The Rebellion of Women

[Kevin H]

11 hours ago, Hanseng said:

 

What evidence would that be?

The Bible originally did not have the chapter and verse divisions. Hebrew linguists point out that Genesis  seen as one message, and in a poetic form. It is the story of the Seed. This message can be understood as:

The curse on the serpent, and being in the dust (death)

And I will put enmity between you (the serpent) and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, and you will do one action which you plan to be a fatal attack to the Seed, but it will only end up being merely a wound, while that action will be how He (The Promised Seed) will destroy the sin problem. And to the woman (who is not cursed) you will have pain in childbirth. This is more than "labor pain" but after carrying the child for 9 months, the mother TENDS to have a special connection to the child that tends to be deeper than others can have. She will share deeper the joys and pain for her child, and living in a sinful world the pains will more than likely outdo the joys. Well, she can simply avoid this pain by not having a family; but the tendency of the woman would be to have desire for her husband, and the family, thus even with the pain there is still the female tendency to have the family. The fact that the man get's his talk later shows a cluelessness where men don't naturally have the same tendency to the wife and family as the mother has, even as they try and do have desire, but the male tendency is for this to be not as intense as the tendency in the women. 

So we get a picture of a very dysfunctional family. We are living in a sinful world, but there is the promise that the Promised Seed will resolve the sin problem. But the family will have a lot of pain, especially in the motherly joy and pain of the child's life, and that very likely, there will be something missing in her relationship with her husband. 

But the hope for this painfully dysfunctional family is the promised gospel, THE PROMISED SEED, that the Hebrew grammar (beyond my education level) connects the "He" in verse 16 as the exact same "He" as verse 15, that as mentioned, this is the story of "HE" How He deals with the serpent and the sin problem, and how He works with sinful fallen humanity. The only way to get through life on a fallen planet is for the woman, her children and her husband to allow "HE" the Promised Seed who will resolve the sin problem will lead us through if only we let Him rule over us. The Promised Seed is not some pie in the sky, way down in the future, hopefully, maybe.... but HE is already there! Right at the start of sin, there HE IS! 

[Hanseng]

 1 Peter  3:6 reminds us that Sarah referred to Abraham as Lord. That Greek word is the same one used in Genesis 3:16 LXX. There it says that Adam would rule over the woman. In both cases the Greek word is essentially the same, one a noun, the other a verb. The linguistic connection is very strong.

[Hanseng]

4 hours ago, Kevin H said:

But the hope for this painfully dysfunctional family is the promised gospel, THE PROMISED SEED, that the Hebrew grammar (beyond my education level) connects the "He" in verse 16 as the exact same "He" as verse 15, that as mentioned, this is the story of "HE" How He deals with the serpent and the sin problem, and how He works with sinful fallen humanity

The passage is  plain enough to me, no machinations required.  

15  And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
16 ¶  To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire [shall be] for your husband, And he shall rule over you.” NKJV

     15  I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."

 16 ¶  To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." NRSV
 

       15  and enmity I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he doth bruise thee — the head, and thou dost bruise him — the heel.’
16 ¶  Unto the woman He said, ‘Multiplying I multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow dost thou bear children, and toward thy husband [is] thy desire, and he doth rule over thee.’ YLT

Even though the text says the woman's desire shall be for her husband and he shall rule over her, the "he" does not refer to the husband, immediately antecedent?

 Maybe you are right but I seriously doubt it, in the light of other passages which plainly say what the text in Genesis 3: 15,16 appears to be saying.

[Hanseng]

Isa 3:12  [As for] my people, children [are] their oppressors, and women rule <04910> over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause [thee] to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

Note that women ruling over men is likened to men being oppressed by children. Men ruled by women become objects of scorn and ridicule Same word used in Isaiah 3:12 as in Genesis 3:16.

Lamentations 5:8 uses the same word, saying that servants ruled over the conquered Jews. 

Joel 2:17 Some versions translate this word to make Israel a byword and mockery when they are ruled over by the heathen. How much more when women rule over men, especially in the spiritual realm, the very thing elements in Adventism desire.

Want a woman to rule over you? Kamala in 2028.

[Hanseng]

On 11/2/2026 at 12:03 PM, Kevin H said:

So we get a picture of a very dysfunctional family

This isn't evidence. It's speculation with a dose of pop psychology. No version I'm aware of supports your Hebrew scholar's view. With Stendahl's view of Galatians, about half of the Bible versions support his understanding of Galatians 3: 23-25,  as well as the context. Can you provide a commentary of two that support the view that the "he" in question is the serpent, not Adam? K+D does not.

