Feminist Interpretation Of Women In Genesis

Genesis chapters two to three are passages frequently used to justify male superiority and domination over women. Dennis T. Olson, Phyllis Trible, Anne Clifford and many other biblical scholars have provided alternative interpretations of Genesis that work against the conventional androcentric reading. Phyllis Trible’s take on the first two chapters of Genesis uses feminist hermeneutics to represent the creation of Eve as independent from Adam and how the story does not advocate women as subordinate to men. Humanity is established right away as incorporating both sexes. Working from the original Hebrew, Trible revels that ‘adham is not a masculine pronoun, but the neutral plurality for humans (Trible, 74). Eve is independent from Adam both in her creation and her actions. The creation of woman takes place while Adam is fast asleep, and so “like man, woman owes her life solely to God” (Trible, 76). In the third chapter of Genesis where Eve accepts the fruit from the serpent, the decision is solely hers. Although Adam is beside her the entire time during the serpent encounter, all dialogue is between Eve and the serpent. The argument for Eve’s independence from Adam renounces woman’s creation as subordinate to man, nevertheless,
A “masculist” approach to the Bible is suggested by Dennis Olson. A “masculist” interpretation is shifted from typical male interpretation. Instead, this reading is pro-feminist, but unlike a feminist reading, the focus remains on men (Olson, 77). When the “masculist” method is applied to chapters two through four of Genesis, the implication is that women alone are not primarily responsible for the entrance of sin into humanity. The numerous parallels between Genesis three and chapter four suggest that the two should be a combined explanation of human sin (Olson, 82). For instance, both Adam and Cain give into temptation and shift the blame onto someone