Restoring Eve

“Eve is used in countless lessons to warn me of my propensities as a woman—to be deceived, to usurp, to covet, to fall (and lead) into temptation. We know little of Eve’s virtues, so I am mostly warned of her vices.”

“We excavate her story for truth related to what it means to be a woman, and mostly, it doesn’t look good. My womanhood is dripping with power I must learn to suppress, lest I take the human race down with me.”

“In evangelicalism, Genesis 3:16 rests at the center of debates regarding the role of women in the church, home, and society, and interpretations are often shaped by preconceived ideas about the nature of men and women and their roles.”

“Of particular significance for the debates is the interpretation offered by Susan Foh. In the midst of second-wave feminism in 1975, Foh defined the woman’s “desire” in Genesis 3:16 as “a desire to possess or control [her husband] . . . to contend with him for leadership in their relationship.””

“In her study of the Hebrew word translated desire (teshuqah)—which is found only in Genesis 3:16, 4:7, and Song of Songs 7:10—Foh uses etymology to build a semantic range for this rare word, arguing that cognate evidence supports desire having an adversarial nuance”

“Foh considers Genesis 4:7 the interpretive key to Genesis 3:16, despite the preference by other commentators throughout history to associate Genesis 3:16 with Song of Songs 7:10 since they both address male-female relationships”

“She argues that the meaning in Genesis 4:7 is straightforward: “Sin’s desire is to enslave Cain—to possess or control him, but the Lord commands, urges Cain to overpower sin, to master it.””

“According to Foh, this clarifies what is unclear in Genesis 3:16. Like sin, the woman desires to possess or control her husband.”

“The impact of her interpretation has been far-reaching for evangelicals.”

“Over forty years later, Foh’s view has become the standard interpretation of Genesis 3:16 by evangelical scholars”

“It has even made its way into the ESV translation: What once read, “Your desire shall be for your husband,” now reads, “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband.””

“Foh—and the complementarian pastors and theologians who have followed in her footsteps—have moved from reactivity to genuine conviction.”

“Primed by our cultural moment to believe they’re true, we read our revised Bible translation and don’t give it a second thought.”

“when exegesis is rooted in polemics, and its application leads to values and actions that contradict other portions of Scripture, perhaps it’s worth revisiting the text and asking ourselves honest questions about why we believe what we believe.”

“Recent studies on the cognates of teshuqah and its appearance in the Dead Sea Scrolls have cast considerable doubt on Foh’s etymological argument for an adversarial nuance”

“Further, even the reading of Genesis 4:7, which appears to be quite clear in our English Bible translations, is actually rather difficult in Hebrew, in part due to its structure”

“Though Foh’s argument is rooted in etymology and in the verse’s parallels to Genesis 4:7, we simply can’t be sure about the nature of the woman’s desire based on these factors alone. The adversarial nuance is not embedded into teshuqah but must come from the context.”

“As we turn more specifically to the context surrounding Genesis 3:16, this is what the text compels us to keep in mind: The context is covenant; the emphasis is obedience; the scope is corporate.”

“Though we see in the Fall narrative that Satan is bent on upending God’s created order, this same motivation cannot be applied to Eve.”

“The text indicates that by listening to the voice of the serpent, she has bought into the lie that she can be like God. The text does not indicate, however, that she refused to obey the voice of her husband (“who was with her,” 3:6), nor does it indicate a domineering pressure to coerce her husband into disobedience (“she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate,” 3:6)”

“If the account of the Fall demonstrated Eve as a usurper of male authority, then it may justify Foh’s adversarial understanding of the woman’s desire; but any discussions about Eve’s motivations must be imported into the text, since neither here nor elsewhere in Scripture is the Fall characterized as Eve usurping Adam’s authority”

“The narratives throughout the rest of Genesis and the Old Testament do not demonstrate a battle of the sexes, but rather a battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, often expressed through the conflict of brothers.”

“viewing the curse narrative only through the lens of judgment overlooks some key features of the text.”

“only the serpent is cursed directly (“cursed are you” in v. 14; emphasis added).”

“The woman and the man are impacted by the pronouncements of their sections, but never again does “cursed are you” appear in these verses”

“God addresses his covenant-breakers with the promise of a new covenant: the covenant of grace.”

“Rather than listing punishments, a more effective structure of verses 14–19 might be to view each section as containing both curse and continuity.”

“There is much difficulty in childbearing, including struggles with infertility (see Gen. 16:1, for example) and even death after difficult labor (Gen. 35:16–19). The curse of the ground is also evidenced by famine (see Gen. 12:10; 26:1; 41). Further, God’s covenant terms relate specifically to these themes, which then stretch throughout the rest of Scripture.”

“Notably absent are usurping wives and domineering husbands. Though Scripture describes both marital conflict and sinful characters, these are not caricatures of gendered propensities but rather illustrations of the reality of sin’s impact on human relationships.”