38 FEMINIST VIEWS THAT UNDERMINE SCRIPTURE
Genesis (long after the events in the garden of Eden), and that would
have kept readers in Moses’ time from being confused about the main
point of the story (namely, that God made everything):
Second, Eden’s quiet echoes of patriarchy may be a way of describ-
ing the past through present categories. The creation story may be
using the social categories that Moses’ audience would have been
familiar with. God sometimes permits such accommodation in order
not to confuse the main point he wants to communicate with factors
that are secondary to that overall theme.^8Finally, Webb gives a third reason:
Third... the patriarchy of the garden may reflect God’s anticipation
of the social context into which Adam and Eve were about to ven-
ture. An agrarian lifestyle... would naturally produce some kind of
hierarchy between men and women.... The presentation of the male-
female relationship in patriarchal forms may simply be a way of antic-
ipating this first (and major) life setting into which humankind would
enter.^9What shall we think of Webb’s explanations of the early parts of
Genesis? Even in his analysis of one specific detail, the statement that the
serpent was “crafty,” Webb understands Genesis 3:1 to affirm some-
thing that he thinks was not true at that time, and thus Webb denies the
truthfulness of a section of historical narrative in Scripture.
But there is really no great difficulty in affirming that Genesis 3:1 is
stating historical fact, and taking it at face value. Webb fails even to con-
sider the most likely explanation: that there was sin in the angelic world
sometime after the completion of the initial creation (Gen. 1:31) but
prior to Genesis 3:1.^10 Because of this rebellion in the angelic world (see
2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6), Satan himself was already evil and was somehow
(^8) Ibid., 143, italics added. Webb explains in a footnote that the “main point” of the creation
narrative “is that Yahweh created the heavens and all that is in them, and Yahweh created the
earth and all that is in it—God made everything” (143n46).
(^9) Ibid., 144, italics added.
(^10) This is a fairly standard view among evangelical scholars, but Webb does not even consider
it. See Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994), 412,
and the relevant pages given for other systematic theologies (434-435).