The Genesis creation narrative seems to pretty explicitly state that males and females are equal in their humanity. Not equal as in the same, because there are apparent differences between the sexes, but equal as image-bearers of God, and with equal authority to represent God on earth in their rule over creation (Gn 1:26-28). A rule of man over woman is not mentioned anywhere here.
“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
(Genesis 1:26-28, NIV)
Also, when the man saw the women for the first time, he exclaimed:
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
(Genesis 2: 23, NIV)
They are of the same essence; they are like each other. Can we have anything more explicit than these texts to wholly affirm men’s and women’s close bond and equality before God?
Yet, some people find many reasons to assert distinctions between men and women in terms of authority in this same narrative.[1] They believe that men have authority over women; the man has the leadership role, and the woman obeys or submits as his suitable helper.
“Genesis 2 indicates that men and women have different roles or functions in the fulfillment of God’s creation mandate to humanity to multiply and subdue the earth. The man is ultimately responsible for leading in the marriage and the fulfillment of God’s mandate, while the woman is his partner, his suitable helper. Different functions or roles don’t convey superiority or inferiority.”
Köstenberger & Köstenberger[2]
One of the arguments advanced to support this belief in male leadership is that Adam naming Eve signified his authority, just as naming the animals did.
“It is likely that the man’s naming of the woman implies authority, just as the man’s naming of the animals prior to the creation of the woman was part of the fulfillment of God’s mandate to govern the earth. Similarly, in both ancient cultures and today, the privilege of naming a child is part of the parents’ authority over a child.”
Köstenberger & Köstenberger[3]
Where does this idea come from? Is it consistent with the Biblical concept of naming elsewhere? Is this really what is going on in the creation narrative?
Where does this idea come from?
In the above quote from Köstenberger & Köstenberger, they do not say where this idea comes from, that the man naming the woman is a sign of his authority over her. This same idea is found in the earlier book by Wayne Grudem:
“When Adam says, “she shall be called Woman,” he is giving a name to her. This is important in the context of Genesis 1—2, because in that context the original readers would have recognized that the person doing the “naming” of created things is always the person who has authority over those things.”
Wayne Grudem[4]
Again, he gives no historical support for this argument. He compares Adam’s naming of the woman as “woman” or “Eve” to the naming of the animals by Adam, or God’s naming of the light as “Day” and the darkness as “Night,” or parents naming their children in the Bible. Indeed God has authority over all creation but is it his naming of creation that expresses that idea? Or does naming necessarily communicate authority?
Another complementarian, Joey Cochran, makes the same statement but, again, without references or proofs:
“So Adam, recognizing his failure, accepts the consequence and responsibility for the fall. He takes up his tarnished mantle of headship and names the Woman Eve. Adam naming Eve conveys his authority over her and in turn over all the living.”
Joey Cochran[5]
I had never heard this idea before I started to read complementarians. This is not intuitive to me. And why do they offer no academic support to this extraordinary claim? They do not say, but I suspect this idea may come from as far back as Luther. However, what Luther says sounds rather repugnant to our modern ears.
“We have above heard that it was inflicted as one punishment upon the woman, that she should be under the power of the man. That power to which she is thus made subject is here described anew. It is not God who here gives to Eve her name, but Adam, her lord; just in the same manner as, before, he gave to all the animals their names, as creatures put under his dominion. No animal devised its name for itself. Every one received its appellation, and the dignity and glory of its name, from its lord, Adam. So, to this present day, when a woman marries a man, she loses the name belonging to her own family, and is called after the name of her husband. On the other hand, it would be a thing quite monstrous, if the husband should wish to be called by the name of his wife. This, therefore, is a sign and further confirmation of that punishment of subjection which the woman procured to herself by her sin.”
Martin Luther[6]
Here, man is lord over the woman as he is lord over the animals; she is under his dominion as punishment for her transgression. Again, Luther does not offer any support for this idea; he just states it as self-evident.
If naming is a sign of someone’s authority over another, we should at least note that in the case of Adam and Eve, as described by Luther, it occurred after the fall. It is then arguable that such an attitude on the part of Adam was a consequence of sin and not to be emulated.
Another alternative is that Adam naming the woman Eve was a sign of faith on the part of Adam. The woman had received the promise that one of her offspring would crush the serpent’s head; Adam thus saw Eve as the source of their life and redemption, ultimately accomplished in the person of Jesus Christ.
Is it consistent with the Biblical concept of naming elsewhere?
Perhaps the only Biblical support to the argument that naming implies authority is the phenomenon of parents naming their children. We have numerous examples of parents naming their children in Genesis alone.
In some sense, parents have authority over their children, although I don’t think it is helpful to view my relationship with my child that way. I do have more power than my child; this makes him most vulnerable to my character flaws. I also have legal rights over my child up to a certain age. But when I named my child, it was not an act of exerting authority over him, nor a symbol of my authority. It was an act of love and affection.
However, what matters is how the concept of naming was viewed in the ancient Near East when these texts were written. It would be interesting to compare the Biblical text to other ancient texts and how they represent the process of naming. Not having done so, we can at least look at the texts where parents name their child in Genesis to see what the pattern is.
For example, Eve named her son Seth, possibly meaning granted[7], and said:
“God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.”
(Genesis 4:25, NIV)
Lamech named his son Noah, which sounds like the Hebrew word for comfort,[8] saying:
“He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.”
