Eve Sexually Assaulted by God in First #MeToo Case? Biblical Expert Slams Rabbi's Interpretation
Biblical experts and other social and religious commentators are slamming a controversial commentary by a humanist rabbi who claimed that Eve was sexually assaulted, shamed and silenced by God in the Bible.
Political commentator Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish, called Tamara Kolton's commentary the "stupidest" and "most illiterate" piece on Adam and Eve he has ever read.
Kolton, an ordained Humanistic rabbi and psychologist in Detroit, stirred controversy earlier in February by calling the Bible an "overwhelmingly powerful source of shame and silence" for its portrayal of Eve, the first woman God created as described in the book of Genesis.
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Specifically, Kolton argued in her commentary for The Forward that Eve's fate in the Bible is "the first sexual assault of a woman," with God acting as the "perpetrator."
"I want you to think about this. Here is a young, beautiful, intelligent, naked woman living in a state of Grace. She's hungry, so she does the most natural thing in the world and eats a piece of fruit," Kolton outlined in her argument.
"For following her instincts, trusting herself, and nourishing her body, she is punished. Her punishment? She will never again feel safe in her nakedness. She will never again love her body. She will never again know her body as a place of sacred sovereignty."
She further argued that the story of Eve "granted generations of men permission to violate women" because it teaches people that women are "liars and sinners."
John A. Cook, professor of Old Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, told The Christian Post on Monday that Kolton's praise for the #Metoo movement is "laudable," but her commentary on Genesis 3 is an "abysmal failure."
"We must admit that there is much ambiguity to the story and many questions to which we have uncertain answers at best, but what is clear is that no sexual harassment or assault occurs here, but that Adam and Eve violate the only prohibition in the garden through the seduction (Eve's term in her answer to God) of the snake, and as a result they are ultimately expelled from the garden," Cook told CP in an email.
"Arguably the sentences God passes on the woman and the man entail not only punishment but mitigation of their effects on humanity: the woman is told she will experience 'toil' — pain and exhaustion — in child birthing, but she will nevertheless desire to have children with the man, thus preserving the human race from extinction; the man is told he will have 'toil' — pain and exhaustion — attempting to get the ground to produce food, but God assures him that humanity can survive on what the ground will produce for him 'by the sweat of [his] face.'"
Shapiro didn't mince his words.
"Asinine. Ridiculous. Ludicrous. Imbecilic. Witless. Obtuse. Fatuous. Harebrained. Doltish. Preposterous," are other adjectives that Shapiro used in The Daily Wire to describe Kolton's piece.
"The story of Adam and Eve has literally nothing to do with sexual assault. It has to do with Eve refusing to obey a Godly command not to eat from a certain tree at the behest of the snake, then telling Adam to do so as well, then lying to God about it. End of story," he wrote.
"There is simply no way to read the story of Adam and Eve and come away with the notion that Eve wanted to raid the fridge. The snake explicitly discusses with her the consequences for eating the fruit, and tempts her to do so by stating that she will become like God."
Answers in Genesis CEO and President Ken Ham went further to denounce the Forward piece as "blasphemous."
He argued on the AiG website that unlike what Kolton is suggesting, Eve did not go for the forbidden fruit because she was hungry.
"She (Eve) was in a garden full of food, was deceived by the serpent who twisted God's words, and decided she wanted to become like God, so she rebelled against God's command and ate the fruit," he wrote last week.
Ham positioned that Eve's punishment "had nothing to do with not feeling safe naked, or not loving her body, or not knowing her body as a place of 'sacred sovereignty.' Her just punishment for sin was death, pain in childbearing, and discord with her husband's God-given leadership.
"Shame, and the realization that she and Adam were naked, were among the many results of their sin, not a punishment God specifically handed out."
