Book Review: Texts of Terror by Phyllis Trible

Trible, Phyllis. A Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Grand Rapids: Fortress Press, 1984. $13.60. pp.ix-128. ISBN 0-8006-1537-9. ★★★★★

I bought a used copy of Texts of Terror and found that, despite describing the condition as "Used - Very Good," the previous owner took a paper clip or something and carved on the cover under the title: "Very bias Account." I guess he didn't like it (maybe it wasn't a 'he'...maybe). I thought, to be fair, it does say "Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives." The author introduces her bent right in the title, so why was he so surprised that he carved a warning on the cover before selling it?

After reading the book, I think the previous owner had to have much more of a bias than Trible does. In fact, I found it funny that Walter Brueggemann in his forward for the book said things like, "[Trible's] presentation is free of every theoretical encumbrance." (p.ix) Indeed, while her four chapters wrestle with sagas that are particularly troublesome for feminists (Hagar, Gen. 16:1-16, 21:9-21; Tamar, 2 Sam. 13:1-22; an unnamed concubine, Judg. 19:1-30; and the daughter of Jephthah, Judg. 11:29-40), she is very fair in her assessments of them, and does not impose some kind of agenda onto the texts.

In fact, Trible's treatment of the texts is where the quality of her work lies. We have here an example of rhetorical criticism in its purest form. Her attention to detail in analyzing the narratives often produced wonderful insights, so that no page was left insipid. For example, Judges 19:30--at the end of story about the unnamed concubine being captured, betrayed, raped, tortured, murdered, dismembered and scattered--says, "And all who saw it said, 'Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day.'" Trible observed that the "verbal forms and the object [of the verse] are all feminine gender,"which , she says, "highlight[s] the woman who is the victim of terror." (p.81) Just about every page includes interesting observations like this.

Trible's studies revealed a grand poetry of the biblical prose, a mark that must have influenced her own writing, as Texts of Terror is extremely well-written. When talking about the statement the editor of Judges made after the story of the unnamed concubine--"in those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes"--Trible made a clever observation considering the Davidic monarchy: "David pollutes Bathsheba; Amnon rapes Tamar; and Absalom violates the concubines of his father. In those days there was a king in Israel, and royalty did the right in its own eyes." (p.84) The book is full of such clever word-play.

Her analysis of the sagas themselves is equally commendable. So many of the biblical narratives are written so that a lot happens in just a few verses. Trible slows it down. Each story as presented in her book is read with eagerness, as it moves along with a building intensity. She is a fantastic story-teller.

Going into her work, I was expecting an attempt to resolve the theological issues raised by the narratives she covers. Why did Yahweh tell Hagar to return to Abram and Sarai? Why didn't Yahweh intervene to tell Jephthah not to sacrifice his daughter like he did with Abraham and Isaac? However, theological issues are not the focus here. Trible's focus was to single out women in the Bible who suffered terrible defeats, and who have so often been unheard and overlooked in biblical study. She focused on giving a voice to the voiceless, in order for the reader to do the same. This, she accomplished, and she did it well.

Purchase Texts of Terror on Amazon (here)

A Theology of Genesis 2: Yahweh in Relationship

There are many ancient Near Eastern creation narratives, with many similarities to those in the Hebrew Bible.(1) It is for this reason, among many others, that I have found it impossible to view the creation accounts in Genesis as literal history of how the world was actually brought into being.(2) Accepting this has caused me to view Genesis 1-3 much differently: If the purpose of these narratives was not to record actual history, what was the purpose? What were the authors of these narratives trying to say through them? I am not interested in answering these questions here. What I am most interested in is what these narratives say about God; and in this study, I have set out to address what Genesis 2, in particular, says about God.

