My post of a few days ago, “We, the Adulteress,” was an excerpt from a book I have been working on for nearly ten years. Although the work has been repeatedly interrupted by an excess of personal crises and a lack of personal discipline, I am now writing again. Today, I thought I’d offer another taste of what’s to come. Here are a few comments on the Creation narrative:
Genesis 2:18
It is not good that the man should be alone. It was not that God only discovered this fact after creating Adam, but God waited so that Adam could be involved in the process of creating his helper and thus have a greater appreciation of her unique properties and special suitability. There was much that God intended mankind to accomplish, and it could not be done by Adam alone. The man, being made in the image of God, required companionship for physical, mental, and spiritual reasons: physical, because delegation and division of labor are effective means to address large tasks; mental, because, as they say, “Two heads are better than one;” spiritual, because there are emotional burdens to be borne alongside the physical, and companionship, especially such as can be provided to a man by a woman makes all burdens seem lighter.
Some have said that this verse proves that celibacy is not of God, but they are contradicted by the clear statements of Yeshua and Paul. The various abilities of all men and women fall somewhere within a wide range. Men tend to have a greater share of some abilities and women tend to have a greater share of others, and the two tend to compliment each other, so that a man functions better if he has a woman at his side, and vice versa. There is a small subgroup of individuals, however, who are designed by God to function well on their own apart from the opposite sex. They are endowed with a greater range of talents not that they possess a greater amount of some particular talent necessarily, but that they possess a greater number of distinct talents than most people of either sex. The great weight of Scripture suggests but does not categorically state that such individuals are overwhelmingly male. Yeshua suggested that such men are specially gifted with celibacy for specific tasks in the furtherance of the Kingdom of God. There is some suggestion that Paul was a widower during his ministry, but there is no doubt that he was celibate, and that he believed this state to be of great benefit in his calling.
Technorati Tags: torah, bereishit, creation, gender, patriarchy, matriarchy, marriage, celibacy
Some have said that this verse proves that celibacy is not of God, but they are contradicted by the clear statements of Yeshua and Paul.
I dare you to say that to Debbie Maken.
Also, I would add that some people are just impossible to get along with and should remain single for everybody’s sake.