Christianity and Sexism: The Old Testament

A good friend of mine is a Cru missionary in Michigan.  He said the biggest objection he gets from the folks is that the Christian faith is bigoted and sexist by its very nature.

Today I wanted to look at the first of those – sexism.  Specifically sexism in the Old Testament.  Does the legacy which Christianity inherits from the Old Testament bind it to sexism in the present day?

Let’s dive in.



In the Beginning:

The first piece of information we have on the relationship between men and women is the account of their creation in the book of Genesis.  The text states:

"God created man in His image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them." - Genesis 1:27

So the first thing we are told is that man and woman are both created in the image of God.  This passage has been cited by Christians throughout our history as indicating the source of our intrinsic human value.   This quality is what makes humans - by our very nature - more valuable than aardvarks and ferns.

Note how the text says both men and women were both created in this dignity.  It does not say that males were created moreso in God's image, or that women were created inferior in this regard.

(The question of why God is referred to in masculine terms can be addressed some other time.)

It might be worthwhile to comment on what it means to be made in the likeness of God.  On an individual level, it has traditionally been understood to reference:

• Our capacity for rationality, abstract knowledge, and free will.
• Our potential for love, joy, and introspection.
• Our immaterial component (the soul), and our immortal destiny.

Men and women also image God together through their procreative complementarity.  That is to say, when men and women come together in love, they form a single one-flesh union which creates new life.

Consequences:

The next thing we're told about in Genesis is the Fall of humanity.  Namely, through an act of disobedience, Adam and Eve break communion with God and lose many of the gifts they had enjoyed.

God spells out several consequences of the Fall to the man and woman individually.  To the man he warns of laboring through sweat, toil, and hardship.  The woman is warned of impending tensions between her and her husband:

"Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." - Genesis 3:16

This is important.  The domineering tendencies of men have toward women are presented here, not a divine ordinance, but rather a consequence of sin.  It is a perversion of the way God had intended men and women to interact.



The Scandal of the Mosaic Law:

Now we get into some complicated territory – the Mosaic Law.

The Exodus narrative tells us about how God chose Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  While they were roaming about the wilderness, God gave Moses a body of law which would govern the Israelites when they entered into the Promised Land.  This legal code became known as the Mosaic Law.

Well, there is a lot of stuff in the Mosaic Law which looks really bad  from the standpoint of a person desiring equality and fairness to women.  For instance, take this example of how women captives were to be treated during war:

"If you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house. But before she may live there, she must shave her head and pare her nails and lay aside her captive's garb. After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife."  - Deuteronomy 21:10-13

Stuff like this causes many to ask:

"If this law was how God revealed His will to the Israelites, how could someone NOT conclude that the Biblical God treats women as second-class citizens?"

Now what?



For the Hardness of your Heart:

The first place I would want to take this question is forward to the ministry of Jesus.

Three of the four Gospels record an encounter between Jesus and some scholars of the Mosaic Law in which they ask Him when it is proper for a man to divorce his wife.  Jesus’ shocking reply was that in the union of marriage, God join the spouses together for life.

This means no human has the authority to dissolve this union.  Thus, if a man puts away his wife and marries another, he is committing adultery against the first woman – who remains his real spouse in the eyes of God.

[For more on this, see my explanation >here<]

The scholars basically replied, “What?  Then why did Moses give us the ability to divorce?”

To which Jesus replied:

“Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” – Matthew 19:8

Here we see an important principle:  The Mosaic Law was never intended to be a perfect exposition of God’s intentions for human society and right morality.    The people might not have known what to do with the fullness of the truth at that point.  The Law was a functional step.  It was there to curtail the evils which were common in the ancient world and to raise the Hebrews above their neighbors.

With that in mind we can look at the Mosaic Law with a different perspective.   Whenever I see one of these startling proscriptions regarding the treatment of women, the first question I ask myself is:

 “Is this restraining something present in the ancient context which might have been worse?”

And in the case of women taken captive after battle, it takes little imagination to think of far worse fates than what was proscribed in the Mosaic Law.

Thus, one can turn the scandal of the Mosaic Law on its head.  The picture can be re-cast as God seeing how a sinful mankind was treating women - and then moving them closer to the recognition of equal dignity which was forfeited in the Fall.

[For more on the limited scope of the Mosaic Law, see my previous post on that >here<]


Next time I hope to address similar questions raised by the content of the New Testament.  See you then.

Part II >Here<