Question: Are the scriptures mysoginistic/sexist?

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Question: Are the scriptures misogynistic or sexist?

Some have wondered if the scriptures are misogynistic. Misogyny is defined as:

1. a hatred of women

In light of this definition, the scriptures are, in their majority, positive, supportive, and enlightened about women. .

Scriptural analysis

It may be helpful to do a small scriptural analysis to understand its view of women. At creation, God created man and woman in his own image (Gen 1: 27; Moses 2:27; 6:9; Abr. 4:27). Latter-day Saints understand this to be that mankind is literally created in the image of God and that God and man are the same species (The Family Proclamation, 2nd Paragraph). Latter-day Saints are unique in proclaiming the divinity and reality of a heavenly consort of God to make this passage very literal. Man and woman were pronounced “one flesh” at creation (Gen 2: 24- 25). This was the original ideal, that man and woman were one flesh, one status. “Woman” is sometimes used as a title of respect in scripture. There are a number of other scriptures that affirm this equality. A few of the more popular ones include

• 2 Nephi 26:33 “all are alike unto God”

• Exodus 20:12 “honor thy father and thy mother”

• 1 Corinthians 11:11 “Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.”

There are many other texts that speak positively of women. It is obvious that the Lord has a high view of women and their role in the Plan of Salvation

The Challenging Texts

There are a few texts that do challenge the casual reader. Upon closer examination, the more challenging texts can be viewed in a much better light.

Polygamy and Concubinage

Many have seen the bible’s allowing for polygamy to be disrespectful of women. Jacob’s admonition reflects the scripture’s view of polygamy best—that it is an abomination except when commanded (Jacob 2: 25-30).

General lack of female writers in the scriptures

Some have questioned why it is that only male writers were allowed to take control of canonization of holy writ for most of the scriptural texts.

The Patriarchal order allowed for only men to be ordained to priesthood office and thus were generally the only ones to keep and preserve sacred records. Nonetheless, this did not prevent them from chronicling the wonderful matriarchs of Israel and their contributions to society and to building the kingdom. Ruth the Moabitess was permitted to write her book that included views that weren’t even entirely in line with Israelite practice and Esther served as the etiological paragon for the Jewish holiday Purim. Writers have also highlighted the contributions of such women such as Miriam (Exod 15:20), Deborah (Judg 4:4), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14), Emma Smith, Abish, Sariah, and others in the building up of Israel. There is a new class dedicated to studying women in the scriptures through LDS Institutes titled “Women in the Scriptures” that highlights all these examples and more.

Becoming a “help meet” for Adam

Some are dismayed by Eve being designated as a “help meet” for Adam and not being simply his equal and so forth. A wonderful article addressing this may be found here.

“and he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16)

This is indeed a patriarchal scripture. It represents the tragic disintegration of the equality that oneness that God assumes at the creation with Adam and Eve being equally yoked i.e. one flesh. This is why we get some fallen social structures in the Old Testament that God has brought to better places over time. God still maintains dignity and demands respect for the woman the Law of Moses presented a little later on—in ways that move beyond contemporary treatment of women.

”Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” (Exodus 20: 17)

Some have pointed to the ten commandments as an example of misogyny. A woman is listed among a house, servants, an ox, an ass, and other things that belongs to another. Some have wondered (with the “bride price” in mind) if women were property in the ancient near east. Women could not be sold like animals or houses in the ancient Near East. Just a few verses earlier, Israelites are commanded to honor both their father and their mother. Leviticus 19:13 lists the woman first in repeating this command. This is not the scripture that some have assumed it to be.

Exodus 21:7-11

7 And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do. 8 If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.< 9 And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. 10 If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.

11 And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.

This passage establishes the rights of an indentured female who becomes a wife in the household where she serves This paragraph is troubling to modern readers, but given the way that marriages were contracted and the way people lived in the ancient world, it was a good provision for people who might want to find a better life for their daughter.. It is a case of casuistic law. Casuistic law is a law given for particular circumstances—characterized by “if…then” statements and generally not ideal situations Thus, we are dealing with something that was given for an unideal situation, not a necessarily common one. It was a time when the family was in economic stress and the father wanted to provide the daughter a better life—as stated before. Here, the father is arranging for a man with means to marry her—not to sell her into “sex slavery”. The word אָמָה (ʾamah) refers to a female servant who would eventually become a concubine or wife; the sale price included the amount for the service as well as the bride price. The arrangement recognized her honor as an Israelite woman, one who could be a wife, even though she entered the household in service. The marriage was not automatic, as the conditions show, but her treatment was safeguarded come what may. The law was a way, then, for a poor man to provide a better life for a daughter and give him the safety net that . Verse 8 is either suggesting something in a contradictory way or two different things. It states that if the man is not pleased by the woman that he must let her be redeemed. But the second part of the verse suggests that the man is the one at fault since he has dealt with her deceitfully. This is universally understood to mean that the man promised to make the woman his wife but then balked. To be redeemed has a couple of alternative interpretations:

The verb is a Hiphil perfect with vav (ו) consecutive from פָּדָה (padah, “to redeem”). Here in the apodosis the form is equivalent to an imperfect: “let someone redeem her” – perhaps her father if he can, or another. U. Cassuto says it can also mean she can redeem herself and dissolve the relationship (Exodus, 268).

