A quick note before I begin. We here at BBG by and large opt to avoid prominently controversial topics in our posts. There are a number of reasons for this: they rarely accomplish anything other than getting people riled up, once someone disagrees with your position on one topic they may ignore anything you say on any topic, we don’t want anyone thinking our opinions reflect those of our churches, and so on. So, I write this post with a little apprehension.
Few topics are as controversial in our day as the one of women’s roles in ministry and the home. There are long and detailed arguments on both sides of the issue that delve deep into biblical exegesis, hermeneutics, cultural analysis, and plenty of other areas. I want to ask a question dealing with only one specific argument that I frequently hear from complementarian circles. So, please, for the sake of my sanity, don’t take this as a chance to spout off on anything related to this topic. Keep it to this specific argument. Okay, thanks for sticking with me thus far.
One of the common complementarian arguments is that the authority of man over woman is rooted in the created order. This is potentially significant, because if it can be determined that man’s authority is a result of the fall, one could argue that Christ’s work has undone the punishments of the fall (death, for example), including the authority of a man over a woman (though this argument is in desperate need of nuance). There are various arguments that go into this, but there’s one that I’ve been thinking about lately.
It has been claimed that “naming” someone or something is the right of authority. That is, Adam is given the right to name the animals of the Garden because he is in authority. Parents are given the right to name their children, God gives new names to Abram and Jacob, and so on. You can read this sort of argument in Bruce Waltke’s commentary on Genesis. Adam names the woman in Genesis 2:23, which “entails his authority in the home” (p95).
I’ll point out quickly that some would argue that he does not really name the woman in Genesis 2:23. Instead, he names her in Genesis 3:20- after the fall. The footnote (number 18, Genesis 2:23) in the NET Bible gives a linguistic argument against the idea that Adam is naming the woman in case you care to read it (sorry, I don’t know how to link to a footnote in the NET Bible, but the sidebar is easy to navigate). But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that Adam is naming the woman in Genesis 2:23.
Does that necessarily mean, however, that Adam is in authority over her? I realize that is the assumption of many complementarians, but I have my doubts. I’ll give one example of someone giving a name who is obviously not in authority over the recipient.
The she (Hagar) called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God who sees’… (Genesis 16:13).
This text indicates to me that is would be hard to argue that naming someone else necessarily implies authority. Here we have a person giving a name to God. A lesser being naming a greater one. Again, this wouldn’t be a “take down” of complementarian arguments of hierarchy in the created order, it would simply counter one specific argument.
Now, here’s why I’m writing this post. I’m wondering if anyone has encountered (or has one of their own) a complementarian argument that can answer this. Bruce Waltke, to pick one example, is a brilliant OT scholar and theologian. I have my doubts he’s so dense that he’s missed something like this. He even notes the unique nature of this event. Yet, I haven’t come across a counter-argument (admittedly, have not read much of the literature out there on this) to what I’m presenting here. Is Hagar simply an exception? Or is there really no rule to begin with?
I’ve been around long enough to know that few people actually spend the necessary time to investigate arguments for various positions. We often assume that the scholars we respect have done the requisite homework and weeded their way through the positions. That simply isn’t true all the time. The “naming” argument sounds plausible on the front end. In the words of Proverbs 18:17, “The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.” But I’ve also been around long enough to know that counter-arguments seem right, too, but are in need of refining. So I’m throwing it out to my reader(s)- what do you think?
Is Hagar really giving a name, though? It’s not as if the tetragrammaton doesn’t occur before that point, so she’s not giving that name. If you mean what follows, that’s a description, not a name. Is that supposed to be akin to what Adam does with the animals he’s stewarding? Maybe what he does with Eve isn’t similar either, but I’m ignorant of Hebrew enough not to comment on that. It would surprise me to think of Hagar as naming God in the same sense that Adam names the animals, though, and this is something that I think we can see without knowing the details of the Hebrew. It just doesn’t seem like that’s what’s going on in that text.
The Hebrew in all 3 cases (2:23; 3:30, 16:13) are pretty darn similar, though I think it uses a passive form in 2:23. So given just the Hebrew text, it would be hard to differentiate between what is happening in 3:20 and 16:13. 2:23 might be different because of the niphal, but my Hebrew is weak enough that I’d want to study that further (you can see the NET Bible note for yourself).
Arguing it is a description rather than a name may not work in my book. Many names are descriptions, and there are times in the OT when it’s hard to figure out which it is. That is, maybe it should be transliterated like other names. The fact it shows up in English as a translated name (at least in most versions I’ve read) doesn’t mean it’s not an actual name. Most don’t translate Maher-Halal-Shash-Baz (to pick one off the top of my head).
More could probably be said. Any other thoughts?
Wasn’t that the belief of that day though among those who didn’t have a relationship with the creator? Wasn’t their pursuasion (ignorant as it may seem) that if you knew a spirit’s name (a god if you will) that you had authority over that “deity”. The thought process being that if you called them by name they had to answer or else look bad before the other nations and by extension their “gods”.
You can see evidence of that in Moses argument with the LORD where he convinced The LORD not to kill the Israelites basically because of the argument “what will the Egyptians say?”
In other words, perhaps it’s not that she was given the authority to name Him, but that she took it because that was her understanding at the time, and He being a greater being saw no particular reason to correct her. In her eyes it could have been authoritative, and in His just a cute nickname.
Thanks for commenting, Nate. I see two problems, though:
1) She gave the name, rather than asking for it. You’d have to argue that someone gave a name in order to have authority, whereas the argument I’m questioning is that someone gave a name because they have authority. There’s a difference.
2) More importantly, she exercised no authority after giving the name. That is, she never asked for or commanded anything (unlike Jesus with Legion, to give an example).
Well,
1) Exactly why I think He didn’t bother to correct her. Also that was my point, that I believe her “exception to the rule” is that she was of a “cultural persuasion of the day” if you will, that that was socially acceptable. Also, if the view of the day was that having a spirit’s name gave you power than it’s not a far flung leap to believe that you are greater and perhaps in a place of authority to name based on descriptions (not just of attributes, but also of perceived territorial boundaries, like the philistines for example believing their “gods” to be of the mountains and Israel’s God to be of the plains).
2) I’ll give you that from the text. However, I find it a stretch to take that as a definitive authority on that particular idea because the small number of verses that cover her life after that point would leave that inconclusive. Furthermore, if she were truly a woman of the persuasion of the value of multiple “gods” she may simply have only called the name of “the god who sees” when she felt like she needed that particular attribute.