Comments on: Comparing Eve: Group #3

By: Gene

Gene — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:53:35 +0000

The connection between obedience and life and disobedience and death is interesting. I find it bizarre considering that it is only through Eve’s “disobedience” that life can start. Where the fruit of the tree not eaten, Eve and Adam theoretically would never have left the Garden, and therefore never had Cain and Abel etc. Do we need to transgress in order to live a full life? Is the Garden an illusion and impossible to sustain? True by leaving the Garden we as humanity can die…but are we only able to live by leaving the “perfect” illusion behind?

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:50:40 +0000

What’s interesting to me about what Eun Ji and Drea have said is the strange implications of keeping Eve/women submissive - the reason women must be obedient and submissive is because they’re too powerful. Women have the power to bring death/life into the world (which has a serious impact on men), and so must be relegated to a certain place/role etc to keep the world ordered properly.
(This makes me think of the Tiamat myth and the connection between the feminine and chaos)

By: Andrea Nelson

Andrea Nelson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:35:09 +0000

Eun Ji,

I agree with you most recent post. And it is when women (Eve) step outside the natural order of submission that death happens. The death, however, has impacts all, not just the woman herself. So there is a societal implication to keeping women submissive to men and only in relation to men, no independent.

By: Andrea Nelson

Andrea Nelson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:28:33 +0000

Gene wrote: “I wonder how the ability to hide behind prepositions masks either authors general distaste/distrust for/of women? Must Eve (the original mother) be the binary to Mary (the mother of Jesus)? Must one always be dark and the other light? Isn’t Mary in fact the passive vessel (bad?) and Eve the decision maker (good?)…or is that perhaps the true problem?”

I think this is what I was trying to get at in my earlier post. One can certainly, as I have, reinterpret the Genesis story as Eve being a thinker and decision maker. This is positive for us today but for men like Epiphanius and Theodotus, this is a bad thing.

I think it is very likely that there is a general distrust or dislike for women but I also think that there may be little separation for them between women and the subversive other/heretic who leads themselves and others astray. Any thoughts?

By: Andrea Nelson

Andrea Nelson — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:22:12 +0000

I agree with the discussion about obedience and disobedience. I see the argument being made by Epiphanius have a 2 fold intention. One is the role of women in the early movements. There is clearly linkage to correct behavior of women, etc.

I also think that this is a larger discussion on power and orthodoxy. Epiphanius is arguing for the “orthodox faith”. He is a church father and part of the church hierarchy, which is aligned to the voice and command of God, much like Adam. Eve, and the “heretics” which Epiphanius describes are the subversive and “illogical” others which are both straying from that which is correct, or orthodox. Eve, women, and “heretical” movements which allow such gastly things as female bishops are “illogical”, disobedient to God and the church structure. The conflation of women and the subversive other has important implications for the roles of women and attitudes towards women. I can’t help but think of the serpant when Epiphanius discusses Jesus becoming a woman and giving a revelation to Quintilla or Priscilla. You should not think for yourself, for any revelation given to you is surely the work of evil. The subversive other is disobedient to orthodoxy just as Eve was disobedient to God.

This conflation reinforces broader, and perhaps less obvious, ideological frameworks surrounding women, power, control and that which is steady, obedient, and right.

By: Eun Ji Park

Eun Ji Park — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:33:18 +0000

I also see in two writings that both women, Eve and Mary, are described as a deliver or bearer for men or of men. In Eiphanius of Salamis, Eve is the deliever of sin and death to the man and the world, on the contrary, Mary is the bearer of life to the world. Mary is praised because the virgin performed her role as a bearer by submiting to God but Mary is blamed because she tempted Adam to eat. One woman became for men the cause of death, the other woman became for men the hope for redemption. But, Both of women are for men? According to these writings, they are not more than a deliever for men. Women, whether praised or blamed, are just for men. Eve’s initiative was understood as disobedience of God’s word and Mary’s obedience was praised because she became a mother of the man, Jesus, and that’s the only her work as a woman. I could not anything in these two writings that women are women withouth men. In other words, both two women were subordinate to men and their work and being a woman is only for men. In my view, the authors see women as additions(accessory) for men. (I am sorry for my bad English..but i want to believe that you understand what I want to say.)

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:24:57 +0000

The contrast that you have both noted between obedient Mary and disobedient Eve is strong in the selection from Epiphanius. I think it’s interesting that Epiphanius links disobedience to death and obedience to life: thus reinforcing the “obvious” choice between the good woman and the bad woman. The rhetorical effect of the passage seems to naturalize the difference between good women and bad women in a way that causes the audience to desire identification with Mary, the obedient mother of life.

By: Gene

Gene — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:01:48 +0000

It seems Eun Ji that in both cases we have men setting the limits of what is “good” and what is “bad.” Your point is well taken that Eve is labeled as bad because she is not obedient, or rather she doesn’t consult Adam first before eating of the tree…but who says she needs to? She clearly shows initiative by not merely restating what God says but also in adding to it. She makes it her own. Mary’s passivity by contrast is stunning, especially considering the ramifications for an unmarried pregnant woman in her time (or even today right?). And yet this is overlooked and instead she gets to be “good” and Eve “bad.” It seems that what we have is two different men striving to keep women in their “place.”

By: Eun Ji Park

Eun Ji Park — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:44:14 +0000

I see that Eve is criticized by the auther because she was not the women who are obedient and subordinate to men. As Gene mentioned, she was in control of her situation and made her decision without her man. In other words, she became the “sutject” of her action and thought. For men, she(Eve) need to be blamed because she acted by her initiative. “Obedience” is the most valuable attitude for women but she did not follow the rule and also she had desire to know and to experience as a subject. I have some experiences that i was in the trouble between becoming a good woman and becoming a bad woman. A good woman should be obedient. They do not ask why. A bad woman is becoming herself, challenging the established authority. Eve was the second case and she received a reputation for the cause of death. Who made that obedience is for women? Becoming a subject is sinful to women?

By: Gene

Gene — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:38:38 +0000

Oh goodie…I get to post first (the pressure is killing me.) Theodotus’ makes a bold assertion that “the woman” (Eve) is timid by comparison with Mary…is this so? I find “the woman” to be in control of her situation and making decisions for herself. Rather than being “light in the mind,” “the woman” instead asseses her situation, what she knows, adds to it and comes out on the other side having decided on what is best for her, and for this she is blamed to this day. Rather than being a passive participant like “the man”, “the woman” converses with the serpent. “The man” only speaks when God engages him and when he speaks, it is weakly, hiding behind the decisions “of the woman God gave him.” Ephiphanius goes so far to say that “the woman” is the cause of death because of her decisions and yet she and he do not die. “The woman” is the first mother of all first mothers. Ignoring that is only through the womb of a woman, Ephiphanius states that rather than life, death in fact comes from woman.

For both Ephiphanius and Theodotus, “the woman” functions in stark contrast with their chosen hero(s). Why is “the woman” painted darkly? Mary is allowed to shine though it seems only because she gives the world Jesus, a male, and therefore “infinitely” better than a woman. If Mary and Jesus are good, than “the woman” must be bad and yet it seems to me that in the Genesis passage “the woman” comes out looking so much better than “the man.” I wonder how the ability to hide behind prepositions masks either authors general distaste/distrust for/of women? Must Eve (the original mother) be the binary to Mary (the mother of Jesus)? Must one always be dark and the other light? Isn’t Mary in fact the passive vessel (bad?) and Eve the decision maker (good?)…or is that perhaps the true problem?