Genesis 2 and the Ancient Near East

My main purpose here is to give life to the uniqueness of the God of Israel, showing what differentiates him from the gods of the other ancient Near Eastern creation stories. Before I do this, I should share with you some of the commonalities between Genesis 2 and other creation accounts. These are pulled from Peter Enns' book The Evolution of Adam:

• "A garden/paradise of God/the gods in the east (Enki and Ninhursag; Gilgamesh)
• Humans created out of dust/clay to cultivate the land (Enki and Ninmah [Sumerian]; Atrahasis; Gilgamesh)
• Humans infused with the Breath of Life (Instructions of Merikare [Egyptian]) . . .
• Streams of water supply irrigation to the garden (Enki and Ninhursag) . . .
• The female made from the male's rib/side (Enki and Ninhursag [referring to a goddess])"(3)

These are not all the similarities, nor would it benefit this study to go through all of them. The point is: Genesis 2 is not completely unique. My concern, then, is how unique Yahweh of Genesis 2 is.

I contend that Yahweh's uniqueness is found in his relationality with the people of Israel (I agree with Enns that Adam & Eve represent Israel in the story).

Yahweh, a God of Relationship

Terence Fretheim provides several characteristics of genuine divine-human relationship:(4)

• The Yahweh-Israel relationship is such that Yahweh is not the only one with something to say
• It is also a relationship in which Yahweh is not the only one with something to do and the power to do it
• Yahweh is genuinely affected by the relationship
• Yahweh is concerned about the human's entire self
• In this relationship, the human will can stand against the will of Yahweh
• The Yahweh-Israel relationship is one in which the future is not all mapped out

All of these characteristics can be found in Genesis 2.

Yahweh is genuinely affected by the relationship and is concerned about the creature's entire self

We begin this section with an astute observation by Bill Arnold:

Gen. 1 portrays the transcendent and sovereign Creator commanding order from chaos by a series of cuts and separations, structuring the world and its inhabitants according to types and categories. Now, 2:4–25 complements that portrait with one in which the immanent and intensely personal Yahweh Elohim, LORD God, shapes humanity from clay like a potter (2:7).(5)

The image of God as potter, says Fretheim, "reveals a God who focuses closely on the object to be created and takes painstaking care to shape each one into something useful and beautiful."(6) Indeed, the human is "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Ps. 139:14): Yahweh pays acute attention to detail in creating humanity, cautiously engaging in the art of perfecting his craft. This is a God who genuinely cares about humans, unlike the gods of the ancient Near East, to whom the creation of humanity was either an afterthought or an act of selfish gain.(7)

The God depicted in Genesis 2 cares that ādām is alone and wants to provide someone for him (v.18) so that he can be a relational being as Yahweh is ("let us," 1:26).(8) Yahweh is deeply affected by his relationship with humans, and is concerned about their entire selves.

Yahweh is not the only one with something to say; nor is he the only one with something to do and the power to do it

Fretheim says, "Twice, God 'brings' a creature [to the man] . . . [and] lets the human being determine whether [they] . . . are adequate to move the evaluation from 'not good' to 'good.'"(9) Indeed, in verse 23, it is ādām that determines that the creation is good. This reveals that Yahweh wants to receive input from his creatures. He wants their involvement in his creation. In the God-human relationship, Yahweh is not the only being with something to say.

That Yahweh made it so that he was not the only one with something to do and the power to do it can be seen in the incredible responsibility he gives ādām to name all the animals. This might not seem significant to us, but, as Gerhard von Rad provides , "name-giving in the ancient Orient was primarily an exercise of sovereignty."(10) "Without any qualification in the text," Fretheim observes, "whatever the human being called each animal, that was its name (2:19). Whatever!"(11)

Furthermore, Arnold states that by "pronouncing the name of each [animal] as they were created, the human participated in the creative process with God."(12) As Fretheim says, in Genesis 2, "Divine decisions interact with human decisions in the creation of the world."(13) Andre Jolles powerfully conveys the significance of this name-giving:

Man attacks the confusion of the world; by probing, restricting and combining he brings together what belongs together. That which lies piled up in the confusion of the world does not at the start possess its own form; but rather, what is here distinguished with discrimination receives its own form only as it comes together in the analysis.(14

