God's image." You just contradicted what you just said. Okay, so see, Dan, they do think that it's both of them together are the symbiotic humanity.
Dan McClellan Okay.
Dan Beecher "Only as such do man and woman find their sexual counterparts a necessary procreative match."
Dan McClellan All right. I keep thinking of the Spice Girls song, "2 Become 1." I don't know if you remember that song.
Dan Beecher I read several of these articles and they all eventually-- And I also watched clips. There's a real peach of a clip by Jordan Peterson where he can't talk about a woman without just all he can think about that makes a woman is to do with procreation.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It was absurd. His contention was essentially, if I were to boil it down, I believe, that without procreation, if a woman just chooses birth control, she's a man. That's basically what she ends up being. It's like, what the hell are you talking about?
Dan McClellan Yeah. I think he's suggesting in the eyes of society, what do you contribute to society? You're either making babies or you're making money. One of the other two, because that's all that evidently matters.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And if you're not making babies, well, then you're horning in on the territory of the man, which is just such a bizarre worldview.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Because women don't reproduce asexually. They carry children, but men and women both contribute to procreation.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And the notion that it is the unique, or it is the role of one of them because they happen to be carrying the child, and the other has this other responsibility, subordinates everything to this patriarchal idea about power and social role and social hierarchy.
Dan Beecher Yeah. Isn't it weird that this book that was written by men, pretty much exclusively, suddenly puts the women in a subordinate place to the men? Isn't that interesting?
Dan McClellan Well, that's what the next paragraph is going to start off with.
Dan Beecher Here we go. Wait, what am I on?
Dan McClellan Oh, okay. Since the ancient world.
Dan Beecher "Since the ancient world was a patriarchal society, most written records of that time, including scripture, present a predominantly male perspective."
Dan McClellan True. And therefore, so do we.
Dan Beecher And that makes it good.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher "Nevertheless, throughout the Bible, women play significant roles in the community, home, and church. Different biblical words are used to refer to a woman in relation to these roles. The most general Hebrew term for woman is..." Will you just go on?
Dan McClellan Ishshah.
Dan Beecher Ishshah.
Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.
Dan Beecher "But it can also mean wife."
Dan McClellan Uh-huh.
Dan Beecher We talked about that a little bit with- Jennifer.
Dan McClellan Jennifer.
Dan Beecher Jennifer. Yeah, absolutely. "The Greek counterpart is-" Gune.
Dan McClellan Okay.
Dan Beecher "Many other Hebrew and Greek words are used to describe women at different ages and stages of life." I don't know what point they think they're making when they say that the language uses the same word for woman and wife. Do they think they've proven that the only way a woman can be a fulfilled person is- I don't know ... by being a wife?
Dan McClellan I don't know. The same is true of the word for man, ish.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan It is used to refer to a husband as well. But it's just like the way we sometimes use it today. Like a woman might say, "That's my old man."
Dan Beecher Or, "That's my man," or a guy might say, "That's my lady over there," or, "That's my woman," or whatever.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher It's starting to sound a little creepy, a little ick, a little cringe, as the kids would say.
Dan McClellan Yeah, and from Clueless, "I told you about calling me woman."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher The foremost role of a woman in the Bible, according to... Sorry, we're back to Got Questions here.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher The foremost role of a woman in the Bible is that of a wife. She is a companion who supports her husband, enriches his life, and brings him joy and pleasure.
Dan McClellan So this is literally saying that the foremost role of a woman in the Bible is to supplement the life of a man.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And to contribute to his enjoyment of life.
Dan Beecher Yeah. It is saying that. And I love the use of the word foremost there, considering that the next sentence starts, "An equally defining role of women in the Bible is childbearer or mother."
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher I like that distinction between childbearer and mother. They are two different things.
Dan McClellan Although, the Bible also refers to women who are queens, women who are prophetesses, women who are generals, warriors, women who do all of these things.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan But because they're not the most frequently mentioned roles, we're going to suppress those.
Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly. Well, who could possibly be interested in those things? That doesn't sound fascinating at all.
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher The ideal Old Testament woman, oh, God, we're getting into the ideal Old Testament woman. This terrifies me. Resembles many women of strength and character today. She is dignified and virtuous.
Dan McClellan I want to stop you real quick.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan We think of virtuous as having to do with chastity- Oh, sure ... and things like that, because it's a holdover from the King James Version. But when the King James Version was translated, virtue meant strength.
Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.
Dan McClellan And this is why when the woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus' robe and he says, "I felt virtue go out of me," that doesn't mean that Jesus' chastity or morality suddenly vanished.
Dan Beecher It means he felt- He got horny all of a sudden ...
Dan McClellan he felt power leaving him. But the word virtue gets associated with women. And so even though in the Hebrew Bible, this word ""חַיִל"" which means strong, powerful, when it's used to refer to men, they translate it differently from when it's used to refer to women. And when it's used to refer to women, it frequently gets interpreted to refer to some kind of moral character- Yeah ... rather than what it refers to, strength and power.
Dan Beecher Wow.
Dan McClellan Okay.
Dan Beecher Yeah, I don't think that the authors of Got Questions knows that. She is dignified and virtuous, works productively, not only at home, but is capable of running a profitable business.
Dan McClellan What?
Dan Beecher Supervising people with kindness and wisdom, making investments, and planning for the future, all while managing her household, building a solid family, and caring for the needy in her community. What are they talking about?
Dan McClellan So this is from Proverbs 31. You're not familiar with this passage?
Dan Beecher No.
Dan McClellan So in Proverbs, this is supposed to be the king talking to his son and giving him counsel.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan And so we have this ode to a woman of strength. And this is אֵשֶׁת־חַיִל. This is that word חַיִל that I mentioned before. And you go look in the King James Version, "Who can find a virtuous woman?" But, "A woman of strength who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant; she brings her food from far away. She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household and tasks for her female slaves."
Dan Beecher She considers- How does she have time for any of this?
Dan McClellan Because she's got a bunch of slaves.
Dan Beecher Oh, okay. There is that. That's nice.
Dan McClellan "She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hand, she plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle," blah, blah, blah. "She opens her hand to the poor, reaches out her hands to the needy. She makes herself coverings. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the city gates, taking a seat among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She supplies the merchant with sashes."
Dan Beecher Holy cow.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher This woman is on fire. That is a Kardashian we're talking about.
Dan McClellan This is a girl boss.
Dan Beecher Yeah, man.
Dan McClellan Now, it does have her primarily overseeing the management of the household, but this was written probably in the Persian period, in a time when we're starting to get this idea that's closer to the Greco-Roman idea of the household, where the woman manages all the household. And this actually conflicts with other things. So when we talk about modest clothing, we talked about this a little bit, modesty. In the Hebrew Bible, and even in the New Testament, it says, "Don't braid your hair. Don't put on makeup."
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan "Don't wear fancy clothes." But here it's like, no, she wears fancy clothes. Her clothes are fine linen and purple, and stuff like that.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan That's fancy clothes.
Dan Beecher Yeah. That's not modest dress.
Dan McClellan No, this is an ideal from a different kind of social standard. But yeah, this is a pretty famous ode to the powerful woman. So they're trying to sound egalitarian here, even as they- Yeah, that's crazy.
Dan Beecher Literally, the woman that they just described, first of all, has no need for a man.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher She is a powerhouse. She doesn't need anything from anybody.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher And second of all, this is Taylor Swift stuff here. Second of all, what you're not describing is a little church mouse housewife who- A tradwife.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Exactly.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher All right.
Dan McClellan And whether you like the Taylor Swift version or the WWE version, she's the man.
