Cokhavim commented:
“RMG wrote: ‘It is true that God did not treat patriarchal culture as intrinsically evil—as he did, say, idolatry. God regarded the patriarchy (and concomitant polygamy) of ancient Israel as simply the culture of the time. Although patriarchy was not the offense to God’s holiness that idolatry was, this is no reason to conclude that it was entirely pleasing to him.’
"I'm troubled by this. Here's my feeble attempt to explain why: Patriarchy is the system whereby men take what is not rightfully theirs (exclusive authority), and in many cases women wrongfully give up what God has given and charged them to wield (authority). The first case is theft, and the second case is disobedience. Both involve the same disregard to God's authority as idolatry, and so are sinful and inherently evil. So why doesn't God condemn patriarchy like he condemned idolatry? Worse than that, why does God spend so much time on, for instance, mould and mildew instead of condemning patriarchy? Patriarchy was far more devastating to the Israelites and the entire history of the human race than mould and mildew. So I contend: Patriarchy is evil. Why doesn't God explicitly condemn it?”
Authority and Idolatry
“In many cases women wrongfully give up what God has given and charged them to wield (authority).”
Gifted women did wield authority in the Old Testament. There was no prohibition of women teaching, prophesying, or leading. It happened rarely, largely because the patriarchal culture did not often offer such opportunity for women. Besides, “women’s work” could be rather rugged and time consuming in ancient agrarian societies, which would leave little time for public exploits. Also, women were not utterly without control of their lives, little ones, or households. Notice that when Jacob wanted to leave Laban, he first got the O.K. from his wives Leah and Rachel.
Patriarchy involves “the same disregard to God’s authority as idolatry.”
Both men and women were under God’s authority in ancient Israel. Moreover, idolatry is about God’s holiness, not God’s authority.
I have been reading the Pentateuch for awhile now, and I find it striking that God seems to be much more concerned to impress upon Israel his holiness than his power and authority. He exercises the latter as he deems necessary, but his instruction and communication to Israel (via Moses) is all about how Yahweh is holy and so his people must also be holy (in some way, to some degree). Idolatry is a direct affront to the unique and total holiness of God. Patriarchy is not.
God's top priority for his people was that they keep from idols and know that God is holy.
“Why does God spend so much time on, for instance, mould and mildew instead of condemning patriarchy? Patriarchy was far more devastating to the Israelites and the entire history of the human race than mould and mildew.”
Yes, Old Testament law does often seem to be an odd jumble of the petty and the profound. The moral law directly applies to all God’s people for all time. The ceremonial or cultic law was applicable only to the social practices of Israel, which included how to deal with mold and mildew. Much of this had to do with insuring health standards for the vast companies of Israelites. But these picayune requirements also illustrate in very concrete, everyday terms the concept of distinguishing between the clean and the unclean, or, more precisely, the holy and the unholy. It was a sort of object lesson for the Israelites. Again we see God’s powerful insistence on having his people respect and worship the Holy.
Patriarchy in Ancient Times
The Israelites had a very difficult time accepting, obeying, and worshiping a God that was never to be represented in tangible, concrete form. This was their stumbling block, because it was contrary to all the other cultures and religions of the time. Yet God insisted on this huge paradigm shift for his people, because it was essential and intrinsic to the religion of Yahweh. But what do you suppose would have happened if God had also insisted on the Israelites being organized into an egalitarian social system? They could at least understand the concept of having to worship their God (even if one could not “see” him). But the culture of patriarchy was thoroughly entrenched in ancient times. They could not have grasped and adapted to a social system as alien to them as egalitarianism would have been. Of course, this is merely a practical consideration. So let us move on to more theological considerations.
It Was Not Always Thus
God did not create patriarchy. This was not God’s original plan for humanity. The fall was a cataclysmic event that twisted and turned God’s beautiful creation into its antithesis, in many ways. But let’s not forget that in the new covenant in Christ, God has eliminated patriarchy from the company of his redeemed. New creation realities override Old Testament Law.
Between the Garden of Eden and the New Creation in Christ, God tolerated patriarchy (and the polygamy that accompanied it) as he tolerated many things that have developed from the fall. But God did not create patriarchy from the beginning. It came upon the man and woman only after they fell into disobedience and sin. Note the marked contrast between Genesis 2:24 and Genesis 3:16.