This paints Yahweh as a God who shares power with his creatures. He genuinely cares about what the humans want to do and gives them the power to do it. As Phyllis Trible states, God here is not portrayed as "the authoritarian controller of events but as the generous delegator of power who even forfeits the right to reverse human decisions."(15) Fretheim echoes this, saying "the divine sovereignty in creation is understood, not in terms of absolute divine control, but as a sovereignty that gives power over to the created for the sake of a relationship of integrity."(16)

To step out of our present chapter for a second and go to the first creation narrative, we find a fascinating verse, in which Elohim says to the humans: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and conquer it, and hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and every beast that crawls upon the earth" (1:28). The Hebrew words for 'conquer' and 'hold sway' denote sovereignty, "an absolute or even fierce exercise of mastery."(17) Consider the powerful claims of Ps. 8:5-8:

...you have made [human beings] a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

Clearly, Yahweh's purpose was not to be the only being with something to do and the power with which to do it.

The human will can stand against the will of Yahweh

This is evident in the "vocation, permission, and prohibition" that Yahweh gives the humans:(18) "From every fruit of the garden you may surely eat. But from the tree of knowledge, good and evil, you shall not eat, for on that day you eat from it, you are doomed to die" (vv.16b-17) The humans can eat all they want from any tree of the garden, but they are forbidden to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Furthermore, the humans were created to till and watch over the earth (v.15), to rule over it (1:28). Walter Brueggemann has observed that, today, the "divine will for vocation and freedom has been lost. The God of the garden is chiefly remembered as the one who prohibits. But the prohibition makes sense only in terms of the other two."(19) Yahweh gave the humans power and freedom, but also a warning of what happens when that power is abused. This warning would be nonsensical if the human will could not stand against Yahweh's will. Here is a God who does not always get his way.

Yahweh shares power, gives freedom, risks his will, and submits to the possibility of opposition. The human will can stand against his.

In the Yahweh-Israel relationship, the future is not all mapped out in advance

"The two trees," Fretheim says, "represent two possible futures: life and death."(20) This motif of two possible futures is found throughout the Hebrew Bible. Here is an example:

This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. For if you are careful to carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will come through the gates of this palace, riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by their officials and their people. But if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord, I swear by myself that this palace will become a ruin.
Jeremiah 22:3-5

What humanity's future will look like is up to their decisions: "All depends on what the humans do with what God presents."(21) Yahweh as revealed in Genesis 2 does not have a blueprint of his will for human history; he leaves human history is up to humans. The image of divine potter in Jeremiah 18 shows a God who adapts to the decisions of his people, not a God who decides their future himself. Is it a coincidence that the potter image can be found in the narrative of creation, the beginning of human history (2:7)?

"O Lord, Who is Like You?"

In Genesis 2, God is not a fully transcendent, self-glorifying figure. His first act as Creator is not to demand worship from the creatures; rather, he focuses on them the whole time! He selflessly gives the human freedom, adheres to the human's needs, receives input from the human, and gives the human power. Genesis 2 reveals that Yahweh, unlike the gods of the ancient Near Eastern creation stories, is concerned with being intimately involved with his people, and sharing with them a genuine relationship, the sustaining of which depends on all of these qualities.(22)

[Read Paul Imbrone's response to this here]

Notes:
(1) For similarities between ancient Near Eastern texts and the Hebrew Bible, see Kenton Sparks, Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2005); John Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006); Walton, Ancient Israelite Literature in its Cultural Context (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994); and J.J.M. Roberts, The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays (Eisenbrauns, 2002).
(2) For other reasons, see Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012).
(3) Ibid., 55.
(4) These come from a presentation Terence Fretheim gave called "Divine-Human Relationship." This can be found on Itunes U. All but one of the listed characteristics can also be found in his book, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), 21-22.
(5) Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 56.
(6) Fretheim, "Genesis," in The New Interpreter's Bible: Volume 1, ed. Leander E. Keck: 319-674 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 349.
(7) Arnold, 58.
(8) See Fretheim, God and World, 56.
(9) Fretheim, "Genesis," 352.
(10) Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1973), 81.
(11) Fretheim, God and World, 58.
(12) Arnold, 60.
(13) Fretheim, God and World, 58.
(14) Andre Jolles, quoted in von Rad, 80-81.
(15) Phyllis Trible, quoted in Fretheim, "Genesis," 352.
(16) Ibid., 356.
(17) Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary (New York: W.W Norton & Co., 1996), 5.
(18) See Walter Brueggemann, Genesis (Lousiville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1982), 46.
(19) Ibid.
(20) Fretheim, "Genesis," 352.
(21) Ibid., 357.
(22) Walton also recognizes this unique quality. See his Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 110.