Dan Beecher She is. She's killing it. I like that. But what she isn't is a companion who supports her husband and brings him joy and pleasure. That's not what that is. That is a woman, she doesn't have time to be like- Yeah ..."Go find yourself a therapist, honey. I'm busy."
Dan McClellan She has a long jacket- ... with a few and picking up slack.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Exactly.
Dan Beecher What is it?
Dan McClellan Touring the facilities and picking up slack.
Dan Beecher Yeah. But apparently, the Bible says that you can have it all, ladies. So that's good. Let's see. So the article goes on, "In the early church, women ministered alongside the apostles and supported the work of the church."
Dan McClellan I'm going to have to correct this right here.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan So one of the things they quote there is Romans 16:6.
Dan Beecher Uh-huh.
Dan McClellan When they talk about ministering alongside the apostles.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Romans 16:6 says, "Greet Mary, who has worked very hard for you." They skip over Romans 16:7- ... which says, "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me. They are prominent among the apostles."
Dan Beecher Right. We talked about Junia.
Dan McClellan Junia is a woman's name.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan So they quoted a passage that does not say women ministered alongside the apostles and skipped over the passage that says, no, women were apostles.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Because they don't want to acknowledge that a woman had that role in the past.
Dan Beecher I'm impressed that they acknowledge women ministering at all.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher So many of these articles just went straight to whatever the one was that said women be quiet in the church or whatever.
Dan McClellan Yeah. Oh, they're going to get there, though, aren't they?
Dan Beecher Oh, probably.
Dan McClellan Yeah. They're going to get there.
Dan Beecher These have all blended together in my mind. I don't know what's coming. So women have ministered alongside the apostles and supported the work of the church. No, they did the work of the church. Hosted church meetings, prophesied, mentored, and taught. Yeah, and hosted church meetings.
Dan McClellan I mentioned that when we get into the Greco-Roman world, you have this concept of women being the managers of the house.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And within early Christianity, you had women who owned homes, and hosted church meetings doesn't tell half the story. These are women who owned their own homes, who said, "You can have my home to use as a church."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan So it's more than just hosted church meetings.
Dan Beecher Wow.
Dan McClellan These were women who owned property. And donated things to the church, and we have funerary inscriptions, and we have frescoes in catacombs and things like that that make reference to women as ecclesiastical leaders within the church.
Dan Beecher Okay. If you say so. "In God's perfect design for the home, he intends..."
Dan McClellan Oh, my...
Dan Beecher Oh, this is not going to go well. "He intends for a woman to be submitted to the leadership of her husband."
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Now, that quotes Ephesians 5:22 and 1 Peter 3:1.
Dan McClellan Yeah. Notice they're not quoting 1 Timothy. What is Timothy- Because Timothy's like, "Shut up." Well, Timothy's the one who says that don't permit a woman to... Well, actually, it's also probably the interpolation in 1 Corinthians- Oh, yeah ...
Dan Beecher 14.
Dan McClellan But also in Timothy, we have this idea that women should learn in silence.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan And let her ask her husband when they get home.
Dan Beecher Yeah. But just as good, they've got the Ephesians thing that says, "Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church."
Dan McClellan Yeah. And maybe you've seen on social media, sometimes you'll see this picture of three different umbrellas- Uh-huh ... on top of the other one.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan The big one, the smaller one, and the smallest one.
Dan Beecher Right.
Dan McClellan Where the big one is Jesus, the middle one is a man- Mm-hmm ... and then the smallest one is the woman.
Dan Beecher Right. And that- And the woman's umbrella protects her and the kids- Yeah ... and the man's umbrella protects him and them, and then Jesus's protects everybody.
Dan McClellan Yeah. But- And there's another metaphor that is used to try to gin up a sense of egalitarianism- Uh-huh ... which is the, I don't remember what the word for it is, but it's like the fire brigade buckets- Uh-huh ... where you're handing buckets- Yeah ...
Dan Beecher across it.
