world” about which Bunyan knew nothing. On his various business trips, he would make a point to stop by Bedford and listen to the women. Slowly, Bunyan writes, “I began to look into the Bible with new eyes.”60 As Newey observes, “A measure of spiritual progress, and also its means, this ‘new’ capacity for perceiving truth, comfort, and direction stands over against the ‘blind, ignorant’ state of his unregenerate self before his acquaintance with the Bedford Church.”61 Bedford becomes for him the sunny city on the hill. “About this time, the state and happiness of these poor people at Bedford was thus in a kind of vision represented to me: I saw as if there were set on the sunny side of the mountain, there refreshing themselves with the pleasant beams of the sun, while I was shivering and shrinking in the cold, afflicted with frost, snow, and dark clouds.”62 A wall surrounded the city and Bunyan sought passage through the narrow gate. Bedford represented the warmth of Christian fellowship, the light of scriptural understanding, and the security of spiritual assurance.
Bunyan’s glowing account of his time spent with the church at Bedford and its pastor John Gifford should not be taken to mean that he had found uninterrupted peace once he became a member. To the contrary, he experienced temptations so real that he reports that “sometimes I have thought I should see the devil, nay, thought I have I felt him behind me pull my clothes.”63 There are to be sure breaks in the storms of inner turmoil. “Now had I an evidence, as I thought, of my salvation from Heaven, with many golden seals, thereon, all hanging in my sight; now could I remember this manifestation, and the other discovery of grace with comfort; and should often long and desire that the last day were come, that I might for ever be inflamed with the sight, and joy, and communion of him, whose head was crowned with thorns, whose face was spit on, and body broken, and soul made an offering for my sins.”64 However, he also mentions in an offhanded manner his long periods of intense struggle. “So soon as this fresh assault had fastened on my soul, that scripture came into my heart, This is for many days (Dan 10:14), and indeed I found it was so: for I could not be delivered nor brought to peace again until well-nigh two years and an half were completely finished.”65 Certain biblical passages, such as Esau selling his birthright, haunted him. “But chiefly by the aforementioned scripture, concerning Esau’s selling of his birthright; for that scripture would lie all day long, all the week long; yea, all the year long in my mind, and hold me down, so that I could by no means lift up myself; for when I would strive to turn me to this scripture, or that for relief, still that sentence would be sounding in me, For ye know, how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.”66 The weight of the passage regarding Esau selling his birthright was counterbalanced by Paul’s assurance of the sufficiency of grace, and the scales in his mind tipped from one side to the other.67
Such oscillation may run counter to the typical conversion account in which doubt and confusion are cast aside, but it aligns nicely with Gregory’s understanding of the Christian life. Gordon Wakefield keenly observes, “If, following Gregory of Nyssa and the Greek fathers, perfection is understood not as a state so much as a continual advance towards a transcendent glory which we attain only as we see that it beckons us to heights we have yet to scale, it may be more compatible with Bunyan’s analogy of pilgrimage.”68 Davies makes a similar point when he observes, “What Grace Abounding shows the reader is that conversion into faith offers an escape neither from sin nor temptation. Rather it presents their accommodation within a doctrine of grace and forgiveness . . . For this reason, the visible saint that Bunyan progresses towards is not one perfected or freed from sin and temptation but, through grace, is pre-eminently both saint and chief of sinners.”69 In this way, perseverance rather than freedom from temptation marks the discipleship of those who have become new creations in Christ (2 Cor 5:17).
Phyllis Trible, “Eve and Adam: Genesis 2–3 Reread”
In 1973 the Scripture scholar Phyllis Trible published a seminal article, “Eve and Adam: Genesis 2–3 Reread,” in which she challenged the long-standing interpretation of the Adam and Eve story as an endorsement of “male supremacy and female subordination.”70 We will focus on four key elements of Trible’s argument.
First, Trible challenges the traditional reading of the second creation story that sees the man being created before the woman. She does so based on the two possible senses of the Hebrew word ‘adham.
Ambiguity characterizes the meaning of ‘adham in Genesis 2–3. On the one hand, man is the first creature formed (2:7). The Lord God puts him in the garden “to till it and keep it,” a job identified with the male (cf. 3:17–19). On the other hand, ‘adham is a generic term for humankind. In commanding ‘adham not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the Deity is speaking to both the man and the woman (2:16–17). Until the differentiation of female and male (2:21–23), ‘adham is basically androgynous: one creature incorporating two sexes.71
This androgynous being, therefore, is the one formed by God in 2:7: “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” Trible contends that the creation of “the woman” and “the man” happens only later in 2:21–23 and that the creation of the woman, following behind the garden, the animals, and the man represents the “climax, not the decline” of the creation.72 Trible’s contention that “the woman” and “the man” are created concurrently in Genesis 2:23 has not gone unchallenged. For example, Robert Kawashima counters, “Far from indicating the woman’s emergence prior to or simultaneous with the man’s, however, this sentence logically presupposes the prior existence of man. Specifically, this directly quoted speech [2:23], presenting Adam’s point of view, demonstrates that he already identified himself as ‘man’ before the creation of the woman out of his male body.”73
Second, Trible argues that the formation of the man’s ‘ezer, which is often translated as “helpmate” or “suitable partner” should not be taken to mean “servant” or “subordinate.” “Thus ‘ezer is a relational term; it designates a beneficial relationship; and it pertains to God, people, and animals. By itself the word does not specify positions within relationships; more particularly, it does not imply inferiority.”74 Rather, the creation of the woman from the rib “means solidarity and equality.”75 Related to this is the common misunderstanding that the man (‘ish) “names” the woman (‘ihshah) (Gen 2:23), implying a domination over her in the same way that the man exercises dominion over the animals by naming them (Gen 2:19). Trible insists that the text does not support such an interpretation. The typical literary form in the Bible for “naming” someone or something is to combine a form of “to call” and the name itself. For example, “Cain built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch” (Gen 4:17).76 The text does use the word for naming, but rather simply says the man “calls” his partner “woman.” Trible concludes, “My translation is this: God is the helper superior to man; the animals
