Pixels and Papyrus

Examination of the Hebrew in Genesis may imply Eve was created was created as Adam's "sustainer." Digital illustration by the author. In my last post I summarized a doctoral dissertation by J. J. Van Ee that studies the Creation Mandate in Genesis 1:28. When God tells humanity to "rule" and "subdue" the earth in that passage, a comprehensive study of the Hebrew verbs implies they are actually far harsher than theologians would typically care to admit. I know that claim sounds outlandish and violates centuries of church tradition, but you can look over the 39 comparative witnesses yourself in that post and see that I'm not bluffing. In addition to Van Ee's thesis, here is another free article  from the Journal Old Testament Essays  discussing the subject for those interested. When we look up how these terms are used throughout the Bible, we find them most frequently appearing in military contexts. In fact, after the Flood in the opening of Gene

Snippet from Bailey's book showing woman wearing shnaf nose ring. One of my favorite books I stumbled upon last year was Clinton Bailey's, Bedouin Culture in the Bible  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018). Bailey is a world leading authority on the modern Bedouin living in biblical lands, and his book examines how its culture sheds light on things modern people are inclined to find strange in the Old Testament. As Bailey writes, "Bedouin culture goes back 4,500 years. Owing to the unchangeability of desert conditions, this culture remained largely unchanged and is recognizable in the Bible." The following is an interesting portion from his book: Women in the biblical world wore nose rings as a symbol of sexual modesty (pgs. 61-3): “Nose rings play a role in the modesty of women, about which the Bedouin are zealous. …[F]ar-reaching obligations to, and burdens upon, clansmen are weighty—too weighty to be borne for people not of their blood. Thus, the possibility of