Featured ESV Changes Meaning of Genesis 3:16

אֵל ('el) can be translated as against or over. The woman had originally been created to be a helper, fit for the man, but had not only emancipated herself from the man to listen to the serpent, but also had led the man into sin.

For that she was punished with a desire bordering upon disease (תְּשׁוּקָה from שׁוּק to run, to have a violent craving for a thing), and with subjection to the man, “And he shall rule over you,” which she violently craves to reject and escape.

It's one of those "take your pick" passages.

 

First, I would note that the ESV committee has backtracked on its intent to make the current revision a "permanent text." That doesn't mean it won't change, but it also doesn't mean it will.

The rendering of Genesis 3:16 has created something of a brouhaha. I would take some issue with McKnight's contention that "This new translation of Genesis 3:16 suggests the curse against the woman is an act of God (a curse) that seals estrangement, alienation and tension between females and males. By so rendering this verse, the ESV creates the impression that females and males are contrarians with one another."

I am not convinced that Genesis 3:16b is actually a curse, at least not in the same way that the serpent is cursed. It is a consequence of sin, just as is Adam's second "curse."

The reading had already been in the margin of the ESV, so it is not strictly a "new" rendering. It dates back to 1975 and was suggested by Susan Foh. (You can read the paper at https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/te.../text/articles-books/foh-womansdesire-wtj.pdf).

I have no idea which rendering is correct. It seems to me that the controversy is really between egalitarians and complementarians who have seized upon the issue as a bone of contention in a larger struggle. And, from my reading on the topic, neither rendering is a silver bullet for either side.

 

I am a complementarian so I favor the traditional reading. But also recognize that the ESV reading can be supported from the Hebrew philology.

 

I'd rather not get into NIV bashing in this thread.

 

Yet Foh advanced her rendering because it it seems to strengthen complementarianism.

Wayne Grudem is general editor of the ESV and an outspoken complementarian. I have no idea of the mechanics of how the new rendering made its way from the margin to the text, but I cannot help but believe that Grudem was a major factor in that decision.

Yet it seems to me (and I may be completely wrong) that the new rendering does not necessarily strengthen claims of complementarianism. Foh's explication affirms complementarianism in assuming that a gender hierarchy is assumed before the fall, but I think could also could make a case that the new rendering can also be used to defend egalitarianism — the woman will attempt to bend the man to her will and the man will attempt to rule over her, and not necessarily with kindness. This, to me, seems better to fit the parallelism of the passage; one is not necessarily the cause of the other; the whole mess is a result of the fall and will not be remedied until creation is made new again. But I admit I'm over my head on this.

 

for over 400 years people took a carriage pulled by a horse where they had to go -
then a horseless carriage ...... - nah - bad ideal -we'll just stay with what has worked for 400 years....

 

Yeah, that's the whole point of the discussion. Egalitarianism verses Complementarianism.