And your desire is for your husband, and he does rule over you. Genesis 3:16

Desire – This verse has created an incredible amount of grief within the Body. For centuries the Church interpreted the verse as a prescriptive curse, claiming that God intentionally turned the tables on the equality of creation as punishment for Eve’s sin. Under this interpretation, God deliberately authorized men to rule over women. Moreover, this interpretive scheme considers sexual desire as part of the curse. Women were forever plagued with sexual desire for their husbands but husbands were given the power to dominate these emotionally-distressed creatures. If you find this interpretation a bit shocking, go pick up nearly any commentary on Genesis written prior to 1950.

Of course, things have changed. Now conservative commentaries modify this interpretation by removing the sexual overtones and suggesting this is not a curse but rather a description of reality in the post-fall world. Of course, many theologians resist the former language of domination, but they nevertheless argue that the Bible teaches women are to be submissive to men.

In 1921, Katherine Bushnell challenged much of this interpretive scheme in her book God’s Word for Women. In a field dominated by men, her work remained largely ignored. The “curse” model of Genesis interpretation continued. Nevertheless, Bushnell’s scholarship points to a linguistic sleight-of-hand that ultimately created the “curse” model, thanks to a Catholic monk named Pagnino. According to Bushnell’s research, the crucial term, teshuqah, has two distinct linguistic etymological backgrounds. The first follows the path of the LXX, winding its way back through ancient Syraic, Ethiopic and Arabic roots to the Hebrew text. This path provides us with the meaning “turning.” With this meaning, the statement in Genesis is not about Eve’s “desire.” It is about Eve turning away from God and toward her husband as the center of her life. In other words, God observes that Eve’s sin is the result of Eve’s decision to make Adam more important than God. She chooses to take of the fruit because she opts for her evaluation of what is best in the fulfillment of her role as ‘ezer kenedgo. She puts her choice ahead of God’s commandment.

The other linguistic stream follows Pagnino. Instead of tracing the root of the word back through the LXX and the ancient texts, Pagnino introduced a new meaning to the term based on the rabbinic use in the Babylonian Talmud. He picks up the theme of the “Ten Curses of Eve” from this commentary on the text. His translation of the Old Testament in 1528 replaced “turning” with “lust”. Every English translation since 1528 has adopted Pagnino’s translation. Wycliffe, Cloverdale, Tyndale, Douey and the Authorized Version all followed Pagnino’s treatment of teshuqah as “lust,” later toned-down with “desire.” Of course, the rest is history. Centuries later we are still dealing with this Italian design, much to the detriment of half of the Body of the Messiah.

Over and over we have encouraged each other to base our understanding on the original texts. For most of us, that seems difficult since we do not read Hebrew and Greek. But there are ways to explore these languages without years of seminary training. With this little peek into the manipulation of translation, we have all the more reason to test the interpretations we get in English translation. For 500 years, the English Bible has carried this Italian monk’s personal preference as if it were God’s word. It’s time to ask the question: If God really intended men to rule over women, then how do you explain Sha’ul’s admonition for husbands to love their wives with the same self-sacrificial love that Yeshua exhibited for the Body? How do you explain the “golden rule” applied to marriage? How do you explain all the references to outstanding women in the early congregations (and in the Tanakh)? It seems we maintain the translation “desire” because it is closer to what men would like to think rather than what God actually says.

Maybe it’s time to change all that – starting right now at home. After all, what did our Lord say? “They will know you are My disciples by your love for one another.”

Topical Index: desire, teshuqah, turning, Bushnell, Pagnino, Genesis 3:16