Dan McClellan And so somebody has to be first- ... and then the others go behind. So that's a metaphor that is sometimes used to refer to that.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan But, hmm.
Dan Beecher But this goes on. It says, "A wife's submission and obedience are to be reciprocated by the husband's love and self-sacrifice."
Dan McClellan Wow.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan Yeah. In this way- And also, Ephesians, by the way- Uh-huh ... an awful lot of scholars don't think that Paul wrote Ephesians.
Dan Beecher Okay.
Dan McClellan That this is another pseudo-Pauline epistle.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Okay. And Peter definitely didn't write First Peter.
Dan Beecher Okay. In this way, the woman's relationship with her husband portrays the church's relationship with Jesus Christ.
Dan McClellan In other words, men, you're Jesus.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher And women- Basically, until he shows up, you get to be that guy.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Yeah. It feels a little uneven.
Dan McClellan Yeah. Oh, and it reminds me of, oh, shoot, 2015, 2016, somewhere around there, there was a precinct chair in Davis County GOP- Mm ... who posted on social media that our society started going downhill when, I forget the exact words he said, but it was basically when women left the kitchen and started voting.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And some people in the GOP were like, "Uh, please don't say that." And then there were other people who were like, "Damn straight."
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan And yeah. It was a pretty revealing time as there were other very revealing things going on with the election of a serial sexual predator.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan Yeah. It was bad.
Dan Beecher I feel like this article does what so many of these articles do, which is tries so hard, as you say, to have its cake and eat it, where it's like women are equal, but the man's in charge. It's egalitarian, but it's not. It's this, but it's that. You have to submit, but you have to be strong. Again, putting no onus on men to do anything but love her.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher Whereas she has to be everything to everyone, and- Yeah ... she's just there as an accessory to help out the important person who's the man.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And in the last paragraph, this one sentence says it all, I think. "God created the woman to complement and complete the man, and thereby become a God-glorifying representation of his nature and character." In other words, you're being glommed onto the man to make sure that he is all that he can be.
Dan Beecher Yeah. I guess one of the sort of takeaways of all of this is that even if you're a Bible-believing person, there's a million ways that society has improved on the Bible. What the Bible has to say about Nintendos is not useful in a modern society.
Dan McClellan Or illness.
Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the cause of illness, guess what? Despite what some Christians still think, it's not demons.
Dan McClellan Yeah.
Dan Beecher We learned that. We figured that part out. It's okay for us to not look to 2,000-year-old, 4,000-year-old texts to define how we want to do our gender relations and how- Yeah ... we want to look at sex and gender in a modern context.
Dan McClellan And I think it is so disingenuous to try to, in one of these paragraphs, since the ancient world was a patriarchal society, to try to fob off the fact that this is just straight-up patriarchalism on the ancient world and say, "Oh yeah, we have a better idea now about how to make women subservient." That is not- Yeah.
Dan Beecher We have a better idea now, and that idea is do the same thing they did.
Dan McClellan Yeah. And really, this is just an attempt to rationalize using the outdated ethics of the Bible as a proof text for structuring power in a way that serves their interests today.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan If they weren't doing that, they would take a little more seriously the differences in these texts. They wouldn't presuppose the univocality of everything from Genesis 1 to Genesis 2 all the way over to Galatians 3 and imagine that it all reflected the exact same perspective, because it- Right ... manifestly does not.
Dan Beecher Yeah.
Dan McClellan All right.
Dan Beecher Well, there's that everybody. If you would like to hear us talk a little bit more about this, and I think we'll get into some interesting stuff, as well as answer some of our patrons' questions. You can become a patron over on patreon.com/dataoverdogma. If you sign up at the $10 a month level, every week we do the after party with lots more cool content. So, sign up for that, or you can just sign up for early ad-free access. That's just a $5 a month level. So, head on over there if you want to. If you need to contact us, it's contact@dataoverdogmapod.com, and we'll talk to you again next week.
Dan McClellan Bye everybody.
