The Gospel According to Eve by Amanda W. Benckhuysen

Author:Amanda W. Benckhuysen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2019-08-20T06:00:05+00:00

she was not made to gratify his [man’s] sensual desires, but to refine his human affections, and elevate his moral feelings. Endowed with superior beauty of person, and a corresponding delicacy of mind, her soul was to “help” him where he was deficient—namely, in his spiritual nature. She was made for him, not to serve him and do his bidding, which would result in increasing his animal appetites, but to purify his tastes and exalt his hopes.59

For Hale, then, woman had, from the beginning, been created with a greater sensitivity toward the things of God. She sees this evident also in the fact that the serpent approached not Adam but Eve. “Commentators have imputed weakness of mind to the woman, because the tempter assailed her. But does it not rather show she was the spiritual leader, the most difficult to be won, and the serpent knew if he could gain her the result was sure?”60 Furthermore, she argues, Eve eats of the fruit because of desire for greater knowledge and intimacy with the divine. “Even in the act of disobedience she did not withdraw her heart wholly from God. She sinned . . . yet her aspirations were heavenward.”61 This inclination on the part of women toward the things of God is later affirmed and assured by the promise in Genesis 3:15 (KJV), “I will put enmity between thee and the woman.” “Does it not mark her purer spiritual nature that, even after the fall, when she was placed under her husband’s control, she still held his immortal destiny, so to speak, in her keeping?”62 By contrast, in Genesis 3, Adam is given not a ray of hope “save through the promise made to the woman!”63 Hale suggests that in this promise, God clearly singles out the woman for a unique spiritual calling as an authoritative teacher and leader in spiritual matters.64

Regretfully, after the fall, the man rejected the woman’s unique role, prizing only her outward form, Hale notes. “He would not understand that her mission was to help him in his spiritual nature, his warfare with sin; and so he forced her to become the slave of his power or the toy of his lusts.”65 This rejection, for Hale, is particularly evident in the lack of support and resources devoted to women’s education. Men prevent women from having access to education not because of jealousy or fear that women will excel in learning, Hale suggests, “but in hatred of the moral influence the sex would wield, were they better instructed.”66

By all accounts, Hale was quite traditional in her views of gender, at times frustratingly so to the men and women who were fighting for legislative changes that would have, in the long run, advanced her vision for women. She did not support women’s suffrage nor did she approve of women’s right to work outside the home. Even so, she challenges women’s secondary status and instead advocates for greater authority and a more expansive role for women in society. Furthermore,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.