Verse 9 then states that if the man betroths the girl to his son, that he must provide all rights and privileges afforded to daughters in the family—to treat her as any normal daughter.

Verse 10 then states that if he takes another wife, that he is not to diminish the rights of the daughter to the food of the family, clothing, nor her marital rights (that her status as a woman cannot be diminished with the marriage of another besides her):

The translation of “food” does not quite do justice to the Hebrew word. It is “flesh.” The issue here is that the family she was to marry into is wealthy, they ate meat. She was not just to be given the basic food the ordinary people ate, but the fine foods that this family ate.

Verse 11 then states that if neither verse 8 nor 9 happen, then she is to go free without having any redeeming fee (“without having to pay money” NET).

What about verse 7? She’s not allowed to go out like the menservants are? The author cannot ascertain this. The NRSV renders verse 2 “a male Hebrew servant”, though the NET keeps the reading from the KJV as just “Hebrew servant”. Net Bible notes that:

The interpretation of “Hebrew” in this verse is uncertain: (1) a gentilic ending, (2) a fellow Israelite, (3) or a class of mercenaries of the population (see W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:431). It seems likely that the term describes someone born a Hebrew, as opposed to a foreigner (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 210). The literature on this includes: M. P. Gray, “The Habiru-Hebrew Problem,” HUCA 29 (1958): 135-202.

In any case, Deuteronomy 15:12 makes it explicitly clear that both males and female Hebrew slaves received this treatment. So, it either:

A) Affirmed the law

B) Updated the law soon after being given. This shows a quick redemptive move.

Numbers 5: The Trial of Jealousy

A few critics have pointed to Numbers 5 as an example of promoting inferiority of women. The text concerns itself with a trial given to a woman for adultery. It is true that this legislation only concerned women. But as we have noted elsewhere, the law of Moses had a planned obsolescence. It was a lesser law that afforded certain improvements on the then-current moral code, taught strict obedience to God, and set the Israelites apart as a chosen people. With regards to this scripture in particular, there are several points to make about the legislation that show some of these purposes in action:

1. Adultery was universally condemned for all Israelites (Exodus 20:14; Matthew 5:27-28). Both men and women could suffer capital punishment for adultery in the Old Testament (Leviticus 20: 10-21).

2. The trial afforded women the opportunity to be tested for adultery. Other ancient near eastern law codes such as the Laws of Hammurabi allowed for men to accuse their women with or without women. Their trial was to throw them into a river and see if they floated. Other cultures threw people into a tar pit and only if they were able to escape would be considered innocent.

3. The trial here required a miracle from God to prove a woman’s guilt and not a miracle to prove their innocence. This also stands in stark contrast to other contemporary law.

Thus, this law does rise above standard practice of the day. John 8 contains an update to this law and that of Leviticus by Jesus where he tells the adulterous woman simply to go and sin no more.

Impurity at Birth (Leviticus 12:1-8)

Leviticus 12 offers some legislation on the impurity of women after childbirth. The text stipulates that a woman will leave the Israelite camp and remain unclean. The period of uncleanness differs between the birth of a boy or girl. The woman is ceremonially impure for forty days after the birth of a boy but eighty days after the birth of a girl. Why is this? A few explanations have been proposed

1. Leviticus 15 explains more clearly that women were separated for their issue of blood. The resulting blood that comes from a female child may have simply separated the two for longer. This was done for reasons relating to physical health of the child, mother, and the Israelite camp in general.
2. Some scholars indicate that this was a kind of protection of females rather than a sign of inferiority.
3. Some scholars suggest the motive may be to preserve Israel’s religious distinctiveness over against Canaanite religion, in which females engaged in religious sexual rites in their temples.

Either with a son or a daughter, the mother is to bring the identical offering; this is to be a purification offering (12:6)—not technically a sin offering—and its purpose is to take away the ritual (not moral) impurity

Women as war booty? (Deuteronomy 20:13-14)

13 And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:

14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.

War was a way of life in the Ancient Near East. War provided people the opportunity to defend territory and gain territory as necessary. Deuteronomy 21: 11-14 provided protocols that prevented the unfair treatment of women. The woman is to come to the house of the man, shave her head, cut her nails, take off any garb of a captivity, and be given time to mourn. The New Oxford Annotated Study Bible notes about these verses:

. This procedure most likely originally applied to the Canaanite population (20.15–18n.). Female war captives routinely became concubines. This law accords such women dignity and protection against enslavement. 12–13: The rituals provide both captive and captor means to effect a transition from one status to another. 13: Full month, full period of mourning, as for Aaron and Moses (Num 20.29; Deut 34.8). Mourning, it is unclear whether the parents actually died in the war or are lost to her because of her captivity. The time to grieve implies legal respect for the female captive as a person. Go in to her, approach her sexually; consummation provides the legal means to become husband, and . . . wife. 14: Cf. Ex 21.7–8. Money, see 2.6n. Dishonored, “violated” sexually (22.24,29; Gen 34.2; Judg 19.24; 2 Sam 13.12).

