Insight on the News
Eve—Equal or Complement?
“When God concluded that he would create another creature so that man would not be alone, he decided to make ‘a power equal to him,’ someone whose strength was equal to man’s,” asserts Bible language scholar R. David Freedman in Biblical Archaeology Review. This is based on his new interpretation of two words at Genesis 2:18, where the Hebrew text has been translated as follows: “I will make him a helpmate” (Catholic Jerusalem Bible); “I will make a fitting helper for him” (New Jewish Publication Society); “I will make him an help meet for him” (King James Version); “I am going to make a helper for him, as a complement of him.”—New World Translation.
Clearly, Freedman’s idea that the woman was made ‘a power equal to the man’ does not harmonize with the scholarly views of the majority of Bible translators. Commenting on a factor that possibly influenced this unusual rendering, Biblical editor-translator Birger Pearson reportedly said that such a change “wouldn’t have occurred to anyone until recently,” and only at present due to the women’s liberation movement.
Woman’s role as ‘a helper, a complement’ of man is supported by statements found elsewhere in God’s inspired Word. For instance, the apostle Peter did not support the thought that woman was made ‘a power equal to man,’ but he urged: “You husbands, continue dwelling in like manner with [your wives] according to knowledge, assigning them honor as to a weaker vessel, the feminine one.” (1 Peter 3:7) But woman’s role as a complement does not make her an inferior creature. Actually, she possesses qualities that complement those of man within God’s arrangement.—1 Corinthians 11:3, 11, 12; Ephesians 5:21-33.
A Cardinal’s Exhortation
In a letter published in the Hoja Diocesana, Madrid’s Cardinal Tarancón exhorts bishops to “remind Christians of their duties, not only toward God and the Church, but also to the political community.” Why? The cardinal says: “I believe the time in which we are living [just prior to general elections] requires a clarifying word so that no one should forget his duty. Abstention [in the elections] for religious or patriotic reasons cannot be justified.” Then he adds: “We bishops want the best for our fatherland . . . and we must help to obtain it.”
How this contrasts with Jesus Christ’s words! To those who would be true shepherds of the Christian flock, he said: “Because you do not belong to the world, because my choice withdrew you from the world, therefore the world hates you.” Rather than exhorting his followers to seek “the best for our fatherland,” Jesus urged: “Set your hearts on [God’s] kingdom first.”—John 15:19; Matthew 6:33, Catholic Jerusalem Bible.
Family Relations Today
On one page in The New York Times recently, there appeared two articles on families. One, entitled “Infanticide in China,” refers to “news reports in China’s dailies” on the murder of baby girls and the mistreatment of their mothers. It says that, due to the implementation of a government population-control policy, “large numbers of female infants have been butchered, drowned or left to die, and numbers of women have suffered gross maltreatment.”
The other article, entitled “Supporting Parents,” raises objections to the U.S. government’s plan to reduce the cost of social medical programs by requiring “adult family members to support adult relatives” in some cases. One argument is that “children do not pick their parents or choose to be born. They enter into no contract to provide quid pro quo [reciprocal] care.” People have their own retirement and old age to think about, says the article, and they should not be ‘burdened’ by their aged parents.
While journalists may have various ideas about human relations, are there other reasons for the mistreatment of female infants and their mothers and the neglect of aged parents? Yes, to some degree at least, these things are happening today because people have become “lovers of themselves” and have “no natural affection,” as the Bible foretold. Such developments are further evidence that ours are indeed “the last days.”—2 Timothy 3:1-3.