Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?

3: SAYING THAT GENESIS IS WRONG 37

But if there was no sin in the garden of Eden, nothing contrary to
God’s will, then how could there be any cultural influence in the garden
of Eden—before the fall? Wasn’t everything there perfect?
As indicated above, Webb answers this question in three ways. First,
he says these indications of male headship in Genesis 1–2 may be a lit-
erary device that anticipates the fall and God’s subsequent curse, rather
than accurately recording what was in fact true in the garden:

A second question is how cultural features could possibly be found

in the garden before the influence of culture. Several explanations

exist. First, the whispers of patriarchy in the garden may have been

placed there in order to anticipate the curse.^6

He is suggesting that the indications of male leadership in Genesis
2 are not historically accurate but were placed there “to anticipate the
curse” of God on Adam and Eve, which is found in Genesis 3:16-19 and
which comes after they sinned in Genesis 3:6.
In order to support this idea Webb claims that the literary con-
struction of Genesis 2–3 includes at least one other example of “literary
foreshadowing of the curse” in the pejorative description of the serpent
as “more crafty than any other beast of the field” (Gen. 3:1). Webb then
asks, “If the garden is completely pristine, how could certain creatures
in the just-created animal kingdom reflect craftiness? Obviously, this
Edenic material embraces an artistic foreshadowing of events to come.”^7
Webb’s analysis here assumes that there was no sin or evil at the time
described in Genesis 3:1 in actual fact, but that by a literary device the
author described the serpent as “crafty” (and therefore deceitful and
therefore sinful), thus anticipating what he would be later, after the fall.
In the same way, he thinks the elements of male headship in Genesis 2
were not there in the garden in actual fact but were inserted as “an artis-
tic foreshadowing of events to come.”
Webb then offers another explanation: he says that the “patriarchy”
in Genesis 2 may have been inserted there because it was a reflection of
social categories familiar to readers at the time when Moses wrote

(^6) Ibid., 142-143, italics added.
(^7) Ibid., 143, italics added.