Does Genesis 2 Support Complementarianism?

Complementarianism vs. Feminism is quite a battle these days. A huge part of this debate is due to the fact that complementarians find the basis of their beliefs in Scripture. One of the passages they use to support their views is Genesis 2. I have been studying this passage for a theological collaboration with a friend of mine, and my research has inspired me to write a blog addressing this. Before I do, I must preface it by saying that I am only going to deal with Genesis 2 here. The conclusion drawn will be, "As far as Genesis 2 is concerned..." and not "As far as the Bible is concerned..." I have not done significant research in the other passages used to support complementarianism, so I will not comment on those at this time.

Man is Created First

Does the fact that man is created first imply that the woman has a subordinate role to play under the man? Many believe it does. Elizabeth Cady Stanton criticizes Genesis 2, saying that Genesis 1:26-28 "dignifies woman as an important factor in the creation, equal in power and glory with man," which is in contrast to Genesis 2, which she says "makes her a mere afterthought."(1) Phyllis Trible rightly criticizes this understanding, saying that the woman in the story "is not an afterthought; she is the culmination."(2) Just as creation in Genesis 1 led up to the creation of humanity, followed by God's rest, so this narrative leads up to the creation of woman and their subsequent union. The climax of the narrative is found in the creation of woman.

Furthermore, the fact that the woman is created from the man does not imply that she is inferior to him or destined to be his subordinate. Bill Arnold observes: "As the human was formed from the dust of the ground (‘ādām from ‘ădāmâ), so woman is built from the man (‘iššâ from ‘îš)."(3) That woman was created from man does not imply that she is inferior to man anymore than the fact that man was created out of dust implies that dust is superior to man.(4) In fact, as Terence Fretheim provides, the phrase "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh"--what Adam says in response to the woman's creation (v.23)--"literally highlights mutuality and equality."(5) These words that explicitly state woman's equality with man are man's first words in all of Scripture!(6)

Finally, Adam's short poem in response to the creation of woman strengthens the argument that this creative act is the climax of this passage. In Hebrew, the poem begins and ends with zot ('this'), referring to the woman. Gordon Wenham says of this poem, "by opening the tricolon and bicolon with 'this' and then by concluding with the same word, the man's exclamation concentrates all eyes on this woman."(7)

Man Gives Her a Name

While John Bailey recognizes the profound place of woman in this narrative--saying it is "all the more extraordinary when one realizes that this is the only account of the creation of woman as such in ancient Near Eastern literature"--he makes the mistake of seeing the facts that she is called 'woman' by Adam and deemed a 'helper' as signs of a "certain subordination."(8)

While it is true that "name-giving in the ancient Orient was primarily an exercise of sovereignty,"(9) there is a difference, in Hebrew, between what one calls someone and what one names someone. Trible observes this difference. Throughout the narrative, and in other places in the Hebrew Bible, call (qārā') and name (shem) are used together and denote the command one has over the other by naming the other (see Gen. 2:19-20; 4:17, 25, 26).(10) However,‘ādām merely calls (qārā') her woman. Fretheim cleverly observes that for man to call her 'woman' does not imply his authority over her anymore than Hagar calling God "El-roi" implies that she had authority over God (Gen. 16:13).(11) 

