Gender Differences in the OT

I recently completed a study on gender in the OT. It is too long to publish here, so I have put it on Substack. See Gender Differences in the Old Testament. The following paras are the Introduction.

A common teaching is that God created men with a disposition for leadership and women with a disposition for following. People who hold this position claim that a man must be the leader in his home to find fulfilment and that women can only be fulfilled if they actively submit to their husband’s leadership. The problem with this view is that it does not exist in the Bible.

I went to the scriptures to identify what they say about the personality differences between men and women. I was surprised to find that they actually say very little about the personality differences between men and women.

When we study the scriptures, we need to be careful to distinguish between:

• statements about what ought to be, and
• descriptions of the way things are.

We need to understand which type we are reading.

1. The Bible contains statements about God’s intentions for the behaviour of men and women. His commands can imply a difference between the personalities of men and women.

2. Descriptions of behaviour can point in two different directions.

   • When God created humans in his image, he made them male and female. If men and women behave differently, this could be a reflection of what God created them to be. Differences in behaviour can be a consequence of being created male or female.

   • Humans are also affected by the fall. If men and women display different personalities or behaviour, it could be the consequence of the fall. This type of difference does not reflect God’s original purpose for men and women.

When studying the behaviour and personalities of people in the Bible, we must be aware of these two possibilities.

When studying the scriptures to identify how males and females are different, we should consider which of these two categories apply to the passages under consideration.

• Any differences that were introduced at creation are what God intends to be there. They are normative.

• Differences that came as a result of the fall are not normative. Rather they are to be resisted and should disappear when we are born again and transformed into the likeness of Jesus. This restoration might only come to fullness when the body of Jesus grows to maturity.

We must distinguish “what is” from “what ought to be”, especially when studying the Old Testament.