To emphasize what is happening in verse 14, if the man is not pleased by the woman, he is not to sell her into slavery for money, not make “merchandize of her” because he has taken chastity from her.

The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children; they were their meat in the destruction of the of the daughter of my people (Lamentations 4:10)

This text describes a siege that Israel underwent when Jerusalem was invaded. The NRSV changes “pitiful” to “compassionate” in its translation. The rest of the verse is a common trope to simply describe cannibalism that came with the siege in an ironic way—reversing the natural order i.e. mothers feeding children instead of the other way around. Cannibalism was often the result of famine during a siege (2 Kings 6:28) and a punishment for violating the covenant (Deut 28: 53-57).

Head of a woman is the man (1 Cor 11:3)

Some have had difficulty with this verse from the New Testament. Paul begins an argument from 1-10 affirming a king of hierarchy that has woman the bottom, then man, then Christ, then God. But the argument breaks at verse 10 when he states “Nevertheless” From verse 13-16 Paul emphasizes that in the Lord there is mutuality and reciprocity

Scholar Craig Keener explains these verses in context:

Because most Christians gathered in the wealthier homes, Christians of different social strata and backgrounds met together; “naked” hair held different social connotations for different women. To wealthier women, it signified at most ostentation; to most women from the east, it symbolized immodesty and, at worse, seduction. As in the case of some other issues (e.g., 11:21), Paul must here address a clash of social values: just as to many idol food connoted idolatry hence should be avoided for others’ sake, so uncovered hair to many connoted seduction and immodesty, hence should be avoided for others’ sake. A modern Western equivalent might be someone walking into a religious service in a bathing suit; although this might not disturb some California beach churches during the Jesus movement, newcomers with such informal attire might disrupt traditional churches in, say, New England.

[. . .]

Paul alludes to angels he mentioned earlier: Just as the Corinthians’ future judgment of angels should encourage them to judge rightly now (6:3), so the women’s future authority over angels should motivate them to use properly their authority over their heads now. (The future authority may reflect a restoration of authority in Gen 1:27–28, fitting the context in 11:7.) She has a “right” to do with her head as she wills, but like Paul, she must give up her “rights” (the sense of exousia in 9:4–6, 12, 18; cf. 8:9) for the common good."

These are indeed very sexist remarks. The JST sought to harmonize these verses by changing “speak” in verse 34 and 35 to “rule”—suggesting that Joseph meant to bring this in harmony with the doctrines of priesthood organization and not suggest that women could not preach, expound upon the scriptures, pray, and so forth (D&C 25:7).

Approached differently, scholars have provided solid reasoning that this passage was a later addition to the text. Reasons given for this are as follows:

1. It disrupts the flow of the argument from v 33 to v 37
2. It contradicts the assumption of Paul in 1 Cor 11:5 that women would prophesy in the Church.
3. It reflects non-Pauline sentiments e.g. in verse 34 “as also saith the law”. Paul repudiates “the law” several times in his letters as it had been fulfilled.
4. The verses sometimes appear after v 40 in a few manuscripts, suggesting that it was uncertain how to place the argument in the canon.

The same argument goes for the near identical passage in 1 Timothy 2: 11-15.

Accepting this shouldn’t be difficult if we believe the words of Joseph Smith:

I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers.

There are many things in the Bible which do not, as they now stand, accord with the revelations of the Holy Ghost to me.

”To deliver thee from the strange woman’’ (Proverbs 2:16; 6:24)

These two passages in Proverbs advise to stay away from strange women and an evil woman. Both of these are obviously connected to themes of chastity.

Better to dwell in the wilderness than with an angry and contentious woman (Proverbs 21:19)

This passage is male perspective trying to contrast between a prudent woman with a contentious woman (Cf. 19:13-14; 21:4). On the main this passage is true. Contention is not of the Lord (3 Nephi 11:29).

More bitter than the woman…whose heart is in snares (Ecclesiastes 7:26)

Ecclesiastes 7:26 reads

And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseath God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her

The New Oxford Annotated Study Bible notes about this verse:

The woman who is a trap, this verse is not a polemic against women in general but echoes in allegorical fashion the warnings of other wisdom writings against Folly, personified as a seductive woman (Prov 2, 16-19; 5.20; 6. 24-35;7.5-27; 23. 27-28). Wisdom is elusive, but Folly is on a hunt to catch people unawares.

Conclusion

This is another issue where it is good to keep in mind how to best read the scriptures. Once read thusly, they can reveal the greater designs that God has for his covenant people.

Notes