{"id":8095,"date":"2024-12-06T09:24:42","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T14:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=8095"},"modified":"2024-12-06T09:24:42","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T14:24:42","slug":"who-cares-what-the-bible-says-about-gender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/?p=8095","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0Who Cares What the Bible Says About Gender?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s face it. Not everyone cares about what the Bible says about gender, so this article might not interest you. No worries, turn the page or scroll on. Some of you do care because of the harm that you have experienced when the Bible has been used to hurt you and those you love. Others care because you revere the Bible, but you may be\u00a0conflicted because your own sense of right and wrong is at odds with you <\/span>think<\/span> the Bible teaches about gender. Many readers anchor their beliefs in the statement that humans were created \u201cmale and female\u201d (Genesis 1:27), which appears to make an unassailable case for the existence of only two genders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Traditional interpretation of cultural and religious texts (a.k.a. \u201cpeer pressure from dead people\u201d) has the potential to anchor us to important and enduring values, but the weight of unquestioned allegiance to those\u00a0interpretations can limit our ability to read carefully and thus to see ancient texts in new and authentic ways. If you\u2019re still with me, I hope my reading of Genesis below will help you see that one can continue to revere the Bible and still affirm the beauty and wonder of all genders.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On day one of the first creation story, \u201cday\u201d is separated from \u201cnight\u201d (1:5). But we know that this cycle of day and night is not mediated by an on-off switch. It is characterized by the intermediate and ambiguous state of twilight. Next \u201cdry land\u201d is separated from the \u201cwaters\u201d (v 9). Once again, \u201cland\u201d and \u201cwater\u201d is not a complete description of the Earth\u2019s surface. The ancients knew of marshlands, beaches, and other formations that didn\u2019t fit into these stark categories. And yet they chose to use these opposing terms to designate the complexity of their world. The omission of planets from vv 14-19 is not a denial of their existence. Instead, \u201csun and moon\u201d encompasses all that was visible in the night sky. Thank goodness for this insight into poetic language. Without it, we might have been led to believe that all creatures can be neatly divided into those that live in the air, in the sea, or on land (vv 20-24). What would we do with turtles? penguins? frogs? Surely, we won\u2019t deny their existence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And now humans: \u201cSo God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them\u201d (v 27). Readers of the Bible must now decide if they will impose a binary reading (asserting that God created <\/span>only<\/span> males and females) or whether they will apply the insights gained above. If we deny the existence and beauty\u00a0of non-binary and transgender people, mustn\u2019t we also deny that of twilight, marshes, black holes, and penguins? But if we are consistent readers of Genesis, we can break free from a literal use of binary categories and understand that \u201cmale and female\u201d in Genesis point to the whole range of genders that can equally be affirmed as the image of God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

FYI, Roanoke College is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which affirms the common humanity of all and a commitment to \u201cchallenge dynamics of power and privilege that create barriers to participation and equity\u201d for the LGBTQ community. Want to see more biblical interpretation like this? Join me this spring for RELG 270 Ancient Christian Gospels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faculty Submission<\/p>\n

Dr. Jennifer Berenson<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s face it. Not everyone cares about what the Bible says about gender, so this article might not interest you. No worries, turn the page or scroll on. Some of you do care because of the harm that you have experienced when the Bible has been used to hurt you and those you love. Others…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}