What’s lost in translation?
Genesis 3:16
I’m listening to a sermon from Mars Hill of Seattle on femininity. This verse stuck out to me as Pastor Driscoll speaks about the foundations of biblical femininity. In my NLT Bible, the verse reads similarly, but adds an alternative subtext of: OR "and though you may desire to control your husband…"
The Anderson-Forbes morphological dictionary (in my Logos Bible Software v3.0 beta) takes this specific section of the verse and breaks it down into the following: unto man thee(f) urge longing:תְּש×וּקָה)) thee(f), or as I would loosely translate it: you will long for a man. (Remember, loosely because I could be off).
What strikes me here is that I don’t see the "desire to control the man", but the desire or longing for the man. Was this changed in the NLT or was there an additional sentence structure issue that made this second, alternative phrase necessary?
My questions at the root here are these: does this verse suggest that women desire to control (rule) men? or is this really just a matter of women desiring their husband and as a punishment, not having that completely met by mortal marriage? Is man’s master role over woman literal? Does the fall make the "helper" relationship of man and woman go away?
Pastor Driscoll says some things about women coveting men’s position in society, noting this and other related pieces of scripture as evidence. I’m just trying to figure out how I feel about that biblical interpretation. I’m not trying to say anything about the sermon here, but really just about the New Living Translation of this passage, a Bible that I’ve trusted for a while now, and a difficult subscript that could give rise to what sounds like a challenging interpretation to me.
First of all, I like what you’ve done with the place, I’ll be checking in. I’d like to point out a few things that are mildly connected to your topic on this point:
1) How does the culture and society of the authors (yes plural) interact with this verse. Would someone who was alive in this culture during the period in which Genesis was written have said, “Women and men are both free, in God there is no man or woman, etc†(Which is basically what Paul says in Gal 3:28 at a much later time)?
2) Perhaps even more problematic is 1Cor 11:5. Can we pick and choose what we want to read literally and what we want to read figuratively? Can I say that a woman’s role in society is clearly below a man’s because of passages in Genesis, 1Cor, 2Tim, etc, etc. And if I can, do I get to choose to say that women covering their head is strictly a “cultural issue†and need not be followed today. Gosh, if I get to pick and choose whatever I want to believe out of the Bible maybe this all gets quite a bit easier.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t understand how one can claim that women’s role is “below†a man’s in society, in the Church, and at home and at the same time say it’s okay for women to have short hair and not cover their heads (by the way, I’m in no way suggesting that women need to cover their heads and if you know me I am also in no way suggesting that a woman’s place in society is behind men). These conclusions require very opposite readings of the Bible and to me it sounds more like picking and choosing what we think is literal and figurative.
I haven’t heard the sermon so I can’t get myself back on topic here, but I like what you have to say Seth. Keep it up bud!