Not Like the Law of the PC World Today
Let us not confuse historical-cultural patriarchy with the historically novel PC gender doctrine that is being propounded today. Unlike the social structures of traditional patriarchy, the PC view: 1) renounces the culture of the day, 2) defines male authority as spiritual authority, 3) explicitly prohibits women from serving God according to whatever their ability and calling may be, 4) claims patriarchy is mandated by God and grounded in pre-fall creation, 5) is not a social system but a religious doctrine.
Every one of these five points issues from a perspective antithetical to that of the patriarchy of ancient Israel, which: 1) was just following along with the only social system known in the ancient world, 2) saw male rule largely in terms of inheritance law and social leadership, which necessarily included religious leadership since Israel was a religious society (theocracy), 3) had no law prohibiting women from exercising their prophetic or leadership gifts, 4) offered no rationale for patriarchy as God’s original creation order, 5) was a social system that was accepted by all societies of the time; it was not a religious doctrine that required one’s allegiance on pain of violating God’s express command.
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2 comments:
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for tackling this question for me. I especially appreciated your observations in the section entitled "Not Like the Law of the PC World Today." That in itself shows that even if God approved of ancient patriarchy, that doesn't mean God approves of the PC view since it is so different.
However, I still can't shake off the thing that most bothers me: the OT really does seem to endorse patriarchy. Or if not endorse, at least reinforce. In Good News for Women, p.32, you quoted Eileen Vennum as saying, "The Old Covenant priestly qualifications were tied to what human beings valued in each other. They were related to accident of birth, or station in life, or visible physical characteristics that had nothing to do with the heart or the character of a person. However, God, the Great Teacher, used human ideas of specialness to teach us about God's own specialness." In other words, God uses human values, including the value of males over females, nobles over peasants, non-leprous over leprous, as metaphors of how valuable, special and pure God is.
The problem is this: using these human values as metaphors is accepting and reinforcing those human values, and certainly doesn't communicate that God actually rejects those values. By this argument, God could have said to the western world 200 years ago, "You all think that white people are superior to black people. Well, hey, I'm just like a white person, and you're just like a black person. I'm superior to you!" Wouldn't such an analogy be totally disgusting? The very use of the analogy is an endorsement of the claim that people with lighter skin are superior to people with darker skin. In the same way, if God says something like "You think that men are holier and cleaner than women. Well, in that case, only men can represent me because I'm pure and holy!" how is that not an endorsement of the cultural value of men over women?
Yet even these analogies I could swallow if God would give only one statement rejecting those human values ("Hey, white and black people are actually equal [or males and females], but since you idiots think the way you do..."), but there's not one single statement rejecting patriarchy or polygamy in the OT. But there are tons of laws and statements that seem to endorse the discriminatory values of the culture. That's why I'm bothered.
“Yet even these analogies I could swallow if God would give only one statement rejecting those human values ("Hey, white and black people are actually equal [or males and females], but since you idiots think the way you do..."), but there's not one single statement rejecting patriarchy or polygamy in the OT.”
But God does say it in the New Testament, and it’s not because he’s changed his mind on the subject, but because he is completing his covenant with his people, including at last the whole truth of who he is and who he made us to be, setting forth the fundamental principles of new life in Christ that do not discriminate between male or female, strong or weak. There are not certain classes of people with special privileges. All are now one in Christ.
Even in the Old Testament, God occasionally bursts forth with impatience and frustration over the whole cultic sacrificial system that God himself had set up, saying, in effect, “This is not what it is really all about!”
In the Old Testament God accepted the imperfect until the perfect was to come. One of these imperfect things was patriarchy. That was the only culture functioning at the time, and God worked within it. But this does not entail that God endorsed the fundamental concept of patriarchy: that men are inherently and fundamentally endowed with authority and women are not. He could not have endorsed this, because in the OT he did occasionally endorse leadership authority in women, and when this occurred it was never presented or remarked upon as though it were an oddity or an exception.
I think it is also significant that nowhere in the OT is there any explicit law or statement that woman must be subordinate to man. It is only implicit, a cultural given. The custom of male rule—even among the multitude of detailed laws in the OT—is never explicitly commanded as a moral imperative.
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