GENESIS 2:18-24
The Lord God said:
– It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper like himself.
Then the Lord God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to all the wild animals; but for the man no helper was found who was comparable to him.
Then the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. And from the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, He made a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said:
– This one is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!
She shall be called ‘woman’ because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
This passage recounts the creation of man and woman from the second chapter, the Yahwist tradition. (Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark, makes a first citation of chapter 1 and others from chapter 2).
It is worth remembering that these first chapters of Genesis belong to the literary genre of “theological narratives,” that is, ideas expressed through invented stories, which do not inform how things happened but what meaning and value things have. The message of these first chapters of Genesis about the human couple is extraordinarily “modern” for the mentality of the time (and for many centuries later). The first chapter has already emphasized the equality of man and woman. The second chapter emphasizes that the woman is “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones,” precisely in contrast to the animals. This is being written at a time when, in many cultures, women are equated with animals, that is, belonging to the man and without rights as a person.
Furthermore, the text, by speaking of “leaving father and mother and being the two one flesh,” is defending the importance and difference of the couple within or against the clan, in which all rights and powers belong to the men, who ensure descent through several women. This also shows us that these texts of Genesis are later than the narratives of the patriarchs, in which the clan, male dominance, and the multiplicity of wives clearly appear.
Israel has progressed in its valuation and respect for women and marriage, and Jesus joins this valuation in a forceful way, against the regressive interpretation of the Pharisees.
HEBREWS
We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of His suffering and death. Thus, by the grace of God, He suffered death for the benefit of all.
God, for whom and through whom everything exists, deemed it fitting, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect and consecrate through suffering the leader of their salvation. Both the sanctifier and the sanctified have the same origin. Therefore, He is not ashamed to call them brothers.
We leave the continuous reading of the letter of James, without reaching the end (in which there are very beautiful phrases and among them one of the texts that is usually interpreted as testimony of the practice of “extreme unction” in the early communities). I do not see that the text that is proposed to us today has anything to do with the other two.
On the other hand, in this text there are evident signs of the dubious and complex theology of this “letter.”
What does it mean that “God had made Jesus a little lower than the angels”? Any current theologian who made this statement would be immediately accused of denying the divinity of Christ.
What does it mean that “we see Jesus now crowned with glory and honor because of His passion and death”? Crowned by God because of His passion?
“God… deemed it fitting, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect and consecrate through suffering the leader of their salvation.” That is to say, the passion and death of Jesus is a design of God, a will of the one we call “Father.” We do not think this way, but rather Jesus suffers and dies because of the wickedness of men and because of His courage and consistency.
Finally, what does it mean that “the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers”? Does he call them brothers or is he a brother? Is there any shame in Jesus knowing himself to be a man?
I have never understood why the letter to the Hebrews is accepted by the church, much less why it is used in the liturgy, and even less why many of its expressions that contradict essential aspects of our faith in Jesus are tolerated.
José Enrique Galarreta