Created: 1999.10.10
Some people say "The Bible denigrates women" some say "The Bible treats women as chattel (property)" some say "We must throw away the Bible if women are to ever have equality" some say "It is the Bible's fault that women are treated like second class citizens." Many other such statements are made criticizing our God.
I maintain that the people who make these claims simply do not know the God of the Bible.
The OT teaches that women are of equal value to men. It also teaches that they are NOT the same as men, don't have the same responsibilities (they have different responsibilities.)
So Equality? YES. Same? NO. Equal Value? Yes. Subject to Husbands? Yes. Sorry, but it's the truth - I won't stand for political correctness. Lets deal with the truth honestly, unabashedly and forthrightly.
Job. See the lesson on Heaven. Job's wife was NOT his property. Note that it was the ROMAN empire (and other societies) that considered women property of the husband. This was not the teaching of the God of the OT or for that matter the NT.
Gen 1: 27 - male AND female are made in God's image. What IS God's image? Obviously it is an image that reflects both maleness AND femaleness. Do I understand this? No, not really. But I believe it.
Gen 2:7 - God made Man
Gen 2:22 - God made woman.
Nowhere in here does it suggest that women are less valuable, less important or less in the image of God.
One problem we have is with language. The word "mankind" is not a male term. It is a non-sexual term. The word "womankind" on the other hand IS a sexual term. The word translated "man" from Hebrew and Greek, usually is translating from a term that applies (in their languages) to males and females equally.
Gen 3:16, the fall. God cursed women saying;
These are both a curse AND a statement of fact.
Gen 3:17
Psalm 31: 10-31- the Good wife.
But consider Deborah, (Judges 4) and how she considered that her position was because men had shirked theirs. She brought dishonor on men because she, as a female, was doing their responsibility for them. Her claim is not "I get the honor because..." But rather "A woman will get the honor..."
This means that, when women do the work that men were supposed to when men are not, in particular, spiritual leadership, it is not the women that are cursed, it is the men that are cursed.
Note that Deborah was a female prophet, and nowhere is there any indication of shame that God choose a woman to be a prophet. It was the man's unwillingness to follow God's lead without a woman's help that was shameful.
Ruth - a whole book about a Moabite woman! (And the great-great-etc..-great grandmother of Jesus Christ)
Esther - a queen to a foreign King who saved her people.