There are those in the church who hold that only trained language scholars can properly understand Scripture. I'm not among that group

F.C. Gilbert was a Hebrew scholar in the eyes of some people. He came out with an interpretation of Daniel 8 "based on the Hebrew." W.W. Prescott demurred. If I remember correctly, Gilbert said the Hebrew supported a view [of the daily?] which has since been largely repudiated. If I remember correctly, Prescott pointed out that Gilbert's knowledge was not adequate to overthrow the work of numerous Hebrew scholars whose translation work did not support Gilbert's view. It's known as a private interpretation. Your "evidence" is quite thin. It is not the kind of evidence that I look for in determining the meaning of Scripture.

[Gustave]

I'm obviously of the view that Women should not be clergy BUT after listening to Jimmy Akin's take on it I'm now wondering about my view. 

 

[Hanseng]

And to the woman [God] said,
“I will greatly expand
Your toil—and your pregnancies;
In hardship shall you bear children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
And his will shall prevail over yours.”

 

 

Genesis 3:17 | The Sefaria Library

[Hanseng]

Proverbs 31 describes the "woman of virtue."  According to Scripture, her life is defined by domestic activity. That includes doing business on behalf of her family (vs.16). She acts independently of her husband but always in the interest of her family. It is her husband, however, who sits in the gate with the elders of the land:  "Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land" vs 23. The "gate" is the place where judgment took place, where important decisions were made (Deut 21:19 et al.) Discussions regarding the marriage of Ruth and Boaz were made at the gate (Ruth 4: 1,10,11). "Wisdom is too high for a fool, he openeth not his mouth in the gates"   This woman of virtue is married to a man who is respected in his community (Ruth 4: 1，10,11).

[Hanseng]

A woman divorced her husband because he spent his days lying on the sofa eating peanuts and watching television. "That's not what men do," she said. "They go to work. They may get drunk, fool around with other women, gamble" They don't spend their days on the couch eating peanuts and watching tv. Now some women would prefer her husband on the couch eating peanuts to him fooling with other women. That's a cultural issue with various viewpoints. Bottom line is the lady(?) didn't respect her husband so she divorced him. No adultery, physical abuse, just a lack of respect. 

[Asia Joe]

1 Corinthians 14:34-35  New International Version

³⁴ Women^[a] should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. ³⁵ If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.^[b]

 

 

In many christian churches, and many Jewish churches women are seated together and separate.  I always wondered why. Now I know why.

 

[Hanseng]

This eulogy concerns C. Raymond Holmes. He was a Lutheran minister [ELCA] who became an SDA. It includes a discussion of his views on women's ordination.

https://advindicate.com/articles/2021/9/2/justification-and-perfection-aembc-l9bng-h3pls-8wb32-te4k3-6epdj-hl37b-thdbg-z6bh7-g4ss9-yxg5e

[Asia Joe]

Thank you for that reference. While I was in Michigan, I attended several seminars by Pastor Holmes. He was amazing. Very humble. Soft spoken. 

I have one of his books in my library, 

Sing a New Song: Worship Renewal for Adventists Today

by C. Raymond Holmes

I did not know he died at camp meeting. That does not surprise me. The Michigan conference would never leave retired workers alone. Always finding jobs for them. Some moved out of state for this reason. 

He was a great guy. 

Quote

As the ordination controversy gained traction in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Dr. Holmes penned the book by which most church members likely remember him: The Tip of An Iceberg, in which he demonstrates how the eradication of gender role distinctions in spiritual leadership is based on the same premise by which theologians from his erstwhile church defended the observance of Sunday over the Biblical Sabbath [8].  Just as the Lutheran theologians with whom Dr. Holmes consulted during his struggle with the claims of Adventism urged him to accept the “principle” of the Sabbath while consigning the seventh day to Jewish culture, so the argument for women’s ordination seeks to consign the primacy of the male gender in spiritual leadership to a patriarchal culture presumably at odds with the Christian message [9].                                                                      

It isn’t difficult to see just how ruinous such logic can become to more than a few doctrines and moral precepts taught in the Bible.  If one relegates the specifics of certain Biblical teachings to an antiquated, supposedly irrelevant culture, retrieving only “principles” from such teachings in the process, where does one stop?  This is how many theologically liberal Christians have justified acceptance of homosexual practice within the church—by simply taking the “principle” of marriage, discarding the one-man-one-woman requirement as culturally outdated and applying the marriage “principle” to two men or two women who presume themselves to be “in love.” 

Well said.