Trible reasonably suggests that the action in v.23 is the man recognizing sexuality.(12) Or, as Fretheim says, it "involves discernment regarding the nature of relationships."(13)

That being said, in chapter 3, Adam does name the woman Eve (v.20). However, Trible observes that this takes place after their sin and judgment; Adam asserts his rule over her and gives her a name when sin has entered his life (v.16).(14)

I am of the mind that the author of this passage was explaining why things were the way they were in their society. Thus, after humanity sinned against God, they assumed degraded roles. In a sense, they were downgraded to the service of that from which they were created: man would toil over the land, and woman would serve the man. First, this has to be understood as the result of sin, and not the way God created things to be. Second, given that this was the author's way of explaining why things were the way they were in his culture--men toiled over the land, and women served the men--I don't think it can be said that this is the God-given role of women that they are to fulfill today.

The Woman is a Helper

Bailey, referred to above, sees the woman's role of helper as a sign of subordination. However, this is not at all implied by the Hebrew word. Rather than suggesting any hint of inferiority, Trible recognizes that 'ezer (helper)  is a relational term.(15) Furthermore, if the word did denote inferiority or subordination, we would have to explain why the majority of its uses refer to God's being a helper of humans!(16) The use of 'ezer does not imply subordinate service to the one being helped, but rather that the strength of the one being helped, Wenham provides, "is inadequate by itself" (cf. Eccl. 4:9-10).(17) Furthermore, Fretheim says of this passage that humans were created to be "social, relational beings—male and female—and thereby correspondent to the sociality of God (‘let us’; see Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:17; cf. 9:6)."(18)

Side note: Many complementarians might agree with most, maybe even all of this, and would say that their complementarian views don't put women in lesser roles. However, when one says, for example, that women should not be pastors and should not exercise authority over men in church, this puts women in a lesser role. Genesis 2 does not support such an understanding. The Hebrew word for 'helper' does not limit the role of the woman to serving the man, nor to being under his authority, nor does it deny her the right to exercise authority over him. In Genesis 2, both humans are equal and under the authority of God alone.

After reviewing the creation narrative, I have found that the passage does not support complementarianism, or any view that places women in a lesser role under men. The way God intended things to be includes the equality of man and woman, partnering with God to preserve a beautiful creation and form a relational human history.


Notes:
(1) Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman's Bible, Part 1 (New York: European Publishing Company, 1895), 20.
(2) Phyllis Trible, "Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread," Andover Newton Quarterly 13, no. 4 (1973): 251-252.
(3) Bill T. Arnold, Genesis (New Cambridge Bible Commentary), ed. Ben Witherington, III (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 61.
(4) Terence Fretheim makes the same point. See Terence E. Fretheim, "Genesis", in Vol. 1 of The New Interpreter's Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 353.
(5) Ibid.
(6) I recently heard a sermon from Brian Zahnd, in which he said that the first recorded words of man in Scripture are found in Adam's response to God's question "Where are you?" in the garden. Man says, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid" (3:10). While the sermon was beautiful, this, as we can seen, is absolutely incorrect. I like Zahnd a lot, but I'm a little surprised he made this claim again and again, since it would have been so easy to check and see that it wasn't true. On top of Adam's words when seeing woman for the first time, Eve's response to the serpent is recorded in Gen. 3:4-5, just a few verses before the verse Zahnd quoted.
(7) Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Vol. 1 of Word Biblical Commentary, eds. Bruce Metzger, David Hubbard, and Glenn Barker (Word Books, 1987), 70.
(8) John Bailey, Quoted in Trible, 251-252, n. 5.
(9) Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1972), 81.
(10) See Trible's more elaborate explanation, p.254.
(11) See Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), 60.
(12) Trible, 255.
(13) Fretheim, "Genesis," 353.
(14) Fretheim supports this understanding. See Ibid.
(15) Trible, 252.
(16) Arnold, 60.
(17) Wenham, 68.
(18) Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament, 55. Trible says: "God is the helper that is superior to man; the animals are the helpers inferior to man; woman is the helper equal to man." See Trible, 252.