(Genesis 5:29, NIV)
God asked Hagar to name her son Ishmael, meaning God hears,[9] saying:
“You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery.”
(Genesis 16:11, NIV)
Nowhere in Genesis or the Bible is it stated that a parent named their child because they had authority over them. Nor does it appear to be the point trying to be made when a parent names their child that they are the ones in authority. One must assume that is what is going on to assert that naming is a sign of having authority.
I think the pattern in the Bible is more of a parent giving a child his name to define that person in a sense, to give meaning to that person’s existence. Seth was a gift that God granted Eve to comfort her over the death of her child. Lamech believed his son Noah would bring comfort to humanity (a bit ironic considering how humanity was destroyed in Noah’s time). God heard Hagar’s misery, and so her son was named “God hears.” Names are given for a reason and to convey meaning to that person’s life. Even now, parents will often look up what a name means before giving it to their child. That is what the intimate act of a parent naming a child is.
Wayne Grudem also asserted that naming was always done by someone in authority over the person named.
“In each of these passages we have the same verb as is used in Genesis 2:23 (the verb qara’), and in each case the person who gives the name is one in authority over the person who receives the name.”
Wayne Grudem[10]
This is actually not true. In Genesis 16:13 Hagar names God!
“She gave (qara’) this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
(Genesis 16:13, NIV)
This completely destroys the idea that naming conveyed the notion of authority; the one being named is the one who has all the authority in the world, and the one doing the naming was a slave woman, the lowest of the low.
Is this really what is going on in the creation narrative?
Lastly, what does the creation account itself tell us about Adam’s naming of the animals and Eve?
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
(Genesis 2:18-20, NIV)
Here the creation account advances the idea that the man was alone and needed a helper suitable for him. God brought all the animals before him, but he did not find a suitable helper among them. This parading of the animals before him highlights his loneliness and lack of a partner compared to all the animals that had partners resembling them. God gave Adam the authority to name the animals, but asserting authority is not the point of this text.
Then Adam named the woman “woman”:
Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
(Genesis 2:22-23, NIV)
Adam named her “woman” (isha) because she was taken out of man (ish). The text gives us the reason for that specific name; it is a description of who she is in relation to him. The text doesn’t say, “she shall be called ‘woman’ for I have authority over her.” No, the reason is that Adam recognized that she was taken out of him and was, therefore, bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh.
Finally, Adam named the woman “Eve” after the fall:
“Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.”
(Genesis 3:20, NIV)
Again the text gives us the reason Adam named her; it was not because of his authority, but because human life would come through her as “the mother of all the living.” This was a recognition of the significance of her life for humanity and an expression of his faith in the promise of God.
Conclusion
I think we can let scripture interpret scripture here. Naming in Genesis is often accompanied by the words “for” or “because.” Therefore, naming conveys the meaning or significance of a person’s life, not the authority of the one doing the naming. If we want to determine if men and women have equal authority, we should look at what the Bible says more directly than base it on speculation. The Bible says that males and females are both equally made in the image of God. This should illuminate our understanding of other more ambiguous passages. If naming really was a sign of authority in the ancient Near East, it should be possible to support this claim from writings of that epoch. I believe the burden of proof lies on the complementarians making that claim to support their argument.
References
[1] For a list of 10 such arguments see Grudem, Wayne. “Ten Reasons Showing Male Headship in Marriage Before the Fall” in Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood. Crossway. Kindle Edition. Loc 243-
[2] Köstenberger, Andreas & Köstenberger, Margaret Elizabeth. God’s Design for Man and Women: A Biblical-Theological Survey. Crossway. Wheaton, Illinois. 2014. Kindle Edition. Loc 397-399.
[3] Köstenberger, Andreas & Köstenberger, Margaret Elizabeth. God’s Design for Man and Women: A Biblical-Theological Survey. Crossway. Wheaton, Illinois. 2014. Kindle Edition. Loc 861-863.
[4] Grudem, Wayne. “Ten Reasons Showing Male Headship in Marriage Before the Fall” in Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood. Crossway. Wheaton, Illinois. 2002. Kindle Edition. Loc 256-270
[5] Cochran, Joey. When Adam Named Eve. The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). November 13, 2013. https://cbmw.org/2013/11/13/when-adam-named-eve/
[6] Luther, Martin. Luther Still Speaking. The Creation; A Commentary on the First Five Chapters of the Book of Genesis. First published at Witenberg in the year of our Lord 1544; and now first translated into English by Henry Cole, D.D. Edinburgh. p. 292-293. https://books.google.ca/books?id=B-hUAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA294&lpg=PA294&dq=luther+adam+naming+eve&source=bl&ots=lSVISKTXK6&sig=ACfU3U2KgFWDmWk_y_5sI6yUo6_z9nr3Uw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwja6Zris6D0AhUVoXIEHS4LAH8Q6AF6BAgOEAM#v=onepage&q=luther%20adam%20naming%20eve&f=false
[7] Note from The Holy Bible, New International Version ®, NIV ® Copyright 2011 by Biblica, Inc.
[8] Idem
[9] Idem
[10] Grudem, Wayne. “Ten Reasons Showing Male Headship in Marriage Before the Fall” in Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood. Crossway. Wheaton, Illinois. 2002. Kindle Edition. Loc 285-299
Excellent, as always 🙂